My grandmother Esther turns 90 (shhh, don’t tell her!) years old today. She can still drive, gets her hair done every week and has two (soon to be three) great-grandchildren. I am so happy for her and hope there will be many more!

With her husband, Howard.

I recently attended the above mentioned event, hosted here in Budapest for the first time in 25 years, and was happily dumbfounded by the impressive array of skills on display. The strongest contending teams were from the U.S., Japan, and of course Hungary, but more than a dozen countries were represented, some by only one competitor.

The winner of the 3×3x3 “classic” cube was Yu Nakajima of Japan, with an average (of five attempts) in the final of 12.46 seconds. American Andrew Kang finished second (13.05) and fellow nihonjin Mitsuki Gunji finished third (13.05). World records: Hungarian Mátyás Kuti 5×5 1:45.07 (average), 3×3 multiple blindfolded 15 cubes in 46:17, 4×4 blindfolded 6:12.32 (not to mention placing in the top three in almost every other category), Ryan Patricio 3×3 one-handed 21.13 (average), Lukasz Cialon 2×2 3.91 (average), Erik Akkersdijk Megaminx 1:17.46 (single) 1:19.16 (average).

Perhaps the most mind-boggling feat (though not witnessed by me) was the solving of a 5×5x5 cube blindfolded(!!) by an 11-year-old kid from India named Bernett Orlando, who was the only competitor to finish, at a time of 55:39. Just imagine trying to solve something exponentially more complex than the original cube, entirely without looking at it, puzzling in the dark for nearly an hour. Hats off Bernett! Also incredible was Kuti’s solving of 15 consecutive cubes blindfolded, setting a new world record.

The seclusive Ernő Rubik was in attendance for the anniversary event, and presented several awards. He looks a little like Mr. Spock.

Although I’m sure the tension was pretty high among the (mostly boys) there to compete, the actual competition is a bit anti-climactic, as most categories have several rounds and are based on an average of times. In the audience sat supporters and teammates, often fiddling with their own weird puzzles, or timing themselves with a friend. The coolest thing I saw was at the after party (they hit the Coca Cola pretty hard, those boys), where members of different teams were pairing off and competing informally among themselves, with one person solving the cube with their eyes closed (without looking at it first, which is how it works in the official competition) and the other telling them how to solve it. With spider-like fingers dancing, you can see the gears turning very quickly in their young minds.

Here’s a video (unfortunately in Hungarian) with a good picture of what went down. Peep the “Cubinator” robot at the end - you give it a messed up cube to solve and it even talks trash while solving it! Its “face” looks a bit like my favorite rapper, MF DOOM.