NEWSLETTER: "WHY IS THE BIBLE LIKE A PENIS?"
This Week:
* ANIM - Rolf Harris bestial sing-song
* GAME - Sprouts are evil
* CHALLENGES - Lovely new democratic votey stuff
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web... together"
B3ta email 210 - 6 Jan 2006
Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue210/
Subscribe: [email protected]
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Rolf Harris, Sprouts, Drugs & The Queen
>> Rolf Harris <<
Rolf facts: Drinks his own piss for the health
benefits; Has a name amusingly close to the
popular internet acronym ROFL (twits use this
to mean 'roll on the floor laughing'); and,
according to a BBC researcher we once chatted
to in the pub, he likes 'goosing young ladies'.
But all these merry facts mean naught compared
to his mastery of the song. Witness this
fantastic re-interpretation of his 1960 hit,
'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' and giggle like
we giggled at the B3ta Bunker.
http://www.strawberrydragon.com/images/animation/r...
>> Sprouts are evil <<
Official b3ta brother Duncan Manuel used to
liven up dinner time with his reworking of
the Tears For Fears hit, Shout. "Sprouts!
Sprouts! Puke them all out! This is the veg
we can do without!" So imagine our joy when
Eyegas got in touch with an almost identical
idea. Eyegas wins though as he's turned the
whole thing into a fantastic vegetable
bashing game that made us yelp, "Fucking hell.
This is fantastic!"
http://www.eyegas.com/xmas05/
>> Just say no to drugs, kids <<
"At school the other day, we were introduced
to some anti-drugs software called D-Code,"
reveals Josh04, "It was bad. Really bad. Getting
home, I decided to make a flash version of the
offending program." Blimey. It's the shouting
that made us enjoy this. Reminds us of Joel's
'Spoonguard' thing he did back in the day.
http://www.mcnamee.co.uk/josh/drugs.swf
>> Her Majesty <<
"I've made a demented flash film," screams
Mutated Monty, "About my strange relationship
with the Royal Family." Er.. Yep, this is
fucking odd.
http://media.putfile.com/queenie83
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: SPONSORED LINK
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J-List is a pretty cool place that sells
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* "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" kanji
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* Wacky products for adults, including hundreds
of bizarre and fun DVD titles
* "Tabi" (ninja shoes) and "oppai ball"
(a squeezable soft boob)
* Anime, JPOP, Manga, Yaoi, and Tokyo Fashion
magazine subscriptions
* 150+ Japanese snacks with names like "Crunky"
and "Melty Kiss"
Please visit us now -- you've got a friend in Japan
http://www.jlist.com
>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the recent couple of Challenges
News! News! News! News! News! News! Do we have
your attention yet? We've had a flurry of
activity in the b3ta bunker and decided to
re-jig how the voting works on the challenges.
Basically we read a highfalutin book on 'the
power of many, over the views of the one', and
thought "we'll get everyone to vote on the best
images and that'll make a lovely best of page.
woo."
* MUSIC AND FOOD - Frankly we were a bit dubous
when our board demanded this challenge as
we thought it would be all shit 'Kraftwok'
puns. Props to Trinosaur for his disgusting
Aphex Twin eats a Jaffa cake anim, and we
also liked Eclectechs' cute re-drawing of
the chestnuts/roasting joke. But fuck that,
see for yourselves, all the best stuff as
voted for by you.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/musicandfood/
* IF PRODUCTS WERE MADE BY OTHERS - a dictator
challenge chosen by the lovely and handsome
Fraser, we thought would be a laugh, as it's
a return to the classic challenges of "think
of X if Y were true." Our personal favourites
were the Polo condom (with a hole in it) and
the Lilt VD ointment, "the scrotally topical
paste!" And again, don't take our word for
it, see how people have voted.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/products/
* 2006 PREDICTIONS - and this week we're looking
for your psychic thoughts on the events of
the coming year. Make it a good one kids.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/2006/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.
