RV pass time? SCRUBLE scrambles your mind and your letters

"If an earthquake caused your Rubik’s Cube to crash into your Scrabble board, the SCRUBLE Cube would be the result of the mix-up. SCRUBLE Cube is mind twisting word game that anyone who can spell, can play. And, its unique one-piece design makes it convenient to bring along with you to play at anytime in anyplace. Rather than just placing letters on a board or lining up colors on a cube, SCRUBLE Cube brings new excitement to these classic games."

So says the press release on the SCRUBLE Cube. Sounds kind of interesting, huh? We thought so, and the folks at SCRUBLE send us one to play around with. If you're into a calculator workout, here's the math on the cube: There are 7,401 septillion possible combinations on the cube--did I mention you'll need a scientific calculator? With those billions of road miles that RVers drive down the road each year, we figured that SCRUBLE's septillions of combinations might make the miles just shrink in scale.

We trotted our copy of SCRUBLE out to a group of road travelers one afternoon. Tossed to an unsuspecting subject, he took the cube, eyeballed it for a while; flipped the rows this way and that, and after we explained the purpose, tossed it back. "Remember," he drawled, "I only completed 7th grade." Maybe nobody else in the group wanted to show off as everybody else demurred an opportunity to come up with the latest entries for the New World Dictionary.

Undeterred, we asked yet another group of RVers to take the cube with them and try it out on the more "cultured" group up in Portland. Oregon, not Maine, the the land of "tree hugging, french-fry-dipping-in-tartar-sauce, everybody's at least got a BA" Portland. We didn't hear anything for months. Finally a report: Our field testers found the SCRUBLE, "Interesting to look at, and an intriguing idea," but a bit complicated in terms of moves and rules. "We adjusted some of the rules and simplified it by restricting some of the moves and that seemed to move the game on a bit." Still, it was not an unqualified hit.

SCRUBLE Cube will indeed while away the time for the folks that are into intense Scrabble or who are mechanically adept and can deconstruct and rebuild the SCRUBLE cube so it reads, antidisestablishmentarianism or floccinaucinihilipilification. You'll find SCRUBLE Cube at Barnes and Noble and FAO Schwartz.

A video shows more at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26JWYbKnNA.