Words by

Gunnar Hrafn Jónsson and Sveinn Birkir Björnsson

Only grandmothers and losers would be caught dead with a crossword puzzle. You can tell all the other posers it’s an ancient Japanese art, but you might be interested to know it was invented by an American magazine in 1979. The great thing about Sudoku, it makes you feel smart, without actually helping to develop one useful skill or section of your brain—something like going on to conservative Internet chat rooms.