NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 142: "BETTER THAN LICKING BATTERIES"
This Week:
* ANIM - Russian dolls go wild
* HUMAN ZOO - Fat blokes dressed as Superman
* VIDEO - Cats that love trees too much
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___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web... together"
B3ta email 142 - 02 Jul 2004
Read this issue in your browser:
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Russian dolls, scary men, ducks, dancing
>> Russian dolls on holiday <<
"I have made this," writes Monkeon "in
order to get over my recent obsession with
Russian dolls." We hope it didn't help, as
this is excellent stuff, and clever too.
http://www.monkeon.co.uk/russiandolls/
>> "I kill cats" vid <<
"Greetings," booms Ethan T Berlin. "I think you
will like my animations." We do, although
they also frighten us immensely.
http://www.gbehh.com/toons/nytimes.html
>> Giant duck nature film <<
Thomas Scott has been busy working with David
Attenborough to document the life of the rare
Giant Amazonian Duck. It must be true: Look,
it's all caught on camera!
http://www.thomasscott.net/flash/duckling/
>> Dancing animal country <<
Cute little creatures, dancing through the
countryside. There's more than a hint of our
own Jonti Picking to this animated offering from
Adz. But high-quality influences have yielded
high-quality results and this is a lovely hymn
to rustic niceness.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.lambourne/dadsda...
>> Weebl goes to Ikea - conclusion <<
Weebl concludes his Sweden-baiting Pikea
trilogy with this fine episode of his eponymous
cartoon. BTW: Jonti is looking to sell a DVD
of his work. If you're interested, then
remember to vote on his site.
http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/pikea3.htm
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: GOOD AND BAD
Stuff this week which is er.. good or bad
>> GOOD: Firefox browser <<
Free from spyware, quicker than Internet
Explorer and complete with fantastic tabbed
browsing, Firefox has recently become our
browser of choice.
>> GOOD: Peyote mushrooms <<
Now being openly sold in shops by Camden
market. Psychedelics are fun. Take advantage
of the current laxity in law and spend your
summer tripping.
>> BAD: Labour banning smoking <<
Tony Blair is bringing in a smoking ban as
a third term election pledge. Give up smoking?
We'd rather vote Tory.
>> BAD: BT capping ASDL bandwidth <<
Apparently it'll be £2 for every GB you go
over your limit. We've cancelled our account
and moved to Blueyonder.
>> BAD: No Daleks on Doctor Who <<
The estate of Terry Nation is playing funny
buggers over cash. BTW: We hope the rumour
that Derren Brown is to play The Master is
true.
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: HUMAN ZOO
Superman convention
The annual Superman festival in Metropolis,
Illinois brings out a strange assortment of
characters who enjoy dressing as the Man of
Steel. If this is the result, we think only
fashion models should be allowed access
to superpowers. Everyone else looks shit.
http://www.quixoticcrap.com/writings/superdudes.ht...
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.
>> When tornados attack <<
The weather in the UK is pretty dull - either
piss-weak sunshine that couldn't give skin
cancer to an albino or wimpy spots of rain.
We leave it to Japan for proper, manly
weather of the future. They have cool shit
like tornados attacking football games. Jammy
bastards.
http://www.drunkstunts.com/pafiledb/pafiledb.php
>> Crap adventure game <<
Remember those point and click adventures
like Space Quest and Myst? How much better
would they be if the writers dispensed with
the game element and simply concentrated
on amusing you? Best bits? The oedipal time
machine and the part with Hitler.
http://www.atrianglemorning.com/games/which.php
>> Best FAQ in the world <<
Mr Biffo is a writer most known for his
irreverant games reviews on the Channel 4
teletext service Digitiser
. His FAQ, detailing
his falling out with his employers, makes
entertaining reading.
http://www.mrbiffo.com/biffofaq.htm
>> Drunk game <<
Drink is one of man's finest inventions. It's
no wonder that the phrase "best thing since
canned beer" has entered the lexicon of the
more discerning users of our language.
Simulate the effects of heavy drinking
without the downsides of liquid shit and
losing your job in this hard-to-control
game.
http://www.wagenschenke.ch/
>> Painted rocks <<
The finest thing an artist can do is to be
the one who sees what is already there. Artist
George Witham is such a man. He combs beaches
for interesting rocks, studies them for weeks
then finally decides that a rock is a shoe and
paints it accordingly. Wonderful stuff.
http://www.surfwiz.com/paintedrocks.htm
>> Cats love trees <<
Cats are stupid. Watch with glee this compelling
evidence. Cat falls from tree, cat is very
scared, cat runs back up tree. The clip is best
enjoyed looped within your media player.
http://pya.cc/pyaimg/img2/2004062919.wmv
>> Spoof phone call <<
We've never had the courage to do crank phone
calls but it's clearly a rewarding source of
humour. Kinda Reality TV before all that crap was
invented. This fine example has a chappy
phoning a hardware store to buy some butt plugs.
It's the insistency and limited dialogue that
brings joy to our blackened hearts.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/plugs.php
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: BIT TORRENT TV
Stuff we've watched this week
Pundits have been bleating on about the arrival
of TV on demand for years. Who would have
thought it would come, not via the studios, but
from an ad-hoc collection of enthusiasts using
filesharing software?
