This Week: * LOVE - Joel loves Ben Goldacre * PAWN - Cats for Gold * VID - Best Batman spoof ever ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | ___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're eating lots __/____/____/\__/_/ |_| of meat... together" B3ta email 405 - 20 Nov 2009 Read this issue in your browser: http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue405/ Love: b3ta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Hate: b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------- : SPONSORED LINK Alice In Chains - 7th December - Brixton Academy Here's some facts we've cribbed: * Original singer Layne Staley died after injecting a heroin and cocaine speedball. In tribute - Wikipedia puts a little tombstoney cross next to his name. * Elton John appears on their new album, From Black to Blue (absolutely not a concept album about biros). * Guitarist Jerry Cantrell shares his birthday with Sophia Myles - who's extremely pretty and was once on Doctor Who. In fact we've just googled some pics of her. Gosh, yes, pretty lady. http://sn.im/t9jhy >> Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then talk to us. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK Other than walking shit on our nice carpets >> Ben Goldacre's big penis? << "I sort of tried to make a love song about Doctor Ben Goldacre," confides Joel Veitch. "Except it's not really a love song, it's more about his crusade against evidence-less assertions." The most beautiful thing we have ever seen - we mean Joel's vid, rather than the good doctor's sizeable love syringe. http://www.rathergood.com/ben >> Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind << Inspired bit of soundtrack swapping by Monkstar1. "We come in peace... Now let's you just drop them pants." http://www.b3ta.com/links/Close_Encounters_of_the_... >> Call of Duty: Secret Spielberg Level << The harrowing opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan rendered as an X-Box shooter by ratbanjos and crew. The voice chat is excellent, giggling as they get their limbs blown off and leaving part-way through, to check on the baby. http://snipurl.com/savepointprivateryan >> Chris deBurgh is Dead << Yes, the shining light who brought us Lady in Red has been snufed from the world. Ok, no, it just a cruel, cruel hoax by Kaufman22. The comments from fans add a lot of value. http://www.youtube.com/watch ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Family Feuds Last week we asked for your stories of families at war. We've collected three short and funny replies here, but do go read the the heart-breaking tales of woe on the site. SittingDuck's entry is worth it alone: http://b3ta.com/questions/familyfeuds/ * MEH - "My Granddad was the youngest of seven, born in Yorkshire in 1930. When I was growing up (and when my Mum was too - so ever since the 50s) we never, ever met any of his brothers or sisters, despite all of them apparently being alive. Was there some sort of massive reason for the falling out, I always wondered? My mum wasn't sure, so one day when I was a kid I decided to just ask Granddad why he never saw them. He thought hard for a moment, sucked on his pipe, and said 'Because they're boring bastards.' Different values back in them days..." (SnowyTheRabbit) * SMEGMA-BLE - "Not a major argument, but my brother once hid my favourite marble up his foreskin for a couple of days for no real reason. I was rather angry to say the least, and my marble smelt funny." (Monkey the Chicken) * NICK-NICK - "My uncle Nick doesn't really get on with anyone else in the family." (apeloverage) http://www.apolitical.info/family.jpg >> This Week's Question << PE Lessons: a never-ending series of punishments involving inappropriate nudity and climbing up ropes until you wet yourself? Tell us about your PE lessons and the psychotics who taught them here: http://b3ta.com/questions/pe/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Cats for gold << In the current recession pawnbrokers have descended on this land like vultures picking flesh off sun-bleached bones. These people are scum, their business immoral and ripe for satire. http://www.catsforgold.com >> Top ten geocities midi tunes << Jason Scott is our nerd hero - he does cool shit like backing up Geocities when Yahoo shut it down. Yeah Geocities is a bit laughable but as Jason says, "GeoCities was the largest self-created folk-art collection in the history of the world." He's also made a funny list of the most popular midi files - so get ready for some unfashionable 90s nostalgia as the theme to the X-files is number 1. http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2342 >> Reverse-engineering of Palin autobiography << "I'm always embarrassed when I see an index an author has made of his own work. It's a shameless exhibition - to the trained eye. Never index your own book," wrote Kurt Vonnegut. What he didn't say was that it's also a perfect and unique format for writing gags. Hoisted with his own petard and all that. (Actually what is a petard? "A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications." Thanks Wikipedia.) http://www.slate.com/id/2235917/ >> Public