I got mah cubies!

So, my cubes came in. If you follow my other blog, you'll know that.

So go there.

As a basic recap, I have cubes. On the agenda for the next week or so, I plan to merge my blogs, to do a serious update (because my blog needs one), and perhaps get some more cubing in. I had two pretty important tests due today, so the past weekend has been cuhrazy. I do have another test of lamost equal magnitude due next Tuesday, so I'll probably be pretty busy between now and then too, but hopefully I'll have time to focus on blogging/cubing. I also have an unboxing video for my new cubes that I should probably post.

So yeah. Stay tuned, ladies and gents.

Hecks to the yes.

Just saying, this is a beautiful thing:

So, they finally finished all of their shenanigans and have given me the money for the book.

I'm placing the cube order as we speak.

:D

Grr...

Hey guys!

Not much to day as far as cubing goes.

Amazon STILL has not decided that they do in fact have my textbook. It was scanned as being delivered 2:00 am on Friday, which means that, unless UPS is lying, they've had it for nearly 120 hours, or 5 full days. Granted, they probably don't do much on Sundays, and hey, I'll even give them Saturday (who doesn't need some days off here and there?). But really guys, what the hell did you do Friday? Monday? Tuesday? I mean, really, I'm not even asking that you have appraised it already (although you totally could have; I'm sure the department it's sent to exists solely to do just that), but just for you, Amazon, to let me know that you're processing it. I'm getting both pretty frustrated and apprehensive about this, the last thing I want is my book valued at $78 dollars to have gotten lost in your bull.

So, clearly, I don't have the money in my Amazon account yet, and so have not been able to order the cubes I mentioned earlier.

As far as cubing goes, I really haven't had much time to cube lately. But, I have actually done some cubing during my breaks on campus, and so far no one has kicked sand in my face and called me a dork, so hopefully that continues.

Also, my other cubes like trying to eat the stickers off of my V-5. Apparently, the stickers' adhesive is not as good as it once was, because more than once, this has happened:

Usually, the culprit is my LanLan 4x4, but this time it was my QJ Mini 3x3. Sometimes it's an orange V-5 sticker, it's been a black one before, and this time it's clearly my red ones. There will be another cube, one of which's stickers is slightly coming up. I guess the corner of that slides under the V-5 stickers (and always with the sticky sides facing each other), and then I have a cube with V-5 stickers stuffed guiltily in its mouth. Like above.

Moral of the story? I need to place a CubeSmith order soon.

Til next time

I know, I know...

Hey guys!

So it's legit been a week since I've posted.

I'm sorry.

As much as I don't know how you've made it these last 168 hours or so without any new content from me (unless you've been checking out my other blog, which is only slightly more recent), I'm glad you survived.

There's really not much to say now, I just wanted you guys to know I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I will do my absolute best to post tomorrow; I have a break in the middle of the day and I'm not sure that I'll rally have anything to do in that time, so hopefully you'll be hearing from me.

But, just in case you were wondering, this is one of my favorite puzzles right now:

Both because of the kind of puzzle it is and because of the brand of puzzle. V-cubes are really good quality (despite what the chipped, play-doh looking stickers suggest), and 5x5's are just fun in general. They're a significant enough puzzle that it takes satisfying amount of time to solve (about 4 minutes, as opposed to the 40 seconds for a 3x3), but much more practical than my 15 minute solves for the 7x7. Plus, this one is so much fun to solve because its such a great quality cube.

So, that's it for now. Sorry for the kind of lame update, but it's better than nothing.

P.S. Amazon, although having received my textbook, have yet to appraise the book and deposit the money into my account, so I have yet to place the cube order mentioned in the last post.

Another Cube Order

Yet again, I've fiddled with the display settings on the blog. Hopefully you like them. I've added a couple polls, they should be displaying to the right as we speak. Please answer them. :D. I've also updated my About Me section, added the picture at the top right, and have changed the font and tweaked the width settings. Let me know what you think.

Also, I started a WordPress blog. I'm going to try to get a feel for it, maybe blog there for a while (don't worry, if I blog there about cubes, I'll have identical posts here). Maybe, I'll have a personal blog there! I've been feeling like I needed one. So, maybe I'll start a personal blog there, and then perhaps I'll like one or the other (Blogger or Wordpress) a good deal more and will decide to move to one exclusively. We'll just have to see.

So, the main point of this post is to talk the next cube order I'm going to place! I'll be mailing my linear algebra book from last semester to Amazon soon (hopefully tomorrow), and with the credit I'll get from that I plan to get a few cubes. Yay!

So, let's take a look that cubes I'll be getting.