Here's some of the stuff we've been enjoying
recently:
>> Deadwood <<
The main reason to watch HBO's gritty Western
is Ian 'Lovejoy' McShane's scene-stealing turn
as a violent and foul-mouthed pimp. But the
rest is pretty solid, too. The series is
beginning to show on UK satellite now, but
it's worth tracking down some of the later
episodes, when the pace begins to pick up.
>> Monk <<
Adrian Monk is a private eye with a variety of
obsessive-compulsive disorders. He's a brilliant
detective, but spends most of his time cleaning
things and rearranging pictures. We stumbled on
this completely by chance and were both charmed
by the witty script and amused by the crassness
of mental illness played for laughs. This is the
heir apparent to Columbo/Diagnosis Murder/your
classic light-hearted lunchtime murder shows.
>> Dark Skies <<
One of the many joys of torrenting is finding
shows that aren't available on DVD. Dark Skies
wowed us in the 90s with its enjoyable
sub-X-Files nonsense of aliens and rewriting
history. Our favourite moment is when our
heroes meet Jim Morrison who seemingly can only
converse in Doors lyrics, "Yeah man, people
are strange." On seeing a locked building,
"Let's break on through to the other side."
Inspired tosh and worth a few hours of your time.
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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
Baby ferrets
If you didn't think weasels could be cute, you
are very wrong, as this photo gallery clearly
demonstrates.
Fact 1: Female ferrets are called Jills.
Fact 2: The name Jill derives from the Greek
ioulos - "downy-bearded". Erm. We think you
can draw your own conclusions from that.
http://snipurl.com/7hfq
BTW: What's the cutest thing you've seen on
the web recently? Tell us at http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/
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: FRIDAY GAME
Chinese Penguin Conga
It starts off easy: you control three cute
little Chinese penguins, timing their jumps
with the numbers on your keyboard. But as the
game progresses, you get more and more penguins.
Ultimately, you're a sweaty, spasming mess,
trying to herd a conga line of nine of the
buggers. Absolute genius.
http://www.koreus.com/files/200406/themalibu9.html
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Cowboy 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 Cowboys!
http://b3ta.com/challenge/cowboys/
We asked B3ta boarder 'Naive Amoeba' to judge
the entries - here are his 3 faves.
Naive Amoeba writes -
#1 "Lasso Tool - I love this, it's clever and a
great use of Photoshop puns. (Chobb)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3373945
#2 "Itchy Nose - Great drawings, fluid animation
and a nice joke. All 'round top stuff!
(The Neville)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3377537
#3 "Cowboy Clive - Haha, very cute and a fab
'shop. Kinda trippy, if you've been watching
it for about 3 days like me. (MrRush)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3374236
Finally, the 'bonus' winner is for Best Been
Done Pun. There were a lot of great entries
this challenge, and there was a definite
ongoing pun - a play on the word cowboy.
This one is the best though, it looks great
and it's pulled off fantastically.
(TheFelineAnarchist)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/3383845
>> This Week's Challenge <<
This week, B3ta contributor 'The Fabulous
Dancing Yak' gave us the suggestion,
"I didn't know it did that!"
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/didntknow/
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: 100 ISSUES AGO TODAY
"Football Vs Art"
We take a quick look back at the best links
in issue 42 of the B3ta newsletter.
>> Supporter or Deporter <<
It was the height of the 2002 World Cup and
b3ta regular Monkeon was pissed off. He poured
his footy hatred into this - still relevant -
quiz.
http://www.monkeon.co.uk/supporter/
>> Weebl makes pie <<
Blimey. This takes us back. The first ever
Weebl & Bob. Didn't little Jonti do well?
Who knew a pie empire would rise from this
simple animation?
http://www.weebl.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/b3ta/pie.htm...
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* LAMB ATTACK - regular readers will know we
stick suggestions for new things at the
bottom of the newsletter. Occasionally
you even listen. Splatpunk writes, "You want it,
you got it - 'Lamb Attack' its Defender with a
primitive twist. Turn your speakers up and
enjoy." Blimey. This is demented, hard to
control and brought a huge grin to our
CRT-weathered faces.
http://www.splatpunk.com/flash/lambattack/lambatta...
* B3TA PICS IN THE PAPERS AGAIN - but we think
the Guardian is taking the piss by cropping
the artists' credits. Boo hiss!
http://www2.b3ta.com/clippings/b3taguardian.jpg
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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
* OCTAGONAL PANTS FOR OCTOPUSES - we're sick
of denizens of the deep parading their
octococks in our faces.
* INFINITE INK PRINTERS - surely some kind of
detachable squid would suffice? Simply feed
it a few fish flakes and we'd collapse
the fixed-price practices of the printer
industry. Paper jams could be a bit
stinky though.
* PANTS IN THE POST - fresh underwear
delivered everyday through your letterbox.
Complete with return address sewn into
the gusset. Finished wearing them? Simply
pop them into the post box on the way to
work.
Send contributions to 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 inside_four_walls,
wang_chinguk, davidguy, Daniel Brown,
GuinnessJoe, charlieroker, munkehwill &
eyeizsamsonitetoo.
Top Tippery by gardening bloke on This Morning.
Additional linkage by Fraser Lewry.
Board research by Fnord and Sorcery.
Image challenge handled by Miss Terry Bob.
Proofing by the silent b4ta majority. (75543)
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TOP TIP:
To ripen green tomatoes: simply place inside a
brown paper bag with a banana and leave on a
warm window sill for two days. The ethylene
gas produced by the ripening banana will make
your green tomatoes red. Then again, if you've
got lots of green tomatoes, make chutney.
