Today at 4pm many Argentines plan to shut their cell phone off for an hour, as a protest against the repeated disturbances on the mobile networks and recently raised contract prices.

The local mobile phone service sector has received more complaints than ever lately due to service deficiencies. Cut calls, zones that lack reception and malfunctioning connection to data through 3G have led to the initiative of the protest.

The invitation to join the protest has been communicated though social networks and one of the biggest initiators are Apagón Celular (https://www.facebook.com/groups/apagoncelular/), who has received support from Responsible Consumers Organisations. Apagón Celular is only one of a dozen organisations that are planning the strike where the users turn their cell phones off between 4 and 5pm. The strike is aimed at the mobile phone companies Claro, Movistar and Personal.

Complaints also come from appraisals of calls: in Argentina the fee applies per minute, while most other countries have implemented the collection every ten seconds. Billing and unclear contract information, especially regarding Internet pricing, often causes confusion of what is included and what is not.

“But what is most upsetting is the unreliability of the service and the difficulties in getting phone calls, texts messages and data to function on a regular basis,” explains the group on the Facebook event page. “We need to react in order for the phone companies to expand and improve the networks, this is unacceptable,” one member of the group points out.

Apagón Celular and other groups now ask all disappointed cell phone users to joint the strike and to turn all cell phones off between 4 and 5 pm today.

“I know you don’t read the news, but it’s friday, I know this.

So I’m going to educate you today.

‘Cause it’s friday, you ain’t got no (real) job,

and you ain’t got shit to do – till 1am when you head to Pacha Jet!”

Did you enjoy that opening? It was a contribution by over-enthusiastic reader  Mychael H.

Great job Mychael! I’m gonna put it right here on the refrigerator door. And those who didn’t like it, take it up with him.

Now here’s everything you need to know:

Transgender people throughout the country celebrated that once again equality comes first. (Photo/Wikipedia)

• This week Congress seemed to remember that they are supposed to do something and passed two very important laws. First, the “Gender Identity” law, which seeks to provide citizens the power to “freely develop their personalities in accordance with their gender identity,” and the right “to be treated according to their gender identity.” This, of course, includes their DNI, which will have to state their gender of choice.

• The second law passed is the “Dignified Death” law, which grants terminally-ill patients the “right to express their will concerning the refusal of surgical procedures, artificial reanimation or life-support treatment.” This excludes, however, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Pretty fucking good, eh? Pretty fucking good… (except for religious conservatives, who are running in circles as we speak, horrified by society’s continuous moral decay). So while in the Northern Hemisphere half of the United States is kind of entering the 21st century and North Carolina is going back to the Dark Ages, Argentina breezes in to the 23rd century, maybe.

•  And now onto the Brits. They are pissed, you know? And rightfully so, since that Malvinas “Olympics” ad was kind of uncalled for. Sure, it poses a legitimate claim and it helps maintain the Malvinas sovereignty debate alive, but it also brings a political debate into the Olympics ecochamber, which we all know is verboten, even though it has been happening since Nazi Germany, when Jesse Owens (a black guy!) won a gold medal and Adolf Hitler pissed his pants in anger. So the political cognoscenti vowed revenge against the Argentine population and shot back with their ultimate weapon: this.

• Are you kidding me? From all the things you could use to mock Argentina you chose to make fun of… tardiness? I mean, this country is comedy gold and all you could think of was that? OK, at the risk of being deemed a traitor by the Argentine population, let me give you some advice on what you can make fun of next time you want to mock Argentina:

• What Cristina looked like before surgeries.
• Maradona’s 1986 infamous “hand of God” goal.
• The couple who married under the Maradonian church.  And yes, that is an actual wedding. Not a joke.
• Argentina’s Nazi past. Next time you enter the Luna Park stadium to enjoy some random concert, keep in mind that 74 years ago, the place looked like this. And that’s not a joke either.
• Mayor Mauricio Macri‘s cringe-inducing, embarrassing rendition of Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. And yes, that actually happened.
• The fact that these sideburns were president from 1989 to 1999.
• The fact that every 80′s movie in Argentina was a ripoff from a Hollywood blockbuster or a hit American TV series. Here are some excerpts of the local versions of: “Alf“, “ET“, “Ghostbusters” (or “Thriller”, if you will), “Airplane!“,  and Robocop. Also, I may or may not have one or more of those movies on DVD.
• Finally: please don’t send me emails saying “Legitimate claim? Bla bla bla islands are British bla bla bla self-determination.” I already know all that and I still don’t care.

