What Strange Creatures We Are...

My apologies for the long delay since my last post. While I have several inspirational and engaging topics to write about, I simply haven't had the time to put them on paper (or, on the screen, in this case). Writing is not something I can "multitask" with as I can with other activities such as playing Sudoku. Yes, I can play Sudoku and watch a movie, have a conversation, or do anything else that doesn't require my hands. Strange, isn't it? I can't express myself without total concentration, but I can solve basic logic and pattern puzzles without much effort at all. Speaking of Sudoku, note the new record.... (yes, of course, the "evil" level does take longer).

In a strange twist of events, I dug out a Rubik's cube I received as a promotional item from Microsoft. Talk about frustration, I used to be able to solve a cube in a few minutes while holding a conversation. Not anymore (hence the atrophied mind reference above). To make matters worse, this isn't just a six sided cube with solid colors. They went and put logos on each side (MSN, X-Box, Windows, etc.) so now in addition to getting all same colored pieces on one side, you have to have them aligned in such a way to make the correct logo. Intuitively, this doesn't sound difficult because they would have to line up to make the adjacent logos correct... or so I thought. No, after a couple hours I am left with a cube that would be solved if each side was a solid color but instead I have 4 correct logos and two logos in which the center piece is rotated 90 degrees. If there are any cubers reading this with a suggested algorithm to rotate the center piece only on two adjacent sides (one clockwise, one counterclockwise), leave me a comment!