Good morning!

morning

Hi Sneeu,
You are not a familiar name to me. Have you been playing with this for long?

quite while yep :)

Just not chatting often at this hour?

it's 6am here - couldn't sleep for a cough :(

Ah ... my sympathies and I hope you feel better soon. It is morning here in the sense that it is after midnight ... by a few minutes. 8-)

cheers

Done.
Enjoy the medium ... I'm off to a shower and bed.
Good night.

done without any marks

MORNING/EVENING EVERYONE

oops capslock moment...

Good morning

I like to wake myself up with a puzzle when I have the chance

hi all

Hi, Peter

easy enough to start with today

Good afternoon

good morning. No 8s.

9 x 8... in the end.

8 am here in Boston, sprite. How's the weather in Amsterdam. Warm and partly cloudy here.

Weather is fine here, no clouds and pleasantly warm for a change.

day off for me, but errands to do. Got another 6.

All 5s and 6s so far.

not too tough today!
finished in about 10 minutes.

congrats. 10 minutes is amazing w/o knowing the solution.

i used to hate the little green numbers because they confused me, but now they help me solve most puzzles very quickly!

I can get little red numbers, no green ones.

Good job!

With Shift they are green.

aha

thx

yw :)

yeah, theoretically, people use green to say "yes, this number could go here" and red to say "no way"

but using both colors confuses the you-know-what outta me!

I still like it best to just reason out step by step without any little army. But with the real tough ones I like the greenies.

i guess thats my next step, sprite...hehe
but for now, the little green men are perfectly welcome!
:)

anywho, off to babble-land now!

sounds good. I save when sure, then hold my breath and proceed.

happy babbling

See you in a minute then :)

Nice one. Bye all!

I think I need to buy an 8...

grin

I find I tend to use green numbers a lot, to identify doubles and triples easily

I tend to use reds now to highlight more complicated guesses

that way I don't lose track of alternative possibilities (cos they'll be still in green)

oh. oops. I'm following a two-hour-dead conversation...

I do that too sometimes, narrativium. =)

Ha

Nailed that puppy!

Rank me, baby!

No green or red!

Start the theme music!

Hmm, Limer's added to his script ;)

this is really hard!!!

yeah. where IS our theme music and confetti? i'd like to see some of that. :D

Well, I tried to send confetti

Gummed my DSL modem all up :(

Took me ages to clean it all out....

aw darnit!

well, you have time to get it all un-gummed, because i'm not done quite yet. :-D

hello

hallo yul! how are you today?

very well, thanks :) enjoing my new mac!

SWEET! now i am jealous. ;)

ten years ago i worked for a company that ran exclusively macs, and ever since then i've pined for one of my own. *snif*

:D

i love em too

they are so friendly when they new

oh yes. so pretty and shiny and full of possibilities!

how is your day so far?

like a brand-new journal that you haven't written in yet, and a shiny pen to go with it

oh, pretty good :D i'm on my lunch right now

what do you drink?

water :D

oh, and coffee. and wine in the evenings.

why do you ask? ;)

it's my favourite drink! goes with anything

haha

water

which wine is your fave?

vine

well, of the one's i've tried, i like the local blue heron from st. julian's winery, and also a fruity type of merlot is good

i dring lots of yong spanish reds. olso fruity

rieslings are also nice when i have them with a bit of dark chocolate; but i can't handle them if they're too thick

but they don't export spanish vines to london too much, so i have to bring them from spain myself. i also not big fun of more grown up palett

also designs on the lables of spanish vines is soo good, i would get them just for that

lol

D-|

it ment 'salut'

sweet! that's a new one

i am glad you like it :)

hello folks. i am new to this and this is my second puzzle. i have a few questions: does everyone get the same puzzle? or is there a way to change the difficulty? thank for the feedback!

hi gem14 & welcome...everyone gets the same puzzle & there is no way to change the 'difficulty' level...

