2) Another TRUE story of rubiking:

The May Company department stores in the Los Angeles area held contests at
four of their stores when they started carrying the cube, a couple of months
ago. The object was to solve one face in three minutes with their scrambled
cube. Reward was a 50 buck gift certificate. They allowed about 6 people every
fifteen minutes to enter for two days. The store where I won (and my 10 year
old daughter, my wife, and three of my next door neighbors) had 21 winners. I
assume the other three stores had similar numbers. They also gave away lots of
cube tee shirts for "good tries".

I got my cube the night before the contest. But it took me another month to
solve the whole thing. I might have worked faster at it if the megabuck prize
had been offered. But then you all would have also.

4) Singmaster (edition 4, p. 34) reports on the Rubik domino (2x3x3 cubies), and
says each cubie has spots like a domino (1 up to 9). They are to be lined up in
numeric order. Top and bottom (the 3x3 faces) are two different colors.
Unfortunately, Singmaster laments, magic square type patterns (all directions add
to same number) are not possible, since all edges are even, all corners odd. The
mechanics of the device are said to be "more complicated than for the Magic
Cube."

/Don Lynn