• President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, of course, was offended at the British for being offended. Here’s her speech about it. Just so you know, she doesn’t say anything she hasn’t said a million times before. She rants about how creativity is a lot better than bombing other countries. A false analogy that I personally loved.

• Sure, now that the YPF expropriation bill has been passed no one in the country cares about it anymore. But the European Union has a long memory, and even though this whole thing happened like ten days ago the political confederation refuses to forget, and this week they warned that retaliation is imminent. Whatever it is they do, let’s hope it’s better than that fucking “tardiness” ad.

• Another dead body found in the Bosques de Palermo area. You sure you still wanna go jogging there? Because it’s all starting to sound a little too much like a scene from The Silence of the Lambs.

• Here’s another photo you can add to Vice-President Amado Boudou‘s Infamous Hall of Infamy, back from when he was a DJ for the fashion world. How he ended up in politics, we may never know. The photo joins other unforgettable classics, such as “Tongue Vs. Tongue” and “Drunk in my underwear.” Enjoy!

• “But this has no information value!“, you say? Oh please. As if you really came here every Friday to be informed.

• Are you one of the millions of Movistar users whose life was seriously endangered for several hours when the company’s service went down a couple of months ago and people couldn’t update their Twitter accounts? If you are not, then skip this, this doesn’t concern you. If you are, then congrats! The wait is over and after many days of great injustice and abandonment, you’re being reimbursed $10 (pesos, not dollars) for all the trouble caused. Yay, Capitalism.

• Are you one of the millions of Claro users whose life was seriously endangered for several hours when the company’s service went down on Wednesday and people couldn’t update their Twitter accounts? If you’re not, then skip this, this doesn’t concern you. If you are, then you’re fucked. Yeah, that’s right. Claro outsmarted Movistar this week, and after many users complained about a massive service disruption the company blamed the Macri administration, accusing some City workers of accidentally “severing a fiber optics cable.” Sure, the Government is again considering a fine against the company, but they have warned that this case is “different” because it somehow accused Macri of fucking something up *wink, wink*.

• Are you a Personal user? Then watch out, you’re next.

• Next time you brag about how cool and elegant it is to live in Recoleta, remind me to bring this up so I can call you a destitute and shut you up for good.

• This guy died, and even though you never heard of / cared for him, it was a pretty big deal because he was one of Argentina’s most beloved cartoonist. Honor him by at least clicking on that link. You don’t even have to read the story, just click on it so you can at least pretend you care.

• Fame hath no glory! Last year it was Justin Bieber and the baseless, shameless accusations that he had
  

  This is the (possible) rapist Wachiturro, not to be confused with the other five Wachiturros who look exactly the same. In fact, I'm not even sure this is the one in trouble, but this is the only photo Wikipedia had to offer, so fuck it. (Photo/Wikipedia)

  impregnated one of his fans, which not only is ridiculous because Justin is like, the best guy in like, EVER and he would never do that, but also because he’s still like fifteen years away from producing sperm. So now, of course, it happened to one of the country’s youngest, brightest talents: Wachiturros smokin’ hot member DJ Memo. Mr. Memo was arrested (and later released on bail) in Santiago del Estero last Sunday after allegedly trying to rape a 13-year-old, who happened to be the daughter of a police officer. Lies, all lies! Also, probably true.

• By the way, considering that two months ago another Wachiturro was arrested before boarding a plane in a Chilean airport for cleverly making a joke about having a bomb or something stupid like that, I guess this means the boy band is now down to only four members. Come back in a few months when two of them are killed while trying to rob a bank and the boy band is downgraded to a duet.