The first cube I'll talk about is this one. It's an Eastsheen brand 2x2, and, as you can clearly, annoyingly see, it's from Sara's Toy Store. It's also white, which makes me happy: I really prefer white cubes. The colors pop more, whereas with black cubes everything looks dark and muddled. I just wish companies would stop putting white stickers on white cubes; while sometimes it's nifty, black on white is gorgeous. Hell, replace yellow with white if you really want white stickers, but really, keep black on there.

Anyway, I'm pretty stoked about this one. My brother's new Eastsheen 2x2 is kinda tight, but it's also not broken in yet. I've heard they're pretty good once broken in. Also, I have but one, single 2x2 (unless you count my Rubik's Jr., which sucks).

The next one I'll mention is also an Eastsheen, and also, obviously, from Sara's. This one, though, is a 4x4, and is also white (just in case you can read but are blind to pictures). I'm pretty stoked about this one, too. My brother's new 4x4 is nice, and, while it still needs some breaking in, is almost better than any of my 4x4's. If not already.

Eastsheens are also just known for being pretty high-quality puzzles for their price. I've been getting more into bigger puzzles lately, which has increased my desire for variety as well as better quality puzzles. I like having the same puzzle from a few different manufacturers, because they're always at least slightly different. They feel different to turn, and also to solve. So, this will provide me with some 4x4 variety as well as with a better quality 4x4.

Next, I'm finishing off the set and getting the Eastsheen 5x5. They only make 2x2s, 4x4s, and 5x5s (does anyone else find it odd that they don't offer 3x3s?), and so this way I'll have all of them. Plus, there's the same variety factor. I've only got 2 5x5s (my V-Cube and my new pillowed QJ), and so this will give me a third, different one. I don't expect it to be better than my V-5, but I think it'll be pretty nice and I'm just interested in their's.

The next puzzle I'm getting is called the 'Out-of-Focus-4x4.' Just kidding, it's just a crappy picture. It's the YJ 4x4. I have the YJ 3x3, as well as the Axis cube and the Fisher cube by them. I know, I know, knock-offs. I honestly did not know what a knock-off was or how to identify them when I ordered those, I was just looking for some interesting puzzles. But, oh well.

 YJ puzzles tend to have a light, airy feel to them, seem to have dry, but nearly resistance-free, turning, and, once lubed with silicone, turn pretty fast. I'm pretty stoked about it, and it will satisfy the aforementioned need for variety.

Next up sort of goes along with the previous one: the YJ 5x5. I'm pretty excited for this one as well, because of many of the same reasons above.

It surely wont be as good as my V-5, and it could be as good as, slightly better than, or worse than my Eastsheen 5x5. Hopefully it will have the same proficiency at corner-cutting that my YJ 3x3 has, which is a bit but not a lot.

Another thing to note about this puzzle is that it's small. It's the same size as the YJ 4x4, with a side length of 6 cm. I wonder how that's going to feel to solve.

 Finally, this one has the potential to be the best of all of the puzzles I'll be getting in this shipment. It's the DaYan + mf8 4x4. Both of those companies are pretty respected, as far as quality goes, and I'm excited to try out the fruit of their combined efforts.

This is also just ranked as a pretty sweet 4x4 in its own right, regardless of the reputation of the manufacturers. I've seen more people raving about the Maru 4x4 and the X-Cube 4x4, but I've seen my fair share of positive praise for this one.

It's funny, it's going to stand out from my others in this order in a few ways. First, it's supposedly going to be the best one I'm getting. Second, it's the only black one. And third, it's the only one that isn't part of a pair or grouping (Eastsheen 2x2, 4x4, 5x5; YJ 4x4, 5x5).

All in all, I'm really excited. Writing this post motivated me to really try to get my book out tomorrow so that I can get these cubes sooner. I can't wait to try them all out.

Also, as far as a status update goes, I know I still need to post the corresponding posts for the two Tutorials on my channel right now, and I know I need to get a Master Skewb tutorial up. It's just hard to find a solid chunk of free time between work and school, but I promise, I haven't forgotten about it.

So check out this video, which is of another one of Oskar van Deventer's awesome puzzles, and don't forget to vote in the polls to the right and leave any feedback on the blog layout, the post content, or any other thoughts or opinions in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Pillows?

Hey guys!

So, today I'm going to tell you about my most recent cube order. Wont that be fun?

First, there will be an unboxing video (I just need to edit it), and when there is, it will be on my YouTube channel. Keep your pants on. I'm busy.

So, on to the cubes.

This order was mostly initiated by my brother. Once upon a time, he had, each an Eastsheen, a 2x2 and a 4x4. Both of these, however, quickly were no more. His 2x2 was in his pocket, or something, and he fell on it. I don't believe that that broke it, just caused some of the pieces to pop out and disassemble. However, in the process of trying to reassemble it, one of the core arms broke. It may or may not have cracked in the fall. His 4x4, however, didn't break; he was simply solving it outside, somehow got it to pop, and lost one of the tiny internal pieces in the grass. Either way, within a week, neither cube was functional.

