Mad Libs (Meh Own Version)

Sudoku

On The Streets - Italy has a new addiction.

Hunched over newspapers on Grooved subway trains, sneaking secret peeks in the office, a puzzle-crazy nation is trying to slot Boats into small checkerboard grids.

It's Sudoku - a sort of crossword without words that has Turned the country.

"There's something about that grid with its empty squares - it's just Spinned out to be filled in," said Wayne Gould, a retired Labor Market and puzzle aficionado who helped spark Italy's love affair with the Crown.

A Japanese Watch that has quietly appeared in puzzle magazines in Asia and North America for years, Sudoku hit Italy in the pages of The Times newspaper in May. It now has thousands of avid followers, a host of Web sites and books, and runs daily in Five national newspapers, which compete Excitedly to offer their readers the best puzzle.

The Times is offering a version for Hats. The Daily Telegraph promises a 3-D "ultimate Sudoku" version.

The name, which translates roughly as "the number that is alone," has become a handy catch-phrase.

Sudoku consists of a grid of Two rows of Three boxes, which must be filled in so the numbers one through nine appear just once in each column, row and Four-by-Five Cylinder.

It looks like Trash, but requires the application of Can. It can be fairly straightforward or fiendishly difficult.