NEWSLETTER: "WHO ELSE'S HEART SKIPS A BEAT WHEN YOUR GIRLFRIEND ASKS TO USE YOUR PC?"
This Week:
* CATS - Kitten Newz
* DOLLS - Argos Jade tribute
* PRISON - Jailbird Inventions
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________ ____ __ ___
____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ |
___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saying 'the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web...' together"
B3ta email 390 - 7 Aug 2009
Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue390/
Superglue: [email protected]
Tippex: [email protected]
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: SPONSORED LINK
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>> 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
Abba, KTN, Silences and Webcycle
>> Abba sings <<
"Sweden's premier musicians sing about their
infestation of martial artists," claims a
wild-eyed Joel Veitch.
http://www.rathergood.com/abba
>> KTN Newz <<
Monty Propps helps deliver the cats' eye view
of some shocking, kitten-teasing youTubery. Oh!
Teh humanitiez!
http://www.b3ta.com/links/KTN_Newz_present_a_shock...
>> Awkward Silences: Dragon's Den <<
Thorpe's Pinteresque re-edit of the poor people
dance for venture capital reality show classic.
"The first in a series (possibly)..." he muses,
stroking his luxuriant beard.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/Awkward_Silences_Dragons...
>> The Webcycle <<
Tom Scott and Matt Gray have come up with a
novel solution to the nerd obesity time-bomb.
"The faster you pedal, the faster your internet
goes," he cackles gleefully, heralding a new
era of whippet-thin Torrent-tards.
http://www.tomscott.com/webcycle/
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: FRIDAY GAME
Name that Copyright Free Tune
This is the last of the 7 games in our series -
"pimp b3tards to E4 so they can afford to buy
food." Produced by... well we'd like to name
this chap but he actually refuses to allow us
to use his name and wants to be credited as NTC
Inc. We like this one a lot actually, as it has
fun with the problem of doing a "name that
tune" style thing but having to keep it all
legal by using rubbish old tunes.
http://www.e4.com/game/name-that-copyright-free-tu...
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Mobile Phone Disasters
Last week we wanted to know how mobile phones
have wrecked your life:
http://b3ta.com/questions/mobiles/
We start with possibly the fluffiest QOTW answer
on b3ta ever:
* DAD - "In the pub and one of my chums goes off
for a wee. I took advantage of his absence by
grabbing his phone and texting his dad. Nothing
nasty, just something along the lines of 'I LOVE
YOU DAD, MISS YOU LOTS xoxox' How we laughed.
Chris didn't laugh that much. It turned out that
he hadn't spoken to or seen his dad for about 4
years following a rather spectacular falling out.
Needless to say I felt like a bit of twat,
apologised and bought him a pint. He was busy
explained what had happened when his phone beepety
beeped. It was his dad. "I MISS YOU TOO SON.
PLEASE COME SEE ME SOMETIME. LOVE DAD." Chris
was a bit stunned and disappeared off the toilet,
returning a bit red-eyed. He had spoken to his dad
(in a drunken stupor) and agreed to go round the
next day, and he did. He met his half brother and
sister for the first time ever, cleared the air
with his dad, was best man at his wedding and is
now in regular contact and they all lived happily
ever after. The End." (spikeypickle)
* DATE - "I once had a date with the dizziest
girl in the world. When I arrived at her front
door to pick her up for the evening, I noticed
a set of keys in the lock, so I took them out
and knocked. And waited. And waited. And knocked
again. And waited. Eventually on the third attempt
the door was opened by my flustered-looking date.
"You'd better come in, I can't find my mobile."
I stood in the hallway while she flung cushions
off chairs and emptied the contents of her handbag
onto the floor. Noticing she had a landline, I
suggested, "Why not give your mobile a ring?"
She furrowed her brow, "But who’s going to answer
it?" I laughed thinking that she had made a joke.