>> Found camera photos <<
Ooh this is an interesting site that kept us
busy for a couple of hours over the Christmas
break. In short, this chap has been collecting
cameras - complete with half-shot film - from
junk shops and processing the pictures. Oddly
fascinating - eerie even. BTW: Teched-up readers
might want to try a similar idea from collecting
memory cards and old hard-disks.
http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm
>> USB Digital bible <<
We've got a soft spot for crappy USB innovation,
from the USB rubber-duck memory stick to the
USB fish-tank that the official b3ta wife bought
us for our birthday, we're amused by it all.
And so we bring you King John's Bible on an
electronic key-ring. God would want it this way.
http://www.davidsteele.com/usb_digital_bible.html
>> Vulcan sock puppet <<
Just a funny picture really; Star Trek's Spock
rendered as a sock monkey. They missed a trick
by not calling it the 'Spock Monkey' though.
http://www.sockit2me.com/sockit2me/vulcanmonkey.ht...
>> 500mhz Tattoo <<
Ok, we all know that extreme geeks like nothing
better than tattooing their favourite technology
on their pasty-white bodies. Fair enough, everyone
loves Apple, but why-oh-why tattoo a 500mhz
processor on your bloody forehead? Isn't it a bit
like saying, "I'm really out of date and my brain
isn't very quick?"
http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20040720.html
>> Psycho mom <<
Here's the story: 16 year old kid leaves his
video camera on whilst his obviously upset and
disturbed mother rants about his behaviour. There
isn't much to look at and the audio doesn't kick
in for about a minute, but damn this woman
is angry and end result is upsetting, disturbing
and voyeuristically compelling. reminds us of
those NSPCC ads from a while back - except he is
giving her a bit of lip in teenage style.
http://gorillamask.net/psychomom.shtml
>> Sindy doll story <<
Something for the ladies here. Plastic dolls
in a camp, soap opera story-line. A voice
in the b3ta bunker shouts, "Obviously made
by mad, Northern gays" and all the better for
that.
http://www.funtime-sindy.co.uk/part_5.htm
>> Monkey wanking [NSFW] <<
Years ago we watched as a work-mate
congratulated a bitter rival, who'd just
won a journalism award for being very clever
and selling lots of magazines, by sending them
his personal collection of monkey porn.
So if you feel jealous of one of your
colleagues for their recent promotion then
say it in style. Say it with monkey porn.
BTW: The photo is entirely NSFW and features
an Asian gentleman being wanked off by a tiny
monkey. (And the best thing is that they
have tiny hands so your willy looks massive.)
http://www.lamermelculo.com/imagenes/webs/051103/m...
>> Racist BBC<<
Ok this is a cheap shot. A reader wrote in
mentioning that they'd spent the afternoon
typing rude words into the BBC search for
laughs and shits, and if you squint and
pretend the country Niger actually reads
n-word it brings quite a surprising meaning
to a few of their headlines. Case in point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/589625.stm
>> Rod Stewart cross stitch <<
Imagine the horror of working for a cross
stitch magazine. Day-in, day-out trying to
think up twee ideas for mad grannies to
stitch. Fuck knows what was in their tea.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stenno/76351178/
>> Viral boat marketing <<
Sellers! If you want your ebay listing to
really get seen by lots of people then the
trick is to include something rude and little
bit hidden in the photos. A few years back
we had all the reflectoporn stuff (naked men
wanking reflected in a kettle), and now we've
got people pissing on dogs heads. Er.. needs
a catchy title for this to really take off.
Pissy-crops? Urinemyphoto!? (Sorry.)
http://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/view/F83656/
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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
Hamster push-ups
When historians come to write the 'History
of the Web in Animals', the timeline will be
as follows:
1995: Ascii cows
1997: Hamster dance
1999: Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys everywhere.
2001 onwards: Kittens, it's all about the kittens.
Anyway. Let's take a trip back to the 90s and
pretend hamsters are funny and cool again with
this lovely little picture of Mr. Hammy doing
his work-out.
http://www.davesdaily.com/pictures/506-furryfriend...