yes, no :)

ok.. thank you, easternblue =)

no problemo Gem!! ; )

for those of you who are addicated to sudoku as i am and would like puzzles that are a little more challenging try http://www.sudokutoday.com/difficult-sudoku-p
uzzles.html I am in no way affiliated with this site, but I do enjoy the puzzles. I hope you do too! *i hope this isn't against any rules*

tnanks, i'll have a look

you're welcome!

hey gem, welcome - you hang around for some of the expert ones on here... there's some seriously hard stuff going on ;) thanks for the tip too :D

cool. i definitely will hang around.

finished. good bye everybody

Afternoon. Does anyone know if pencil marks are in this game?

hold shift when picking a number i think

that's it; thanks

strange...seems like there is a box I can't click on.

and yet there are no numbers there.

anyone else having this problem?

no, sorry wolfman

what box do you mean?

ooh there's my mart :)

2nd row, 5th column and 4th row, 9th column have nothing in them, but I can't click to mark them

If it matters, I'm on Firefox

ah well do that have that little icon thingy? maybe you should just refresh.

I just hit refresh

looks like I can click on them again...but I lost my progress

sometimes some of the pics of the givens don't fully load randomly but refreshing you can usually get them.

oh. yes, you should have saved a checkpoint first. only, oh, maybe you can't if you aren't pro.

I'm no pro

I just got here.

...then again, I'm unsure if I'll be staying here.

you pay to be pro, it's not skill

it's good to go pro, you can play all the old puzzles.

...I'll consider it

I'd want to know what else I'd get for being pro

well, you get to put up a little picture, your gender and country. you get to have a bio where you can say things about yourself. you get to save checkpoints so you don't lose your work, and the old puzzles.

plus the satisfaction of knowing you bought doc a meal.

...doesn't sound that convincing to me: no offense

'sok, you said you wanted to know, so i told you, that's all

I understand. Thanks for the info.

hurshy! it's you! :D

it's me!

well it's marty's pic. but it's me playing.

sorry i haven't replied to your email yet.

what ... you mean you're NOT a cat?

lol

i'm catching up on the old puzzles. i did all the easy and medium ones first. maybe i should have just gone in order.

oh i'm so behind ... it's insane

well i just hope i'm not violating my #1 Rule of Sudoku

it's ok about the email ;)

what's that rule?

i would be on AIM now but my connection's slow and when i try to run AIM it slows the websites even more.

but if you want to chat i can get on.

yeah - and my AIM isn't working right - it just told me to redownload it

oh the rule is: SUDOKU MUST ONLY BE DONE ON A CLEAR HEAD

perhaps GAIM then?

we'll have to chat later when the stars are right. lol

lol

i'm meeting sprite tomorrow!!

i'm still working on the easy from yesterday. that's how bad my head has gotten

when people violate my rule, i cannot answer for the consequences.

it's like the tazmanian devil's in there ;)

ooh! how exciting is that!

it's pretty exciting. i was trying to explain to other people that i'm with - i said, it's like meeting tiger woods. she's the BEST babbler in the WORLD.

lol heck yeah

sprite rox

so you're still out then - i couldn't remember how long it was going to be ;) oh! and today is an auspicious day - it's the 10-weeks-10th

oh...

:(

no worries - i'm doing really well :D

ok good.

i'll be back on the 20th.

ahh ok :) so that'll be gone for how long total? i lost track of it, it seems such a while already

about 5 weeks.

wow. that is so great.

ah, there's one hard done.

yay!

only have about 5 puzzles left to catch up on now.

4

ohhhhhhhhhhh

i wish i were an oscar mayer weiner

LOL

that is what i really want to be

cause if i were an oscar mayer weiner

everyone would be in love with me

you know - you singing about food does not help my diet!

oops sorry.

Everyone besides me?

lol

i thought you already lost a bunch...
oh look at all the people. you're not in love with me tor?

mm yes i lost like 20 pounds :) w00t! i have like 30 to go still tho :( the starvation continues ...

good golly buffy don't turn anorexic on me!

i'm in love with ya, hursh, if that helps ...

