NEWSLETTER: "MAKING PAUL DANIELS PARANOID, EVERY FRIDAY, FOR FIVE YEARS"
This Week:
* SHEDS - Best home improvement ever
* STALKING - Paul Daniels on eBay
* CHALLENGE - Tom Cruise, please don't sue us
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web... together"
B3ta email 231 - 2 Jun 2006
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Sheds, Flickbooks and Stickmen
>> Sheds of Destiny <<
Wilco runs a site where readers can send in
pics of their sheds for the delight of other
men. One of his shed-heads has transformed his
garden man-cabin into an opulent Roman temple,
complete with flaming torch. "It's the best
shed I have seen in a long time," says Wilco
"and I have seen a few in my time." We can
think of no finer place to hide from the wife,
reading Razzle and drinking potato wine.
http://www.readersheds.co.uk/readersheds/share.cfm...
>> Flickbook shit <<
Flick books were what webtards used in the
days before Al Gore invented the animated gif.
This website where you can make your own
rudimentary animations has been storming round
lately. B3ta reader P3te has produced a
particularly fine sequence of a man shitting
from a great height.
http://www.thepartybasket.co.uk/flipbook/flip.pte....
>> Stick figure quiz <<
Matazone is a clever chap, coming up with a
quiz where the crapness of the art is actually
a feature. See if you can guess the film or
whatever from the faintest of visual cues. Or
submit your own. We liked this a lot, but the
problem we had was that about 80% of the
questions are easy/gettable, while the rest
are some obscure scene from Sailor Moon and
you'll never ever guess it. Bah.
http://www.stickscene.com/
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Never meet your heroes
We wanted to know which of your heroes had
disappointed you in real life:
http://b3ta.com/questions/nevermeetyourheroes/
A good deal of your stories were about people
who actually turned out to be quite nice, but
here are three that let you down and once case
of extreme stalking that made us laugh:
* Voice of an angel. "I was once in the
Cardiff Bay area with a girlfriend when my
lady pointed at the flats behind us,
"Charlotte Church lives there." I spent the
next fifteen minutes shouting at the top of my
voice, "Charlotte Church! Charlotte Church." I
didn't get bored. I did not waver. I stood and
shouted it, always at the same volume, same
octave... over and over again. "Charlotte
Church... Charlotte Church." It was like a
monotonous car alarm just sounding out the
name Charlotte Church. It became my mantra. I
don't even think I was fully aware that I was
saying it anymore. It was just dripping out of
my mouth, like a Welsh named syrup, Charlotte
Church... continually falling out of my mouth
and sounding throughout the bay area. Well
eventually a net curtain pulls back, and who
should hang themselves out of the window but
the Welsh wonder herself, wearing nothing but
a bathrobe, last night's make-up and a
cigarette on her lips... "What!!! What the
fuck do you want?" She says, in her lyrical
Welsh voice. And I didn't know. I didn't know
what I wanted. Why was I shouting for her?
"Erm... nothing. I just wondered if you were
in." (I'm a schmuck)
* Hawking "Stephen Hawking - mind size of a
planet, complete twunt though: wouldn't sign my
book." (alz0r)
* I was tricked by PJ And Duncan. "When I was
little I thought PJ And Duncan (now Ant and
Dec) were great. I went to see them in
pantomime at Lewisham, and was bought up on
stage for the audience-participation part. Me,
and two MUCH OLDER children, were given
musical instruments. I had a squeezey-horn
thing. We had to "play" them in order to make
a song. Only my one wouldn't play, and I was
terrified. 100s of people watching me and
laughing. This went on for AT LEAST AN HOUR.
Once the laughing had died down, DUNCAN took
my musical instrument and squeezed it and
low-and-behold it worked perfectly (in fact a
man in the soundbox had pressed a button).