• Also, that former playmate that caused a stir after appearing at a Mexican presidential debate last Sunday is, of course, Argentine.

• In the non-important news department (football), the Argentine Football Association (AFA) has announced a series of changes in their tournaments that I really don’t give a flying fuck about. But since you probably do, here’s some (probably inaccurate) info:  Starting in the 2012/2013 season, the new Argentine championship  tournament (thanks, Twitter nitpickers) will be divided in two tournaments, each one of them containing 19 rounds. The Apertura and Clausura tournaments will be re-branded “Inicial” and “Final” tournaments, and their respective winners will clash in a final match that will decide the fate of humanity.

• I don’t mean to brag, but I wrote that whole paragraph by myself, no help! OK, I had help. I pretty much stole the whole thing from here and just translated it. Whatever.

• Now here’s an idea that I’m sure is gonna go far: the AFA, that lugubrious nest full of backstabbing vultures, is “studying” the implementation of a possible new system labeled “AFA Plus” aimed at stopping “the power and influence of the barra bravas (or ‘hooligans’) in the Argentine football.” The idea is to register every single football club member and whoever has a history of violence will not be allowed into the game. The anti-hooligan movement was sparked by Independiente president Javier Cantero who said he was sick and tired of violence and is leading a personal crusade against them. Good luck with that! I mean, have you clicked on that Wikipedia link for barra bravas? Despite their absolutely hilarious names in English (“The heavy of the Port”, “The Drunkard of the Stand“), these guys are blood-thirsty goons that will not hesitate to kill you if you stand in their way. And considering that according to that Wikipedia page there’s like a million of them, stopping them means no more audience. Can you imagine? It would be like a dream come true (for me).

• Oh, shit. Here we go.

The government announced today that it will make the mobile telephone giant, Movistar, pay its customers $185m in compensation after it suffered a service failure last April.

The Planning Minister, Julio de Vido, also announced that the company will have to pay the government just under $7m in fines for the “brusque interruption of the service” on April 2^nd.

The service failure directly affected the company’s 18m users, according to the minister but also made it impossible for customers from other networks to communicate with them. The minister believes that the total number affected was around 30m.

Movistar is now ordered to take $10 off all its customers’ next bills. The sanction is about “being preventative and making an example” and the minister said that there was no excuse for a failure of that magnitude.

The minister continued by stressing that the “government is at the forefront of technology” and is investing a lot in the telecommunications industry – such as laying fibre optic cables in Tierra del Fuego – and that the private sector in return had to provide a minimum level of service and investment.

“The service isn’t as high quality as it was a year ago,” he stressed, referring to the whole telecommunication sector. “We are going to demand that landline providers make the investments that today they are not making. This is a warning and not a threat; we are going to call on them to invest.”

It’s Good Friday again!

It’s a holiday. It’s early. And yet here I am, half asleep, writing for you.

I hate you all so much.

Specially since I know that none of you will be reading this today. Maybe on Monday, when you’re back from your Holy Week escapades, you’ll casually remind yourself that you haven’t checked the news and visit this column. The world may be over by then, but no, you still don’t care right?

Whatevs.

So first things first, here are this week’s best suggestions for my weekly opening statement:

• “I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too.Thursday I don’t care about you, It’s Friday I write for you!” - By Jenny F.

• “Fuck this shit, it’s Friday. I’m out!!!” - By Leandro DS

• “Give me an F! Give me an R! Give me a… – ah, whatever, it’s Friday.” - By Mateo R.

• ‘Last Friday, zero were the amount of fucks given about ur thoughts on my column’ - By Pablo G.

Thanks for your efforts kids! You truly outdid yourselves. All others who didn’t make it this week is because they sucked.

