This Week: * POPE STUFF - Yeah, big surprise there * QUESTION - Confess your awful druggy ways * VIDEO - Tourette's guy sings Erasure ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're holding our ___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | poos in for Jesus __/____/____/\__/_/ |_| ... together" B3ta email 446 - 17 Sep 2010 Read this issue in your browser: http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue446/ CAKE: b3ta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com LIES: b3ta-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com ------------------------------------------------- : HOORAY! WE'VE SOLD SOME ADVERTISING! We love the iPod Clinic! Have you bust your iPod or iPhone so it's sitting in your sock drawer doing nothing? Get it fixed at a great price. And we won't give you any condescending looks like those shits in the Apple store either. http://www.theipodclinic.co.uk/. >> Sponsor B3ta << You like selling products. We like your money: http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA PEOPLE VS THE POPE A commemorative cut out and keep selection In celebration of the Pope visiting we considered revisiting the old B3ta quiz format with 'Papist or Child Rapist' but couldn't actually be arsed so thank god then that the B3tans have been doing almost nothing else this week but making Pope-related mockery lols. >> Looks like the Vatican sent a decoy... << Haywood Manley sends us exclusive footage that shows that we're just being visited by another of Benedict's nefarious Pope-bots. Reminiscent of the creepy fortune teller from Big. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Looks_like_the_Vatican_s... >> "The Pope's coming to my home town" << Rapper Dan Bull is readying himself for the papal visit. "I've written him a welcome letter. Can anyone think of some way I could actually make sure he sees it? I have a vague plan involving balloons." http://www.b3ta.com/links/The_Popes_coming_to_my_h... >> Pope's visit to Edinburgh << "I'm sure I've watched this scene somewhere before," muses masakatsu. This *totally* should have happened. It rocks. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Popes_visit_to_Edinburgh ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING ...that isn't about the Pope >> Boyz N the Ring << "Gandalf brings Hip Hop back to Middle Earth!" claims Leonards. Lovingly-assembled re-edit of the Lord of the Rings, with added bling. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Boyz_N_the_Ring >> How to feel like you are floating in space << Here's frox's 5 easy steps: 1) attach camera to balloon 2) send balloon in stratosphere 3) take a bunch of photos 4) assemble in 360° panorama 4a) (optional): take substances 5) look at panorama (use the link below) 6) panic that there's a big, black hole in the world! http://francescobonomi.it/minihab/stratospera/pano... >> The Labour leadership race effing ROCKS! << "Well not really," confesses Dan Bull. "But I have tried my best to make it seem that way in this strange musical guide." Here's info to identify the Milliband twins, although you can also tell them apart by turning them upside down and examining the underside. http://www.b3ta.com/links/The_Labour_leadership_ra... ------------------------------------------------- : HELL YEAH MORE ADVERTISING! Completely brilliant iPhone game Meatstroke is the Adult Swim iPhone game that combines meat, sunburn and bald clouds. We know what you're thinking. FINALLY, somebody developed that. http://bit.ly/meatstroke ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK The Easiest Job In The World Last week we asked for the easiest jobs you'd ever done. Go and be jealous, and then just a little sad at the sheer lack of ambition exhibited here: http://b3ta.com/questions/easyjob/ * "One fine Monday morning we turned up for work to discover that the roof had collapsed over the weekend. Unfortunately the ceiling was made of asbestos tiles, so a specialist cleanup team had to be called in. Our boss didn't like the idea of strangers handling our delicate and expensive equipment, so asked for volunteers to properly disconnect it all, ready for decontamination. Since this included wearing an awesome spacesuit, I stepped forward. It was an odd sensation, knowing that outside your little bubble of safety, the familiar-looking office was filled with invisible death. Frankly I would have done it for shits and giggles, and was expecting perhaps a pub lunch on the company. Quite surprised to find a £300 bonus at the end of the month, for about an hour spent breathing like Darth Vader and going "beep" at the end of every sentence..." (moon monkey) * "I once got a job with a mail-order firm. On my first day, a guy was appointed to show me the ropes - he led me down into an area where all the stock was on shelves, ready for picking, pointed to one rack of shelves and said, "you get up there." He then climbed up on to the top of the rack on the other side, stretched out and went to sleep. I quit on the third day, driven crazy by the piped muzak but still having no idea what I was supposed to do." (adognaduck) * "I am a boner. My job title is literally 'boner.' I add the skeletal rigs to 3D characters for animation - a process known as boning. Ergo I am a boner. It's an easy enough job. I boned a wizard last night." (Digeridude) >> This Week's Question: Drugs << Had a problem with drugs? Accidentally got off your tits on night nurse? Talk to us here. For hours and hours and hours: http://b3ta.com/questions/massivedrugs/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Why women hate men << A collection of toe-curlingly shit online dating ads posted by men. Amusing, but titling it "why women hate men" makes us meanly think "why some women turn into spinsters - because they judge all men by the behaviour of