Well, I guess it had to happen sometime.

In the cubing community, I’ve heard humorous stories of cubers going too fast for their own good. Actually, for their cube’s own good. Sometimes cubies pop out. No problem, really; just pop it back in and keep going, right? Well, what happens when a cubie breaks off the axis point? Well, that’s one less piece holding it all together, which causes a chain reaction that leads up to total discombobulation. That is exactly what happened with my Rubik’s Revenge 4×4 cube…

In the second pic, I found the piece that broke off of the faulty cubie, which is next to a unbroken cubie. The last pic shows what the cube looked like before, standing with all the other versions that I have of Rubik’s cubes. It’s the one in back of the Ice Cube in front.

Ever since I acquired the 4×4 cube, it was sometimes a real pain to turn the layers. Half of the time, I’d have to make sure every layer was completely straight before doing anything. Maybe I had a defective one and didn’t realize it. Hey, it can happen. Now I’m seriously looking into getting one of the cubes made by Eastsheen. Most cube hobbyists swear by them.

Well, gotta go make dinner and other stuff. Cheers!

It’s been a while since I’ve written in here, and I was doing so well before that! I’m going to have to find a good way to keep myself and my postings consistent. Sorry to any of you regulars that come here expecting regular updates. Then again, that’s what RSS notifications are for, eh?

Well, as all of you know, I’ve gotten bit by the “cubing bug” pretty bad. Just to show how bad, though, feast your eyes on these new photos! (they’re also in my photo gallery now). Click the pictures to embiggen!

This last thursday, the UPS stork brought me a new bundle of joy; a Rubik’s Professor cube! It’s said that if you know how to solve a regular Rubik’s Cube and a 4×4 Rubik’s Revenge, then you should be able to solve this monster. That turned out to be quite true, though it takes a long time to solve. I think I did it in about an hour. The sheer size and complexity of it was almost overwhelming!

One would think that the 5×5 is harder than a 4×4 cube. Mathematically, it’s actually the 4×4 that is harder because of all the permutation parities that you can run across while trying to solve it. These particular parities only happen on even numbered cubes, excluding a 2×2. OH! Speaking of that…

I looked in the mailbox on Friday, before our housewarming party (more on that tomorrow!), and found the Rubik’s Ice Cube waiting for me. This cute little 2×2 cube is still challenging to solve, but of course nowhere near the number of permutations that a regular 3×3 has! I introduced the little brain-racker to my guests at the party, and a few of our friends tried their hand at solving it, without much luck. I don’t blame them; like I said, it’s still a tricky little thing!

Cheers, and happy puzzling!

Well, I thought to do something a little different. I’ve seen lots of videos on YouTube of people solving the Rubik’s cube. Some are definite speedsolvers with insane times of 20 seconds or less. Others are just hobbyists. I wanted to start making more videos, maybe even video blog-like entries, so I figured that this may be the best way to start. Enjoy!

click the play button to play the video

Also, here’s some YouTube links to some of my favorite related videos; these blew my mind!

25.49 seconds speedsolve (impressive!)
Approximately a 14 second speedsolve (most impressive)
4×4 solve… not fast, but I like the music in the background!
2′49″ Speedsolve of a 5×5
Someone solving a 10×10 (OMG!)
Someone solving a 20×20 (WTF!!?)

I like these particular videos because they demonstrate what is probably the best way to solve these various cubes that are over 3×3. It involves solving the cube to where it acts like a regular 3×3. There are faster techniques, to be sure, but it involves learning some complicated and convoluted algorithims and those can be more trouble than they’re worth.

Enjoy!

I just updated my photo gallery with some new pictures! These were uploaded from my phone recently and I thought to share them with you all. I just wanted to make a single post out of this, complete with the thumbnail images, so I wouldn’t have to make a new post for each subject. So, let’s take a gander at ‘em:

Whew! That took a lot of code, even with WordPress’ automatic code editing! Click on each picture to see the original version, along with captions.

The first picture is a view from my car driving south down Avondale Avenue. I loved the view of the mountains. It just looks so tranquil! The next two pics came from me playing around with the 3×3x3 cube and stumbling upon the best scramble you could possibly get. No single color is paired up with the same on another cubie next to it. This is actually a hard permutation to get to; just try it sometime. The last one is me sharing a cute moment with Thommen, our Eclectus parrot, while getting ready to give him a shower.

Everyone enjoy!

Well, today I get to be a nice round 35 years old. Right smack in the middle between the hip 30 and the dreaded 40. I guess the good thing is that I look, and sometimes still act, about 10 years younger. However, around the young ones at my work and also MySpace and Stickam, I really show my age… especially in my taste of music! I guess nu-metal or emo music just doesn’t do it for me, eh? Oh, and I haven’t succumbed to the baggy-droopy pants fashion, thank God for that!

Today, I simply relaxed. I didn’t sleep too well last night, mainly tossing and turning, so I was half-dead for most of the day. I’m still ecstatic about having the day off work; I haven’t had a birthday off in a loooooong time! I did a few things around the house and I was online for quite some time, mainly responding to all the birthday wishes on Orkut and MySpace. Wow! Just as I wrote that last line, our Arizona friends, Jeanna and Mark, wished me a happy one through my Contact page; thank you guys!

On our vacation, I got a few things that I really like, so I’ll consider them as presents to myself. In the photo gallery, you can see the new Rubik’s Revenge cube I’m currently working on. I solved it with the help of a couple of sites, but I’m trying to get to solve it and memorize the algorithms without any help, just like I do with the original Rubik’s Cube. Hey, after this brain-buster of a puzzle, the smaller cube seems like child’s play! I also got Sonata Arctica’s new disc, Unia. It’s very good, albeit different from their other albums both sonically and composition wise. They still have that definite symphonic power metal sound! I’ll write a review later. The sunglasses I got on our trip aren’t bad at all, even though I got them at a gas station. They’re very sturdy and don’t feel or look cheap at all. Of course, I’m wearing them in the pic above!

Speaking of gifts, it seems that my Mom sent me something via UPS, and they’re having trouble delivering it. I called today and inquired about it and also gave the correct address to where it’s supposed to go. Evidently, when Mom called and told them to change her honest mistake (it IS still a new address), they said they would fix it… and then did nothing of the sort! I guess it’s to be delivered soon, so I’ll update the blog as to what the mystery package is when it arrives. I can hardly wait, Mom!

Well, I’ll get us something for dinner tonight to celebrate. I usually reserve going out to dinner for Fridays, but this is an exception. Cheers to all my wonderful friends, family and blog readers!