Felipe Contreras

I’m a fan of the WebbAlert show and finally Morgan mentioned the N810, with a very positive light

In this episode she is basically showing of some cool gadgets and comparing them.

Check it out.

I was looking at some Phillip De Franco post and due to some copyright he didn’t include the video. Fortunately he has a link to it on CNN, I just have to watch a couple of ads and then… nothing. I really hate to watch advertisements and not the content I want. Thanks to YouTube I could watch it, I’m not sure if it’s illegal or not, but I watched CNN’s ads anyway already.

That reminds of the constant ads I have to watch when I see some Colbert Report videos. I have almost memorized the same Doritos ad, at least the could try to put different ones to be less annoying. Oh, and I can’t find any Doritos on Finland, so it’s a waste of time for them and for me.

It also makes me think about DRM. A lot of companies put a lot of locks so you can’t download online videos, you need to watch their ads, or pay some money, or you can buy some music but you need a DRM capable player, which limits the platforms you can run that of.

Did these big companies missed the memo? Scarcity is over with digital content. Stop faking scarcity and just let me watch the content when I want it, where I want it, thank you.

For the record the day In Rainbows was released I tried to buy the thing, but I was too lazy to get my debit card, fill all those fields, get the notification e-mail and all that stuff. I got it from bittorrent, I listened to it and the next day I bought it online for 10 euros. I don’t like MP3’s but I don’t have any other option. When the album is available in CD format I’ll download the torrent in FLAC format from bittorrent.

Until a few years I have lived all my life in Mexico, then about one year in USA and now six months in Finland. After these experiences I have the felling that most people don’t really know much about it, some almost nothing.

Today is Mexico’s independence day, so I figured it would be a good idea to write about my country.

I guess the stereotype of Mexican people is that we like tequila, dance a salsa, we are lazy and our best beer is Corona.

Most people get surprised by this one: Corona is far from being the best beer, they just did good marketing. To my understanding it is one of the cheapest and it’s popular in “beach cities” or small towns, but otherwise it’s just another beer, and definitively not the best. My friends would buy Indio, Sol, Tecate Light, XX Lager, Heineken, Casta, anything but Corona.

For a complete list of international ratings you can check FEMSA list, Grupo Modelo list and there’s more

Now, Mexico is drastically different from one place to another. We have deserts, amazing beaches, forests and jungles. Huge cities, towns and indigenous communities. Filthy rich people (like Carlos Slim, the richest person in the world) and very poor. It’s really difficult to say that Mexico is some way, because it really depends a lot.

What is worst. We Mexicans don’t know each other so well. It’s not unusual to leave a Mexican wondering about some fact of the country. There are 31 states, and each state is totally different.

So if you think Mexican drink tequila you should think again. Some Mexicans call themselves “tequilero” (they like it), some are more beer people, and some like other liquors. In my city (Monterrey) we mostly drink beer and tequila just in special occasions or mixed with something else.

The same goes for dancing Salsa. A lot of people from “beach cities” dance it, but it’s not so popular anywhere else. Each zone has its own distinct type of dancing. There’s Cumbia Tejana, Cumbia Norteña, Quebradita, Pacito Duranguense, Banda, etc.

The one that I find most amusing is that we are lazy. In some way that’s true; we like to take shortcuts. We like to think about ourselves as “creative” people that often do things the “wrong” way. Some classic example is to quickly “fix” a car’s broken front light with some plastic and scotch tape, sometimes for the lack of money, but other times it’s for the lack of time. We don’t spend so much time finding the proper solution. That has advantages and drawbacks but that’s how we are.

We usually work more than 8 hours a day, a lot of people work on Saturdays and even Sundays, the concept of extra time is almost inexistent, we don’t get any vacation days on the first year of work, and after that is about 10 days per year.

On the contrary, we are very hard-working people, and specially the people on the north.

Something that most people fail to see is our sense of humour. We make fun about everything all the time, but usually in a way of puns which heavily rely on our own Mexican variant of Spanish.

Language and humor are intensely correlated. For example: a very common word is chingada (fuck/screw), which comes from La Malinche the mistress of Hernan Cortes which is considered a traitor who screwed us. Nowadays most Mexicans don’t know where “chingada” comes from, it probably started as a joke which eventually made into the common language, and now it’s still used as a word that can be used almost anywhere and makes the comment more funny.

There’s also albur. Which I don’t want to try to explain, but it’s some very specific kind of pun joke which is persistent in the whole country and even among different social classes.

We even make fun about the death. We have a special Day of the Dead in which we remember our lost beloved ones and think about them as if they came back this day to live with the living. The tradition says that we should put some altar with offerings; things they liked in life. In some towns they even make parties. Also some people write “calaveras” (skulls), which are mocking epitaphs for friends (living friends), as a story about how the death takes them away, with rhymes and puns, but most importantly something quintessential about the person.

Almost everything is allowed: death, corruption, racism, sexism, wifes, sisters, even Mexican people… but not mothers, that’s really touchy.

It’s not a big surprise that Mexican humor is not very well known: it’s too local, and maybe offensive. But lately there have been a few Mexican comedians that have been able to succeed in USA, and they are quite good: George Lopez, Pablo Francisco and Paul Rodriguez.

Funny enough the Mexican-American comedians almost unknown in Mexico.

The food? There’s no Mexican food outside of Mexico. What is supposed to be “Mexican cousine” is actually Tex-Mex at best. Nachos and Fajitas are purely Tex-Mex; Fajitas are almost unknown in Mexico.

Typical examples of Mexican cuisine include: pozole, tamales, carnitas and mole. If there isn’t any typical drink as horchata, jamaica or tamarindo then it’s probably not Mexican cuisine.

Tortillas must be warm, that’s why they are kept inside “tortilleros” (tortilla warmers), and food is usually served without tortillas so when you are ready to use one you take it out of the tortillero. Typical tortillas are about 15 cm.

Again, the typical food varies drastically from region to region. For a list of more Mexican food check here.

And finally there’s music. Again, a lot of different kinds:

Café Tacuba – Ojalá que llueva Café

El Gran Silencio – Cumbia Lunera (live from Japan)

Celso Piña – Cumbia sobre el Rio

Kinky – Coqueta (with cowbell!)

(I’m listing examples of the ones I like that I think are typical but there are many many more).

Our race and our culture is metiza; a mixture from European and indigenous which is very rich and diverse. Drastically different from one place to another is a living example that different cultures can live together peacefully. It’s far from being a paradise; there are huge problems as corruption, poverty and ignorance, but Mexican people are positive, and although slowly, there’s improvement.

Toda Javier Vargas, aka El Vargitas, told me about this guitar duo.

They are from Mexico City, and they play awesome. Here some videos:

Tamacun (Live):

Capitán Casanova

Diablo Rojo: David Letterman – The Late Show

You are not lame, that kid is good

Jon Phillips provides a video of a drummer kid… could he be the next Mike Portnoy?

Maybe if his dad takes videos of his progress like the guy that took a picture of himself each day for six years. Link.