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NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 143: "ANAL SEEPAGE"

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This Week:
* ANIM - Burnt Face Man
* GAME - Chase the Button
* VID - Horse Politics

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________  ____ __  ___
____/  _)|_  // /_/ _ |     
___/  _ |/_ </ __/ __ |      "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_|       web... together"

B3ta email 143 - 09 July 2004

Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue143/

       Subscribe:  [email protected]
         Unsub:  [email protected]
 
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #1
  Heroes, Buttons, Techno, Cunts and Snail Death

  >> Adventures of Burnt Face Man <<
  Super-hero parodies are two-a-penny on the web,
  so what makes Foyf's work different? The salty
  dialogue and quick editing make this a bit
  special. The talented shit.
http://www.fat-pie.com/bfm.htm


  >> Test your mouse skills <<
  Web junkies will remember holdthebutton.com -
  the game which challenged you to see how long
  you could press down the button on your mouse.
  AKX has expanded on this concept by making the
  button move. Simple, ingenious and infuriating. 
http://devever.net/pegercer/akx/dlg/play.html


  >> Anal Seepage <<
  Give Joel a few pints and he'll start reminiscing
  about raving in the 90s. Old bastard. He's
  taken his love for dodgy old techno and combined
  it with his love of swearing. You will smile.
http://www.rathergood.com/seepage/


  >> Cunt of the week <<
  Regular readers will know we've recently been
  running URL redirects, i.e. taking an address
  like fuckingnazis.com and forwarding to the
  Barclays bank website. B3ta reader Tony
  has hit on a novel variation. He's registered
  cuntoftheweek.co.uk and plans to point it
  to different people every seven days.
http://www.cuntoftheweek.co.uk/


  >> Snails must die <<
  Ben Wheatley is best known for cutting up photos
  of cocks and making them pulse in time to
  mashed-up records. For a change of pace he's
  created a Big Brother-style real world web
  event where snails from his garden are
  placed in "Snailhausen" and you can vote
  who gets killed next. Ben then smashes them
  with a brick and puts up the videos for your
  entertainment. Most serial killers start
  with killing animals. We worry about Ben.
http://www.mrandmrswheatley.co.uk/snailhausen/snai...


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: GOOD AND BAD
  Stuff this week which is er.. good or bad

  >> GOOD: End of Wimbledon <<
  Hooray. Back to normal TV schedules. Although
  with the Olympics looming, that means less
  Quincy and more synchronised swimming.
  
  >> BAD: School summer holidays <<
  Loads of snot nosed little bastards are off
  school and filling our streets.

  >> GOOD: 1.5MB broadband <<
  We've upgraded the pipe at B3ta Towers and
  it fucking rocks. You need this.

  >> BAD: George Michael closing net forum <<
  Stroppy toilet enthusiast George has closed
  his messageboard as fans dared to fill it with
  critical posts. The resulting PR disaster has
  been picked up round the world. George -
  you silly monkey - simply replacing your
  board with a "this site is down for
  maintenance" would have done the trick.
  
  >> GOOD: Hollywood sequels <<
  Tinsel town isn't known for producing good
  follow-ups. The trend has been bucked with
  Shrek and Spider-man - the sequels being
  better than the originals. Yay for summer
  blockbusters.


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: OB3TAUARY
  Frank Robinson, 'Xylophone Man'
  
  The legendary Xylophone Man was Nottingham's
  favourite busker, better-known for his winning
  personality than his musical skills. We ran
  an interview with him at the beginning of
  this year and he seemed like a thoroughly nice
  man. RIP, old chap.
http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm


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: SITES IN BRIEF 
  Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.

  >> Awesome horse political video <<
  Problem: Politics is utterly, incontinently
  dull. Solution: Reel the voters in with an
  incredibly dramatic election vid. And to make
  it more exciting, the candidates should all be
  pretty horses. This is just great. Frankly, 
  if Blair wants our vote now, he'll have to
  gallop for it. In slow-motion.
  (Warning: a big download)
http://www.illegal-art.org/video/vcd/BlackThunder_...


  >> Space race rudeness <<
  Our mama told us that life is like a box of
  chocolates: You never know when it's going
  to throw you an unexpected cock treat. The
  case in point - an innocent diagram of rocket 
  trajectories reveals, in glorious detail, that
  Apollo Mission Control scientists may have
  had their minds on other things.
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/space/images/apollo_mi...


