I liked the bit at the end of that Daily Mail article about the MP3 file that’s supposed to silence the vuvuzelas through active noise cancellation. I doubt it will work, but I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the person who is offering it.
Vuvuzela? It’s the same loud plastic horn that people blow at sporting events here (known as “that fucking horn the guy behind me is blowing my eardrums out with”).
ETA: I finally looked up some video to see what all the hullaballoo is about. Holy shit, is that annoying!
I don’t. And I think if anyone turns up with a vuvuzela in a European ground, they will be blowing it thru their ass!
Sounds like utter twaddle to me too - it must surely have to be reactive to the actual waveform to cancel the noise… but yeah, clever marketing.
I do find them fucking irritating but yet they do add something unique and atmospheric to the proceedings. I can’t see how it would be difficult to ban them at the gate if they really cared - they’re not exactly easy to hide.
I don’t know about that, isn’t the US a frontrunner for the 2018/2022 vote that’s coming up in December? We last hosted in 1994, which is within living memory for most of the nation’s soccer fans.
When I was a kid, I kept one hidden away that I used when sneaking up behind my parents.
The next likely sub-Saharan African host would be (IMO) Nigeria, which is already very unlikely to host the games due to serious infrastructure problems (Ghana is another possibility but I don’t think they could ever raise the funds for any upgrades). South Africa will be(is already) a success, but it will be a long time until any other African state can pull off something similar. Vuvuzelas mean jack in the large picture.
Egypt is my best bet for next African host of the world cup. They have a great team and have already hosted the Nations cup four times.
Just found a guide on how to use them.
And you made it to adulthood? Impressive.
What’s the Egyptian cultural noisemaker? Tubas?
The US has submitted a bid. Front-runner is a bit strong, IMO. I strongly suspect Qatar will get one of the two just because there’s never been a Middle Eastern World Cup host, and that the other will go to England (not since '66) or Russia (who’ve also never had one).
Don’t forget Morocco. They’ve bid 7 different times, and finished second to South Africa in the voting for the current Cup. Of course, they’re not sub-Saharan.
Crumbling grandeur.
I was lucky. My parents were older, so they didn’t have as much energy to spare trying to catch me as younger parents would have.
To me it sounds like driving on a tined concrete road. Fortunately, we don’t have such roads where I live now.
I don’t know, but it had better not be that Bangles song.
And they might have begun losing their hearing a bit…
Well you got that they’re formations. Apart from that, pretty poorly.
I only noticed the buzzing this morning since a match was on instead of SportCenter. At first I thought it was just something temporary, but then it became kind of creepy because it just sounded like a swarm of insects. Worse, as an American who generally doesn’t care about the sport, it made it even more difficult to find any interest in what was going on, not just because it was creepy, but because there was no variation in the reaction the crowd based on the action on the field.
Personally, I don’t really care much, but I can see it hurting television viewership here in the US, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually gets muffled out by ABC.
I flipped the WC on to see how bad it was – fortunately the commentator was louder, but damn, that’s annoying. South Africa wasn’t even PLAYING. (It was Cameroon vs. Japan). Hell, they showed highlights from the Netherlands playing Denmark and those damned things were STILL buzzing. WTF!!!
Like someone said, I can see blowing on them if your team scores, but during the entire game? And not just that, but during announcements and fucking national anthems? How rude can you get?
And selling “ear plugs” is not the answer? Why should others have to wear ear plugs just because you can’t be considerate?
(“South Africa’s Cup” my ass. That’s like saying that the this year’s Winter Olympics were “Canada’s Olympics” because they were held in Vancouver. :rolleyes:)
I got that email too.
Part of the enjoyment is hearing crowd reactions when a signifcant play, good or bad, occurs. With all that buzzing, I don’t hear any of it and the whole match goes flat.