watching people watching 2 girls 1 cup

Slate has a collection of videos featuring people's reactions to viewing the infamous 2 girls 1 cup video. I thought it was awesome. And no, I still haven't watched the video myself. And no, I'm not going to post a video of myself watching it for the first time, though now that I've thought of the idea, I might have to do this. Damn. I thought I was going to be able to get out of watching this.

This reminds me of a conversation I was having with a college friend of mine yesterday. He's been chilling in the backwoods of Morocco for two years doing Peace Corps stuff. His life sounds like the polar opposite of mine. When I asked him what he does with his time there, his reply was "read a little, write a little. sleep a full night. cooking. hanging out at the corner store. take a walk. find some man on the other side of town takes an hour." Apparently he sleeps nine hours a night and twelve is not uncommon. So zen, he plans nothing in advance: "I asked a guy if he could make some deserts we like today and he said something like "god makes all things" which isn't true."

A thought struck me--holy christ, this friend of mine has never touched the glory that is the iPhone. And even more incredible, to me, he didn't know what a lolcat was. I sent him some links and he was incredibly confused. Then came the most disturbing part of the conversation...

s: we are looking at these. and dont really get them.
i do like the one with the cat food. what is this stuff? this is really odd. i thought i was like "cutting edge" to download the new timbaland.
x: it's like, a geeky internet meme
it was my favorite thing in the world for like six months
s: yeah. i figured it was exactly that. which is cool. but that stuff passes us completely. and part of me is like "gosh I really wish I was in on that" and part of me is like "bfd". I kinda feel the same way about the pres campaign, which as you know, is unlike me.
x: oh there will be many many years to be in on that
you'll never get the magic of lolcats, which is a huge loss
but on the upside, you don't have any idea what britney spears is up to
which is a blessing
s: o no. we follow that dumb shit.
x: ugh, seriously?
s: she shaved her head, went to "a place to relax", claimed she was the antichrist, her sister is knocked up, got a tattoo, lost her kids. this stuff, we follow.
x: wow. i find it sad that even in the backwoods of morocco you can't escape this crap
s: this crap, we follow and gossip about. its not that we cant escape, i think its that we like to gossip and its the easiest crap to follow with no deep reasoned discussions of policy

Which is a good point but is there no place in the world to hide?

mad knitting skillz--i has dem

Mad skillz is probably an overstatement. I learned to knit a while ago, and have recently picked up the sticks again to knit scarves for homeless people with a group my friend founded. The picture above is the three scarves that I am waiting to bring to the group when we meet this week. Since I've been recently struck down with a strange illness that makes me too exhausted to do much of anything, I've been knitting a LOT. Usually while obsessing over the Democratic primary elections with (yumm) Anderson Cooper.

Seriously, what is wrong with me? I set out to write a blog post about knitting and politics and I still end up veering towards sex.

Pre-Coachella Homework, Friday

The announcement of the Coachella lineup and tons of new full tracks on last.fm coincided so I've been listening to some new (to me) bands from Friday, but before I talk about that, my first impressions of Friday were that I was absolutely stoked to see...

The National would otherwise strike me as fairly generic, but Slow Show is an amazing track. Stars is my favorite Canadian indie rock band evah! Battles--hooray for math rock! Aesop Rock put out an amazing album last year, Jens Lekman is so damned endearing. Dan Deacon rocked my socks off when he opened for Girl Talk in September. Diplo strikes me as poor man's Girl Talk, but I'll take it.

Unfamiliar stuff I'll be looking forward to checking out at the festival:
Mum - I no longer hold the opinion that IDM is a sourge that should be wiped from the planet, and this is pretty dope. After listening to the entire album--really dope.
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - Funk is awesome. The fact that only 30 second samples are available here and I have to put on my pirate hat to sample this stuff is not.
Busy P - Daft Punk's manager? Wow. Must download more.