  >> Ultimate Goth interior design <<
  This ossuary in the Czech town of Sedlec is
  very macabre and yet fantastically beautiful.
  The entire church is lavishly decorated with
  human bones and there is a Jolly Roger
  instead of the usual cross on the steeple.
  Apparently this "is not uncommon in Europe."
  Hmm. Maybe. 
http://www.ludd.luth.se/~silver_p/kutna-1.html


  >> Break-dancing bear <<
  Well, alright, a break-dancing man in a bear
  suit. But he's going like the clappers! The
  raison d'être of this site is 'little dancing
  screen-grabs, with cheery music' - and what
  could be wrong with that? You can look at
  an archive by clicking the red exclamation 
  mark at the top left. But do so at your own
  risk, as about a third of the stuff is based
  on very nasty porn. Goatse Roulette, anyone?
http://dickcream.com/history/0702/


  >> RealDoll surgery <<
  There's something a bit gruesome about dolls
  and more so the more detailed they are. These
  shots of repairs on the reputedly 
  hyper-realistic RealDoll sex dolls are icky.
  But quite funny, too.
http://www.realdolldoctor.com/miscindex.htm


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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
  Abandoned baby otters

  Who can fathom the mind of a female otter? We
  can't think what could have possessed her
  mum to reject winsome mite Snowdrop. Just look
  at her frolicking with a baby bottle - butter
  wouldn't melt in her mouth.
http://snipurl.com/7mqi


  BTW: What's the cutest thing you've seen on
  the web recently? Tell us:
http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/


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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #2
  News, Game Quiz, Stickers, Ninjas and Video

  >> Action News skit <<
  Last week we celebrated a great spoof ad
  for the New York Times from Gbehh.
  He writes - "Thanks for featuring my movie.
  It made the voices in my head very happy."
  Hey - no problem. And we're pleased to report
  he's been making more. This time a trailer
  for Action News - the news show that's all
  action. We recommend checking out the rest
  of his site - he's clearly a new talent.
http://www.gbehh.com/toons/action6.html


  >> Gamer quiz <<
  "We've made a really stoopid quiz about computer
  games", writes Dngdng, "It's most droll." We
  like this. You'll have to know a bit about
  gaming to play but the presentation moves
  web quizzes on a bit.
http://davidguy.brinkster.net/quiz/n3taquiz.html


  >> Help! I'm trapped in a sticker factory <<
  Ever caught the underground and wondered,
  "Who makes those stickers that make no
  sense?" Let us point you in the direction
  of Thomas Scott who's been covering London
  with 100s of the damn things. He'll also
  sell you a few stickers dirt-cheap for sticking
  in your city.
http://www.thomasscott.net/stickers/


  >> Ninja race <<
  Making web videos for other people's songs has
  been a core element of B3ta's output. Now Jonti
  Picking has got in on the act with a Ninja
  animation for a pacey bit of techno from
  Hexstatic. He's even managed to add a few jokes
  - great stuff.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/36/


  >> BBC Motion Stupidity <<
  A couple of weeks back we asked you muck about
  with the video that the BBC have sticking
  online. Blugg has been doing some great stuff
  in the area. Check out his series - can you
  you beat him?
http://blugg.com/_b3ta/b3tamotion3.html


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: BIT TORRENT TV
  Stuff we've watched this week

  >> Dark Skies <<
  Last week we described Dark Skies as enjoyable,
  sub-X-Files tosh. We were wrong. We've now
  watched all 20 episodes and the scope of
  the story telling is fantastic - weaving a huge,
  complex conspiracy of alien contact behind
  world events. It's a tragedy that the
  creators didn't get the opportunity to realise
  their five season vision taking the narrative
  from Charlie Manson under alien control,
  through Ronald Reagan initiating the Star wars
  program to fight aliens, to finally George Bush
  pulling a Neville Chamberlain-style "Peace in
  Our Time" appeasement with the invading extra
  terrestrials.

  
    >> Curb Your Enthusiasm <<
  We're fans of the TV binge here at B3ta Towers,
  but not in this case. Larry David has created
  a misanthropic comedy so tart, so poignantly
  embarrassing, that the best we can manage is
  one every couple of days. A bitter treat.

  
  >> Joey <<
  There's been a lot written lately about the 
  'end of a TV era' with recent cancellations of
  classic series like Friends and Frasier. So much 
  so that we must have taken leave of our senses,
  deciding to check out Matt Le Blanc's new spinoff
  series. It's awful, just awful, and it made us sad.
  Still, it is only the first episode and it could
  get loads better. Loads.
  

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: 100 ISSUES AGO TODAY
  "Get Your Mates Sacked"

  We take a quick look back at the best links
  in issue 43 of the B3ta newsletter.

