NEWSLETTER: "INSERT NAWTY NEWSLETTER TITLE HERE"
This Week:
* MYSTIC MEG - She talks bollocks. Proof.
* BEES - How to kill them
* Y2K - Are you prepared?
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're shaving our
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| legs... together"
B3ta email 259 - 5 January 2007
Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue259/
Subscribe: [email protected]
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http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Forecasts, Tips, Drawing, Spectrums and Guns
>> Mystic Meg and the real world <<
Shamelessly sceptical, new_matt spent 2006
tracking the predictions of News of the World
top astronomer Mystic Meg. Here's a reprint of
2005's column with each point rated for
accuracy. She's surprisingly good on politics,
less so on sports or the possibility of aliens
contacting Earth.
http://www.5318008.co.uk/mysticmeg
>> Crafty women's tips and fiddles <<
The fatpie guys have been watching too much
late night digital TV. So much so that they've
been driven to make their own crap-style
craft-based infomercial. "Our lovely
presenters June and Sandy will talk you
through the basics of Christmas crafting with
helpful hints and tips, as well as hot
products that aren't available in the shops."
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> "I should draw more" <<
"Tell me what to draw and I will draw it,
boasts doktored. "One a day." Today's depicts
gypsies cooking a hedgehog. That was Rob's
request. What would you like him to draw?
http://doktored.blogspot.com/
>> 'Spectrum emulator' <<
One for the retro-computing enthusiasts,
perhaps. "Inspired by MJ Hibbett's old Hey Hey
16k song I decided to throw together this
ultra-realistic flash/javascript Spectrum
emulator," writes AnAnonymousAlcoholic. Short
sharp reminder of what it was like to try
playing computer games in the early eighties.
http://www.rtapeloadingerror.com/
>> Computer trap shoot <<
Kentucky-based b3tard Miss Cellania sends us
this "video of some hi-tech hillbillies using
my computer for target practice. That's the
way we like to celebrate holidays, with guns
and explosives." Email problems meant we
didn't get to see this until now - shame, as
it's really good.
http://snipurl.com/vdvo
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Falling Asleep
Last week we wanted to know the strangest
places you've fallen asleep:
http://b3ta.com/questions/strangebeds/
* OH BLOODY HELL
"This question stirred something scary I
thought was tucked away for good. To cut an
insanely long story short: I slept next to a
corpse in a family-to-a-room dwelling in an
extremely poor part of Singapore, as the
'honoured' guest. It's not the sleeping,
it's the dreams and the waking up...
*shudder*" (baldie)
* A FINAL BEDTIME STORY
"At a party during my mid teens, got
hammered and ended up on the floor amongst
all the other bodies. I awoke to see some
lads lifting a comatose teen into a wardrobe
on the floor and slowly turn it over. Some
time passed and they waited, drinking juice
and keeping quiet. Eventually the contents
of the wooden box stirred, and they began
reciting "ashes, to ashes, dust to dust we
commend his soul to all eternity, etc, etc"
and chucking coins, pasta, rice and other
crap onto the box. The contents murmured,
stirred, paused and then began screaming,
kicking and sobbing loudly that he was still
alive as books and piles of clothes were
thrown onto his coffin to simulate sods of
earth. I'll never forget the pure white,
tear streaked face of that dead teenager
when he was dug up out of his tomb."
(Readmarx)
* UP, UP AND AWAY
"As a cadet I ended up part of a group sent
on a ride in a Chinook chopper for a quick
buzz around. Having spent the entire
previous night on watch or in a ditch I was
absolutely knackered and promptly fell
asleep. Unfortunately for me, the rear crew
noticed, hooked me up to a tether and stood
me in front of the wide open rear doors. The
pilot started doing some fancy low level
stuff with me passed out hanging from my
tether. Try to imagine waking up and seeing
only land and sky rotating at very strange
angles, the wind rushing and the crew
screaming over the comms, "Holy shit, how
the fuck did he fall out the back?"
repeatedly." (R.M.O.)
>> Last, Last Week's Question <<
The week before last, well it was Christmas,
and we wanted the secret Santa presents you
had bought for people you hate. Quite why this
resulted in Frankspencer posting more of his
soft porn stories, we don't know:
http://b3ta.com/questions/secretsanta/
>> This Week's Question <<
We'd like to know what you've failed at. So
far, that is. Talk to us here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/failed/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates
>> Problems with bees <<
American family notices a huge cluster of bees
congregating where the kids play. What would
you do? Looks like in order to save the swing
set they were forced to destroy it. Great pics.
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread
>> National stereotypes <<
Take the first Google Image result for "French
man", "French woman" etc. and what you're left
with, for the most part, is a highly effective
collection of national stereotypes. Not on
this page but well worth trying is "Welsh man".
http://blog.outer-court.com/country-stereotypes/
>> Armour for cats and mice <<
This guy makes spectacular suits of
fully-articulated armour for both cats and
mice. We can't help but feel he's profiteering
from the natural antipathy between the two
species - what next; tiny handguns to fit
their little paws? For shame!
http://snipurl.com/sirmicealot
>> What 200 calories looks like <<
Photos of 200 calories-worth of various
foodstuffs, so you can fully appreciate the
calorific density. On the basis that the
average adult has to consume around 2000
calories per day, we can say we'd rather drink
600ml of Bailey's than eat 5kg of broccoli.
Mostly as a matter of saving time.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-loo...