Of course I am. But if you were an Oscar Meyer Weiner, then everyone else would be too.

i won't ;) don't worry. i only want to lose to my pre-preggers weight which was NOT ultra skinny

oh...does this bother you? do you not want the competition.

you LOOKED skinny in that pic you sent me before.

yes. a trick of the light i suppose ;) i do not actually appear to weigh what i do. but the proof is in the scales

but don't worry tor, just cause everyone is in love with me doesn't mean you can't be first in MY affections

lol

well you know there is a RANGE of normal weight...

did some1 finish this puzzle yet 2day?

right. i just really want to wear my old clothes, so i want to weigh 130. which isn't a crazy notion, given that i am 5'5"

yes, rich... it took 23 minutes

yes done with today's.

I'm working on the archives now...

i cant lol

lol specificity - that's a great sn. i used to work for an attorney and that was one of the words i hated to type.

then again im trying to do this in between my paper work

hehe, ty. I hate typing it, too :p

lol

is it cheating if someone helped me?

i think that is a personal judgement, rich

I wouldn't accept help, but I'm Obsessive

i'm the same, sp ... i caught my mom trying to do my sudoku and wigged out, oops

yeah... my mum visited and I had to set her up her own accounts

so would you mind helping a newbie?

i need to do that ...

can you tell em the top row?

oh please, if anybody does such a thing do it through IM or something, it would make me exceedingly sad if i accidentally saw it

any1 got gmail?

sorry, rich... I wouldn't do that in the chatterbox

other people might see it and spoil their fun

ok tnx anyway

oh i went away for a bit

but i can help

i can give you a super duper coded hurshy clue

nvm 5pm time 2 clock out

mmm chocolate clue

tnx anyway

hmph. you don't know what you're missing.

i gotta pack up and head home - it was great to talk to you hursh - mebbe i'll see you in a little while again ;) eat something for me!

lol, ok - anything particular?

hmm. something chocolate, or cheesecake. or steak. or mexican. or pizza. or breadsticks. ... any of those :D

ok i have some hotel chocolate right here that they gave us with turndown.

yay! ok you eat that then, and think of me :D ttyl

ok :)

Mmmmm! Mexican chocolate steak cheesecake pizza! With breadsticks!

lol... and ewwww

now i'm hungry... :|

3

if you focus on sudoku you don't notice if you're hungry.

I see sudoku in my sleep....

ah, how heavenly

myyyyyyyyyyy baloney has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R

oops i forgot people didn't want food songs. although really weiners and bologna are not that mouth watering in my opinion.

I used to see crosswords in my sleep until I stopped doing them everyday. Now I occasionally see sudoku-like things . . .scary things . . .

dude, the other day i dreamed that one of my friends died. be thankful for sudoku dreams.

This puzzle is a weiner . .

it puffs when you cook it?

That is scary.

and that's a mild nightmare for me.

FINALLY!!! the June 21 puzzle was giving me problems... I've been trying to sove it for days and kept... messing up

oh, i'm saving the experts for last...is that one of them?

I have nightmares when I don't take my meds... usually horrible things about my babies dying painfully

no, it was just a hard

but I couldn't crack it

ah then i've done it. i think after the one i'm doing i just have june 27 and july 3

I'm just randomly picking numbers that look good to me... no order

well the other day when i started trying to catch up i was tired so i stuck with easy and medium ones.

sometimes I think the easy ones are the hardest... I over-analuze and make it more complicated than it should be or something

lol

2

2 points!

:) what's your grand total tor?

2 1/2 I think . . .

lol, you can't get a half

My rank is 35, which probably about 10 steps down from "pathetic"... I've not played very many . . .

ah well, you're pro, so you can catch up anytime. i'm doing june 27 at the mo so if you do that i can help

I'll never catch up. I only do the easier ones because I can't spend a bunch of time . . . I'm not concerned with the rankings anyway .. I yam what i yam ..

i'm not that concerned with the rankings either...in a way... i don't know how to explain it but it's just, i know i can do them all, so i would be ashamed of myself if i didn't.