  >> A History of Photo Montage <<
  B3ta contributor Pabulum brought us a backwards
  look at cutting up images. Still as relevant
  today as it was then.
http://www.cutandpaste.info/


  >> Top 10 Cutest Kittens <<
  Your uber ginger ruler Rob Manuel opened the
  bumper book of web jokes and read the chapter
  marked 'misdirection' bringing you a URL that
  looks like it's going to be cute and delivers
  something loud and sweary.
http://b3ta.com/top-10-cutest-kittens/


  >> Pavarotti Elephants <<
  Joel had a copy of the same book and he read
  the chapter marked 'misheard lyrics'. It's a
  classic example, although we're still waiting
  for his once-promised "Sue Lawley / So Lonely"
  Police Flash.
http://www.rathergood.com/elephants/


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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
  Results from the 'I Didn't Know it Did That!'
  Challenge

  Each week we run a competition to test your
  creative skills. We set a challenge and you
  open Photoshop and mess with our heads.

  Last week we wanted you to show us the hidden
  features in stuff:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/didntknow/

  We asked B3ta boarder 'Dobsky' to judge the
  entries - here are his three faves.

  Dobsky writes -

   #1 "Paper jam - Simply fantastic. Cracking pun
   that made me giggle like a loon. (guplik)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3406366

   #2 "Anti Pigeon dish - Great animation and
   sponged pigeons. Who couldn't love this?
   Besides the pigeons being killed by the death
   rays that is. (Lordgert)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3407711

   #3 "Makes calls too! - He he he, I really love
   this one and it's quite true as well.
   (Rainbow_girl)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3403896

  >> This Week's Challenge <<

  This week, the enigmatic and strangely handsome
  Challenge Dictator gave us,
  "Visions of the Future: circa 1950"
http://b3ta.com/challenge/futurevisions/


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: FRIDAY GAME
  Click boxy woo fun

  At first we thought this game was a pile
  of shit. We clicked about and bugger all
  happened. Then a friend suggested we have
  another gander and try dragging the objects
  on the screen.

  Aha! We get it. It's a multi-level single
  screen puzzle game. Following its own rules
  of logic, you probably haven't played a game
  quite like this. Great.
http://nocircles.com/index.php


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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
  Follow-ups on previous stories.

  * SPOOF PHONE CALL - Last week we featured an
    animation based on a persistent caller's quest
    for butt-plugs. Froopyscot writes to inform us
    that the original prank was by US duo Opie &
    Anthony. "They did quality comedy on radio
    stations in Boston and New York for years,"
    he tells us, "before getting carried nationally
    in the US and getting fired shortly thereafter
    for their involvement in a bit which involved
    encouraging and broadcasting a couple having
    sex in a pew in New York's St. Patrick's
    Cathedral."
http://www.foundrymusic.com/braincandy/displaymedi...


  * B3TA PICS IN THE PAPERS - The recent spate of
    football-related photoshops seems to have caught
    the attention of the national press. The Daily
    Mail is the latest to join the bandwagon, with
    this spread of "world wide wizardry on the web."
http://www.recklessrecords.biz/b3ta/dailycockingma...


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: STAR IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE

  Make something cool and tell us about it. If
  you are in it then people will see your stuff.

  Things we'd really like to see include

  * NEWSPAPERS CREDITING B3TA ARTISTS - it's
    not much to ask for. And karmically good.

  * DICTATOR PHONE - a telephone without a
    speaker so that we can bark orders without
    any backchat.

  * MORE TRANS PEOPLE - we're bored of the
    transgendered saving reality TV. We want
    transheighted - tall people who use surgery
    to release their inner dwarf.

  Send contributions via:
http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/

  BTW: If you've sent something in that hasn't
  been featured then don't be put off - we look
  at everything you send us.


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  Subscribe:  [email protected]
  Unsubscribe:  [email protected]

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  THANKS:

  This issue was written by Rob Manuel with
  David Stevenson.
  Links sent in by theamazingmr.kent,
  jake_mcmahon, Senator_Kenator and ablufia.
  Top Tippery by mofaha.
  Otters from DogHorse.
  Good / bad suggestions from Supermoore, Dobsky
  and VashTheStampede.
  Additional linkage by Fraser Lewry.
  Board research by The Mouse That Fnord.
  Image challenge handled by Mystery Boobs.
  Proofing by b4ta's gay mafia. (75903)

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  TOP TIP:
  Discourage ants from climbing inside your
  sugar pot by placing three or four cloves
  inside.

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