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Panic Buying
Last week in a vague attempt at being topical,
we asked about panic present-buying:
http://b3ta.com/questions/panicbuying/
Here's two stories of woe for you:
>> Say it with flowers <<
"Two years ago, my Dad called to say he and my
Mum were 'popping round' as she really wanted
to see me on her birthday and I "hadn't
bothered" to call in at theirs. In truth, I'd
just totally forgotten. It was 8pm on a Sunday.
They'd be here in half an hour. Fuck fuckety
fuckfuck. I jumped in the car and flew down to
the all night garage to get her some flowers,
the only thing I could think of. Twatcakes!
They didn't have any! Panicking I bought her
a watering can and a DVD documentary about
water voles. Sped home. Stopped half way.
Looked at my forlorn gifts. Realised there was
no way I could pass these off as anything other
than a last-minute garage trip. Looked out of
the window in despair. Saw... a load of
bunches of flowers tied to the railings where
some kid had got knocked down a month or so
earlier. I am ACTUALLY going to hell. My Mum
quite liked her three presents though." (grey kid)
>> My Mum wishes she'd married me instead <<
"A couple of years ago I'd just gotten my
first job. This was in no small part down
to my Mother who had gone out of her way to
help me get there in the first place. As a
result I decided to blow quite a large chunk
of my newly-acquired wages on a really nice
birthday present for her; a gold bracelet.
She opened it and the look on her face made
my new found poverty (almost) worthwhile.
After staring at it disbelievingly for a
while she realised she wasn't done yet and
turned her attention to my Father's present.
'What could top that?' she must have been
thinking as she opened it. I'm guessing not
a garlic press." (Gleeballs)
Finally, a live report from our shopping
correspondent Legless, "Errr - that would be
me then. It's 1.15pm on Xmas Eve and I'm just
starting my shopping. I haven't bought a thing
yet. But do I panic? Do I run around town like
a maniac? That would be no. Instead of cracking
on with my shopping I walked into the first
Internet Cafe I came across and logged on to
B3ta to check what the question was this week.
I'm so fucking sad someone should take me out
and shoot me... Have a great Xmas."
>> This Week's Question <<
We'd like to know what Urban Legends you've
fallen for, or, even better, started:
http://b3ta.com/questions/urbanlegends/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* AMUSING PACKAGING - We've been asking people
to send in scans of advertising slogans that
sound a bit rude. Thanks Erebus Dawn for this
moderately amusing little innuendo: "We drink
our own juice every day - and we'd like you
to join us." Actually, The Organic Juice Co.
has probably had to sit through the dull
marketing seminar we once listened to where
we were told to "Eat Your Own Dog Food"
which made us thankful we worked on the internet
instead of for Pedigree Chum.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c393/Exoh3/mmmmj...
* GEEK SONGS PART 40 - "Sorry to hark back to
this little feature, but it tickled me greatly",
burps swa110w, "and I do not feel it warranted
the abuse it received." Hold on! What abuse?
"To start the ball rolling again, I thought
I'd tell you about a Geek Song I recently
found myself singing whilst slaving over some
hot code. To the chorus of "Take On Me" by A-ha...
'P...H...P... (P-H-P) P...H...P... (P-H-P)
P...H...P... X-S-L-Ttttttttttttt'" Er.. yes.
Actually did we mention we sometimes sing 'F.T.P!
(aha aha)" to an old KLF tune whilst uploading
bits of the b3ta website? Sad fuckers, all of
us.
* GINGER SPAM - Watch out kids, a reader
informs us, "According to the latest spam to
land in my inbox this morning, someone called
Rob Manuel is offering me the chance to save
up to 85 percent on Viagra." Fucking spammers.
Don't take the Ginger Fuhrer's name in vain,
else he'll make spammers wear little black
triangles and visit the special showers or
something.
