Scruble Cube: Word Building With A Twist

Image: John Booth

Growing up, while I was never quite the Rubik’s Cube Jedi that I wanted to be, I always had a thing for that puzzle and the sorts it inspired. I was also raised in a house where the day I could finally hold my own against mom and dad in Scrabble felt almost as monumental as getting my learner’s driving permit.

So you can imagine the chords of memory struck when I saw the Scruble Cube, released this month by RSV Productions.

It’s pretty much just what it looks like: Scrabble, if it were scattered across the surface of a Rubik’s Revenge. The goal is to build words from those 7.4 x 1045 possible cube permutations, with scoring based on the letters used and the effective use of “premium peg” multipliers. (Here’s a short demo video.) You can build a word from scratch with each turn, branch a new word from an existing one for additional points, or earn bonuses for words consisting of six letters or more or for touching three sides of the cube.

There’s also a 90-second timer included to really keep things moving if you want.

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Mom@Play: 7 Reasons To Play Warhammer Fantasy

Image: Cathe Post

My husband brought home a dark red cardboard box that was no bigger than a schoolbook.  When I found out the little rat warrior miniatures in the box weren’t for any Dungeons and Dragons story line we were playing, but instead were for a wargame called Warhammer, I quickly lost interest in what my husband was doing…until he started getting into my polymer clay to make unique bases for each miniature, and into my paints and paintbrushes to bring out the detail of the characters.  Then, I started thinking, maybe this game is for me.

Warhammer is a miniatures war game that is (from my observations) predominately played by 25-50 year old males. Thankfully, I was not terribly nervous about joining an escalation tournament in a local league. It’s sad there aren’t as many women as men playing this game. There are so many reasons to play!

[Read Cathe Post's 7 Reasons over at GeekMom!]

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10 Things Parents Should Know About Megamind

Megamind1. Will my kids like it?

Yes! There’s plenty of slapstick to keep kids of nearly any age amused, and only a few short bits that are sad or show the characters in peril. And those bits are all pretty quickly undercut by humor, anyway. My nearly-ten-year-old son would like me to say that Megamind is “not just funny — extremely funny.”

2. Will I like it?

Very probably, yes, though you won’t love it. The movie makers manage to keep the slapstick from from degenerating into juvenile, which all too often happens in kids’ movies — witness the Shrek films, for example. There are also plenty of little jokes (many of them musical) aimed squarely at grownups, which is always a pleasure to see — I will never understand why so many makers of kids’ movies neglect to do this, despite the knowledge that most kids will not be going to the movie alone or with their own money.

That being said, the film does suffer from the knowledge of what it could have been, because it is impossible not to compare it to The Incredibles, and not just because the hero Metro Man is very similar to Mr. Incredible. A lot of the jokes in Megamind seem very derivative of the Pixar film, and suffer by comparison.

3. When’s the best time for a bathroom break?

The film is 96 minutes long, and moves fairly quickly, so waiting until the end is best if possible. If not, the best time is probably when Megamind is disguised as Bernard and is talking to Roxanne (this will make sense when you see the film) — my kids agreed that that was the least interesting bit of the movie.

4. Is it worth paying more for 3D? How about IMAX?

No to 3D. My family saw it in 2D, and it was just fine. And there’s a lot of detail in the backgrounds which could easily be missed because of the distraction of the foreground in 3D or because of the darkening effect modern 3D technology has on everything. Save your money and see it in 2D.

As for IMAX, I really can’t imagine it would enhance the film much, especially since you’d have to see it in 3D.

5. Do I need to sit through the credits for a bonus scene at the end?

There are two parts to the credits: a fairly short animated bit and a much longer traditional scrolling bit. There is a quick, funny scene in between the two parts that you should stay for, but nothing at the very end.

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Would You Trust This Family Doctor?

Family Doctor Home Screen When you don’t feel well, what’s your typical response? Make an appointment with your doctor? Hit Google or Wikipedia? Flip open a book? Now, thanks to Dorling Kindersley, there’s an app for that. Family Doctor uses a flowchart system to check your symptoms, offer a diagnosis and inform you on your next steps (like self help or consulting a doctor), all from the comfort of your iPhone.

