NEWSLETTER: "ANOTHER WEEK OF OUR PATHETIC LIVES SQUANDERED"
This Week:
* TOY - The Youtube Dubber
* VEITCH - in funnyish song shock
* RETRO GAMING - a rap tribute
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving Private
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| Ryan... together"
B3ta "love coupon" 366 - 19 Feb 2009
Speak this issue with your Kurzweil 3000.
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue366/
WD40: [email protected]
Lard: [email protected]
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: SPONSORED LINK
I'm a Celebrity, Don't Run Me Over
Think you could resist running George Bush
over? Play I'm a Celebrity, Don't Run Me Over
and find out:
http://tinyurl.com/r8urm8
>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
http://b3ta.com/mailus/
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Toys, songs and japes for Nazis
>> The Youtube Dubber <<
Clever Bobsworth has made a thing that lets you
add the soundtrack from any youTube video to
the video of any other. Huzzah!
http://snurl.com/teletubbiesvsramstein
>> Bullion! <<
Joel is branching out into financial advice
with this message for credit crunch-stricken
savers: Buy bullion!
http://rathergood.com/bullion
>> Generation Gaming <<
"Hello," raps Dan Bull. "I made this song and
video chronicling all the consoles and games
I've owned since I were a nipper." Dan knows
the quickest way to our flinty hearts is
through a massive injection of techie nostalgia.
http://snurl.com/heyhey32bits
>> Practical joke on the future <<
"I did a spot of decorating last year,"
explains VicJameson. "So took the opportunity
to set up a little practical joke for the
future. It's just a shame I won't be there to
see the pay-off." For the benefit of non-German
speakers, the accompanying text reads 'I've had
my eye on you'.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Ive_Had_My_Eye_On_You
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Darwin Awards
Last week we wanted your brushes with the Grim
Reaper through sheer foolishness. We don't want
to call our members stupid, but there's an
awful lot of stories here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/darwin/
* SUCKER - "First year at Uni, living in a
'Luxury, Catered Hall Of Residence'. We had
fortnightly room inspections, the first of
which I passed with flying colours, but was
told to "hoover the carpet". Fair enough, I
thought. The municipal Henry had died in an
attempt to see how many pints of water some
morons could feed it before it exploded. Five,
apparently. It was 13 days before we got a
replacement. So, the morning of the next
inspection, I crawled out of bed, the room
spinning from a night of too much cheap vodka
and not enough sleep. I started hoovering. I
wondered how powerful the suction was. I
decided to put the pipe in my mouth. Turns out
that a hoover can suck all the air out of your
lungs, leaving you unable to breathe and a
horrible dry feeling, deep inside. Takes a good
fifteen minutes to recover from this rapid
evacuation, during which time the room
inspectors will find you, on the floor, mostly
naked." (Kaol)
* STUFFER - "When I was six I happily sat out
in the garden and proceeded to jam the heads of
my lego men up my nose. I managed about eight
before I felt a bit woozy. I went to tell my
mum about my achievement. She was not very
happy, not very happy at all, as I was covered
in blood and snot. One brief operation later, I
remember a nice old man who looked like Obi Wan
Kenobi telling me not to do it again. All went
well for a couple of months, then I was back in
casualty. This time I had managed to jam my
R2D2 figure up my arse and the legs had come
off inside me and were doing all sorts of
mischief to my colon." (SpankyHanky)
* SPACKER - "It's common sense that water and
electric don't mix, which I why as a 7 year old
running around my house having a water fight, I
panicked after firing a shitload of water all
over one of the light switches. I couldn't just
leave it: I thought it might make my house set
on fire. So I put my mouth over the light
switch and tried sucking the water out. I shot
back to the other side of the room and ended up
curled up in a ball making ewok noises."
(addikt)
>> This Week's Question <<
We'd like your tales of hypocrisy. Talk to us
about your double standards here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/hypocrisy/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates
>> Star Wars improved by replacing a word with "pants" <<
* I find your lack of pants disturbing.
* I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.
* A disturbance in the pants. I have not felt
this since near my old master...
All extremely amusing as you can see, and out
of curiosity, we wonder if this works for
other films, let's say Withnail and I:
* We want the finest pants available to
humanity. And we want them here, and we want
them now!
* I've some extremely distressing pants.
* Bit early in the morning for pants isn't it
sir?
* As a youth I used to pant in butcher's shops.
