A couple of months ago, a coworker mentioned that he read about a new Rubik's Cube record. Someone solved the Rubik's Cube in 11.13 seconds!

I said that I had a cube and that I should bring it into the office, so I did. I also had the instruction booklet for how to solve it (beginner's approach). I almost always have a "fidget toy" on my desk anyway, so now that toy is my Rubik's Cube. And in the past couple of months, I've gotten pretty good at solving the cube with the beginner's approach. My personal best is 1 minute 45 seconds, and I average around 2 minutes 20 seconds.

Over the past week and a half or so, I started looking at different solutions for the cube. I found one that looks pretty promising and I think I'll be able to get my times under 1 minute 30 seconds pretty soon.

Today, while getting settled into my chair and starting to think through the work I need to do, I started fidgeting with the cube using only my left hand. I ended up solving the cube with 1 hand (my left hand even) in about 15 minutes. Pretty slow, but I was also using my new approach which is currently taking me about 7 minutes with 2 hands... so not too bad.

It's obviously true... this Rubik's Cube is very addicting! In fact, I have worn some of the stickers down pretty good, and I ended up peeling my entire orange face off last night because it was so messed up (now it's a black face). I ended up ordering a new cube and some replacement stickers last night -- I'll get it all in a couple of weeks from www.rubiks.com. The cube I ordered is in kit form, so I'll need to assemble it myself, but that'll be kinda fun. I guess I have a new hobby. And another coworker has brought his cube in too, so this seems to be contageous as well.