I blame it on Will Shortz

I've spent the past half hour or so doing Yahoo crossword puzzles. Ever since I saw Wordplay, I've just had this intense craving for crossword puzzles (I couldn't get today's Times puzzle for the life of me. Tear). But as far as puzzles go, there really is nothing better than crossword puzzles. You've got the need for random intelligence, but also the ability to detect patterns and foresee solutions that you don't have just quite yet. If you have a word across, for example, you can figure out letters in the down clue even if you don't really know, since you can be pretty certain that an D won't follow a K (see, I originally had M instead of D, but KMart could always be a clue, and then I'd just like foolish. I'll just stick to writing about the differences between fictional superheroes).

These are essential life skills. If I were a surgeon, and I saw that my surgery might get a little complicated, I'd know how to figure out how to fix the problem, even if I wasn't trained for this: get my ass out of the OR and get the Times crossword puzzle in front of me ASAP.

And Batman totally would be able to finish a Times Thursday in 2 minutes. Superman would be lucky to get under 10.