She's back....with a brainwave!

Not that anyone ever reads these things, but for the whole two people in the world that do, My apologies for such a long time between posts.  Sadly that work thing got in the way of the puzzle thing.  But not to worry, she's here for a bit and has a few puzzles to chat about.

Today's puzzle was purchased through Creative Crafthouse.  This one is called "Brainwave" and is a nice little challenge for those in between times when you've nothing better to spend your time on.  

This puzzle came to me in a box with about 6 others that I'll eventually get around to writing about.  Now as you can see above, 5 of the bits came unglued.  Not a big deal and it was a 2 second fix.  I have a feeling that the puzzles just didn't like traveling to Florida and then to Hong Kong, and I'm pretty sure that the postman on one end or the other enjoyed playing with it before it got to me because this was enclosed in a ziplock bag and I just know it wasn't sent that way.  (Now you wouldn't thing the company would send them that way would you? Seriously, all the others are vacuum sealed in a type of crispy plastic so I know this one was mucked with by someone along the postal route.)  

So what is the puzzle?  You need to put each color so that it is not twice in a row diagonal or horizontal.  Easy enough.  But if you look carefully at those little bits you will notice that each side has a different color on it.  So now the difficulty has been upped.  Both sides need to meet that criteria.  So it's a lot of back and forth on the left and right side of the brain.  (Very much unlike my brain-I only use one side at a time, if that!)  

I also want to add that I just love the tray on the bottom.  It's a great little place to store those pieces.  Most puzzles of this type don't think of in play storage places.  It kept me from loosing pieces while I was playing.  Overall, I like the look of the puzzle and the work that has gone into it.  Very nicely done.  My only complaint?  I would have liked to have been able to pull the head out of the tray for easy storage.  Because those bits are so small, I have it stored in a drawstring bag, but had to go buy a bigger one to fit the puzzle in.  Not a major problem, but a bit of a hassle that it didn't fit into my usual puzzle storage bag.  

I must admit, I got frustrated by this one and put it in a bag and placed it on the shelf.  I played it through my usual afternoon of testing and didn't manage to solve it.  And then I headed off for a conference and there went the puzzling. I've actually put this in my bag to take into the office so I have something to keep me focused through the coming weeks.  And maybe, just maybe I can get one or two of my colleagues to give it a go as well.....