Vuvuzelas

If you have watched the World Cup you are familiar with vuvuzelas. They are those long long trumpet like instruments that produce that annoying sound during the matches. You know... they sound like you are getting uncomfortably close to a thousand bee hives or to at least three hundred dying elephants.

If you thought that Hello Kitty products were stupid, the vuvuzela opens a new chapter in that area. All thanks to a guy called Neil van Schalkwyk, 37, who hated the world because nobody could pronounce his name three times in a row. He wanted to get even and invented this meter-long plastic horn.

He was a professional soccer player when he was a teen in Cape Town and it is then when he paid attention to a tin can trumpet that was played to celebrate a goal (he only scored one goal in his life and that could be the reazon for the hate). As he was working in a plastics factory, he decided to mass produce the so called instrument. Vuvuzela comes from the Zulu word for "shower", due to its appearance.

The rest is history. He started mass production and his product has made it into the World Cup stadiums and Mr. Schalkwyk has already been approached by people from Russia and Brazil to have enough product for their International Sports Events to come. People who attend the matches claim that its sound is a disaster as it ruins the stadium atmosphere, disturbs the players concentration (that is one of the reasons Mexico lost against Argentina, otherwise the final score makes no sense) and causes hearing damage.

A vuvuzela costs 30 South African rand, that is like $4.00 US. But not all vuvuzelas are the same. 75% of the so called instruments sold are knock-offs. The one produced by Neil is the "official FIFA approved" one. Mr. Schalkwyk claims that you will get "vuvuzela lip" if you don't use one of his versions. He has made 7 million of them out of which one million is profit (I guess the rest is...taxes?, because we know its not labor).

Between the unhappy people (that is, all of us) is a lady called Yvonne Mayer, 29, who apparently left unable to speak or to eat for two days after she blew her vuvuzela too hard in the streets of Cape Town and has taken him to court seeking damages. Now the new and improved version takes stride toward consumer safety. The new vuvuzela peaks at 13 decibels lower than the original one and will break if used as a weapon as its made out of three pieces. The sound can reach 130 decibels, which is the sound you hear when somebody operates a chainsaw.

If you did not get your vuvuzela, don't worry. You still can get a similar sound at the Apple Store as there is an App for that, no kidding.

Spermatozombies Preservation 101

A great concern for zombies is to find a way to maintain their lineage for centuries to come. If you haven't noticed, zombies can reproduce quite well. We love our little zombies!

There are many ways to keep producing little zombies that will carry our names for generations and generations. Obviously, the most popular one is to make baby zombies right away (for that you will ned a female-zombie, but you knew that)... but sometimes we are way too busy right now to do so and we want to preserve our sperm for a later use. After all, we want to use our sperm when is at its highest quality level, so the genetic information is at its peak and we can go to sleep with ease knowing that our best qualities will be there when needed.

Thanks to contemporary technology, we can keep our sperm for later by going to specialized clinics where they will keep the best loads of our spermatozoids (called spermatozombies) by freezing them. Or that is the idea. But sometimes technology fails, like at the UBC's Andrology Lab, where the freezer experienced a power failure back in 2002 and rendered the sperm immotile and most likely destroyed their genetic material. In zombie words... the juice was spoiled!

When a fellow lawyer and frequent contributor of the Andrology Clinic heard the news, being a lawyer after all, decided to initiate a class action lawsuit against the renowned institution by arguing negligence and seeking damages of between $20,000 to $100,000 for each of the donors. Those deposits are expensive, you know!

After failing his first attempt at the regular corner-store Court, he decided to appeal and went to the Provincial Supreme Court and was granted his day in court. 160 happy sperm donor zombies are mega happy. I tried to put my name down on that list, but seems that they actually kept a donors list (boomer!). I tried to donate, but they are not taking donations right now (double boomer!).

The zombie-sperm freezer failed on May 24th, 2002 when the supply of electricity was interrupted when an inadequate circuit breaker tripped. As everybody knows, sperm can be kept in pristine condition by storing it at a temperature below -130 degrees celsius (so if you are keeping it in your home freezer you are just wasting your time... and your sperm, so, don't be cheapo).

The freezer was purchased by UBC in July 1987 and was intended for Kidney Research, but the people form UBC soon discovered that there was more money to be made by keeping sperm than for kidney related studies. They have learned that they can make more money out of kidney patients just by keeping them on dialysis.