Well, kept us amused for 5 mins anyway.
http://www.keepersoflists.org/index.php
>> Useless book <<
A specially-designed notebook to help you
remember useful web addresses and passwords.
Almost as good as using the built-in
functionality of your web browser.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/097079830X/...
>> This is why you're fat #2 <<
The Meat Boat. The Meat Boat? Yes, the Meat
Boat. 17,000 calories of nautical diorama with
bacon sails and sausage masts and it's charted
a course for your arteries.
http://snurl.com/mealsforb3tans
>> Dinosaurs fucking robots <<
Page after page of dinosaurs fucking robots.
With inspirational phrases. Which make it even
more unsettling.
http://dinosaursfuckingrobots.com/
>> Look different, dress the same <<
Collection of photos showing that the more
people try to look like individuals, the more
they tend to conform to a certain look. The
photographers have come up with some pretty good
nicknames for the groups too. It's not just
'goths' and 'townies'.
http://www.exactitudes.com/index.php
>> The Trilogy Meter <<
Diagram rating the quality of the most popular
Hollywood movie franchises. Surprisingly, quite
a few sequels are better than the original.
Unsurprisingly, no third movie ever is.
http://snurl.com/oncetwicethreetimesaturkey
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: THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH
Animal bands again, yep it's B3ta
"Cute mice with little tiny musical
instruments!" mews agentmuu, "Warning: site
in Russian." Ah, maybe they'll play us the
theme from Tetris? Or Ra Ra Rasputin?
http://ziza.ru/2009/02/17/krysy_pozirujut_16_foto....
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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
Animated gifs + embedded audio FTW
>> How to win Guess Who in one move. <<
One bold question will let you win an
old-school game of Guess Who. Figured it out
yet?
http://www.b3ta.com/links/How_to_win_Guess_Who_in_...
>> Clifford Stoll, What an ace bloke! <<
Coming across like an over-stimulated Emo
Phillips, we had no idea tech expert, author
and astronomer Clifford Stoll was such a
character. Write him a few gags instead of a
lecture and you'd have a world class physical
comedian.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Clifford_Stoll_What_an_a...
>> 2222 Toothpicks in my beard <<
Of all the memes in the world to catch on, who
would have expected this? Genial beardy crams
as many toothpicks as possible into his hairy
chin. The end result looks like he is being
face-raped by a hedgehog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> Aussie incest ad <<
Ah, bless those forthright Australians. Charity
group Adults Surviving Child Abuse try to mix
humour with child abuse in their latest
television ad. The results are, er, striking.
http://www.spareroom.co.nz/2009/02/11/badvertising...
>> Unexpected Bon Jovi <<
In America they have this thing at sports games
called the Jumbotron which randomly puts
someone from the crowd up on the big screen.
Normally people just wave and scream. This guy
had clearly practised.
http://snurl.com/wethinkweknowthisguy
>> Alternative uses for a phone screen <<
Mobile phone manufacturers wheel out the big
guns of cuteness to flog some new product.
Puppies, kittens - dammit, even hedgehogs -
this one's got it all!
http://b3ta.com/links/Alternative_uses_for_a_phone...
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: FUNNY NAME CORNER
Almost funny this week. Almost.
* COCKS WHO WORK AT BANKS - irregularshed
dribbles, "My friend in HSBC pissed the Data
Protection Act up the wall to show me a
screenshot of this man's name. I've managed to
find a reference to him on teh webs which means
he won't lose his job... I give you Mr Willy
Dangles of HSBC France:"
http://snurl.com/shouldworkforbarclays
* MIKE WANKUM REDUX 3 - DrTugnut2 spurts,
"Having lived in Boston I too remember Mike
Wankum - however when we travelled up to New
Hampshire we were very impressed to see posters
for 'Dick Swett' who was running for senate.
Myself and Mrs Tugnut2 offered our services for
his campaign but he turned down our slogan 'No
one can lick Dick Swett'. I see he is now US
Ambassador to Denmark..." Heh, a fine
observation and then a gag? Top marks.
http://www.nndb.com/people/875/000127494/
* SEARCHY THING - james.gadsby spunks, "Well,
I've found something which'll keep everyone
entertained for many hours. Basically it's the
U.S Ancestry Records search page, meaning you
can search for any unfortunate surnames to see
if someone will that name actually existed."
We've just found NELLIE SEMEN...
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
* KKK TATTOOS FOR KIDS - rootsrockreggae gives
us a funny handshakes and says, "I was in my
local market when I stumbled across this. LOOK
AT THE MIDDLE ONE! It is something that I knew
you needed to see."
http://snurl.com/kkkidsloveit
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: NSFW WANKING CORNER
Stuff you've been tugging to this week
* PENISES WITH GOOGLY EYES - nli asks, "Why on
earth, when searching for Googly Eyes to stick
on something, does this come up as the 2nd
site?"
http://www.googlyeyesoncock.com/galleries/
* FREE ORAL SEX FOR ATTRACTIVE FEMALES - as
Sir Snow Gonzo points out it's "fantastically
optimistic." Loving the mid-90s web design too
- Netscape Gold is our favourite site editor
too.
http://louisvillefreeface.com
* GOOGLE TARTS - TruffleShuffle writes, "Bit
like Google sightseeing, but for hookers on
Street View." Blimey, now it needs a sister
site for outing kerb crawlers.
http://www.streetviewfun.com/category/sexy/
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Invisible Challenge
Last week we wanted you to remove things
from pictures to change their meaning.
Your favourites included:
* SYDNEY - Australians may have to adjust their
way of life once global warming really hits
home (augsav)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9188932
* MUPPETS - take away the fur, and the show is
suddenly less appealing (Barbarossa)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9178626
* RETRO - the gaming industry took a while to
figure out that you needed bad guys to make
things interesting (monkeon)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9178711
All these images, and the highest as voted by
you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/invisible/
>> New challenge: Wii Games <<
We've been playing with our Wii all week, but
the choice of software is a little safe. Show
us the Wii games Nintendo will never publish.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/wii/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* TRIPPY VIDEO SECRETS - tahrey writes, "As a
committed non member but an enjoyer of the
newsletter... here's the simple secret behind
making your own "trippy bad compression" video:
Encode your clips to some form of MPG,
preferably MPG4 e.g. DivX.
Load it into VirtualDub or any other
frame-by-frame, direct frame editing program.
Delete the keyframes normally inserted at the
scene changes.
Make sure it doesn't have any kind of keyframe
reconstruction turned on.
Save your new video.
Enjoy."
* METRO CONFESS TO READING B3TA - Ross McD +
Ross McG write, "Hello Rob and all at B3ta
Towers, Long-time lurker Ross McDonagh here.
I'm a reporter with the best value-for-money
newspaper there is (Metro), where we frequently
pillage/direct readers to your unrivalled site.
Myself and fellow Metroer Ross McGuinness have
very recently set up a site (we collectively
know dick all about the mysterious inner
workings of the interweb, so we've opted for a
nice user-friendly free Wordpress blog). Here
we basically shite on about two films that are
(sometimes tenuously) connected in some way,
and get people to vote on our arguments, and
leave comments. Would be delighted if you
checked it out, and possibly even give it a
mention in the newsletter?" Oh go on then, but
we want you to place a story in the Metro where
if you read the first letter of every sentence
it reads, "w.e..b.u.m..k.i.t.t.e.n.s"
http://www.rossvross.com
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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
* SCOOTER FAN VIDEO - we've just realised that
German crap trance overlords Scooter have made
a version of the Sisters of Mercy goth classic
Marian. Can someone do a suitably mental
video please? And dub the Scooter bloke
shouting "make some fucking noise" over it, as
that would be more amusing than the actual
version that exists.
* CHRIS MARTIN FLOWER FAIRY.COM - have you
noticed that Coldplay bloke moves likes a
fairy? A proper
clap-your-hands-or-they-die-tinkerbell-fairy?
Can you lot photoshop fairy wings onto his back
on all PR shots please? There's a dear.
* STAMP LICK SOUP - we've always had a sneaky
liking for the taste of stamp glue. Maybe it
would make a tasty ingredient?
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 wanked on by Rob Manuel with
David Stevenson holding the bucket. Stuff sent
in by Gratch, ana, Chanticleer, Dixon, cr3,
Spider Riviera, Pat Wood and jessekillerkay.
Seventh Additional linkage and image challenge
by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
Newsletter subjlols via Griffy Savalas.
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TOP TIP:
Having a party? Remember - drunk people will
NEVER wash a glass if there's a clean one in
the cupboard, so hide ALL surplus cups and
glasses. If you don't do this? You will spend
the next morning washing everything in the
kitchen. (Pill Popper)
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SICKIPEDINOTS:
Knock knock
"Who's there?"
"Doorbell repairman".
http://www.sickipedia.org/