I hate puzzles with a passion; I think of them as Gordian knots best untied with a sword, a machine gun or whatever else you can bring to bear on the problem.
The world of computer programmers, however – the world which I entered with the sole purpose of working for the highest bidder – is a world full of people who sincerely love puzzles. And if you visit this blog, perhaps you're one of these people.
If so, you might be pleased to learn about the recently launched Sokoban levels design contest, operated by gild – a great hacker, my long-time co-worker, an IOCCC winner, and a participant in Al Zimmerman's programming contests which he cites as inspiration for his own new contest.
The rules are precisely defined over here; the general idea is to design Sokoban levels falling into different problem classes. Submitted levels are scored based on the length of the shortest solution (longer is better), and normalized s.t. the level taking the most steps to solve right now gets the score of 1. With 50 problem classes, the maximal overall score is 50. But with all the other cunning contestants submitting their own levels, your levels' score might be dropping every day or hour!
And I really mean every day or hour – even now at the very beginning there are several submissions per day. Judging by the rankings page, people spread around the globe are busy improving their Sokoban level-designing software and resubmitting better solutions. (Or they might be doing it in their heads; you don't need to submit any code, just the levels. I hear that occasionally a contestant using no software at all gets a rather good result in an Al Zimmerman's contest... What happens inside the heads of such people I don't know.)
There's also a discussion group, and if you're among the cunningest, most tenacious puzzle lovers who'll get to the top, you'll get – guess what? – a puzzle! Specifically, a gift card which you can use to buy, say, this Rubik's cube – or rather a Rubik's fuck-knows-what. I guess cubes are for sissies:
I personally think it's a bloody cool community/subculture to be in; a pity that I don't quite have the brains for it. (Could I hold my own if I really liked it? Or maybe I would really like it if I could hold my own? These are the types of questions it all brings to my mind.)
Anyway – if you're that sort of guy, it looks like a great thing for your brain to chew on. Good luck!