I received a review code to try out Family Doctor – Symptoms and Diagnosis, which sells for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store. Unfortunately, I feel like you get what you pay for, and a five-buck doctor is only going to tell you so much.

The interface is pretty nice, actually: with separate charts for children and adults, plus some more specific questions for men or women, there’s a lot of information included in the app. Navigating from section to section is fairly simple, and following the flowcharts is actually pretty cool. For some ailments there are Self Help sections offering things that you can do at home. However, if you rely on the app instead of your own common sense, you’re apt to find yourself suffering from cyberchondria.

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Don’t Get Trapped in the Pressure Matrix

Pressure Matrix

5-player game of Pressure Matrix. Photo: Jonathan Liu

Overview: Remember that old video game Smash TV? It was supposed to be a futuristic game show where the contestants battled each other to the death while winning cash and prizes. Pressure Matrix doesn’t have all the monsters and guns, but it’s also a futuristic game show where contestants run around in a series of rooms, trying to trap the other players while collecting cash.

Pressure Matrix game boxPlayers: 2 to 5 players

Ages: 14 and up

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Retail: $34.99

Rating: Not as high-pressure as I’d hoped, but it depends a lot on the players.

Who Will Like It? If you like dystopian future game shows, you may be disappointed that this doesn’t actually feel like a game show. However, you do get to antagonize your opponents. I think the game works best for people who can make decisions fairly quickly and who don’t mind reading a bit during gameplay.

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GeekDad Tackles the City Dyson

Dyson City

Dyson City

It’s not often technology makes you want to move house. But that was my wife’s reaction to Dyson’s new City vacuum.

It’s sold on the basis of its small size, easy storage and suction power. On all these she had no quibbles. But what turned out to be a much more important feature for us seems to have been overlooked: the power cord length.

I agree with her, that when you are hovering (ahem, I mean vacuuming) the last thing you want to do it stop half way through and change plugs. In fact, the idea of cordless vacuuming actually got us both quite excited last year with Electrolux’s Ergorapido and Unirapido cordless vacuums.

The Dyson City’s small size obviously means less space for the cable which in turn means it doesn’t stretch from one end of our downstairs to the other — never mind downstairs to upstairs. That makes it sound like we live in a mansion, whereas actually we live in a relatively average three bed house. Her solution was that we should move — which is perhaps testament to how much she liked the other features of the Dyson.

It was very compact and did have great suction — although we felt it could have done with a brush style head for carpets. Better still it could be stored under the sink, freeing up space in our ever cluttered under-stairs cupboard.

If you have a smaller city house (as the name suggests) or just a few rooms to vacuum the Dyson City would be ideal. But for us, we’ll have to wait until the great minds at Dyson can dream up a wirelessly-powered or rechargeable Dyson.

Wired: Tiny, tiny Dyson; same big suction.

Tired: Show-stopping short cable.

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Muppets Gearing Up For Their Big Screen Return

Image via Entertainment Weekly, credit Andrew Macpherson/© The Muppets Studio, LLC

Okay, so a frog, a bear and an actor are sitting around a table…

Entertainment Weekly has a peek at the next Muppet movie online and in a two-page print spread shared by ComingSoon.net.

The brief piece on the movie – one working title is The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made, judging by some news coverage this summer — describes what sounds like a fun mix of new takes and old Jim Henson-style meta-fun. Take the new guy, Walter, for example: He’s obviously a Muppet in our world, but in his world, he’s a human, and he’s also a huge fan of “The Muppets.” (And yes, he’s toting what looks like an iPhone — I bet those felt fingers keep that screen shiny like you wouldn’t believe.)

Written by Jason Segel — Marshall on How I Met Your Mother, among other roles — and Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller, the next Muppet movie is being directed by Flight of the Conchords co-creator James Bobin, and it’s due for a Christmas 2011 release.

