beyond Sudoku

My friends know that I am a fan of Sudoku.  When I travel I like to have a book of Sudoku puzzles with me. I don't take electronics with me whe I travel out of the country because I don't want to bother with power converters and chargers. For two blissful weeks, or however long a trip lasts, I am electronics free.  Today I stopped by Barnes & Noble to buy a new puzzle book. A helpful salesclerk led me to the puzzle book section (rows and rows of Sudoku and other books) and I browsed to my heart's content. I did find a very nice book of Sudoku puzzles but I also discovered a brand new kind of puzzle, at least new to me. Have you ever heard of Kakuro? The introduction to the book, "White Belt Kakuro" (yes, I bought it) says "Kakuro puzzles are half sudoku, half crossword, and use a combination of logic and basic arithmetic." Sounds good, right? The intro goes on to say "The rules are very simple:" Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah.  The rules, with diagrams, go on for four pages. I've completed, all correctly, the first of the warmup puzzles. Fun but definitely not fast. The best thing I can see about this new challenge is that each puzzle will take me so long that I won't even notice the seven hour flight next week.