On Puzzles

I've wanted to break out my old 500 piece holographic Star Wars theatrical poster puzzles for a few months now, but I just never got around to it.

I tend to collect puzzles. Fidgets. Brain teasers. Anything that can occupy my brain for a few minutes to either distract myself from one problem to let my subconscious work on it, or distract myself AND MAKE THE VOICES STOP.

Alright, I embellish. Mostly, it's just own voice, telling me I'm awful and ruin everything. However it is much easier to shut that voice up when you have to assemble a 1500 piece jigsaw of a Faerie wedding my roommate's friend rolled out after starting it two years ago.

Looking at my bookshelf now, I can see two 3D puzzle cubes, a secret-compartment cube, a collection of Klix chains, nanodots, a Rubik's Cube, some wooden box made of I think 18 logs, a teal pyramid thing, a Rubik's Cube with all the colors reduced to black, a numerical slider game, and a couple puzzle balls. Then juggling bean bags, dice, and an unnecessary number of credentials. Really, anything to keep my mind occupied procrastinate.

I basically sat down with a Sam Adams and worked on this giant monstrosity through all of "I Love you, Man" of cable and an episode of Daniel Tosh after that. Really, if I didn't need to have a human sleep schedule I'd probably sit at that thing for a few hours more. Hopefully, when they go to roll up the current progress, my roommate is aghast at how much I did in only a couple hours.

In an impressed way, not in a "We should really get him some help," sort of way.

Ways To Tell If You Are Not Being Challenged At Work

"I call it 'Smith's Theory of Office Productivity.'"

This is a compilation of myself and several friends. So, bosses, in case you are reading this, I'm not actually slacking off every day at work. I mean that'd be so unprofessional.

• You routinely solve Rubik's Cubes and other assorted puzzles in between minor tasks.

• You finish your work for the week by 3 p.m. Wednesday.

•  You have time to balance your finances on a daily basis.

• You routinely take time off to write plot treatments for films or children's picture books.

• You have the high score on every arcade machine in the lobby.

• You are routinely yelled at for asking if there is more work you can do.

• When someone asks you if you can do something for them, you excitedly answer in the affirmative.

• You use company time to research the evolution of the letter Z.

• You sit around hoping something goes wrong so you will have something fun to do.

• You draw a really sweet picture of a cat.

• You start and subsequently finish and entire BBC original series while filing paperwork.

• You have a measurable IQ over 130.

On Punishing Yourself

I did something very stupid today.

I went out to get some very specific items. I got none of them. I went out to price a few larger-ticket items. I managed that, somewhat. On a whim, I also stopped into the bookstore to burn through one of the gift cards I got for Christmas. Bad idea.

Even though it was a tentative tick on my official BUY list, I very quickly made the following purchase:

God-fucking-damnit.

Like the 3x3x3 Classic wasn't hard enough? No, obviously not. I've warn through at least one of them in just a few years. I can run through solutions starting from all six colors with scramble time in between two or three times just over the course of a regular television program. The little reflective lamination has come off most of the stickers by now.

Shit, I just fixed the 2x2x2 with the internet after something like 8 years and this 4-cube monstrosity starts learning at me from the puzzle shelf at the local book store. And I, in my vainglorious stupidity, believed I could solve the contraption in much the same way as it's smaller counterpart, simply "chunking" multiple rows here or their to suit my need like some kind of deranged Good Will Hunting utilizing The New Math.

Hours later and I'm failing to even grasp the instructions to get it back to normal assigned me by an online cube solver. I know I said it would be a bus, but this–this may actually be the thing that kills my brain, you guys.


Also, Carolyn said I should blog about butts tonight. ))<<>>((