Do you sudoku?

Have you succumbed to sudoku?

"It's fun! It's challenging! It's addictive!" gushes sudoku.com, which offers "tips on how to solve Sudoku puzzles, browse the forums for more tips, or check the solutions to the Sudokus you see in print."

My husband--a dyed-in-the-wool crossword man--has added the Rockford Register Star's daily sudoku to his daily brain-stretchers. And the college boy who sat beside me on the plane Tuesday never moved his head out of the sudoku puzzle book on his seat tray--except to ask the flight attendant for extra crackers and Sprite.

I am also an avid crossword and cryptoquote fan, but I have only tried sudoku one time, and gave up in frustration. It's no secret that I stink at anything to do with numbers, so maybe that's the problem--although no math is involved in solving the puzzles.

No, wait--here's the problem. Wikipedia tells us sudoku is "a logic-based placement puzzle." I also stink at games of logic. I don't know what that says about my intelligence or my mental powers, but there you have it.

Words. Give me words and I'll do anything with them. Words are my friends...numbers are my nemesis.

Well, the sudoku website claims to offer tips on how to solve puzzles, as does Wikipedia. Maybe I'll check them out, give it one more try, and find out what the craze is all about.

So, do you sudoku?