Another new personal best. 41 seconds. Beastie Boys’ “So What’cha Want?” remix/mashup with Cypress Hill played in the background.
Lego Cube
There was no toy I enjoyed more as a kid than my Legos. I remember the exact drawer in which we stored them and have vivid memories of building a two-story house with my Dad, with shutters that we would open and close each morning and evening. In the world before cable TV and the internet and iPads and computers, I had Lego (and Brio) — and that was all I needed.
Now that I’m all growns up, so to speak, with new hobbies and distractions and family obligations, it’s always fun to re-live some of that childhood nostalgia. My son loves playing with my old Brio set and Lego. What great cross-generational fun!
Which explains why I was so excited to stumble upon RedKB’s well-produced video showing how to make a Lego-adorned Rubik’s cube. Continue reading
42 seconds
New personal best. 42 seconds. w00t!
Bill Evans’ “Five” played in the background.
P.S. I really dig the gqTimer (Graphy qqTimer) I’ve been using lately. It stores your times (using your Google login) and logs them into graphs. Great timer — and now my go-to instead of Cube Timer.
Pyraminx Restickering
As I posted last weekend, I’ve enjoyed the distraction of my QJ Pyraminx. It’s a fun puzzle, and the QJ turns easily with just the right amount of clickiness. My only complaint was that the stickers, while good quality, were pretty drab. The red was very dark and the green and blue were hard to distinguish in low light. Enter cubesmith.
I re-stickered this morning with a set of bright/flourescent stickers, and am really happy with the results. (Strangely, the iridescent orange appears red in the video.) As long as I had the GoCam handy, I set it up and captured the process in time-lapse. Fifteen minutes compressed to 90 seconds:
music: Thom Yorke‘s chilling solo rendition of, fittingly, “Pyramid Song” (from October 26, 2002 Bridge School Benefit, an amazing cause!)
46 seconds
Just got a new 3×3 personal best (non-lucky) solve: 46 seconds.
OLL #22(Pi)
(R U2′) (R2′ U’) (R2 U’) (R2′ U2′ R)
Only a half-second better than my last best time, but it definitely felt smooth and easy. I’m starting to believe the much-preached truth that consistent, slower turning is better than rushed turns punctuated by long delays of hunting for pieces. I was excited to encounter and easily apply a newly-learned OLL (#22) during the solve.
This was with my black Dayan Zhanchi (favorite cube, by far), restickered with a Cubesmith bright-set. The very excellent new Big Gigantic album played in the background.
adventures in cubing 