5 Better Uses for the Vuvuzela

If you've spent anytime watching the 2010 World Cup, then you're by now well acquainted with the incessant swarm of buzzing bees in the background known as the vuvuzela. It has sparked international controversy, with cries coming from some that they should be banned, to an eventual redesign of the instrument to reduce the dangerously high decibel levels produced when tens of thousand of people blow their vuvuzelas for 90 minutes on end.

You can find live Twitter vuvuzela updates, you can buy vuvuzelas online and you can participate in the general craze that has caused the term vuvuzela to be one of the hottest search topics on Google for the last week.

But right here, we can solve the vuvuzela controversy for ourselves by coming up with 5 new and improved ways to use the instrument. Here are the 5 best alternative uses for the vuvuzela.

Emergency Storm Alarms - Ominous clouds on the horizon? Tornados coming into town? Don't set off that old school 1950s alarm system to send people down to their shelters. Blow a few vuvuzelas instead! Entire nationwide networks of alarms can be set up in mere minutes, and citizens will quickly scurry to their protective shelters if not to escape the storm, then to escape the bzzz!

Ram-Friendly Shofars - The shofar is a traditional musical instrument made from a ram's horn, that's used for Jewish religious ceremonies on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But c'mon people, this is 2010, we can't be using real ram horns anymore. Let's replace them with vuvuzelas, and fulfill our promise to be more eco-friendly.

Animal Herding - Speaking of animals, what better way to quickly herd entire masses of animals with no fuss? What animal in their right mind wouldn't run as quickly as possible, wherever you wanted it to, to get farther away from the vuvuzela raucous? Keep the shepherd dogs at home though, if these things hurt our ears this bad, your poor pooch will be tormented.

Beer Bongs - Let's face it, everyone blowing these damn things for 90 minutes without pause is clearly imbibing in a handsome, heaping helping of beer anyway. If we encourage them to down their beverages beer bong style, pouring it through the funnel opening and chugging it down, they won't be able to blow the vuvuzelas at the same time! Even better, by halftime they'll all be ready to sleep it off.

New Answer to the Question - "Want to Hear the Most Annoying Sound in the World?" - Jim Carrey put up a good effort here, but he's no match for 50,000 vuvuzelas buzzing away. Actually, it sounds pretty similar... is this where Carrey get his inspiration for the famous Dumb and Dumber scene?