1. I love the challenge of a good puzzle. There's always something new to solve that I didn't know before, and it rarely requires external knowledge like a crossword...

2. At least in my current life situation, no one I interact with has any idea what I'm doing, so if I feel like working on a solution to side project at work, it wouldn't look any different. It also keeps people from trying to learn about what I'm doing. They leave me alone which is exactly what I want.

3. As my professor once said (and totally stole from someone else), "the people who are the most talented and innovative with their code are probably the laziest in reality". I feel like this is pretty true, at least for me. Sometimes I see a simple repetitive task that I don't feel like doing, and I have the power to create a program to do it for me. Ultimate laziness with a fantastic result.