* FRASER WORLD DOMINATION - lovely, handsome
and toothy like a russet Tom Baker, Fraser,
has been all over the papers this week as his
Kitten Wars reached overground and into popular
culture. We loved his interview in The Sun,
which makes him sound like the mad cat-lady and,
cruelly, added 15 years to his age.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006000472,00...
* SAYING SORRY FOR RAPE - before Xmas we suggested
that a good idea for a B-Movie would be the "Time
Rapist" and the complaints came flooding in.
# "I wish that the people writing the newsletter
could progress beyond the social awareness
level of a fourteen year old boy with one hand
on his dick and the other on his Princess Leia
model."
# "I love the newsletter, but the time-rapist
request could be misinterpreted as you wishing
that you could rape women (Albeit in different
times). You ought to take care when it could
be taken that you're encouraging rape. Just a
friendly comment."
# "Time travel rape of 'pretty ladies'? that isn't
funny. Reading it made me feel miserable and sick.
I used to love b3ta, I've even given you
money."
# "If you want to go back in time to have
unrestricted sex, say so, but hopefully it would
be consensual and not rape, okay?"
We are deeply ashamed of ourselves and apologise
profusely. However, it wasn't all doom and gloom.
Curis wrote, "I made this teaser trailer for
'The Time Rapist' movie." Er.. Huzzah? Actually
we kinda found this stuff interesting, 'rape'
is proving to be a firecracker of a word,
guaranteed to get people all shouty.
http://media.putfile.com/Teaser-Trailer65
* COULD PEGASUS FLY? We asked how big his wings
would be to take off. Graham Cox wrote us a long
email with lots of science stuff in it, which is
far too long to copy here but the end bit went
like this, "That means that the wingspan is
over 3/4 of a kilometre. In scientific terms,
this is known as 'fucking massive'. This doesn't
take into account the weight that these wings
would add to the horse. Factor in the amount
of energy it's going to take to flap them to
achieve an airspeed of 80mph and I think you
can start to see why there are no horse-sized
birds....." Yay. Can't wait to see this in
a film. "Pegasus. The Time-horse Rapist"
(Sorry.)
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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
* MAN DIAMOND - we sat next to this gay chap
at Christmas lunch who was telling us about
his drag act "Mincey Willis. As we got
progressively more drunk and excitable we
tried to convince him that he should perform
under the name "Man Diamond", have fat ankles,
tell hoary old dead baby jokes, and use a
catch phrase, "Gay. It used to be such a
nice word." We failed to convince him, but
maybe we can convince you?
* MID-LIFE CHRISTIS - write an article for
a Sunday paper about how when men turn
33 they looks back on their life and go,
"Oh fuck I've achieved fuck all and if I
was Jesus I'd have been crucified by now."
We don't know if this is true, but we like
the title.
* TELEWEST TO SEND US A TVDRIVE BOX - we're
feeling rather woo for the UK broadband and
cable provider at the moment as they've
upgraded our bandwidth by a factor of
five and introduced a TV-on-demand service
called Teleport which actually works rather
well. (We've also been day-dreaming they
should have a advert campaign where some
brummy bloke goes, "Telewest. I'm quite
impressed.") Furthermore they're
introducing a Tivo-style box so we can
pause live telly. However the fuckers
announced it ages ago and haven't brought
it to market it. SORT IT OUT. We need
this now!
Send contributions via the mail form.
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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THANKS:
This issue was written by Rob Manuel with
David Stevenson.
Links sent in by themichaelobrien, Rushy,
SomersetChris, transcending_reality,
oodle doodle, Nile, Disgruntled Dog,
b3ta-brainburger & scottellis.
Top Tippery by ausben.
Additional linkage and image challenge by
Fraser Lewry.
Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
* Answer to joke: You get it forced down your
throat by a priest. *
Big yays to b4ta with special woos to RobT
for sorting out the votey stuff.
(106779 - 31702)
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TOP TIP:
Has your celery gone droopy? Put the offending
vegetable in some cold water and into the
fridge for a while for a welcome return to
firm rigidity.
