The Unjoy of Programming

I've been additced to NumberPlace and Sudoku puzzles for years, and they are now gaining some popularity. Being a shade-tree programmer, I think about solving these things algorithmically, which means that I can write programs as well. I did write a program in Python that lets me solve any puzzle. So far the program has not given up. A site like Sudoku Place would have to classify a Sudoku as "Extremely difficult" to stump this thing. I'm not saying I'm a great programmer, but that three simple logical rules (well, two) repeated over and over again will solve the puzzle.
The downside is that I don't enjoy Sudoku as much as I used to. Knowing that I've gotten my program to do it for me, there is a feeling of "Well, I don't have to think about this anymore..."
Hmmm. I think there's a story in that.