Update

Well, I've gotten back into cubing a little. This lack of schoolwork sure is relaxing. I though I could let you guys know what's going on around my place.

I have found that my CII is desperately deteriorating, much like an FI (another cube I love). I hate having to take everything apart and put it back together again and clean it out so I don't know what to do. My times are pretty consistently low, though. I recently had a 20.52 average of 100 and a standalone 19.66 average of 12. Also, on weekly competition 21 on the speedsolving.com forums I got an incredible 3x3 average: 17.01, (22.03), (16.95), 20.79, 18.13 = 18.66. This was with no warmup just to see what the competition scrambles were like. I know it's only an average of 5 but it is still impressive if you ask me. I went on for some mediocre OH and 4x4 solves.

I'm steadily improving my ZBLL recognition though I haven't been learning any new algs. Before I was panicking when I came across a set I knew. If it wasn't CC, CA, CO, AA, AC, OO, or OC I had no idea what was going on. Now I look at the case more calmly and my recognition time has plummeted. My execution time leaves something to be desired quite often but I find that is mostly due to lockups and my own forgetfulness.

I'm seriously debating starting up with ZZ. It gets my edge orientation done early on and I've had success with OH ZZ. It's an interesting option though I'm not a huge bandwagon guy and ZZ is very popular right now.

Just my thoughts for the moment.

Update

Wow I am a lazy son of a bitch. I'll get my algorithm documents up today, guys. I haven't gotten a chance to cube much, but with the last baseball game of the season finally gone I''ll get back into things soon. Cheers!

Update

It's been a while. I haven't been cubing that much recently, though I did set a pb for an average of 100 at 20.90. My CII has deteriorated and I don't know how much longer it'll last. In 2 weeks, when my mom leaves again and standardized tests are out of the way, I'll be able to work on my ZBLL algs.

Speaking of ZBLL, my in-solve recognition is horrendous. If I'm just practicing algs I have sub-1 recognition, but mid-solve it just doesn't work. I guess it'll come with time.

I also have to update the alg sheets at some point. Maybe in a week. I have to fiddle with the COLL and VHF2L ones quite a bit.

Doctor Who

I have become addicted to this show. The old episodes aren't that great but they are very original. The new ones are incredible. The latest episode has me wanting the week to skip forward just so I can see the second part. It's been on my mind all day so I felt that I had to let people know.

Update

It's been a while and I haven't cubed much recently. Baseball season has become rather stressful and standardized tests are fast approaching. I also had my appendix removed on Saturday. Basically, I'm in pain. I did find that ZBLL practice can slow your F2L time down by a few seconds. I think I'll have to ignore those losses until I've completed my goal.

Update

I've gotten through 2 complete ZBLL sets to date and have started on my 3rd. I love the PLL skip but, at least right now, COLL + EPLL wins out because of recognition and habit. Still, if I get a case I should know, I'll solve with a ZBLL.

Set a PB average of 100 2 days ago: 22.57. Pretty solid. This might be due to my new hybrid: C4Y hardware, C4Y cubies, and CII centers. So fast and cuts corners pretty well. The locks are annoying and it pops a little more than I would like, but once I got used to it, nothing could stop me. My last 25 solves dropped me from .40 seconds, from 22.97 to 22.57. Good stuff.

Update

Well, it's been a while since I've picked up a cube. I don't think I'll have time until next Monday. Baseball games really take their toll when combined with school. Practice I can deal with, but games are just too long. I'm also feeling pressure from my classes. Looks like I'm gonna have to step up my game...

I have 2 full sets of ZBLL down pat. I think I notice a difference between myself and Chris Tran. I am a perfectionist. I must have everything ingrained in memory and fully executable. Slow recognition is unacceptable. Slow execution is unacceptable. But this mentality is slowing my progress. While in the long run, I may be in a better position, it eats into my practice time and prevents me from improving other parts of my solve. I did an average of 12-ish (wasn't really keeping track) and found my times were back up to 25 seconds after only 1 week of not doing full solves.

Baseball is going well. Threw a complete game opening day against Century in a 5-4 win. Only 2 of the runs were earned, and 1 of the earned runs came after an unearned run scored, so it should have been a 5-1 game. Even with these mistakes, I only threw 88 pitches. 'Atta babe!

A VHF2L document should be up in under a month.