They gave it back to me, still didn't work,
they took it back, it worked, they gave it to
me, AND I FUCKING CRIED AT THEM. All I
remember now is crying, a giant goodie bag,
and a life-long loathing of Ant and fucking
Dec." (stevierar)
* Don't look at the hard drive "My mate Jon is
a copper and met his boyhood hero when he had
to arrest Gary Glitter after the now infamous
PC World incident. He doesn't want to be in
Gary's gang any more." (weebear1974)
>> This Week's Question <<
We want the bits you are missing. With photo
evidence if possible. Go here, and laugh at
others misfortune:
http://b3ta.com/questions/missingbodyparts/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.
>> Stalking Paul Daniels <<
UK magician Paul Daniels is an ill-tempered
demi-midget with an aptitude for sleight of
hand. He's also an eBay user. Someone has
stumbled on his ID and this blog details, in
painstaking detail, all of Mr. Daniels's eBay
doings. Has Daniels got a stalker or is it
someone just having a laugh?
http://www.pdet.blogspot.com/
>> Harry Enfield's IMDB picture <<
It's really rather odd. Can they imagine
that's how he really looks?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0256960/
>> Desktop warfare <<
Learn how to create projectile-launching
weaponry from just the stuff you find lying
around in your office stationary cupboard.
It's the sheer lethality that's admirable here
- the photo of a Coke can transfixed by a
high-velocity pencil gives you the idea that,
while you could get fired for this, at least
you'd be able to fight off the security guards
trying to escort you from the premises.
http://www.officeguns.com/gunadv_super_maul.html
>> Child's toilet costume <<
Parents looking to emotionally scar their
offspring for life could perhaps consider
sending them trick or treating in this
sartorial depiction of a commode. The treat is
a stranger shitting on their chest.
http://www.anytimecostumes.com/costumes/02189163.h...
>> Jesus pan <<
Ebay's full of auctions for Jesus' face
'miraculously' appearing on a variety of
foodstuffs. Just get one of these pans with
the messiah's face on the bottom and you've
got a production line to instant riches. If
the people who made this were serious about
cashing in, they would make on with The Hoff's
face on. That's David Hasselhoff, btw, not
Dustin Hoffman - not so popular.
http://jesuspan.com/
>> Stupid frat boy business ideas <<
They're the business plans made by naive
college grads and this guy pours scorn on
their utter foolishness. Quite a long read,
but we enjoyed it partly because it made our
apathy seem somehow wise. The comments with
comebacks from entrepreneurs are also worth a
glance.
http://snipurl.com/lickmywelshpenismumm
>> Zombie Wedding <<
How to spoil your wedding for your parents and
in-laws; get everybody to dress as the living
dead. The twin coffins for the bride and groom
are a nice touch. The group photo is
impressive - worth noting who didn't come as a
corpse.
http://snipurl.com/mummyyourpenissmells
>> Transparent butterflies <<
The Glasswing is a Central American butterfly
with see-through membranes in its wings. It's
oddly beautiful but rarely seen in the wild.
That would be because, as mentioned above,
it's mostly transparent.
http://snipurl.com/ojrx
>> Creme Egg omelette <<
To celebrate Lordi's recent Eurovision
success, these guys made an extravagant
omelette made of Cadbury's Creme Eggs. Dear
God, it looks vile.
http://www.thegdp.net/2006/05/24/creme-egg-omelett...
>> Free Friday Thing <<
Back when we launched B3ta, our bitterest
rival was lengthy satire newsletter The Friday
Thing. Luckily, they were only available to
people who paid. Now they've made so much
money from shonky web/book tie-ins (including
ours coming soon) that they can afford to give
it away for free. They just want your email
address.
http://www.thefridayproject.co.uk/tft/subscribe/
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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
Cancer scare hedgehog
Huff the hedgepig's owners have been keeping a
photojournal of the spiny little chap since
2002, when he was the size of a conker. After
a recent health scare he's back on his feet
and cute as ever.
http://www.triagonal.co.uk/Hedgepig/Huff2002.html
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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
Raping your bandwidth with our meaty-cucumbers
>> Kitten vs Laptop <<
We've spent many an hour arguing about the new
Apple laptops at B3ta Towers. Are they shiny
enough? Can we get one in pink? But like most
important decisions in our life, we leave it
for the kittens to decide. SPOILER: The kitten
loves them.
http://snipurl.com/r98q
>> Hitler kid <<
A little boy dresses up as Hitler and
interviews passers-by "What is wrong with the
youth of today?" Great stuff - really sharp.
