...or Don't be lulled into a false sense of
security
the suffering still continues
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Phew! I cannot buy it just now!
|
Now that must be one of the most confusing of my blog titles! What on earth am I
driveling on about this time? It has been quite some time since I had some time
off work (5 months) and whilst the government has said that NHS workers can
carry over unused/cancelled annual leave, my employer has said "use it or lose
it". Gulp! I booked some time off and hoped that it would be approved (I
write the on-call rotas and not the day to day rota). Luckily the boss said yes
and here I am with some time to myself - yay! Then the "real boss"...the one
with the violent Scottish genes and the nurse training to make full use of them
told me that I was not going to be sitting on my arse (ass to the Americans)
playing with toys - boo! She has a full list of DIY for me to do including
putting up blackout blinds, redoing the silicone seal in a bathroom, tidying the
shithole/study and most importantly repairing the toaster. Yes, you read that
correctly! We have a 20 year old Dualit toaster which is now failing to toast or
burning stuff. At £190 to replace, I have been putting up with it and then
realised it can be fixed at home with a suitable screwdriver set and some
Cajones. I know I have the screwdrivers and I can see my cajones in the pickling
jar on her bedside table. I was a little perturbed that she said that it was
vital that it be fixed this week and when I did it, I was NOT allowed to unplug
it from the electricity supply when I did it and in fact, to be absolutely
certain of a perfect outcome, she wanted me to sit in a full bath of water
whilst I performed the essential maintenance! She said "it would be fine". After
a little hesitancy, I went to the website to buy the required heating elements
and timer.
YAY! Out of stock! I will survive to blog another day.
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5 Mononoke |
A few months ago, Mine posted a bunch of new tray packing puzzles (and a
special wooden 3D packing puzzle) on FB and took orders from a lot of eager
puzzlers. Every time these sorts of tray puzzles come up I prove to be
absolutely dreadful at them and swear not to buy any more and every time
someone produces some more that look interesting from a distance across the
internet I fail to hold my discipline and buy them in the hope that I will
find the skills to solve them. Usually I am wrong and end up buying yet more
stuff that I cannot solve! The tray puzzles offered by Mine looked really
interesting in that most of them had quite low numbers of pieces and they had
very interesting shapes which would make for a nice challenge to work out how
they might interlink.
I started with the 5 Mononoke - until I looked it up for this blog post, I
thought a Mononoke was a sheep or goat or something like that but apparently
they are
vengeful spirits
who can make people suffer. As a tray packing puzzle this is quite appropriate
in my hands! These pieces can interlock in very clever ways but in doing so
they leave some ½ spaces which then leads to difficulty packing the next
one(s) into the tray. There will obviously need to be some gaps after the
packing is done but there is very little spare room. I spent 2 whole evenings
swearing under my breath at this before I had my aha! moment. It should be
fairly easy I thought, but for me - it wasn't and I struggled. Nothing new
there then but at least it was better than repairing an electrified toaster
whilst in a bath!
|
5 Fennec Foxes |
Again, I couldn't resist this one! It was only 5 pieces and they were so cute!
Actually, if you search YouTube for the real Fennec foxes then they really are
cute. The pieces are quite long and complex with the legs offering some
interesting interlocking opportunities. Oh boy! This one nearly beat me -
I could not work out any logical way to save space here at all. It is possible
to get 4 in place in lots of nice interesting interlocked ways and then always
get stuck with plenty of room in the tray but always spread over several areas.
Swearing is mandatory despite Mrs S glaring at me with disapproval written all
over her face. But I do find that the swearing helps - after another couple of
evenings, I found the correct combination of swear words (in appropriate
languages) and the 5 foxes settled into place. Another puzzle solved before
electrocution.
|
6 Ayakashi |
I am a little worried about Mine! He has named another puzzle after
monsters.
This fabulous packing puzzle again consists of interesting shapes that can
interlock in interesting ways. Each of these interlocking approaches tends to
leave small gaps between them making for the real challenge. The tray is quite
large and the 6 pieces will fit in that with ease but the aim is to decrease the
size of the tray by using one of two inserts. This immediately makes the puzzle
a whole lot more challenging. 6 pieces should be harder to place than 5? I
thought so but going against that thought, the pieces were much less complex
than the previous 2 puzzles. Maybe I would have more/faster success with this
one? Hell no! That definitely was not going to happen. It is interesting how the
human brain works (OK OK maybe just my feeble brain). Whilst playing with these
pieces I got fixated on finding the most space saving ways to interlink them
that I could and very rapidly found this:
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Beautifully packed with minimal space wasted Bloody useless!
|
I found several variants on the picture above and it was very exciting -
unfortunately it was also of no use whatsoever and I couldn't for the life of me
get it out of my head. I kept going back to variants of these combinations in
varying positions in the two possible tray shapes. Yes, there was more swearing
and no it didn't help. It took me 4 days before I solved the first and even then
it did not help with the second solution. Amazingly the second solution was very
different to the first and took me another couple of days of work!
I am truly awful at these puzzles and yet I keep coming back to them for extra
suffering. This batch have actually been great fun. The low number of pieces
and the interesting interlocking shapes meant that there was more to it than
random trial and error. Of course, I did start with random trial and error but
then realised that thinking© would be more useful. It was really quite tough
to get into Mine's mind (which is quite warped) but very rewarding when I got
there. As always I got fixated on a dead end that I am sure was placed there
deliberately. I have a few more of these tray puzzles to play with but they
look considerably tougher with more pieces or non-orthogonal shapes:
 |
All three of these puzzles are double sided for twice the suffering! |
Whilst I have your attention, you should go to the
Pelikan store
and buy one of the last few remaining Chamburr puzzles. I am amazed that they
are still in stock as that particular puzzle is one of the best of the last
release (reviewed
here).
You work for Jamie MacDonald?
ReplyDeleteWhilst I lived and worked in SE Scotland for 18 years (including working in Kirkcaldy), why would I be working for the Raith Rovers goalkeeper?
Delete