That's good .. You're driven to succeed ..

only it's not success for me. it's just...expected. that's how school was for me too.

in order to have success, i would have to do something athletic

that must sound very silly.

Not really .. But if things don't pan out you always have your singing career ..

lol

my virtual singing career.

go

1

the annoying thing about experts is how they can seem so easy at first

how right you are, hurshy. they lull you into a false sense of security.

And then they make you start talking to yourself ..

well if nobody else talks... i talk to myself. no matter what level the puzzles are. :)

at least then i get to see marty's cute face more.

i think this one is going better than the other one

go

ah, it's helenkeller!

hiya hurshy! still abroad? (or did you have that sex change in amsterdam, lol, oh, i crack myself up!!!!)

hehe, i'm in amsterdam now as a matter of fact

no kidding ?!?!?! really ? wow, how weird is that!

i don't know. how weird is it?

i could have said sweden

home of the first, i believe

yes but that doesn't answer the question at hand. on a scale of one to ten, say, how weird is it?

oh dang it all.

if 1 is mom, apple pie & baseball, then i would say, hmmm, 4 1/2, maybe 4

how is your trip going? absolutely fabulous, i bet!

what's 10?

my friend just came back from paris & brought me perfect gifts - a black t-shirt with a small & tasteful et & the words paris, france & a small 2 x 3 inch fridge magnet - a pic of et, but it's also a mini puzzle (i used to do a great many puzzles)

ah. i tend to get people more...out of the way gifts.

yes, i had entertained the thought of maybe thinking of what 10 might be, but i know there is way weirder stuff out there than i have seen myself & having once worked in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, i've seen alot

such as? - i love to get local art stuff, but that's kind of asking a lot

well yes i've bought some people venetian blown glass cause that's a specialty there

and i got my dad a little replica of king arthur's sword in the medieval city of carcassone

one of my sisters likes bathroom humor so i got her a ceramic sign for the bathroom door that says "toilettes"

nice choices! what am i getting? :)

lol, here's a virtual van gogh *hands helen "undergrowth"*

so, all in all, you're having a great time? did you meet up with any babbler friends?

LOL

i start meeting babblers tomorrow. i'm lunching with sprite. spending most of thursday with atalante. dinner with babbler friday, and flying up to see bex on saturday.

ack.

awesome!!! great you were able to make all those plans! they are all in england, right?

i think some pringle went down the wrong pipe.

ack?

sprite is here in amsterdam, the rest are in england.

oh, that's what you're eating!!!???? shame on you!

why shame on me? i was hungry, i just needed sustenance to finish this last sudoku before bed, and this was in the minibar.

that's right, do you know what they all look like? or will you be holding 'i'm a babbler' signs?

shame on you, cause you know, when in rome - so i'm thinking brownies (with the funny spice added!)

i know what sprite looks like, atalante is going to ask for me at my hotel, as is babbler, though i also saw her pic. i know what bex looks like but she plans to hold up a "hurshy" sign in the airport too.

that's in the mini-bar, right? lol

you are one busy broad abroad!

lol, no, but less than a block away. well i don't know if they have brownies but that have that ingredient.

*they have... not that have

i do not know what sprite looks like - can you describe her for me (i picture someone with brown hair, cut in a bob, very petite - gee, i wonder why i have the image - the blind are so easily led!)

lol

LOL - and the brownie will [robably help you get to sleep quicker too

maybe you should wait til i've actually seen her in person and not just a pic

*probably*

i have pills for sleeping already anyway.

ok, i will have to remember to ask you then

are you having trouble sleeping there - excitement? or is it something long-standing?

fairly long standing.

ah, too bad, sorry to hear that - it's probably cause your brain is overly busy all the time!

