Sudoku

What's the obsession with Sudoku? I completed a "grid" or whatever on an airplane once and it sucked. It's effectively executing an algorithm over and over in your head until all squares are filled. I found it extremely mechanical. I'm pretty sure I could write a C++ program in under an hour that could solve these things.

I have a funny story regarding Sudoku matrices. I was on a crowded train one morning at there was this 22ish year-old girl sitting down doing a Sudoku puzzle. Sitting next to her is this really shading-looking guy who's blatantly looking over her shoulder. He's staring at the puzzle for a good 5 minute then whispers loudly "the middle is 5." She finds herself in a conundrum. She can a.) write in the 5 and motivate the weirdo to continue feeding her answers as well as concede that this screwball figures something out before you, or b.) not write it and come across as either stubborn or an asshole. It was a no win situation and I felt bad for her. She made the right call by waiting 45 seconds or so and then wrote it in. T'was quite awkward and amusing.