She hadn't. "We might hear the ringing?" Her face
lit up with understanding as she thrust her hand
into her coat pocket and pulled out a mobile phone
and started punching in numbers... "You must think
I'm an idiot." "Not at all," I lied, "shall we
go? The table is booked for 8pm". "Ok," she said,
"I just need to find my keys." (Colonel Dracula)
* DATA - "Not long after starting work I ended up
on the IT desktop support team for the trading
floor of a bank. When I started out-of-hours
support, I received a pager. Contained in the box
was the device itself and a printed sheet with
two similar phone numbers on it. I thought it
would be prudent to test it so I logged in to
Vodafone's website, entered my name and sent a
test message to myself with a cheery reminder,
"Don't forget Andy's birthday!" No 'Are you
sure?' message, no warnings whatsoever, it just
sent it. I was impressed by the fluidity of it
all... until about five seconds later, when I
heard beeping behind me. Then to the left, then
to my right, forwards, in the distance... phones
started going off all around me. It was like the
final scene of Lawnmower Man. "Who's Andy?" asked
a colleague. Oh crap. I'd paged the fucking
disaster management distribution list: the entire
management team for the bank, the board of
directors, head traders, front, middle and back
office and the IT department. Worldwide. Around
3,000 in total. One director in New York called
me to complain that I'd woken him up for nothing,
another in Singapore called to tell me how I'd
ruined the expensive dinner he was enjoying with
his wife. From that day forwards, I was known as
'Pager'" (chart cat)
Finally, Meat2veg's brother is going to get
beaten up one day: "My brother bluetooths pics
of himself smiling to people on the tube. When
whoever said 'okay' looks around, he smiles and
waves maniacally."
>> This Week's Question <<
Tell us your tales of your custard fetish and
the rash you got from a bottle of HP sauce.
Because we've ALL had a cucumber stuck up our
chuff at least once in our lives:
http://b3ta.com/questions/foodsex/
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: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates
>> Argos commemorate Jade Goody's wedding <<
Argos is always good for a cheap laugh -
remember that stuff about typing "chav" into
their search box and getting a load of rubbish
jewellery? The lols keep coming.
http://snurl.com/argos-jade-goody-wedding
>> Wow, multiplayer notepad! <<
We caught this link on Weds night about 10pm
and didn't stop playing with it until 2am and
our eyes were bleary.
http://www.yourworldoftext.com/b3ta
>> Sticking the word "Fuck" on stuff <<
Defacing things with stickers is always fun -
and "Honey, I fucked the kids" brings joy to
our childish hearts. You can join in too.
http://www.fuckthiswebsite.com/
>> Prison Inventions <<
Fantastic compendium of jailbird ingenuity -
frankly if the lags are this clever and cunning
they should be on Dragon's Den and not rotting
away inside.
http://snipurl.com/prisoninventions
>> Texts from last night <<
We meant to feature this months ago but the
site was down when we went to send the
newsletter - anyway, if you haven't seen this
archive of texts that people have regretted
sending is worth 10 minutes of scanning for
funny lines - "i told him he had the best dick
i've ever seen. then supposedly i kept
repeating 'peter piper picked the perfect
penis.'"
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/
>> How to stop gmail showing you ads <<
In the interests of not creating bad publicity
for their clients, Google scans your mail and
if it looks to be of a sensitive nature, say
death, they don't display ads. This, of course,
can be simply hacked by including a few key
words in every mail you send, however the
suggestion to end every mail you send with "PS.
Suicide death 9/11 murder" makes you look mental,
and made us giggle rather uncontrollably.
http://homepage.mac.com/joester5/art/gmail.html
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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
We are your internet VCR
>> Handerpants <<
Sick and tired of chafing and hand-damage?
Here's the solution - a garment you wear on
your hands, like the underwear you use to cover
your shame.
http://www.handerpants.com/
>> Wanky band interview <<
Could this be the most pretentious band
interview ever? Certainly up there.
http://bit.ly/FKjJg
>> The Wire with a laugh track <<
We're massive fans of Paul Simon's gritty cop
caper but it's always hard to spot the funny
bits. Thank goodness for this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> Bleeding billboard <<
Absolutely terrifying NZ road safety notice
that oozes blood whenever it rains.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/bloody-billboards
>> DuckTales is awesome! <<
Man dances in pants to celebrate his love for
80s cartoons. What's not to love?
http://gallery.me.com/bentendoisme#100090
>> Copycunts <<
Adland, eh? Full of plagiarising dickheads!