At the end of the day, a lesson is here to be learned. Use your sperm right away or face the horrible possibility of loosing your name for future generations to come. Don't keep your sperm on your own freezer and, if you take your little swimmers to a Freezing Clinic, make sure they have an emergency power generator. I am sure that UBC's lawyers will find a way to blame the negligence of the actual donors. I, for one, just want the cash.

Who is your Boss?

My friend went to japan and took this picture. Good question... do you really know who is your boss?. Mine is my wife, that I know (I have seen her without the mask, scary stuff).

Zombies don't pay taxes

Being a Zombie sometimes can be a drag but also has its advantages, for example, if you are a zombie you don't have to pay taxes, as you are not a "person" according to the Income Tax Act.

To make a point, a fellow Canadian zombie (oh, those Canadians!) has argued in court that he was not a person as defined under the Income Tax Act, so he shouldn't have to pay taxes. In the other hand, the court wants to convict him on five counts of failing to file income tax returns for five years. He was sentenced to 150 days in jail and fined $5,000.

This highly respected zombie appealed his convictions and his sentence by arguing that he did not meet the legal definition as a person. Legally, a person is 1) a human being. 2) A corporation treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. He defines himself as a full liability free will flesh and blood living man, which does not match the legal definition of a man.

He maintains that anyone has the right to render oneself a non "person" for purposes of the statue, and thereby render oneself not subject to the Act. He calls himself the Unlicensed Man and tours the country giving seminars on what he refers as the Tax Freedom Movement. He maintains that taxation is theft.

He was given 90 days to pay the fine and failure to pay it will result in further jail time.

Where this good fellow failed is to actually acknowledge that he is a simple zombie. He did not noticed the fact that zombies are tax-free entities, as we don't fit the definition of a "person" as per the Tax Act. Being a zombie has its advantages!

Lovely Evening. Zombie likes...

Music Education

A good friend of mine, Amado Nervo wrote way back in the early nineteen hundreds an interesting article titled "Piano: an expensive taste". It goes something like this:
"To have a music teacher now a days is a must. Of course being a piano teacher (remember that the piano was the most popular music instrument in the 1900s society) is a good business. Think about it, if the teacher is a regular not-known-teacher, he will charge you between 16 to 20 pesos a month for his lessons. If the teacher has some sort of name or recognition, then he will charge you between 8 to 10 pesos per lesson.

If we consider that a young lady will study something like eight years the piano -an average-, and that her family will be paying, let's say 20 pesos a month, then we know that her family is investing $1,920 pesos for teacher fees plus $1,200 pesos for a regular piano. That is, just for the first young girl. Usually a good family is going to have have at least three daughters.

If we think that actually the average family has three daughters, then we know that they will be spending something like $6,960 pesos in music education. If we make a simple calculation, taking into account that there are around 40,000 young women in Mexico now a days, we easily can figure it out that their families will be spending $2, 784, 400,000 pesos (remember those are 1900s silver made pesos).

Now, after eight years of investment, what do we have?. Out of those 40,000 enthusiastic girls, 39,000 are just boxing against the piano. We have one thousand left. Out of these thousand, 950 will torment their neighbours -and friends- with the same tune, played over and over, as that is all they can do.

We have 50 left, 40 of which will play something semi-descent, like Schumann or an easy Chopin piece. No hearth, no passion. Just notes played like a perfectly timed machine. That give us ten young women left. Are those going to become great artists? Would they be able to understand the depth and profound meaning of the pieces they will be playing? Let's say yes, just to be optimistic.

Now, let's do some basic math: the cost for the education of each one of these ten potential good piano players is something like 27 million pesos each. 27 million!

Out of those ten, I can assure you, it exists the possibility of ONE being a great pianist. ONE."

Does that math seems familiar for a contemporary society?

I would continue writing but I have to go to my son's Summer Music Concert at the Secondary. Good grief.

*Note: a peso in the 1900s was made out of .903 silver and was a large coin. Lots of $$$$ for today's economy.

To lie or not to lie

According to a University of Toronto's research, kids who can lie early in life are more likely to succeed later in life, because fibbing requires a higher level of  manipulative thinking and creativity. Most male zombies (not me, of course) will tell at least three lies a day and female-zombies will say two. This has been scientifically proven by the brainiacs of the London's Science Museum, mostly run by female zombies by the way, that is... if they were saying the truth.

