Terrible Analogies

Has Darth Vader sold out?  Say it ain’t so…

What are these watches so curious about?

Gold star and half a loaf of Scrapple goes to the person who can identify where this picture was taken.

Happy Friday everyone!  See you all back here bright and early Monday morning.

While driving home today a man on the freeway with a neatly coiffed grey beard and white-collar Modena shirt and tie cut across two lanes of traffic directly in front of me, sped up to catch up to somebody in the slow lane, and flipped him the bird.  Mr. Angry Professional guy then slammed on the brakes of his beige Lexus and came to a full stop on the freeway.  As I passed this genetic defect I saw him flipping off the people who were now skidding to a stop behind him.

I’m unsure what was up with this guy.  Was he taking out his pent-up office aggression on anybody unfortunate enough to be within his direct vicinity?  Did he have a bad boardroom meeting?  Did somebody steal his reserved parking spot?  Was his pb&j pilfered from the break room refrigerator?  Whatever the case I decided that, because I had the baby in my car, I was going to just steer clear of this enraged individual.

And that’s how my work day ended, nearly getting into a high speed car accident with an infuriated Kenny Rogers.

Moron.

I’ll just leave this here.

My sister gave me an Amazon gift card recently, and before I could thank her (thanks, sis!) I knew what I wanted to use it for.  That’s right…a new 6×6 Rubik’s Cube.

Or, more precisely, a new V-Cube.  Created by a Greek designer and produced in Greece (think they can sell enough of these to get their economy back on track?), the V-Cube represents the natural evolution of the classic Rubik’s Cube.  The mechanics aren’t as smooth as my Eastsheen cubes, but I’m quickly getting used to it, and have noticed that the movement has become a bit more fluid after a day of playing with it.

On my first night with this V-Cube I managed to solve it in two hours by using known patterns.  A day later and my time is now down to less than 30 minutes.  Many of the same algorithms that apply to the previous cubes can be ported to the 6×6, with one new algorithm required to complete the center cubie section.

The V-Cube is slightly larger than the 5×5, and is noticeably heavier.  This is one hunk of plastic that feels good in the hands.  There’s a solid click with each rotation that you’ll want to keep an ear out for to avoid lockups.

Here are scans of the package insert (click on them to embiggen).  Instructions on how to assemble one of these bad boys can be found here.