Now this is what you need to know:

• 

  I don't know what's up with this weird-looking photo of Boudou, but this is all Wikipedia had. Sorry. (Photo/Wikipedia)

  Well, now that the 30th anniversary of the Malvinas War is over, let’s all hope that this whole diplomatic rift goes away forever (until next year). As expected, there were commemorations of the conflict on both sides of the ocean, as well as political speeches, marches and riots. And where do you think most of those took place? You guessed right: here (but that’s probably because mostly no one in the UK gives a shit about this)! So last Monday we had:

• President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s speech that she gave in Ushuaia, where she once again called for the UK to sit down and negotiate the island’s sovereignty. And even though she sometimes used her controversial rhetoric, I must say it wasn’t as bad as I expected. In fact she even seemed conciliatory when she said that this was a day to also mourn those British soldiers who perished in the war because “the death of a young person is always a tragedy.” She also stressed that the Argentine population is peaceful and that it will continue to be peaceful in the sovereignty negotiations. Here’s the video of her speech, for those two readers genuinely interested in it.

• The Sun, of course, considered her speech to be “incendiary.”

• And, speaking of incendiary, those assholes from Quebracho, the extreme left-wing organization that the entire Argentine population seems to hate and yet they somehow continue to exist, decided that the best way to prove that Cristina was right about that “peaceful” part was to attack the British embassy in Recoleta. So they threw Molotov cocktails at the water cannon truck that was trying to disperse them and attacked the infantry officials with slingshots and marble balls (yes, a slingshot), all in the name of peace.

• Cristina was certainly not amused.

• Now onto something else: Sometimes, when a political scandal erupts, I usually wait until it becomes a big thing to talk about it here. Mainly because most of them they just disappear into the night as fast as they crawled out from under a rug, and end up being irrelevant. This week, however, a corruption scandal involving none other than Vice-President Amado Boudou has entered the main political arena, so it’s time for you to know what’s going on. The case is fairly simple: our favorite Vice-President has been accused of using his influences as Economy Minister to lift the bankruptcy plans on a money-printing company called Ciccone. A judge investigating the case ordered a raid on one of his properties in Puerto Madero in order to prove that there is a connection between Boudou and the Ciccone CEO. (Have I lost you yet? ‘Cause I know that after a couple of lines of not making a joke you start drifting away. Still with me? Good.) OK, so Boudou was pretty pissed and gave a speech in Congress on Thursday, (here’s the video, if you wanna watch it) accusing the Clarín media group of being part of a mafia leading a smearing campaign against him.  So there. Now you’re got something else to talk about next time you end up trapped in a conversation about Argentine politics and need to prove you’re “totally into Argentina’s current political climate.” You owe me a beer.

• Well, now things are bound to go to shit. That’s right everyone, start buying canned food and mineral water. Go to your basement (yes, I know people don’t have basements in this city, whatever) and stock up because  a civil war is coming. Yerba Mate, that bitter, silent anesthetic that has managed to keep Argentines from exploding in a bout of rage for centuries is now impossible to buy thanks to very high prices, caused by, well, no one is really sure. The Government is outraged since they say there is no reason for it to double its price in just a few days, while producers blame the hike on rising costs of production. Whatever the reason, drinking mate is now expensive. But let’s look on the bright side! I don’t like mate. So there.

• Also, the World Trade Organization is pissed about Argentina’s latest import restrictions.  Since you don’t really understand what the WTO does, then it’s OK, you shouldn’t worry.

• Speaking of Boudou, and trade barriers and shit, the Vice-President became something of a laughing stock this week after he tweeted that the Government is not against imports but “just looking after your jobs. We’re looking after the Argentine industry.” Of course that would have made complete sense, except he tweeted it from his personal iPhone, which not only is totally made in China, but is also a product impossible to get anywhere in the country due to the imports ban (unless you buy it in Mercado Libre, where you will surely be ripped off). Oh, well. It’s just a phone, right? I’m sure he doesn’t own any more apple produc…- Oh.

