...hmm new to this list, been reading some of the postings and things just
seem to go *FOOM*, right over my head. But it didn't stop me from asking
these.....

Rubik's Magic Clock.
Sister is Japan sent me this for Christmas (Have still yet to
translate the instructions...as if I need it!) and solved it in a day... Well,
more like "stumbled" upon the solution after a day of fiddling with it. But
I continued to play with it, and came upon this.....
Sometimes when I give one of the wheels a good quick "flick", one of
the gears inside slips. Result is one (or maybe two) of the clock faces
affected is an hour "behind" (or ahead) of the others. Deep in my mind I
concluded that this rendered the puzzle unsolveable. And I ended up pulling
out a screwdriver and readjusting the face (or I just "zeroed" all of them.)
Was I correct in this conclusion?
(...oh yea, she sent this for Christmas '88, not this past year. I'm
not THAT behind the times! THIS Christmas I recieved.....)

Rubik's Triamid.
In the instructions it says,

"It is physically possible to dismember Triamid into it's
10 constituent elements and reassemble it into a complete
Triamid. A word of warning however--as there are 2 possible
ways of doing this (a right and a left one) solving the
puzzle after such a ressembly has an additional sting in
the tail."

What exactly is this "sting"? And what did it mean by "right and
left"? (if there's some joke here, I missed it...) I was wondering, if I
took it apart and reassembled it to a completed form, the puzzle is still
solvable, I just scramble it and get back to the form I reassembled it to.
So this can't be the "sting" mentioned. Unless it meant reassemble it to some
unfinished form.
Next question... Sometimes when I play around with it, one of the
corner pieces pops off and lands on the floor. I pick it up and put it back
on wondering, how was it originally oriented? And considering the 11/12
chance that I'll have put it back on wrong way. Have I just rendered the
Triamid (once again) "unsolveable"?
Final question, for fun... Anyone bought more than one Triamid, and
put 'em together to make a "Monster(a)mid"? =^)

...also for a Square-1 for x-mas too, still fiddling around with it
too. And have yet to lay my hands on Rubik's Tangle, Dice, and Fifteen. But
NOT the Cube^4 (was that it?) Couls never solve the original, why should I
touch this one? =^/

Galen Komatsu
gkomatsu@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu !