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NEWSLETTER: "DANDRUFF: THE POOR MAN'S PARMESAN"

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This Week:
* ANIM - Simon Cowell
* TUNES - Shufflr
* DANCE - Russian hip-hop

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____/  _)|_  // /_/ _ |      
___/  _ |/_ </ __/ __ |       "Now under 
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_|      Tory control..."

B3ta email 329 - 23 May 2008

Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue329/

       Subscribe:  [email protected]
         Unsub:  [email protected]
  
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
  Cowell, Shufflr, Parties and Snails

  >> Jonti Vs Owl and Simon Cowell <<
  Poor Simon Cowell, not only is he one of the
  richest shits on the planet, his name rhymes
  with 'owl'. Something Joel Veitch once tackled
  with his lightweight but memorable, "Simon
  Cowell has got an owl and a trowel", and now
  Picking is bringing out the big guns with
  applying his animation and songy genius to a
  similar area. BTW: Music geeks - if you want to
  know how Jonti achieves his robot tone on his
  voice then google 'melodyne.'
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/owls


  >> Shufflr <<
  Cr3 is still on his one man mission to destroy
  the music industry by helping everyone listen
  to everything for free. His latest trick is to
  catch what MP3s people are searching for and
  allow you to play them in real time. It's
  absolutely great.
http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/site/shufflr/


  >> London B3ta bash <<
  On our lovely site, we have a calendar page for
  B3tards who want to go to the pub. We're quite
  alarmed that one such event has taken off to
  such a degree that over 80 people have signed
  to turn up. Earls Court, 31st of May. Be there
  if you want to get jiggy with the the "cream"
  of the internet.
http://www.b3ta.com/calendar/event/12648


  >> Snail art <<
  "Slinkachu here, the guy that takes photos of
  little model people hidden around the streets
  of London (by the way, thanks for featuring me
  a couple of years back!). I saw your request
  for snail lighting... Well I haven't done that,
  but I HAVE been busy recently making snails
  into moving street art." Wow, although we do
  prefer putting salt on snail and watching them
  sizzle, we're blown away that you can actually
  be bothered to paint their little shells.
http://www.innercitysnail.blogspot.com


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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
  Books that changed your life

  Last week we wanted to know which books had had
  a lasting effect on you. To be honest, we weren't
  expecting the emotional depths that some of you
  plumbed - there's some excellent stuff here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/books/

  Here's three short ones we liked:
  
  * THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS - "Not least because
  it's beautiful, but last year I loaned my copy
  to my best friend. I'd been silently and deeply
  in love with this man for years but somehow
  managed to convince myself that the soulmatey
  connections between us were all platonic - it
  was the only thing to do as he was both in a
  relationship and close friends with my fiance.
  Anyway, I gave him my book and he read it,
  loved it, and gave it back to me. I re-read it
  straight afterwards as his falling in love with
  it so much had made me want to revisit. All was
  fine until I got to the passage 'if he touched
  her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her,
  he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't
  listen, if he fought he couldn't win'. This was
  underlined. My heart stopped for what felt like
  a minute when I realised that he had done it;
  that he felt exactly the same way about me. So.
  It's almost a year later, life has been turned
  upside down, our ex-es loathe us both (and are
  well within their rights) but the facts are
  that I am now with the man of my dreams and,
  despite the hurt I've caused other people, I
  could not be happier. I truly believe I've
  found The One. If I hadn't have re-read the
  book, I would never have confessed how I felt.
  I'm never loaning my copy to anyone ever again.
  It's incredibly precious to me." (mookroolz)
    
  
  * HAYNES BOOK OF LIES - "The Haynes VW POLO
  1982 Oct 1990 Manual: if it wasn't for this
  book I'd be stuck in the slowly shifting sands
  of the Mongolian desert. Instead, we simply
  slid this book under the footpump and used it
  as a flat surface for reinflating the tyre.
  It's feck all use for anything else, especially
  actual car repairs." (crackhouseceilidhband)
     
     
  * THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR - "is basically
  my bible. It taught me about butterflies, which
  are kick ass. It taught me about the days of
  the week. It taught me how to count. It taught
  me that gross weird looking bastards turn out
  to be amazingly pretty. But most importantly,
  it taught me that binge-eating is fucking
  awesome. Particularly combining salami and
  cherry pie. For this glorious education in
  hideous amounts of food and eating until you
  feel sick, I salute you, you hungry little
  caterpillar. (In other news, it's been 21 years
  and I've been eating as much as possible and
  I'm still not a butterfly. I'm beginning to
  think it was all a clever lie.)" (thants)


  >> This Week's Question <<
  I QUIT! What have you flounced out of? Did it
  have the impact you intended? What made you
  quit in the first place? Talk to us here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/quitters/


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

  >> 42 awesome business cards <<
  Business cards are normally a bit of a white
  elephant - useful only for bulking out your
  wallet and possibly thereby save your life by
  stopping a bullet. But this is an excellent
  collection of cards that you'd be pleased to
  get, from little construction models to tiny
  gardens for you to tend.
http://snipurl.com/what-a-card  [reencoded_com] 


  >> Celeb tags <<
  Type in the first word you think of when
  looking at an image of a celebrity, then see
  what other people have though too, scaled
  according to how commonly it's been submitted.
  The internet's judgement is amusingly harsh -
  we recommend Madonna's. The site would be
  improved with adding a few more celebrities
  though - we craved more.
http://celebtags.com


  >> Weird trick pictures <<
  Deliberately eschewing the use of photoshop,
  these shots are achieved with just mirrors,
  wires and a certain amount of physical courage.
  Next time, we'd like to see him recreate
  Photoshop's Liquify tool in real life...
http://www.liweiart.com/ART/liwei/PHOTO.htm/PHOTO0...


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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
  The Beadle rejects you love

  >> Internet party - intervention <<
  Another in the excellent series of sketched
  based on websites being represented by real
  people. Myspace's friends have something
  important to tell him
http://snipurl.com/wheres-b3ta-you-gits  [www_cracked_com] 

  >> Russian Hip-hop <<
  Combining two of our favourite things... well
  okay, one of our favourite things - old-style
  Russian dancing. Here it's synced surprisingly
  well to Jason Nevins's 'It's Like That'.
  Genuinely. The damn thing is practically
  identical.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Russian_Hip_Hop


  >> Flying RC cock <<
  Poor Garry Kasparov; trying to make a speech
  and then having his thunder stolen by an
  attacking airborne penis. Fortunately, his
  bodyguards are on hand to beat it off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch


  >> Attack of the psycho goose <<
  Relentless assault on a tiny boat by a maddened
  goose. It really is a bit like Jaws filmed on a
  handy-cam. Except it's rather more embarrassing
  to be mauled to death by waterfowl.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Psycho_Goose


  >> TV pundit forced to admit he's wrong <<
  Unusual venture into politilols but very
  refreshing to see right-wing political
  commentator Kevin James actually pressured
  on-air into admitting that he didn't actually
  know what he was talking about. 
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/15/kevin-james-ap...


  >> 10 optical illusions in 2 minutes <<
  Possibly nothing you haven't seen before but
  it's nice to have it all in one place at one
  time - quite convenient. Some sort of promo for
  Samsung, if you prefer to stick it to the man
  by not watching his goddamn web viral ads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch


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: FUNNY NAME CORNER 
  Selling lols to Roflcastle

  * HONEST ESTATE AGENT - "Was recently in Caen,
  Normandy and found an estate agent with a
  refreshing degree of truthfulness in their
  name.  At least you know how you are going to
  be treated." (Gary MacKay)
http://www.b3tards.com/u/119d84f9b7db1ccf267c/caen...


  * B3TA'S FAVOURITE SCHOOL - If the mini-fuhrer
  wasn't down for Eton we'd be sending him here.
  (fridalongstockin)
http://www.hughsexey.somerset.sch.uk/visitors/


  * BEST SHOP SIGN EVER - "I took this photo a
  while ago", boasts Rohan Chadwick, "It's a
  handbag shop in Cardiff."
http://snipurl.com/divorce-lols  [picasaweb_google_com] 


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: TINGS DAT MAK U GO RRRRRrrr 
  Kitten in the snow

  ... either that or it needs some Head &
  Shoulders.
http://snipurl.com/kitteny-berk  [photo_accuweather_com] 


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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
  Results from the Mutants Challenge

  Last week we wanted you to turn celebrities
  into mutants, like.

  Your favourites included:
 
  * ROB - Your Ginger Fuhrer at his very best:
  with a luscious, heaving pair of tits
  (HappyToast)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/8370371

  * SARAH JESSICA PARKER - the Sex in the City
  star gets a much-needed mutant makeover
  (nastybadger)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/8373891

  * POLITICIANS - New Labour? New Danger. Real
  Danger. (Smallbrainfield)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/8375622

  All these images, and the highest as voted by
  you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/celebrity_mutants/


  >> New challenge: Money <<
  Money! It's a gas. You can't photoshop it
  though - OR CAN YOU? This week - by fair means
  or foul - we'd like you to do your amusing
  doodahs with cold hard currency.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/photoshoppedmoney/


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

  * GRUDGEBOOK - My Future Self writes, "B3ta
  newsletter 328 calls for a Grudgebook, so I
  have made one. This groundbreaking app lets you
  share your grudges. Since I loathe Web 2.0
  design, I didn’t go with the gradient buttons
  and star badges. I did however give the ascii
  banner a bit of Web 0.0 gradient." 
http://www.infinitypoint0.com/grudgebook/index.php

  
  A DOCTOR SPEAKS - "I'm a doctor, and I'd like
  to say that sticking a high pressure air pump
  up your bum in order to make big farts is
  officially dangerous. But not as dangerous as
  putting quick-drying concrete and a ping-pong
  ball up your arse. Having said that, if you are
  lucky enough to have a colonoscopy the
  gastroenterologists inflate your colon with
  air, which a) Fucking hurts and b) Makes you
  fart a lot on the bus home. I'd like to
  challenge all b3tans who get to have the
  pleasure of a camera stuck up their arse to see
  if they can fart the national anthem afterwards
  without following through." All that from the
  appropriately named 'The hairy aerosol'


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: FRIDAY GAME
  Spot the difference

  Readers of rubbish celebrity mags will be
  familiar with seeing two pics side by side with
  minor differences - a third nipple on Kelly
  Brook or a cock on Jordan. This works on the
  same principle, but has a curiously mellow vibe.
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/6-Differences.html


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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

  * REVERSE SPACE INVADERS - hack an old flash
  game so that you can play the invaders. Click
  them to drop bombs on the hapless human
  defender. You might take a bit of weighting to
  make this fair - say you can only drop one bomb
  at a time or something. We'd certainly like to
  play anyway.

  * COIN STACKING - how high can you stack 2ps
  until they fall over? Could be quite a sport
  this. (Um, we sometimes write this section
  looking around the room for arbitrary
  inspiration, and yes, we've just seen a large
  jar of 2ps.)

  * THE GREAT CLOSED EYE EXPERIMENT - how long
  can you close your eyes for whilst staying
  awake. We managed 20 seconds before getting
  bored and thinking, "fuck! must finish the
  fucking newsletter!"

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

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  THANKS:

  This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David
  Stevenson. Stuff sent in by Juvey, johninnit,
  sparrk, matt smith, Zigmund, Creeper and
  claptonista Top Tippery by mistaspakkaman
  Additional linkage and image challenge by
  Fraser Lewry. (We're enjoying your 'go
  vegetarian for a week' blog thingy too:
  http://www.blogjam.com/ ) Mike Trinder is QOTW
  bloke. SUBJLOLS: Caustic Armadillo. MASTHEAD:
  Joliet.

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  TOP TIP:

  Annoy sarcastic people by pretending to take
  everything they say at face value.
http://www.b3ta.com/questions/toptips/


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  SICKIPEDIA:

  Have you noticed the way that burns victims
  stick together?
http://www.sickipedia.org/

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