Glieuaeiel's DJ

Fitness with Laci

Just when I think Laci's video is over, a bonus clip starts, showing her trying out a cardio fitness class. For example, one of the exercises is something like the following: Start from a standing position with your legs fairly wide apart. Then crouch into a lunge position facing your right side while bringing your right elbow across your body to touch the ground on the left side of your right foot. Then on the next beat, straighten up again. The tempo is quite fast, so I discover to my surprise that it's actually quite a difficult workout. I also discover upon closer examination of my form that I'm not quite doing the step right. Oops. Meanwhile, Laci is laughing about how exhausting the workout is, and after a few short clips showcasing different steps, the video ends on a joking note as she accidentally drops one of the weights that the class is using to work out.

3-D Go

My parents and I run into two girls about my age and their mothers. They're all new to Go so we decide to try a team game. For one of the girls, this will be her very first game, or thereabouts. One of the mothers, an Asian one, shows us the board she brought. It looks to me like it has more than 19 rows, so I try to count them. The count comes up fine, so I guess my visual estimation skills are just a bit off. Anyway, we start playing the game using colored Legos on one of those green base plates. My team is white, and the adults are playing red. The newbie girl keeps trying to play in the upper left, but it becomes clear after a few moves that Red is setting up a very strong framework in that area.

"Stop that!" I say, the next time she tries to play in that area. I feel a bad about snapping, so I try to recover by turning it into a teaching moment. I explain about frameworks. I'm not sure she entirely gets it, but she doesn't argue, or anything.

Once, she moves one of her previously placed pieces before putting down a new one. At first I assume she's just tacitly taking back her previous move, and I don't say anything, though it makes me uncomfortable. But later I wonder if she just didn't know that in Go you can't move pieces once they've been placed on the board.

At times during the course of the game, I turn back to the board to find that a more or less intricate Lego construction has appeared in the middle of it. For example, once, a rectangular green tower of about twenty (Lego) stories appears. Someone tries to take it by removing the last liberty at its base, but I point out that they should have to remove all the liberties for every story and the top, since really it's all just one big group. But then the second girl, the more experienced one, points out that that's not usually what you need to do for one-story groups. For those, you just need to take the liberties on the sides. I realize she's right.

At other times, cutesie farmhouses or tessellated color patterns appear. These are clearly the work of the newbie, and they're interfering with the game. I don't think she understands the point of Go at all. Eventually I get fed up and declare, "I give up on this game." I sweep my pieces into a bag and stalk upstairs. Maybe they'll try to continue without me, but in any case it's good riddance.

Upstairs, I dump out my pieces and try to sort them by color. It's going to take a while, because there are several biggish structures that use a lot of different colors in alternation.

At one point, I notice that I can make some cool percussion sounds with the Legos, so I do some one-man-band improv using the Legos, my voice, and any other noisemakers I can find. I think it turns out to be pretty neat. It's not exploring any new territory, musically, but it's got a pretty nice groove. The only person watching is my Mom, doing something in the kitchen, but she doesn't say anything.