Enigmas

When I was looking at my budget last month, I made one seemingly insignificant cut that's had a huge effect. I ended my subscription to Nikoli.

It's not going to save a lot of money, 550 yen per month is not a whole lot. But it's given me backa lot of time. The kind of logic puzzle that Nikoli serves up so consistently and elegantly is like an anesthetic for my brain. And I have a tendency to fire up the nurikabe and let everything else fall away.

Without Nikoli, I've gone back to the NPL wordplay magazine, The Enigma. At the end of last month, I spent a few hours trying to solve May's issue, and turned out a respectable sixty-five out of seventy-five flats. For June's issue, I'm (mostly) one puzzle away from completing the entire issue.

If anyone wants to trade hints for June 29, I'm open to it. I'd also like to have some confirmations regarding #65 and F6. For the latter, I have an answer which is probably not intended, but which is perfectly defensible (the double edge of bad cluing), and for F6, I have no real way of confirming if my consonants for 5 Across are correct.

MonNYTX: 4:30.

Catchup

These have been some crazy weeks. Last week, obviously, was the NPL convention, and while I got more sleep than I often do at the con, it was still far less than I normally get.

Then, coming back to LA, I had a few days of work before ojouchan's birthday. And between switching from nights to days and attending a 6:50 a.m. showing of The Dark Knight, there wasn't as much sleeping as there should have been, especially since we drove up to Ventura the next day. My parents have once again rented a beach house for two weeks, and they're playing host to vairous family members. This week, Ojou and I went up along with my sister and her fiancé.

Luckily, they all went to see The Dark Knight on Saturday morning (yes, Ojou saw it twice this week), leaving me to relax for something like fifteen full hours. And then I went to bed relatively early.

It meant I didn't get much beach time, but boy did I need that. I went to bed kind of early on Saturday too. And I got a full night's sleep before only being awake half a day before work.

I'm feeling a little bit slow, but it's a nice feeling. But I do feel like I'm behind on my journal.