Saturday, November 29, 2008

When I grow up



After many wasted years at university and a HECS debt that matches the deficit of a small country, I think I've finally hit on the career that will make my life worthwhile and meaningful: sudoku champion.

Sure I've never done a sudoku before and the little puzzle above leaves me slightly cross-eyed, but there's an 11 year old chappy (Lucas Yeo) who's just completed a puzzle in 1 minute and 38 seconds and made it into the Guinness Book of Records for the fastest sudoku. Surely if a pre-teen can bang a few numbers into a grid and break a record I could have a crack too?

So I thought I'd run through some of the features of a sudoku champion to see how I match up. Do I too have the potential for great record-breaking-grid-filling?

1. According to his school principal, Lucas "comes across as quite disorganised in some ways... His desk's always all over the place. He doesn't come across as an organised person." On this Lucas and I are like identical twins, completely indistinguishable.

2. According to Lucas's principal again, his talent "came out of the blue". Similarly my talent at sudoku would be completely out of the blue, having previously shown no talent for numbers, grids, patterns, problem solving or logical thinking. We're clones, this Lucas and I.

3. Apparently it took Lucas 10 days to complete his first puzzle. I reckon (actually, I desperately hope) I could finish one in 10 days, and if I have absolutely no other commitments I might just succeed. Again, like Danny DeVito and Arnie, who could tell Lucas and I apart?

4. Apparently Lucas can hold the 81 spaces of a sudoku puzzle in his head at once...

Ok, so this is all starting to sound a bit hard. Maybe I'm better suited to hamster sudoku...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

nobody but the devil can hold 81 squares in their head. Lucas Yeo is an acronym for Your Mama is a Short Order Cook

Laura Jayne said...

I could hold the 81 squares in my head too... if I rolled the puzzle in a tiny ball and shoved it deep in my ear.

{Censored} said...

my teacher use to make my class do sudoku puzzles and i never understood the reason behind it. I later found out he just liked to watch us struggle.

kinda sounds like Lucas's principal would be one that didnt even know he existed until the camera crew, newspaper journalist and Guinness book of world record recorder(< is there such thing?) walked in his school and down the hall to this kid. I mean what dose having your desk disorganized have anything to do with sudoku anyway?
But what can I say hes only 11, he might not even be able to talk yet (you learn how to talk when your about 11 right??) so the principal must have felt a great need to talk for him.

(: great post by the way.

Kettle said...

Hey Censored, sudoku at school is a bit rough, what a sadistic teacher you had! You raise an interesting question re: Guinness Book of Records recorders: indeed, is there such a position? What qualifies you to be one? Perhaps we can explore this in the next Kettle Collective Story!

Anon, showing my ignorance of all things Mama and Short Order Cook related, I have no idea what "Your Mama is a Short Order Cook" means. Someone, anyone, throw me a line here?

LJ, great mental image :)

{Censored} said...

as far as the Guinness book of world record recorder gose there has to be one and if there isent we will just have to find someone for the job! Im not sure what they would do other then record... and im not sure what the quifications would intale but i do think you should explore it on your next journey into the blogging world.

"Your Mama is a Short Order Cook" << no clue what that could mean.

Kettle said...

Excellent Censored. Let us explore this further. To be continued...