It's a segment from Wonder Shozen, an MTV
series we'd very much like to see over here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> The best paper plane <<
It's a five-minute video of someone making a
paper aeroplane and (spoiler) he doesn't even
fly it at the end. But it's still good - the
plane he shows you how to make is one of those
sophisticated two-part jobbies that look ace.
http://video.google.com/videoplay
>> 50 Cent v. Thomas the Tank Engine <<
There's something quite satisfying about
watching Fiddy and his hip-hop entourage
cavorting to the merrily twee sounds of the
classic children's show theme. The irony is
that Thomas the Tank Engine's lawyers are
probably more litigious than 50 Cent's, so
catch this while you can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
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: FUNNY NAME CORNER
Serial killer special
>> Dr Shipman's surgery <<
The American doctor seems blissfully unaware
of his infamous UK namesake. Phrases like "He
treats each patient with the same unhurried
concern as he would want for his family" had
us sniggering.
http://shipmaninc.com/dr.html
Other murderers include:
* Hindley Children's Centre
http://snipurl.com/myrahindley
* Brady's Toys and Banks
http://www.mechanicalbanks.com/
>> Bonus otherage - free! gratis! <<
* Brent Council own-goal acronym:
http://snipurl.com/iloveyourshat
* Pete Doherty's favorite website?
http://www.scag.com/locator/
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: WHEN DESIGNERS TURN BAD
Shed trauma
Some web designers put extra invisible text on
the pages they make so as to fool search
engines into making them more popular. If you
click and drag on Merseyside Sheds website you
can see it has the normal 'sheds', 'bespoke'
and that kind of thing. Then someone very
angry has also added, invisibly to most
visitors; "DAVID WAH IS A COCCAINE SNIFFING
DIRTY COCKLE PICKER HE LOST ELLIE AND IT ALL
WENT TO COCK ELLIE RAN OFF WITH THE BUILDER
SUCKING COCK FOR CASH WHATS NEW KEV STEVO WE
TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE YOUR TURN TO BE SHAFTED
AND YOU WERE WELL AND TRULY NO PROSPECTS FOR
YOU KIDDA BANG GOES THE INHERETANCE." Seems a
little harsh for a site about sheds.
http://www.mdsheds.co.uk/
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the L33t Challenge
Last week we wanted to know what life would be
like if animals were l33t, familiar with the
secret ways of the web.
Our favourites included:
* BIRD MIGARATION - in which a flock of birds
get impressively geeky on yo ass (Ad7)
* WTF - in which the World Wilflife Fund
reveal a dramatic new logo (Droog)
* RSS FEED - Fact: Sheep + RSS = Web 3.0
(collapsibletank)
All these images, and the highest as voted by
you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/l33t/
>> New challenge: If Tom Cruise Were God <<
Can you imagine what life would be like if Tom
Cruise was in charge? Pretty odd, we think.
Cruise fact primer: Tom is a Scientologist,
and NOT AT ALL GAY.
http://b3ta.com/challenge/tomcruise/
>> Your challenge ideas <<
We want your image challenge ideas. Then we
want you to vote on the challenges suggested
by other people. It's easy.
http://www.b3ta.com/questions/imagechallenge/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* SQUIRREL UPDATE REQUEST - "Any chance,"
bellows Tony, "of an update in the newsletter
on that guy who rescued a squirrel and had it
as a pet? Has it been flushed down the bog
yet? is it being kept in a cage rocking back
and forth cos it's gone mental? Inquiring
cynical minds need to know! I'll probably be
disappointed in a happy ending." So, Hairy
Midget - what's the news?
http://www.b3ta.com/links/13427/
* EBAY REVENGE - Last week we featured
Spikytom's revenge against a bloke who sold
him a dodgy laptop. This week: 'Police
Investigate Hate Website'. Ah well, if they
were serious about it they would have shut him
down.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5030814....
