OK, so sudoku doesn't ship with any standard UNIX... yet... :)

Over the weekend I got hooked on Sudoku, a deterministic, NP-complete number puzzle that was first published in New York in the late 1970's, became popular in Japan in the 1980's and is now becoming increasingly popular worldwide.

What a pleasure it is to "play" a simple number puzzle that requires no CPU cycles and can easily be solved with pencil and paper.

I have never been into modern computer games with advanced graphics and sound. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but a game that engages the mind appeals far more to me than one that bombards my sensory neural pathways.

The same applies to my (some would say, warped) taste in movies. I couldn't care less for special affects, CGI and all that, though I am quite a fan of animation. But even then, I am far more fascinated by Aardman's plasticine characters than Pixar's smileyhappyfriendly computer-generated ones.

Speaking of movies, I love a good spoof movie, especially a good spoof spook movie. I watched Roman Polanski's 1967 comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck. What a laugh! I had no idea what it was going to be like, but I knew it would be interesting when the MGM lion turned into a vampire with fangs. And when Alfred, played by Roman Polanski himself, peeped "Wolf!" in a pathetic frightened voice, I knew I was in for a good laugh. Dublin-born Jack MacGowran is hilarious in his role as Professor Abronsius.