are you working on the puzzle or are you finished?

i'm done with today's, i'm catching up on my last old one that i've missed whilst on this trip.

hursh- what are the 3 best things you've seen so far? (it seems like you've been gone a long time now - how long?)

golly. i've been gone...almost 4 weeks i guess

and the best 3 things...gee...

the colosseum

the sunset over the ocean from my hotel window in biarritz

where is that - switzerland?

no - wait landlocked (idiot here)

no, the western coast of france - switzerland doesn't have any ocean :)

it was the -itz - lol!

can i do the best 5??

it's so hard to choose

sure!

parts of the cote d'azur - amazing - mountains on one side of you and the mediterranean on the other side - it's amazing to see them so close.

the party in the champs elysees after france won the semi-final of the world cup

and the smiles on people's faces when i'm having halting conversations when we only know bits of each others' languages.

ah - that must have been great! my neighborhood is quite italian (not as much now as years ago) so yesterday was utter craziness - it was very heartwarming!

there, that's my top 5.

that's a very nice list - a little of everything - antiquity, humanity, nature - very nice! a very healthy mix!

:)

are you finding time to babble too?

sometimes.

i'm guessing you're not at all homesick then, right?

i miss my cats.

awww, that's right, is someone watching them or did you kennel?

one of my friends is staying in our house and taking care of them.

wow - that's a great friend - so much better for the animals than being locked up in a cage!

zort bleep

yes. i would never be able to put them in a kennel.

well i'm paying her, too.

i hear that!!!

well, you are having a VERY long trip :)

yes, indeed.

gorlomp fleebot

hursh - about every 5 minutes i'm putting a number in a box, lol, but it's very nice to catch up with you - i love to travel & haven't been anywhere in a long time - the the whole vicarious thing is quite satisfying!

lol, good, i'm glad. i've screwed up my last puzzle twice now so i sympathize.

are you taking lots of pics? i hope you are & i hope you will use some as icons when you get back! that way you can share your experinces with everyone!

LOL

my husband is the photographer, but sure, i will try to use them as icons at some point, or maybe if we just put them all up online i can post the link on babanon.

now there's a great idea!

huh - got another # !

:)

is internet service costly there? rates vary from country to country i suppose

yes it really depends on the hotel. right now i'm getting it free, not quite sure why.

just make sure it stays free, lol!

well. it doesn't really matter, we're chaperoning a rich student and his family is paying all the expenses.

going to make some popcorn, brb

mmm popcorn

i didn't know that! such a deal!!!! so the student chose you to go along? that's absolutely great!!!! what a terrific compliment! :)))

well he really likes my husband a lot.

and you're part of the package, lol!

does your husband also teach where you do?

yes. he likes me too. at least he did.

my husband teaches... i only taught (2 classes) last year, most years that we've been there i've tutored.

why, are you being a strict watchdog. lol?

no... and i don't know that he doesn't like me now or anything, i just don't know, he's very hard to read.

what's his subject? ( i guess english or lit, or english lit, lol)

yes, english mostly. :)

it's a boy, how old? teenager? right, you're not supposed to read him, lol

yes, i guess. he's 18.

no kidding? really? ok 5 1/2 on the weird scale!!!!

ok, an 18 year old male is workign hard to supress those things called feelings (other than THAT one)

yes.

THAT one gets all the attention, lol

ok now here's where i screwed it up the FIRST time. however... i screwed it up worse the second time.

ooh but this is better

i think maybe i'll get it

oh no, i'm back to all these 3 6 8 places.

rats.

did your student plan the itinerary, or did you get input also?

my husband planned it.

very nice then!

which one are you doing?

got it! july 3.

wtg!!!

oh golly it's late. off to bed for me.

i'm all caught up.

talk to you later hk :)

great talking to you!! sleep well :)

Hello, Everyone!

THIS ONE FEELS HARDER THAN MEDIUM TO ME.

OR IS IT THE WINE?

finally got it. Bye

go

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