* HISCOX RESPONDS - last week we pointed out
that this insurance firm has a rude name. B
Gower got in touch with them to ask if they
had any plans to change their name "to avoid
the usual crop of sniggering innuendo." The
response?
"Subject: RE: Hiscox.com enquiry
Dear Sirs
Thank you for contacting Hiscox.
Although we appreciate your feedback we have
no immediate plans to review our name or
logo.
The name is very well known within the
insurance market and we do not want to lose
the brand associations we have built up over
several decades. We our proud that Hiscox
has grown from a small family business and
our Chairman is still a founding member -
Robert Hiscox.
Yours sincerely, Victoria Sutton"
BTW: Note the "We our proud that Hiscox has
grown" line...
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: FRIDAY GAME
Dragon's Lair made by cheese-tards
Old cunts will remember Dragon's Lair from the
Arcades in the 80s. It featured 'real cartoon
graphics' via a 'laserdisk'. The downside
being that the gameplay was crap. Our man here
has remade the experience, but with really
perfunctory visuals and somehow, it's utterly
great. Or so annoyingly tricky that we started
giggling anyway.
http://www.studiohunty.com/dungeon/
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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
* TESTING X-RAY CAMERAS - can a large breasted
science lady do some photo experiments with
this?
http://www.kaya-optics.com/products/experiments.sh...
* MAKE OUR INTERNET DREAMS COME TRUE start a
'Jim'll Fix It' style site where punters can
make suggestions like 'I'd like my own sex
cult' and you make it happen. Film it, sell
the TV rights, and indeed profit.
* PROCRASTINATION FIXING MACHINE - as per
usual we've left writing the newsletter to the
last minute. Hold on, actually what we need
are slaves.
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. Stuff sent in by Wormulus,
Dave Gorman, Restoration Dept, pgm28, hahn,
oodles, sinisterduck, rhcpaul, megalowho, i'm
a 2@, grubbymits, Frankie Pigeon, Streki,
asims taintedlove_1979, dan, djfrankiepigeon
Additional linkage and image challenge by
Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. You
said you loved me or were you just being
kind? Or am I losing my mind? Nuff respec to
b4ta. (109032 - 35319)
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: TOP TIP
Section ballooning like Freddie's AIDS mushroom
>> Sneezing controversy continues <<
* "Thinking about the back of your neck as
hard as you can - imagine you're having an
out-of-body experience - I know what your
thinking - complete bollocks - but it does
work." (p togneri)
* Or alternatively "Why an earth would you not
want to sneeze? Surely it is more irritating
to 'miss' a sneeze? If so, look at a bright
light, like a light bulb, or the sun, which
produces sneezes every-time." (beddoes)
* Whereas "Hiccups can be stopped purely by
mind over matter - all the old tricks like
drinking from the other side of a glass are
just difficult to perform and force you to
think about something other than hiccups,
which is why they work. Which makes me wonder
- can you do it with sneezing too?.
(Electrichamster)
>> Tips not about sneezing <<
* "Use an old credit card to scrape away dried
on food from work surfaces, pans and anywhere
else it might fall." (expiry_date)
* "Think you might get caught short needing a
pee when driving on the motor-way? Take an
empty fabric conditioner bottle with you to
relieve yourself in. They have a wide neck
which prevents a bad aim, a decent volume so
no over-flowing, and the best bit is the
lovely fabric-softener smell covers up the
stench of piss. Perfect!" (Alice - yes, a
woman)
* Beat condensation while you're trying to
shave. Try putting a tiny bit of soap some bog
roll, add a drop of water and give the mirror
a quick rub. Viola! Your mirror will
magically repel steam for up to a week!
(chaaars)
* Bored of not being able to hear your friends
in nightclubs. Do you get deafened when they
talk right into your ear to make themselves
heard? (Kazza)
Keeping them coming:
http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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