I can’t get past this stage of this particular sudoku, and need your help. It’s from Pappocom’s Sudoku game, ‘hard’ setting. I’ve gotten it down to about 13 minutes for a hard one but this bastard has me stumped — sucking off about 50 minutes of my life so far. Please someone tell me what I am missing…

The little gray numbers in the boxes are the possible values that I’ve added. The blue numbers are what you start with. The big gray numbers are the numbers I’ve added.

Here’s a blank one:

Why the hell am I addicted to this stupid game? It is one of my few vices; it’s all I can do not to do just one more. Three links for you. The first is a local news program description here. The second is one of the ‘official’ websites for the game here. The third is one of the best sites on the game, with a daily published puzzle here. WARNING: this is a pencil-and-paper thang. I wish my newspaper would toss the Omar Sharif bridge advice column and put in a daily Sudoku puzzle like European papers.

Too bad they didn’t name this Number Bukkake.

This is a great way to distinguish yourself from the unwashed masses at gaming events.
Caveat: There is a layer of irony that comes at the expense of a diminished message and it is this:

SOAP is an acronym for a web service communication protocol (ie, web developers use it). Therefore, stinky programmer geek x seeing the shirt will attempt to outdork by expounding on the frequency with which he uses SOAP, while it remains clear that he rarely uses soap.

This makes me want to play the game, and purchase a large, dark van filled with sweets for the muggle children.

The evil, but pretty, empire of tabletop miniatures gaming, Games Workshop (aka crack for young geeks), puts on an event once a year in each of its major markets called Games Day (inspired name). At this convention they host a painted miniatures competition known as the Golden Demon awards. Here are the 2004 UK winners (click the category links) and the 2005 US winners. There are some truly amazing paintjobs to be seen.