Week 6 of 2026: Sudoku

The word of the week is sudoku. I’ve been watching many video’s from the Cracking the Cryptic Youtube channel and this week I started to do what Simon always says after the announcements and birthdays: ‘the way to play is the link in the description below!’ And then, when I get completely stuck, I press play again and see how he solves it very easily by spotting beautiful patterns I totally missed.

Also bought some classic sudoku booklets from Denksport, a 4-5 star and a 6-7 star edition. Solving sudoku on paper is much harder for me, for the grid looks more wonky with mixed handwriting and print, and also there is no automatic coloring of your pencil marks, making you do all the work yourself – but it’s good practice.

Read

Absolutely nothing. I might stop reading Dungeon Crawler Carl, for I just don’t feel like it – made it to page 83 so far. Reading Lord of the Rings is just a year long side-project and I’m not in a hurry (but I’ve arrived at the Prancing Pony already).

Played

I’ve ran another session of Mausritter. It’s been the same chaotic fun again, the only thing I regret was not thinking harder about where the Mug of Truth could be, since my players were obviously obsessed with it last session, and most of them returned. Very happy they ran into the bat-cult, which turned out to be full of mice under the influence of faerie music.

Also played in a session of The Electrum Archive. It was my fifth session in this open campaign, and since the last session major things were happening to my character, I felt like I had to keep a bit more space for the other players this time. There was a very interesting thing when two of our party members were captured into a crystal, and all they could do to communicate is to just share feelings. RPGs have this way of telling stories that make these moments like magic.

Also played some boardgames:

Sound Box - fun chaos with making sounds while two people have blinding glasses on.
Betrayal at the House on the Hill - I failed the haunt roll but the player to my left was revealed as the traitor.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong - solving a murder committed by another player, while the forensic specialist can only give hints by placing bullets on words on cards.
Unfair - building a theme park by buying attraction and upgrade cards from the money you get with the number of visitors you get – but at some point public opinion turns against your park.

Ran

I think I’m back! By Thursday I was feeling very miserable, from a mental perspective, but Friday and Saturday fixed that for me. That’s the downside of running: it’s addictive and if you stop, you get withdrawal symptoms.

Monday: 8km with two 2km tempo blocks
Friday: 9.7km easy run around the city centre of Amsterdam, which is a lot of stopping and evasion-sprints.
Saturday: 16.8km long run at night, next to the Amstel river. Dogs at night are terrifying, for their eyes reflect the light of my headlamp, making them look insanely devilish.