Reading The Squid's blog reminds me of my brother.

Rubik's cube. You know, the 3D puzzle with 6 colours on all 6 faces. I am sure most of you played it when you were young. Don't tell me you have never seen it at all in your life.

I am always amazed at how the hell some people can solve that thing in less than a minute. And when I said SOLVE, I mean this:





Not this:
I tried to solve that since I was like....5? haha. But it always ended up with just ONE side solved.
The other five faces: scrambled.
Damnit. I thought of pulling out all the pieces one by one and arrange them back again in same colours.

Ta-da~~

-_-"

No, it's going to spoil the fun. And I didn't even know how to take the pieces out anyway.

Well well well, it was when I went back for CNY holidays last month that I realized that crazy brother of mine solved it already!

Goddamn. His record time is 23seconds, I think.
World record 7.08seconds (source: http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/rubik.html)


He told me he learned it through Youtube. Alot of people, probably hundreds or thousands of them posted ways of solving the cube. But only a handful are Real& Serious ones.

He brings the cube with him everywhere so that he can practice it anytime. My dad even invested on him higher quality cubes and petroleum jellies (to lubricate the cubes).

Not enough of practicing with two hands, now he is into the 'one-handed' solving method.

Apparently he is gonna join the Singapore Open 2009 Rubik's Cube Competition on the 28th February.

Do you know: The youngest person who solved a Rubik's Cube in a competition was Enxi Xie (China), who was 4 years 6 months 10 days old when he solved the cube in 1:28.06 minutes at the Guangdong Open 2007.