Lewis
Regular
Hi,
Guess I'm not technically a new member because I made this account way back in '07 or so, made a bunch of obnoxious teenage posts then disappeared and promptly forgot about it - hope this doesn't count as a 'late welcome' or whatever.
I started cubing way back in high school (this must've been about 2006 or so) and got down to an average of 35 or so seconds on 3x3x3. I could solve a bunch of other puzzles too (2x2 through 5x5, megaminx, skewb and a few others), again with times that weren't really much to write home about. After that little year-or-so long burst of enthusiasm I stopped cubing as much. Yeah, I'd still occasionally solve but not enough so that my times improved or anything.
Jump forward to the end of last year when I rediscovered cubing again, this time with transport and disposable income so that I could take it a bit more seriously. I bought a batch of brand spanking new cubes, to phase out the Eastsheen 4x4 and tiled chinaminx that had suffered pushing nine years of solving on and off in my clumsy hands. I also decided to maybe attend some competitions too if there's one near enough. I mean, I'm still abysmally slow by a lot of people's standards but having my arse kicked at a competition is still preferable to sitting at home solving on my own.
2x2x2: I average about 7.5 seconds I think, using Ortega with a few tweaks (i.e. I forgot some of the algs)
3x3x3: Averaging low 30's with what's essentially the beginners method I started off with, just with a few nifty tricks and time-saving algs I worked out along the way. One-look PLL is still a daunting prospect... No idea what my personal best time is, probably some flukey 3-move cross with a PLL skip way back whenever.
4x4x4: Averaging about 2 minutes exactly, I used to suck at bigger cubes but I think that's because I was part of what must be a tiny minority - people who were still using Eastsheen cubes as their main well into 2015. 5x5 and up, I'm not sure on my average times, all I know is it's slow. Especially 7x7x7, I'm talking 'timer batteries running out before I finish solving' slow here.
I can solve a bunch of others too, I've amassed a collection of about 75 or so more unusual and not-competition puzzles (for a while I was more into collecting than solving, I used to lurk the twistypuzzles forum wishing I had enough money for all these bizarre shape mods and such like). There's still a bunch I have no idea how to solve - I've been meaning to learn Square-1 for the longest time but there's just so many algorithms and I've got a memory like a ... err... what's one of those things called again?
Outside of cubing my hobbies include playing guitar, bass, keyboards/synths as well as the occasional tortured rendition of the tetris theme on the accordion. I write/compose a whole bunch of music too, but no-one apart from me seems to like it. I also read a fair bit (mainly non-fiction, boring-looking recreational maths books, or whatever pop-science stuff WH Smiths has in the reduced section) and waste a good chunk of paper in the name of modular origami (I must just be drawn to hobbies involving brightly-coloured polyhedron-shaped things...)
Anyway, I'm joining here again, a) as a desperate bid to try and make me more sociable, and b) in the hope that talking with a bunch of cubers who know what they're doing will encourage me to improve my own solve times a little bit. I mean, I'm not expecting to be sub-10 any time soon (unless we're talking pyraminx or something) but I've definitely got room for improvement!
Guess I'm not technically a new member because I made this account way back in '07 or so, made a bunch of obnoxious teenage posts then disappeared and promptly forgot about it - hope this doesn't count as a 'late welcome' or whatever.
I started cubing way back in high school (this must've been about 2006 or so) and got down to an average of 35 or so seconds on 3x3x3. I could solve a bunch of other puzzles too (2x2 through 5x5, megaminx, skewb and a few others), again with times that weren't really much to write home about. After that little year-or-so long burst of enthusiasm I stopped cubing as much. Yeah, I'd still occasionally solve but not enough so that my times improved or anything.
Jump forward to the end of last year when I rediscovered cubing again, this time with transport and disposable income so that I could take it a bit more seriously. I bought a batch of brand spanking new cubes, to phase out the Eastsheen 4x4 and tiled chinaminx that had suffered pushing nine years of solving on and off in my clumsy hands. I also decided to maybe attend some competitions too if there's one near enough. I mean, I'm still abysmally slow by a lot of people's standards but having my arse kicked at a competition is still preferable to sitting at home solving on my own.
2x2x2: I average about 7.5 seconds I think, using Ortega with a few tweaks (i.e. I forgot some of the algs)
3x3x3: Averaging low 30's with what's essentially the beginners method I started off with, just with a few nifty tricks and time-saving algs I worked out along the way. One-look PLL is still a daunting prospect... No idea what my personal best time is, probably some flukey 3-move cross with a PLL skip way back whenever.
4x4x4: Averaging about 2 minutes exactly, I used to suck at bigger cubes but I think that's because I was part of what must be a tiny minority - people who were still using Eastsheen cubes as their main well into 2015. 5x5 and up, I'm not sure on my average times, all I know is it's slow. Especially 7x7x7, I'm talking 'timer batteries running out before I finish solving' slow here.
I can solve a bunch of others too, I've amassed a collection of about 75 or so more unusual and not-competition puzzles (for a while I was more into collecting than solving, I used to lurk the twistypuzzles forum wishing I had enough money for all these bizarre shape mods and such like). There's still a bunch I have no idea how to solve - I've been meaning to learn Square-1 for the longest time but there's just so many algorithms and I've got a memory like a ... err... what's one of those things called again?
Outside of cubing my hobbies include playing guitar, bass, keyboards/synths as well as the occasional tortured rendition of the tetris theme on the accordion. I write/compose a whole bunch of music too, but no-one apart from me seems to like it. I also read a fair bit (mainly non-fiction, boring-looking recreational maths books, or whatever pop-science stuff WH Smiths has in the reduced section) and waste a good chunk of paper in the name of modular origami (I must just be drawn to hobbies involving brightly-coloured polyhedron-shaped things...)
Anyway, I'm joining here again, a) as a desperate bid to try and make me more sociable, and b) in the hope that talking with a bunch of cubers who know what they're doing will encourage me to improve my own solve times a little bit. I mean, I'm not expecting to be sub-10 any time soon (unless we're talking pyraminx or something) but I've definitely got room for improvement!
where are u from? So far I am the only one form Rhode Island...