So, next time your little zombie is telling you that that dubbie is not hers (or his) or that he (or she) is keeping if for a friend, just think that you are actually talking to the next big CEO of a multinational company or the guy who will take care of you when you get old. Be proud.

A Zombie with an ability

This zombie has the ability of being at the same place, at the same time, many many times. Not a multitasking zombie but a multi-appereance zombie. He likes jeans ( a true zombie).

Argentinian-Chilean-Mexican Zombie

Zombies love Jumbo size everything

Zombies like to jumbo-size  everything. We love to jumbo-size fries, pop corn and hamburgers. We also like jumbo jets, jumbo deals and jumbo size breasts. Jumbo is good. Size matters no matter what odd people say.

I came across with the gossip about where did all this JUMBO craziness started. It was 1861, a Tuesday I believe. Noonish. Some Arab traders captured a cute 2-year-old African elephant calf on the plains of Abyssinia (google-map it), actually very near where my coffee-drinking-goat was born. As they didn't know what to do with it, they sold it to a European animal collector (not to be confused with a animal behaved tax collector). The cute elephant's name was JUMBO, name given by the Zulu to a large package or parcel (jumba). Jumbo was big as he weighed about half a ton and was five feet tall.

By 1880, I think on a Tuesday also (coincidence) the showman P.T. Barnum was looking for a star for his already famous Bailey Circus, which by then was in possession of the London Zoo. It took him about two years and a lot of dinner invitations to convince the Zoological Society of London to part with the animal, their most famous guest, for $10,000.

London zombies did not like the idea and an uproar started, you guessed right... in London. Queen Victoria was upset also and demonstrated her point of view by not lifting her pinkie at tea-time. I recall that Mark called me (yes...Mark Twain) and said "Jamrach said it was no use to think about it; that Jumbo was as popular as the Prince of Wales and the Zoo wouldn't dare to sell him; all England would be outraged at the idea; Jumbo was an English institution; he was part of the National glory; one might as well think of buying the Nelson monument"

I was about to ask Mark who this Jamrach guy was but he did not elaborate and I didn't want to interrupt him. He had a temper.

British zombies were very proud of their zoo collection. In Victorian England, the zoo represented the power of the Empire...of the British might. A London newspaper said at the time that Jumbo was a popular figure as well as an Imperial Symbol. Selling Jumbo was perceived as of a kind of treason, a betrayal of the public.

Sadly enough, Jumbo's destiny was even worse. His jumbo-size fame came to an end when at age 24, during a Circus tour to Canada, the animal was killed in a train accident. The sales of Thomas Alva Edison's "Jumbo" electric dynamos (that guy had a nose for publicity) went down. People were very upset.

Eventually Jumbo went back home (well...not home-home, but London) in the form of a taxidermic attraction and even after dead, gave inspiration to Walt Disney who named his cartoon cute elephant "Dumbo" . So now you know it.

Collateral Damage

Apple just announced that they are selling one iPad every 3 seconds. That is a success story, no doubt. But success comes with a price.
The iPad is manufactured in China by a Taipei based company called Foxconn. This company is the largest electronics contract manufacturer in the world. It makes iPhones, iPads but also it makes computer and computer parts for clients like Dell and HP, for example. They handle more than 250,000 workers at the Shenzhen complex (yes one quarter of a million zombies), which can not talk on the production line, bathroom breaks are kept to 10 minutes every two hours and workers are yelled at frequently.

So far this year 10 Foxconn workers have killed themselves. Apple has no explanation nor Foxconn. They wonder why. Mr. Gou, chairman of the board is perplexed. He won Apple's contract thanks to a zero profit deal to make the iPhone and iPad components. That strategy gave him a net income of 2.3 billion for 2009, a jump of 37 percent as he does not charge for the manufacturing of the components but charges to put them together. Good deal for him and for Apple.

Apple can not ditch Foxconn as they are doing a great job. If Apple does that, it could mean a disaster for the clean eco-friendly looking company. Two million units manufactured in less than 60 days is good business. The question remains in  their hands. What to do. For starters they just increased the zombie's salaries  a whooping 30%, so now a college graduate earns $293 US Dollars a month, twice as much as a line worker. They are not ready to look at the working environment conditions just yet. Workers live in dormitories, eight to ten people to a room, for example.

At the end, we get couple of amazing gadgets with a tremendous collateral damage and couple of companies are making millions. There is an App for that.