Transport People << When we get on the tube we like to sit opposite the prettiest lady we can find and then imagine having sex with them. Think on that ladies. Anyway - these chaps prefer to spot the mentally ill and photograph them. Can't be legal, but then nothing fun is. http://www.peopleofpublictransit.com/ >> Playboy in Braille << Surely a gag that's already been done to death in our photoshopping boards but this looks real. There's also some site knocking around which does text descriptions of porno videos for the blind. What next? An eating dog for the anorexic? (This is our favourite gag ever, and credit where credit is due, it was written by Prince Philip to amuse The Queen.) http://www.banterist.com/archivefiles/000305.html >> Amazon laptop steering wheel desk << Amazon was web 2.0 before web 2.0 knew how to count - it's all about the user generated content and it's at it's best when users upload really naughty things and then people email them about going, "ha ha, look at amazon" and it all works as happy marketing for the long-tailed super-mall. The latest lol is a laptop desk for your carwheel and some minor social satirist has uploaded a series of crashed cars for the "customer images| bit. http://snipurl.com/laptopsteering ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO Like a stunted version of You've Been Framed >> Possibly the best Batman spoof ever. << By a kid and his mum - this child will either end up a fantastic film maker or a serial rapist. There is no in-between in our land of false dichotomy. BTW: If you don't know what dichotomy means, it's basically like a tracheotomy but for lesbians. Oh we're so shit, sorry. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Possibly_the_best_batman... >> Rubbish Josh Stone video << Apparently made by her brother and then suppressed by EMI for being embarrassingly bad. Stuff to watch out for: * Randomly crap lighting - like Ed Wood with an anglepoise. * Unconvincing bridesmaid that has a tokenist Windows Party quality to her. "She's black! It'll make Joss look more soulful!" * Joss dressed as a WPC - with all the bad acting of the intro to a porn tape * WTF! It's all gone black and white like Black Adder goes Forth. * Er.. We're giving up describing this shit - there's too much of it and it's just mental. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Peaches Geldof- Master of The English Language. << Gosh, it feels like we're bitter old men ragging on young ladies here because they wouldn't look twice at us and we're past it grandad. But no - how can you fail to enjoy this compendium of Peaches Geldof saying "like" on some useless TV show about her life? Although, we suppose, if someone did the same to us with the word "er" and "um" we'd look equally shit and a lot less attractive. http://snipurl.com/likepeaches >> Stuffed Animal TV << Fuck it - we've got a theme going, let's run with it. This time it's a REALLY REALLY young lady and something bad happens and then we feel guilty. This sounds like a set-up line for a paedo joke, but no, we don't joke about paedophilia as that's just fucking immature. http://www.liveleak.com/view ------------------------------------------------- : FUNNY NAME CORNER The section you won't let die * MAJOR DICKIE HEAD - "Working for machinations of our government I stumbled upon the aforementioned gentleman's name in the email address book and assumed it to be a prank by some witty techie, but lo and behold a year later..." (tk0345) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8014318.stm * HOMO MILK - it took us a good 20 seconds to work out that homo is short for homogenised rather than homosexual. BTW: Our favourite line in 30 Rock recently was "Are any of you gay men?" "No! I'm bi-larious!" http://i.imgur.com/n7CH8.jpg * YES IT"S A DOCTOR WANG JOKE - but the context gives it a little extra. "I saw this in an empty show window this morning on my local high street. It must be true because I saw a little Oriental fella locking the door as I walked past." (benhammy) http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u178/benhammy/D... ------------------------------------------------- : ASK B3TA Recycling conspiracy? Last week we asked for evidence that the council really does sort out the recycling properly and doesn't just bung it into a landfill whilst whistling and grumbling, "dunno what you're talking about guv." * NO CONSPIRACY - "I used to work for Barking and Dagenham Council's call centre, and answered a lot of calls on this. People were convinced that it was all a lie. The recycling and rubbish were collected in the same lorry, but they were sorted out later on. The residents had to put all recycling into orange bags, and the proper rubbish into black bags. The bags all got chucked onto a conveyor belt at the rubbish place, and a camera recognised the orange bags and sent a flap thing to push them off the belt into a skip that went off to a recycling place. So it does get sorted out, honest. I saw it with my own eyes." (gumblina) * NEW SCIENTIST THING - "They had an article where they tagged ten bits of rubbish in Seattle and monitored where it ended up (19 September issue)... and most of the recycling did actually get recycled." (julesmbrown) * OK, SOMETIMES IT FUCKS UP - "Last year we had a letter to our local newspaper (either the Wirral News or Wirral Globe if you can be arsed to check their websites) where someone blew the whistle on recycling being dumped on the local landfill. The council admitted that the facilities could only handle so much recycling a day and if the limit was exceeded the freshly collected recycling was dumped on the landfill site." (hagis_uk) >> THIS WEEK WE'RE ASKING... LIFT BUTTONS << "It's A Vagabond here, and I have a question for the clever peeps of B3ta - praps the newsletter - which is 'When facing multiple lifts, does pressing the call button repeatedly make any difference to the speed at which any of them up?'" ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Baddies Goodies Challenge Last week we wanted you to make baddies good, and vice versa. Your favourites included: * BUSH - with Obama in the White House, its former resident finally does the right thing (cockweasle) http://www.b3ta.com/board/9792499 * HE-MAN - the most powerful man in the universe snaps (2 Can Chunder) http://www.b3ta.com/board/9792390 * TALIBAN - once all that Middle East stuff has been sorted, suicide bombers will need to find alternative employment (HappyToast) http://www.b3ta.com/board/9792611 All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/baddiesgoodies/ >> New challenge: Celebrity Cut-out Dolls << This week's challenge is to create cut- out-and-keep dolls based on celebrities. For extra points, photograph their exploits during the hours of fun they'll almost certainly provide. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/cutouts/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * MAKE YOUR OWN MORSE SWEARS - "I," begins social hand grenade, "have found a site that lets you type a message of up to 200 characters, convert it to Morse, and then download the MP3." Enjoy your new ringtone! http://www.morseresource.com/morse/makemorse.php * I SING COMMENTS - "Hi," trills HenDeadly. "This is my new project in which I will sing comments, all and any comments, via the power of autotune! Post a comment and I'll add it to the song - your words will be immortalised! Big thanks to cr3 for the youtube wizardry that made the site work. Fa la la-la-la!" We may start doing Funny Name Corner this way too - it's the future! http://www.henrysingscomments.com/ * KATY vs ZOOEY - We asked for a quiz to tell the difference between Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel - so one of our loyal readers invented a time machine, travelled back 18 months and created one! Hurrah - and thanks to Phil Evans for the tip-off. http://snipurl.com/katyorzooey * WINE BOX ALCHY I - "How do you get the last dribble of delicious booze out of a wine box?" asked thirsty Martin last week. Scoltock reckons: "Simply put your mouth over the tap, press the button and blow. You will inflate the bag, removing all the tedious crinkles and the last glass will come out no problem." If you over-inflate then it comes out as champagne. * WINE BOX ALCHY II - "In true Jim’ll Fix It Style, I have come to Martin's wine-box rescue," claims Sarah. "He's fed up of badly designed boxes which make getting to his wine feel like a Krypton Factor challenge. He ought to check out FreshCase and we can help. "Happy to offer some FreshCase samples to you and Martin to check out for yourselves and see if it meets your needs." Wait, what? THESE GUYS ARE PROMISING TO SEND US FREE WINE TO TEST THIS OUT? 8 YEARS OF WRITING THIS FUCKING NEWSLETTER SUDDENLY MAKE SENSE! http://www.freshcasewine.com/default.aspx ------------------------------------------------- : 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: * HUGH LAURIE FANBOY SUPER-CUT - "Recently, while watching Hugh Laurie in the House, we came up with an idea that we are neither skilled enough or clever enough to execute. What we want is a compilation of Dr House's facial expressions for every 'eureka' moment in the first five series." (Mark & Kaye) * A BLOG CALLED "GOING STRAIGHT" - where a gay man tries to live as a heterosexual person for a while and hilarity ensures. * THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO... swallowed a fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly, Perhaps she'll die. Rework this song with increasingly large storage media. Whether you go from tiny physical size to large (SD cards to 12" floppies) or via capacity is entirely up to you. 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. ------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: b3ta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------- THANKS: This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David Stevenson. Stuff sent in by via soupeh, conster, digitalraven, rotational, @EdStern and Fishcat. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Subjlols via Nikorasu. Sickipedia CTRLC+V from IndigoFlow. Props to David Harrison for buying the ad at the last minute. ------------------------------------------------- : SICKIPEDIA The homeless problem would be solved if the Big Issue had tits in it. http://www.sickipedia.org/
