{"id":33683,"date":"2022-04-29T12:35:07","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T17:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33683"},"modified":"2022-04-29T12:38:44","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T17:38:44","slug":"cubers-are-a-cowardly-and-superstitious-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33683","title":{"rendered":"Cubers Are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I was in the office yesterday, and I had two boxes of product waiting for me. There was some interesting stuff in those boxes, like <i>Thor<\/i> #750 and <a href=\"https:\/\/daytonward.wordpress.com\/2022\/04\/19\/jurassic-world-the-official-cookbook\/\">Dayton Ward&#8217;s just-released <i>Jurassic World<\/i> cookbook<\/a>. There was also&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I ordered a toy off the liquidation list at work. It&#39;s fine. It&#39;s less interesting than I thought it would be.<\/p>&mdash; Allyn Gibson (@allyngibson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/allyngibson\/status\/1519838421413507074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 29, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A toy. Yes, a toy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That toy? Bandai&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bandai.com\/products\/charaction-cube-dc-comics-batman-pre-order-now\/\">Batman Rubik&#8217;s Charaction Cube<\/a>, part chibi collectible figure, part Rubik&#8217;s Cube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-fullwidth is-style-scotch-tape\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/STL191572-1200x1200.jpg\" alt=\"The Batman Charaction Cube, part Rubik's Cube, part action figure\" class=\"wp-image-33682\"\/><figcaption>Part Rubik&#8217;s Cube, part collectible figure, the Batman Charaction Cube is Gotham City&#8217;s newest speed-cubing champion.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, it&#8217;s not especially interesting as a Rubik&#8217;s Cube. You can&#8217;t do anything with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fundamentally, the <i>Batman Charaction Cube<\/i> is a 2&#215;2 Rubik&#8217;s Cube. (I think they call that the Pocket Cube these days.) There&#8217;s the head and there&#8217;s the body &#8212; two layers. There&#8217;s the front and the back &#8212; two layers. But down the middle? Only the body is fully split; the front of Batman&#8217;s head isn&#8217;t split while the back is. Split the head, front and back, and it&#8217;s a 2x2x2 cube in the shape of a chibi Batman figure. Don&#8217;t split part of the head, and, while you can swivel the parts around, you can&#8217;t truly scramble Batman.  It lacks the full three axes of movement a Rubik&#8217;s Cube needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe the product meeting was all, &#8220;Let&#8217;s make it difficult to mess up so a collector can&#8217;t scramble it and end up with something they don&#8217;t know how to solve and doesn&#8217;t look much like Batman.&#8221; Preventing Batman&#8217;s face from being turned on one axis certainly accomplishes that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, it&#8217;s a far less interesting product than it could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I took it out of the plastic package when I got home last night and gave it a couple of turns. I turned the legs so their fronts were behind Batman&#8217;s head. I turned one leg out. I turned it all back to its starting point. I put it back in the package. Except for the fact the tape is cut, it could be new off the shelf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It didn&#8217;t cost me a lot &#8212; it was on a liquidation sale &#8212; so I don&#8217;t feel like I&#8217;m out anything, but it&#8217;s a novelty at best, not a puzzle. This could have been better. <i>So<\/i> much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was in the office yesterday, and I had two boxes of product waiting for me. There was some interesting stuff in those boxes, like Thor #750 and Dayton Ward&#8217;s just-released Jurassic World cookbook. There was also&#8230; A toy. Yes, a toy. That toy? Bandai&#8217;s Batman Rubik&#8217;s Charaction Cube, part chibi collectible figure, part Rubik&#8217;s<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33683\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Cubers Are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5065,5066,89,5067,4639],"class_list":["post-33683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-bandai","tag-bandai-america","tag-batman","tag-charaction-cube","tag-rubiks-cube","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}