Like many folks my age, I had a Rubik’s cube when I was a kid. Also like many kids, I spent hours in frustration trying to solve the damn thing before taking it apart with a screwdriver and putting it back together ‘solved’.

The thing is, that made me feel uncomfortable, because I knew that what I had done was wrong. I was a bad puzzler. Then I was introduced to puzzles where the aim was to put the pieces together or dismantle them. These, I loved.

This one, however, scares the crap out of me.

The Intimidator is – technically – a piece of artwork designed to sit on a desk and look good. However, if work slackens off a little,* then you could waste a little(!) time on attempting this. At 8″x5″x4″, and handcrafted from blocks of cast metals, it’s no lightweight. Never mind it falling on your foot though, there’s a far more dangerous aspect; Inside each Intimidator are certain pieces that, when put together correctly, form a small working handgun!

Go see more over at GarE Maxton’s site.

*Well, when I say ‘a little’, I think that you’d need to be more concerned about the state of your job than the puzzle on your desk if you have that much free time at work…

There are two things here that make this item a win. First is the fact it uses art by M.C.Escher,one of my all time favourite artists and explorers of the boundaries of reality. The second is that it’s a puzzle that actually requires you to think – and think hard.

The Mirrorkal Escher, at it’s heart, isn’t a new idea, but the application of using Escher’s famous line art certainly is. Within the puzzle, there are nine clear plastic cubes which have to be arranged just so, in order for you to create one of five possible pictures.
How? Well, as the phrase goes, it’s all done with mirrors. Take a look:

It’s available to buy and not too pricey either, at £13.65 [$20.48] before tax and delivery. Go get it from Grand Illusions – and spend some time looking around the site too – you won’t be disappointed!

If you’re a devotee of playing games on the internet, then you’ll know that, of those games involving the mouse, most require you to move the cursor around and click on a particular item (or an apparently blank piece of wall if it’s a nasty room escape type of game). Others need you to move the mouse around either by manoeuvring the cursor through a maze or using the drag ‘n’ drop function. Many of these games are very good.
However, how many games do you know that use the mouse’s scroll wheel? You’re not going to run out of fingers counting them, I can tell you that.
That said, be pleasantly surprised by Record Tripping.

It’s not a huge game by any standard, but it’s certainly got a bit of replay value. Slotting firmly into the ‘puzzle game’ category, you use nothing more than the scroll wheel* to achieve the aim in each level; this could be manipulating a windmill to direct seeds to flower pots, or to open a safe, affecting a clock or factory manufacturing line.
The best part of it is there is a narrative laid over the top; someone is reading a bit of Lewis Carroll, which goes wonderfully trippy when you whizz the scroll wheel back and forth.

Scratch mix Alice in Wonderland… wow man…
Click the pic to go right to the game.

*although you do need to use the left-click occasionally to slow things down. Lewis Carroll on dope ftw…

The classic logic puzzle of crossing the river illustrated for you. No cheating.

via no fat clips!!!

That fat sheep is too cute. Also, cabbage is scary with teeth.

A lot of my visitors here are refugees from a game I used to play. In all honesty, I don’t really play too many games. I am too busy guilting myself that there are other things I should be doing, like drinking, crying or self loathing. However I do need to entertain my audience, so I hope you all might enjoy helping this little bunny get fat.

The game is called Full Moon, “Explore, point, click, drag, drop.”

via Presurfer

Jumping right into the PMOG missions I took this week, here’s the goods–

Religulous vs. Expelled

The friendly atheist blog has an article from the Orlando Sentinel comparing Ben Stein’s Expelled to Bill Maher’s Religulous.  A while back I shared my opinion on the Ben Stein film produced to discredit the idea of evolution.   I have yet to see Expelled or Religulous, but I hope to see both.  The article comparing  the films was very interesting and I found it thanks to a mission by deixado leading me to the friendlyatheist.com

OVGuide

Thanks to PMOG user clicktok, I’ve got a new place to search for TV shows & movies online.  OVGuide is a site that allows users to search for video content from over 1600 sites.  I am looking forward to catching up with some bad TV there.

Totem Destroyer

I could have posted this volume of PMOG Link Monday much sooner, but I spent an hour playing Totem Destroyer.  If you lose track of what day it is because you are having so much fun, blame gbelste not me.  I am warning you that it is addictingly fun.

A Fair(y) Use Tale

Finally, I took a mission on copyright law to see what sort of resources were presented by the PMOG user.  It was mostly sites that I already seen, but another user, allyson posted this video link in the comments:

I thought they used a great concept  to discuss copyright.