That's the line taken by this blog, which spots
video ideas lifted for ads then rages violently
against the admen involved. For shame!
http://copycunts.blogspot.com/
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: FUNNY NAME CORNER
Child-size lols for the simple
* UNEXPECTED GOATSE - "I saw this in the pub
and thought of you," greets coobeastie. "The
subtle message is that if you drink and drive,
then your rectum with become distended."
http://snipurl.com/oopsgoatse
* MARKETING THE RAPISTS - This company clearly
doesn't shy away from a challenge.
http://www.marketingtherapists.com
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Teletext Challenge
Last week we wanted you to show how Teletext
could be saved.
Your favourites included:
* JACKO - the deceased King Of Pop lives on,
via 7-bit pixel magic (Q4nobody.co.uk)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9612901
* HORSES - they're the best of all animals,
they're our friends, and they WILL save the
service (Barbarossa)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9614553
* TESCO - a version of this appears in almost
every challenge, but never used so
appropriately (RedStar)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/9612255
All these images, and the highest as voted by
you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/teletext/
>> New challenge: Real World Celebs <<
Can you make Simon le Bon out of a pizza? What
about Fred West from some wool? Pick your
favourite celeb and render them in any media
you like, as long as it's not Photoshop or
drawing.
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/realcelebs/
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* CLARKSON BEATBOX HIT - This linky did really
well for Swedemason and we've got a bit of
extra background on it from him, "I was
recently laid up with a broken clavicle and
knee, so took advantage of the written-off time
and the trippy painkillers by trawling through
hours of top gear repeats on Dave. Finding
enough sounds for the beat-box almost cost me
my sanity. The ultimate has to be getting a bit
of airtime on Radio 1. Caught it in real time
as we were driving home from a wedding in
Wales. Just very weird." Also MTV producer Ils
got in touch to say, "I sent that lovely
Clarkson beatbox clip to one of the main
editors on 'Top Gear' and he is sending it on
to the lads ASAP." Wonder what the great man
will make of it?
That beatbox link again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch
* LCD PISS TARGETS - "I live in Melbourne,
Australia," claims Dr Dee. "One of my fave
bars, the Horse Bazaar has what they call 'the
Rear Projection Urinal (RPU)' and in the past
I've pissed on Michael Jackson, President Bush
and Arnold Schwarzenegger."
http://www.melbournepubs.com/v/1221/
* WEE GAMES - Thanks also to aspottedbeetle who
pointed us at a company that makes simple video
games controlled by your urine flow. They claim
it's suitable for teaching toddlers proper
toilet behaviour. Which we doubt.
http://www.monzy.org/urinecontrol/
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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
* ARE THEY DRINKABLE? "Have you noticed how
household cleaning products are increasingly
appearing to be drinkable?" writes swa110w,
"Now Comfort conditioner looks like a smoothie
and Bloo toilet cleaner looks like orange
squash!" Can someone turn this into a photoquiz
where players have to guess - from liquid
poured into glasses - which one is drinkable and
which one is liquid death?
* GLOVEMATCH.COM - "National Database of Lost
or Found Gloves." (@shedfire)
* KITTENSLAP - "A bookmarklet that replaces
every image on the site you are viewing with
appropriately-sized kittens." (@killarneyman)
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 @lendmeyoureyes,
@waxy, drew, @cartelmike, @screechin,
@applepies, @matt512 and @Dylsy Top Tippery by
Tedium. Additional linkage and image challenge
by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
Subjlols via benja18. Sickipedia via
berkfromtrapdoor.
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TOP TIP: Do a lot of baking?
Dont want to shell out for vanilla essence? Get a
whole vanilla pod and put it in a jar, fill the
jar with sugar, and use this sugar whenever you
need vanilla, just keep topping it up whenever it
gets used.
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Have you noticed, whenever you go into a cancer
research shop, they never seem to be doing any
research?
http://www.sickipedia.org/