>> Spider Bite <<
If you needed any incentive to not play around
with spiders, take a gander at this sequence
of pics. They document the progress of a
spider bite from envenomation to when the poor
guy's hand bursts open in a truly horrible
display of Mother Nature's bounty. Necrotic
venom is nasty, nasty.
http://nonk.nonk.info/pages2/spider_bite.php
>> Paul McCartney on drugs <<
Arguably the internet's most complete history
of the Beatles maestro's encounters with
pharmaceuticals through his career. He's
hipper than you'd think.
http://snipurl.com/likethebeatlesonacid
>> Fake vagina sanitary towel <<
More from the ever-trusty Google Patents
search and what a find! It's an artificial
vagina on a sanitary towel - to permit
simulated sex while a woman is on her period.
Deeply weird. Also, it looks like some sort of
freaky cocoon.
http://snipurl.com/sextampon
>> Words rated by popularity <<
Wordcount is a project to rate words according
to how often they're used in the English
language. It also lets you type in words to
see how high they're ranked. This is the page
that ranks words according to how often people
search for them.
http://www.wordcount.org/querycount.php
>> Amazon's most useless book? <<
"Forewarned is fore-armed" for some people and
they will be gladdened to know that they can
still get hold of Scott Marks' classic "Y2K:
It's Not Too Late : Complete Preparedness
Guide". Best of all, Amazon says it's 'Usually
dispatched within 1 to 2 working days'.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/096690391...
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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
Apparently the kids like Youtube
>> Backwards man <<
Short film telling the tale of an unfortunate
soul at odds with the rest of the universe
through the medium of reversing film footage.
Lovely musical accompaniment / commentary,
which is mostly why we like it. "Backwards Man
gets pigs from spam" - lyrical genius indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> Pulp Fiction - just the fucks <<
Tarantino's classic with all the non-profanity
edited out. Maybe we've seen this film too too
many times but it still seemed pretty much the
same to us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> Weatherman vs cockroach <<
The show must go on, they say. But what would
you do if you were giving the weather forecast
and found a cockroach crawling up your leg?
We'd mock this fellow's panic-stricken retreat
more, but you should see us when there's a
spider in the bath.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
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: FUNNY NAME CORNER
Gaye Cox
Superfuzz56 writes to say, "I worked on a
helpdesk in a New Zealand university. When I
got a call from this lady I thought someone
was taking the piss, but no. She was very
nice, I really came to like Gaye Cox."
http://snipurl.com/dont_click_PDF
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from lots and lots of challenges
As we haven't run a newsletter for a few weeks
we've got a backlog of challenges to get
through.
* Not that it's very relevant now, but we did
do sick Xmas cards. You might want to save off
a few of these for sending next year.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/sick_christmas_cards...
* Two weeks ago we asked you to design album
sleeves gone wrong.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/album_covers/
* And last week we demanded to see tributes to
the rich and famous who'll die this year. You
killed off greats including Margaret Thatcher,
David Blaine and that Barry Scott.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/obituaries/
>> New challenge: Real Life Cartoons <<
Elmer Fudd pesky wabbit control? President
Brain and vice president Pinky? What would
happen if you took cartoon characters and put
them in the real world? Challenge suggested by
Prodigy69.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/real_cartoons/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
NOMINATIVE DETERMINISM - A couple of weeks ago
we wrote "There's a term for people whose name
relates to their profession with spooky
synchronicity. We can't remember what it is,
but we're sure someone will remind us." Mucho
thanko to Joe Sinclair for jogging our tired
memories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinis...
AUTOCOMPLETE TIP - Way back in issue 258 our
top tip told you how to delete items from your
browser's autocomplete. "Thanks!" beams tom
the astronaut. "Using that - and deleting
items from my history - I can watch as much
porn as is humanly possible and never get
caught." Yay.
SWEARY WIRELESS - "Am I," inquires
wouldyoubelieveiamabarrister, "the only person
who's noticed that the SSID on your wifi is an
opportunity to broadcast a case sensitive text
string with a maximum of 32 alphanumeric
characters to every computer user in every
domicile within 20 metres of your hovel?
"Over the past few months my router has
changed its name from the experimental
'fuckoff' through
'ask_your_daddy_if_anal_hurts' to the more
targeted 'TheTwatsInNumber63areChavScum' and
'iGuiltyWankToNubileOf66_basement'.
"I would love to know if other people have
been playing this game too. does it already
have a name?" If nobody was doing it before,
they surely will now. What a fantastic idea!
BTW: This is an email from a bloke who lives
next door to B3ta HQ and has noticed our
wireless network is called 'cunt'.
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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
* WIKI-CELEBRA-DEATH - captainsarcasm writes,
"I've basically a new game. The idea is to go
on a celebrity's profile on Wikipedia, and
just add their death date. Nothing to out
there, just a simple (19th April 1960 - 22nd
December 2006). Then wait how long until
somebody notices. If you pass the twenty
minute mark, then you win. So far, fellow
b3tans have killed Ruby Wax, Jjune Ssarpong
and Jeremy Beadle." We're amused, even if we
don't really condone such things, as Wikipedia
is probably our (second) favourite site ever.
* CHEAT THE POST OFFICE - postbear has
contacted us reckoning that you can save your
stamps by, "swap the to and from address on
the envelope. Nine times out of ten, the
letter gets delivered where you want it." Can
someone test this? Or you might like to use
tiny envelopes, a child-like scrawl and
address them to 'daddy'. We reckon this stands
a chance.
* BOLLOCKS TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES. B3ta member
Driverchris has made a handy chart for you to
read and learn.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v382/driverchris...
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 Flapjack,
Craig, Flash_Bastard, Simon Gibson, Just
Harry, mince, bunnybutt, We are the lemon, Top
Tippery by fat pat's dusty twat. Additional
linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry.
Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Hello to b4ta.
(think of a number)
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TOP TIP:
NEVER use the envelope provided with your VAT
returns if they're going to be a few days
late. These are pre-printed with a barcode to
ensure that they drop on the correct desk
within hours of arriving. Without the barcode
they will be held in limbo for a few days
anyway, so back-date away chums.