• Also, the guy sitting in front of him with the weird hairdo that looks like the Argentine version of Jason Schwartzman is Economy Minister Hernán Lorenzino. He also owns an iPhone, as you can see in the photo. *giggles*

• In other news, the Government continues its crusade against capital flight so now if you travel abroad and want to get dollars from an ATM, you better: A) Have a bank account that is not from an Argentine bank, B) Rob someone at gunpoint, or C) Have an Argentine bank account in dollars and pay the monthly fee that comes with it (the most difficult option of the three). The positive side of this is A) If you’re a foreigner living in Argentina you probably own an account in a foreign bank, and B) If you’re an Argentine chances are you can’t afford to travel abroad because getting dollars is a pain in the ass. So there. Now there’s no need to rob anyone. Yay!

• Are you the lucky owner of a Movistar line? (You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? You’re already smiling). If you are, congratulations! You’re one of the lucky 16 million people who had no cell phone service for more than five hours last Monday, a service disruption that caused riots of biblical proportions throughout the country as angry teenagers failed to update their Facebook statuses on their cell phones or tweet about how “psyched” they were with the new Justin Bieber single or Skrillex, or whatever it is that kids listen to these days. The service was eventually restored after the company managed to fix a “system problem.” But that, of course, was not enough to appease the angry mob. Fortunately the Government always thinks of the costumer first and announced that they are considering the “worst kind of possible sanction” against Movistar. But wait, there’s more! The company has announced that all users will get compensation for the trouble caused: you will not be charged for that day. Which means you get like a $4 discount! And people say corporations are greedy.

• In all fairness though, Movistar said there would be other freebies, such as free text messages from yesterday until Sunday and other stuff. Check it here.

• Oh. You don’t read Spanish? Tough shit. Maybe you should finally stop relying on this column for everything and start learning the language, don’t you think? I’m a writer, not your nanny.

• OK, so that terrible storm that hit the city last Wednesday was neither a
  

  This photo may or may not be from Palermo. I will conveniently not say. (Photo/Wikipedia)

  tornado nor a hurricane (even though if you look at this photo captured with a cell phone I still have my doubts), but it was still pretty fucking big. At least 15 people have been killed and many others have been injured after they were hit by falling branches or collapsing roofs.  Look, the media even created a video montage to illustrate the gravity of the situation. It has a scary soundtrack and everything! No, but in all seriousness now, politicians and scientists are agreeing that this storm was extremely unusual and that there is no recollection of Buenos Aires ever being affected by such strong winds. So there, maybe you were not here for the 2007 snow storm, but have now witnessed the storm of the century. Congratulations, maybe.

• Three years ago, the Argentine population was introduced to a non-fictional character that would become the nation’s pet peeve for several months. When transvestite Zulma Lobato was discovered during a television interview in April 2009, she became an instant hit. Her off-key singing, her unexpected outbursts of rage and endless collection of wigs all contributed to her instant rise to celebrity status. For months, people (myself included) would shamelessly giggle at her quirkiness and deliriums of grandeur, since time after time she would repeat that she was destined to be on Dancing With The Stars even though her chances were rather slim. Not because she lacked the talent, of course (we all know you don’t need to be talented to be on that show). No, Zulma’s biggest liability was that she was not a hot, slutty 25-year old piece of ass. So the call never came, and when it finally sank in that people were laughing at her, not with her, she had a stroke on live television. And that’s when everyone said “Oh. Shit,” and realized we had all been making fun of a mentally-unstable person. But, alas! We live in a liquid society, in which we’re outraged by a Kony 2012 video, so we angrily post it on our Facebook profile, rallying others to join us in our global fight against injustice, until we see this video of two cats speaking French and we totally forget about it. So in a matter of seconds, Zulma disappeared from our televisions… until now! That’s right, she’s making her comeback! You know, if Britney Spears, Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan have all had it, why couldn’t she? The problem with her new music video, besides reeking of amateurism, is that it seems to be just another excuse by some unscrupulous producer to keep laughing at her. So now it’s up to you. You can be an asshole and laugh at it, or angrily post it on your Facebook profile, rallying others to join you in your global fight against injustice, until you see this other video of two cats speaking French.