Wakka-wakka!

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GeekDad Puzzle Of The Week Solution: Halloween Candy Bartering

Image by Matt Blank used under Creative Commons

Greetings fellow crunchers of numbers, which is healthier than crunching all that candy ! This weeks winner of the $50.00 ThinkGeek gift certificate was Tim Quinn who correctly figured out:

  • Mikey brought 7 pieces of candy
  • Johnny had 11 pieces of candy
  • Frankie had 21 pieces of candy

Lets take a look at the problem again:

Problem:
Every year on November First three Trick or Treaters meet to trade part of their Halloween candy. They always sit around a table with their pieces of candy and begin wheeling and dealing. Here’s the way it went this year

  • Johnny said to Mikey “I’ll give you six pieces of chocolate for one of your peanut butter cups, then you’ll have twice as many pieces of candy as I have.”
  • Frankie told Johnny “I’ll give you fourteen pieces of candy corn for a peanut butter cup then you’ll have three times as many pieces of candy than me.”
  • “Not so fast,” Mikey said to Frankie, “I’ll give you four gummy worms for a peanut butter cup then you’ll have six times as much candy as me”

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Dork Tower Friday

Dork Tower 891

Dork Tower #891 by John Kovalic

Read all the Dork Towers that have run on GeekDad.

Find the Dork Tower webcomic archives, DT printed collections, more cool comics, awesome games and a whole lot more at the Dork Tower Website.

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Celebrate the Second Annual Carl Sagan Day Tomorrow!

Carl Sagan with a model of the Viking lander
Image via Wikipedia

Centered around what would have been his 76th birthday (November 9), this year we celebrate Carl Sagan Day on November 6 — that is, tomorrow. This is the second year that people have organized activities surrounding this holiday. Inspired by the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, Carl Sagan’s curiosity about the natural world and later the universe took him on an amazing journey of his own, not the least of which was his television series, Cosmos.

So, this year, learn a bit about what Carl Sagan accomplished and taught us. He contributed much more than I had realized. The Center for Inquiry’s website has more information on who Carl Sagan was, what he did and a list of ways to celebrate. Facebook also has a page for the day. Even Wikipedia has a very extensive entry. How will you celebrate Carl Sagan Day?

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The New Hess Truck is Coming — And We’re Giving One Away!

It’s been a holiday tradition for my son to get a Hess Toy Truck under the Christmas tree every year. 2004 was a SUV with twin motorcycles in the back, 2005 was a firetruck with another firetruck inside, 2006 was flatbed truck with helicopter, 2007 was a monster truck with motorcycles, 2008 was cargo truck with front end loader inside, and 2009 was one of the few time it was not a truck.

They are still some of his favorite toys. My daughter is also a big fan. She is is fascinated with the 2009 model’s car within a car.

What’s it going to be this year? A truck and a jet!

The Truck goes on sale November 12 at participating Hess and Hess Express retail stores, retailing for $25.99 plus tax (Energizer® batteries included). I’m sure Hess wouldn’t mind you filling up your gas tank while you’re there buying your truck.

You can find more info on the Hess Toy Truck Website and on the Hess Toy Truck Facebook Page.

If you are a fan of the Hess toy trucks, you could win one.  Leave a comment on this post and make sure to include your email address. We will arrange for one to be sent to the lucky winner. In order to be eligible, your comment must be submitted by November 10, 2010.

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The Goonies 25th Anniversary: The Great Treasure Hunt

  • By Z Email Author
  • November 5, 2010  | 
  • 9:30 am  | 
  • Categories: Videos

Tuesday, November 2nd was a day of monumental importance for many Americans. No, not because of the elections — rather, it marked the release of The Goonies 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition on Blu-ray and DVD.

In anticipation of this most sacred arrival, a special press event was held late last month at the Warner Bros. lot. A number of the original film’s cast and crew members were in attendance including notables like Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, Ke Wuan and Richard Donner. Check out the embedded video below for event impressions and special recollections, and keep your one good eye right here at GeekDad for a forthcoming review of the newly re-mastered version of this beloved childhood classic.

