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Last weekend, I purchased a couple of Rubik's Cubes from the Discovery Channel online store — one for me, one for Tina. I had the package shipped to work, and it was delivered yesterday. I shot this picture of the two new cubes all scrambled.
When I opened the box, I was amazed, nay, shocked at how small the damned thing seemed. It’s much smaller than I recalled, but then I remembered I was only a 14 or 15 year old kid the last time I tried to solve one. It’s been more than 20 years since I’ve even seen a Rubik's Cube, let alone hold one. Has it really been 27 years since the these colorful cubes hit the States? Jesus Christ, I’m old. I googled the measurements of the original cube. According to this article on Answers.com, the 3×3 cube is 2.2 inches, or 5.7 centimeters, square. I measured my new cube with the ruler stamped on my Leatherman (which I just know is accurate, because it’s a Leatherman). The new cube is almost 2¼ inches square, or exactly 57 millimeters square. So, I guess I have comically out-sized hands as an adult. No wonder my penis looks so small. It’s my giant hands!
I’ve been twisting and turning that damned cube all day today, and my hands are killing me. My wrists feel like I’ve using a Wii… or beating the bishop… non-stop! Pass the hand lotion. I’ve actually been remembering a bit of the algorithms used to solve the cube using the layer method… after getting a few hints from the little booklet that came with the cube. I can complete two layers pretty easily, but it takes a while. The last layer, and the final four corners in particular, are the most difficult… for me anyway. It took me all day, but I did solve both cubes this evening. World record: 10.7 seconds. My record: about 8 hours. Excellent! As a kid, I remember timing my brother, who could solve the goddammed thing in under 45 seconds in 1982! He was always the smarter-yet-younger brother.
At 6:30 this morning, I was woke up by a sore left eye. No, not Left Eye from TLC… my left ocular eye. It felt like I had a hunk of pumice wedged up under my eyelid and it was scraping my cornea like it was trying to remove a calluse. In front of the bathroom mirror, I pulled the upper lid up, but couldn’t see anything. Considering the pain and irritation I was feeling, I half expected to hear something fall into the sink. My eye was a nice shade of blood red, and producing more tears than a maternity ward full of colicky newborns. It was so sore, I couldn’t even touch my eyelids without pain shooting throughout my eyeball. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and I couldn’t read or type much without my eye radiating pain, so I played with the Rubik’s cube. I could at least see colors. When Tina woke up (and had her coffee), she looked at my eye and said it looks like I scratched the hell out of it. Lovely.
By noon, my eye felt like what I envision standing outside in an Iraqi dust storm might be like, but at least it stopped watering to beat the band. It would tear up every now and then, but nothing like the first couple hours. If I covered my right eye, the left eye was blurry and distorted. I couldn’t read a damned thing with my left eye. I was a bit worried, I’ll tell you what. I started to wonder if I could have permanent eye damage. The last time I had my vision tested (in 2000), my vision was 20/16 on the Snellen chart; better than the “normal” 20/20 visual acuity. The thought of my left eye having the the same clarity as the pre-repair Hubble Space Telescope was not sitting well with me. But, as I type this update, the eye is almost back to normal. It’s no longer tearing up. The scratchy irritation is all but gone, and it’s visual acuity is getting better. It’s not perfect, but it should be healed by tomorrow morning.
That’ll do it for tonight. I have a few other things to write about, but I don’t want to blow my load with nine more fecal-free updates to go. I think I’ll test my ailing left eye by driving to Pizza Factory for some calzones.
