Monday, January 16, 2006
Me Likey Puzzles
I'm a big fan of puzzles. All kinds of puzzles. That's one of the things that The Wife and I have in common, which can be very annoying. We both love logic puzzles and fight over who gets to do them whenever they show up in our Games magazines. My love of puzzles is a bit greater. I do a lot of crosswords and crostics. I like cryptograms and I've got a mild case of addiction to Su Doku.
Back when The Wife was just The Girlfriend, we decided to take a trip to Italy. We got some ridiculously cheap flight ($200 per person) to fly into Milan. Of course, the trip back came with a 7-hour layover in Copenhagen. Knowing how bored I get on planes (and in airports), I bought a nice big crossword book to keep myself entertained. It was a collection of 500 New York Times Sunday crosswords. The thing was HUGE. I didn't quite finish it in Italy. (Though we did get through about 75 of them and it provided plenty of entertainment in Copenhagen around hour 20 of being awake. Unfortunately, we still had about 3 hours to go before our plane boarded. Oh yeah, and The Wife can't sleep on planes. So, she'd wake ME up when I fell asleep. Thinking the plane was being hijacked or something (it was just 6 months after 9/11), I'd bolt awake. "What's going on?" "I'm bored." "I'm sleeping." "I know, that's why I'm bored." And yes, for some reason, I decided to make her The Wife.)
Anyway, I kept that book around for a couple years after Italy. Eventually, The Wife began calling it "That Damned Crossword Book." The Wife wanted to throw it away. Even I wanted to throw it away. But I couldn't do it until I finished every crossword in it. I'm kind of anal like that. (This is foreshadowing done on a 2nd-grade level. And yes, I'm writing above my usual level.)
One of my other loves is jigsaw puzzles. I used to do a lot of them as a kid. I don't do as many of them now because for the most part, they bore me. They're not challenging enough. Well, then they came out with photomosaic puzzles. Basically, they're like Seurat paintings. When you're far away, they look like a big picture. But if you get closer, you can see that the big picture is in fact made up of thousands of little pictures. Pretty nifty stuff.
The photomosaic puzzles really got me back into puzzles, especially since they came out with Simpsons versions of the puzzles. Well, The Wife bought me one awhile ago that I didn't have time to work on because of school. I whipped it out Saturday and spent most of the weekend working on it. It sure beats looking after my kid or cleaning up the house. Anyway, last night I was wrapping it up and I discovered that I'm missing a piece.
I don't know if there's a more frustrating feeling in the world than missing the very last puzzle piece. (Actually, it's only the last puzzle piece because it's missing. But that's besides the point.) If you take my obsession with completing That Damn Crossword Book and multiply it by 100, you might have an idea how obsessed I am with finishing this puzzle. I'm tempted to tear the house apart looking for it. I mean, how can I possibly go on knowing that I couldn't finish the puzzle because one stupid piece is missing?
Well, if finding the piece means that I'd have to actually clean up the house, I think I'm okay with not finishing the puzzle. After all, I can easily convince myself that one of the cats, the dog, or even Luke ate it. Meanwhile, we all know the piece is stuck to my elbow. Or that The Wife ate it out of spite. In fact, she probably knows that I'd turn the house upside down looking for it and this is her way of getting me to clean the house. Well, I'm onto you and it ain't gonna work!
Back when The Wife was just The Girlfriend, we decided to take a trip to Italy. We got some ridiculously cheap flight ($200 per person) to fly into Milan. Of course, the trip back came with a 7-hour layover in Copenhagen. Knowing how bored I get on planes (and in airports), I bought a nice big crossword book to keep myself entertained. It was a collection of 500 New York Times Sunday crosswords. The thing was HUGE. I didn't quite finish it in Italy. (Though we did get through about 75 of them and it provided plenty of entertainment in Copenhagen around hour 20 of being awake. Unfortunately, we still had about 3 hours to go before our plane boarded. Oh yeah, and The Wife can't sleep on planes. So, she'd wake ME up when I fell asleep. Thinking the plane was being hijacked or something (it was just 6 months after 9/11), I'd bolt awake. "What's going on?" "I'm bored." "I'm sleeping." "I know, that's why I'm bored." And yes, for some reason, I decided to make her The Wife.)
Anyway, I kept that book around for a couple years after Italy. Eventually, The Wife began calling it "That Damned Crossword Book." The Wife wanted to throw it away. Even I wanted to throw it away. But I couldn't do it until I finished every crossword in it. I'm kind of anal like that. (This is foreshadowing done on a 2nd-grade level. And yes, I'm writing above my usual level.)
One of my other loves is jigsaw puzzles. I used to do a lot of them as a kid. I don't do as many of them now because for the most part, they bore me. They're not challenging enough. Well, then they came out with photomosaic puzzles. Basically, they're like Seurat paintings. When you're far away, they look like a big picture. But if you get closer, you can see that the big picture is in fact made up of thousands of little pictures. Pretty nifty stuff.
The photomosaic puzzles really got me back into puzzles, especially since they came out with Simpsons versions of the puzzles. Well, The Wife bought me one awhile ago that I didn't have time to work on because of school. I whipped it out Saturday and spent most of the weekend working on it. It sure beats looking after my kid or cleaning up the house. Anyway, last night I was wrapping it up and I discovered that I'm missing a piece.
I don't know if there's a more frustrating feeling in the world than missing the very last puzzle piece. (Actually, it's only the last puzzle piece because it's missing. But that's besides the point.) If you take my obsession with completing That Damn Crossword Book and multiply it by 100, you might have an idea how obsessed I am with finishing this puzzle. I'm tempted to tear the house apart looking for it. I mean, how can I possibly go on knowing that I couldn't finish the puzzle because one stupid piece is missing?
Well, if finding the piece means that I'd have to actually clean up the house, I think I'm okay with not finishing the puzzle. After all, I can easily convince myself that one of the cats, the dog, or even Luke ate it. Meanwhile, we all know the piece is stuck to my elbow. Or that The Wife ate it out of spite. In fact, she probably knows that I'd turn the house upside down looking for it and this is her way of getting me to clean the house. Well, I'm onto you and it ain't gonna work!