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Sweet Geek Cuisine: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Magrathea Cake

Ruth Suehle over at GeekMom gives a step-by-step recipe for this perfectly geeky (and surprisingly easy) cake:

If you’ve got a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fan with a birthday coming up, this Magrathea whale cake is easy to make, even if you don’t have much cake decorating experience. Don’t panic!

[Read the whole article over at our companion site, GeekMom!]

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2010 GeekDad Holiday Gift Guide #1

Pumpkins have been mulched, scary tombstones have been put back into storage; Halloween is over. That can mean only one thing! GeekDad’s annual Gift Guide extravaganza is back. Once again we’ll be featuring seven weekly guides chock full of geeky present ideas. And as always, if you don’t see anything you like, be sure to peruse previous years’ gift guides.


Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS
The Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS is the biggest and baddest Nerf blaster of the year, a rapid-firing colossus that is guaranteed to win any cubicle war. All types of Clip System magazines work well with the Stampede. Using the 6-shot clips found in most CS Nerf guns is silly, but fortunately you get three 18-shot clips with the Stampede. Plus, as you can see from the photo, the monster 35-dart drum from the Nerf Raider works as well! But you’ll have to buy that one separately. The Stampede packs a lot of accessories and the rail mounts to accommodate even more. My favorite attachment is the bipod/foregrip, which you can see in the photo with the bipod telescoped inside the handle. In addition, the Stampede’s tactical rails are compatible with all standard Nerf sights and lights.* Buy it on Amazon


Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber Replica (by Hasbro)
By far the most authentic and enjoyable light saber replica out there. The hilt is realistically detailed — though none of the buttons and indicators do anything, except for the power button. The removable blade is a durable plastic with a string of LEDs within that light up from the bottom up, reminiscent of a movie saber extending. Sound effects are excellent, with a motion sensor giving you authentic saber noises when you wave it around. Even better, a knock sensor knows when you’ve hit something, and gives you a saber-on-saber noise. Each blade comes with a display stand, and the Darth Maul saber also packs a connector so you can buy two weapons and… oh, you know.* Buy it on ThinkGeek


Lego Slave 1
Magnificent 573-brick recreation of Boba Fett’s ship, released for the 30th anniversary of the Empire Strikes Back. It’s a complicated, finicky build that will challenge even the most jaded builder, and it’ll look great on your bookshelf. The awesomest part of the set is the excellent minifig Boba Fett, the lizardman bounty hunter Bossk, and Episode V Han Solo who you can totally put into carbonate. Think of the scenes you could act out! Leia: “I love you, Han!” Han: “Yeah, dude, I totally know.” Boba Fett: “Awesome!” Buy it on ThinkGeek

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Kinect Sports Table Tennis is Surprisingly Accurate

As you may have gather from my obsessing over Wii-Sports Resort table tennis and the recent Sports Champion table tennis on PS3, I’m something of a ping pong fan. The sport brings that magical mix of deft touch and accuracy that is perfect for a video game. Although I play in real life, with a young family I’ve appreciated being able to play with friends on the Wii or PS3 when they come over for an evening.

With Kinect coming out, I’ve been itching to try out Kinect Sports table tennis addition to the table tennis pantheon. The last few days I’ve been lucky enough to put the game through it’s paces. Here’s how it looks after a few days – the short story here is that it is much better than you would expect:

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports

I really wasn’t expecting all that much from Kinect Sports table tennis – after all Kinect is about tracking limbs rather than hands. But I’ve been more than a little surprised by Rare’s motion controlled sports collection – and their Table Tennis delivery in particular.

Getting started with Kinect was simplicity itself. The camera is powered and adjusts itself to ensure the best view of you. Any calibration and setup is seamless – much easier and less problematic than the sometimes fussy Move, although not quite as instant as the Wii. And controlling the 360 with just your voice is eerily fun – and more importantly means you don’t have to pick up a controller even before or after the game, a frustration with PS3’s Move experience.

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports

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