I just thought these pics were too good to pass up. I got them off a Japanese site devoted to these ultra-cute kitties. Too bad I can’t read Japanese!

After reading this, click the thumbnail picture to embiggen to 640×480 goodness.

After endlessly practicing and finding ways to solve the Rubik’s 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 cubes in less time and/or more efficiently, it’s good to look up, experiment with and practice some neat patterns. The regular 3×3 on the right is sporting a checkerboard pattern on all sides. That’s the easiest pattern. The 4×4 Revenge on the left is done up in a center-dot pattern, again on all sides. Slightly less easy. The 5×5 Professor cube in the center is lookin’ mindbogglin’ with a curious cube-in-cube-in-cube pattern. That one, of course took me the most time. I’m familiar with the algorithm to make that pattern on a regular Rubik’s Cube, but it took some experimentation and trial/error to modify the alg for what I did with the 5×5.

The pic may seem like showboating, but I was just extremely happy with the results of this kind of noodling around and I wanted to share with all. Cheers!

Update 12/14/07: I managed to create this little gem today… a cube-in-a-cube-in-a-cube-in-a-cube! (Say that really fast several times; it kinda has a groove to it!)

Well, I hope the reviews were enjoyable for one and all. Someone this week did tell me that I should get a job writing reviews and be paid for it. I would just love to be paid for things like this, but I’m just not that good with deadlines. Never have been. I suppose, though, if I had enough incentive, then just maybe…

I will do a couple more sometime this month. I won’t restrict myself to any timeframe, but I will possibly pick some classics out of my music vault. Or maybe some album that I don’t really care about, just to make it interesting. I really enjoyed doing these reviews this past week. I think the one I enjoyed doing the most was Paradise Lost by Symphony X. It was really an enjoyable listen, and their music can be hard to write about, due to its complexity.

Other than that, nothing really new happened in my world. I got new tile stickers from Cubesmith.com for my 5×5x5 Rubik’s Professor cube. It was a PITA to peel all the old stickers off and put the new tiles on, but it was quite worth it. Work is still the same old thing, really. It’s getting more hectic of course, due to the holidays. However, in my line of work, I’ll be really busy just after the holidays, what with Christmas returns and all. And the home is still doing ok, but soon we’ll need to do some work around here.

Well, before I go, here’s a cool shot I took with my phone yesterday. We were giving the birds a bath, running the water in the tub in our bathroom. Thommen is on my shoulder, halfway sopping wet, but still eagerly anticipating more water sprayings. He was enjoying himself… so you should too!

Sharon Stiteler, aka Birdchick, posted this on her blog today, and I thought it was really cool. Click the picture to embiggen, if ya like! I loved how it was presented in the style of LOLCats, a popular fixture on the ‘net. And she posed the question that I’m gonna pose right now: How many of my great readers get the reference that is presented here?

Please post a comment with your favorite quote or memory, without giving away the answer. Don’t go running to the Birdchick to find the answer. (Unless you’re really stumped!)

On Wednesday morning, I got caught up in IM conversation with an Orkut friend in India. After exchanging the usual how-are-you’s, he asked me about where I live. I asked him the same, and I pulled up his location with Google Maps. When I told him what I was doing, I just had to input my location and pull up the satellite image. What I saw absolutely surprised me…

(as usual, click the photo to embiggen!)

Not too long ago, maybe even less than a month ago, all the satellite image showed was a dirt road with meager evidence of impending construction. Now I can come back to this area in Google Maps periodically and see the construction history of the whole neighborhood! Our house is the middle one on the left in the photo. As you can see, the house was close to being finished, making the date of the photo probably around or a bit before October 2006 (when the builder said it was finished, barring minor details). Also, this house, and its immediate neighboring houses, was the first to be built. This gives me more pride in my home, as it could be considered the “flagship” model!

I’ll post more shots as Google Maps updates more. Cheers!