So, upon being paid for a job caring for my neighbors pets, he decided he wanted to order replacements, which is understandable. But, since he doesn't have an account on Amazon, I decided that I couldn't order him cubes and not get some for myself. Duh.

He also decided to get a 3x3x1, like mine, as well as an Eastsheen Double 2x2 (his is white: this is, I believe, the only instance of the colors being switched. He tends to favor black cubes; I, white. But, my double 2x2 is black, and his is white), and finally, a QJ Pyraminx Crystal. This is the first time he has ever owned a type of puzzle that I don't (he'll have different brands than me, but never a different kind of puzzle). And, he actually can solve almost the whole thing by himself. Within a day of opening it, he had all but the last layer solved. It eventually thwarted him, but still, I was impressed.

So, anyways, the two cubes I got were two QJ pillowed cubes, the 4x4 and 5x5. I do already have a couple 4x4's and a 5x5, and I did not get them because I thought that they would be better (although I have heard some good reviews of the QJ Mini 4x4), but rather, because I thought that having a pillowed 4x4 and 5x5 would be awesome. And, I'm right:
 

I love them. They're so cool looking. Something about them bulging out, as if all that coolness was itching to free itself, just makes them visually striking. And, they feel good to hold. I'll do a few solves on the 4x4, then switch to my cubic one, and even though the quality of the LanLan is greater, I definitely prefer the feeling of the pillowed one.

Speaking of quality, they're pretty good. The 4x4 turns smoothly, especially the 2-layer turns. It does have some friction when you're going to turn a layer perpendicular to one you just turned; it's as if the inner pieces that have to slide around each other have sharp edges, and very tight tolerances. If you've ever turned a void cube, you know what I'm talking about. It's like that. But, it is fun to turn, and, while it's not as good as my LanLan, it's still fun to solve, mostly because of the curve.

The 5x5, however...Hmm.

The funness of the curved shape is still there, and it's not a bad quality turn. Each layer turns pretty smoothly and easily, especially the two layer turns. However, because of the way it's pillowed, the outer layer turns are a little picky. Let me explain.

On a V-7, the edge and corner cublets are larger than the others. This is partially done for the same reason it's pillowed in the first place: to avoid having the corner cublets fall off when the top layer is turned 45 degrees. I do believe that there's another reason, though. Pillowing it like this, making the edges and corners larger cublets, helps them from being tiny. Think about the corner of a square. If you rounded the edges slightly, the way you would to pillow a cube, you remove some of the square. The curves start on the straight lines that intersect to form the corner of the square, but then curve inwards, meeting each other on the bisector of the corner, but pulled in some from where the corner is. So, by making the corners and edges from larger original cublets, the finished, pillowed cublets are closer to the same size as the regular cublets than they would be if you started with regular cublets and then shaved them down into a pillowed shape. You following me so far?

On the QJ's, however, they chose the latter; they pillowed standard sized cublets.

In this picture, you can see how the corners on the V-7 are about the same size as the center cublets, because they chose bigger 'original' cublets. The QJ, however, used normal 'original' cublets, and thus the corners are about a quarter of the size of the center cublets.

I can't speak for the 4x4, but my brother has a normal QJ 5x5, and if you hold it next to my pillowed on, the distance between opposite centers is the same, but then it pillows down. It's the same shape you'd have if you took a normal cube, peeled off all the stickers, pillowed it yourself with a sander or Dremel, and then restickered it. Because of this, the corner cublets are noticeably smaller. On the 4x4, this presents no issue. On the 5x5, though, the outer layers are positively tiny. Not only does this make turning feel a little odd, because the layers aren't really the same size, but it also means that the relatively smaller pieces in the outer layer have a tendency to get caught on each other and lock up.

I realize that that may sound odd. I agree that it doesn't make sense that modifying the outer surfaces of the cublets should make the internals catch more, but that's the only thing I can think of. Again, my brother's normal 5x5 is the same size, and because of this, I feel like they're basically the same puzzle; the internals should be identical, with them just using molds that differed with regards to the shape of the outer cublets. So, the only difference I can think of is that mine's pillowed. His doesn't lock up this way.

It could be a result of breaking in and lubrication. His has been broken in, through use and Vaseline, and is lubricated. But I don't remember his locking up this much. I plan on lubricating them and breaking them in with Vaseline, and I feel like that will help the tension on the 4x4, as well as the catchiness of the 5x5. My brother's is pretty good. We'll just have to see.

So, that's about it for now. All in all, I really like solving them, and hopefully breaking in and lubricating will help.

Thanks for reading, and check this out. It's pillowed, but it's an 11x11 (notice the larger edge pieces!).