some." http://whywomenhatemen.blogspot.com/ >> In Soviet Russia the games retro YOU << The problem with internet porn is you get bored of the vanilla stuff and after a few years end up as a fully-fledged pervert looking at stuff that would make Gary Glitter wince. So it goes with retro gaming, you start with a few Spectrum emulators and end up with the hard stuff - 80s Russian arcade machines: http://snurl.com/redpixels >> Celebrity feet << And speaking of internet perverts - why not check out a whole wiki dedicated to photos of celebrities' feet? We were briefly tempted to troll it with photos of our favourite celebs like Simon le Bon and William Shatner. http://www.wikifeet.com/ >> Amazon makes mini joke << Lols all round here - first off the book is about Mother Teresa and is called "The Missionary Position", and secondly the price is the Satanicly pleasing £6.66. http://snurl.com/13ly6u >> Tooth story << Doesn't sound that compelling does it? A story about a tooth? But go on, read it, a charming blog with loads of illustrations. You will be entertained. Promise. http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/09/part... >> Discrepancies of perception << Clever comic-strip illustrates the ways we're often wrong about the world around us. Particular favourite: the panels on feeling unlucky. http://www.viruscomix.com/page528.html ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO Like real life but with compression artefacts >> Tourette's guy sings Erasure << All music is improved by having it sung Karaoke style by a guy with Tourette's. Especially when it's Erasure. We'd like to see this guy do children's parties. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Compare / contrast phone adverting << Two mobile phone ads turned up this week with opposite approaches. Samsung have made a fantastic viral that's a joy to watch, featuring a little girl dancing, but its connection with the product is tenuous. Whereas Nokia have done a simpler stop-motion, filmed by Aardman, but it works as a product demo because it was actually filmed on a phone. Which is better? There's only one way to find out... fight! http://www.youtube.com/watch (Nokia) http://www.youtube.com/watch (Samsung) >> Google Instant being put to good use << Great idea for a cheapo video here. Stick the lyrics to a listy song into the new funky version of Google and use the power of video editing to get the timing right. Would also work for We Didn't Start The Fire and Hello by The Beloved. All together now, "Zippy, Bungle and Jeffery Archer." http://www.b3ta.com/links/Google_Instant_being_put... >> A terrifying climb << One would think that workers who scale the heights of radio and TV broadcast towers would use some kind of safety harness, as they ascend to their worksite. One would be wrong. EDIT NOTE: Perhaps not safe for lunch. BTW: If this link is down google around, as it keeps disappearing due to a copyright issue. http://www.b3ta.com/links/A_terrifying_climb >> Woman goes back to work after 30 years << Very short but what a great visual gag. Top marks. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Woman_goes_back_to_work_... >> I love my life as a dickhead << This link was everywhere last Friday and we just missed sticking it in the newsletter by minutes but here we are, a week later, telling you about the micro trends of yester week. Welcome to b3ta Gold. http://www.b3ta.com/links/I_love_my_life_as_a_dick... ------------------------------------------------- : FOLLOW FRIDAY Introducing that cool new product... Twitter! There's been a long tradition of fake celeb accounts for lols on Twitter - favourites include @dianainheaven ("Just realised I've been walking around all day with my left bollock hanging out.") and @CherylKerl ("Yerz kna listnin tuh Mawvin King's TUC speech haz made uz reassess mei thorts on causes a wor bankin crisis man pet an aall.") Our new favourite is the shit Britpop-tastic @reallybanderson and here are some of his recent tweets: * Bumped into Loz from Kingmaker today. Says they are re-uniting and he has changed his name to "Lolz", to appeal to "the kids". Tragic. * All Bran and Coco Pops in one bowl? Brett Anderson knows the score. * My next 25 new followers will receive a genuine piece of Richard Oakes' BMX bike as a prize. He'll probably be fine about it. http://twitter.com/reallybanderson ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Albums Challenge Last week we wanted you to re-market classic albums for a new demographic Your favourites included: * EMINEM - Slim Shady gets some new hair and a dandy costume (Ninj) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10182109 * U2 - Bono's bunch drop the pomposity and usher in a new era of knob gags and comedy moustaches (Ninj) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10181625 * JOY - classic album art given a refreshing, pneumatic twist (monkeon) http://www.b3ta.com/board/10183885 All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/marketingalbums/ >> New challenge: Retro Sci-Fi II << Back in September 2008, a classic B3ta compo emerged: make sci-fi retro. In true science-fiction style, it's high time for a sequel, so open up photoshop, and show us more (new) examples of the fantastical future, yesterday. Challenge suggested by The Great Architect. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/scifisequel/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * KUNTANDTHEGANG MAKE A MUSICAL - nothing if not ambitious is the young Kunt and he's bashed together a full cast recording of Shannon Matthews: The Musical. Pre-order your CD now. http://www.kuntandthegang.co.uk * PENIS TONE FM - Bryo writes, "just had a quick listen to the sound of genitalia and it is a really good radio station! In the afternoon has pretty much the same playlist as BBC 6music and bonus of broad Yorkshire accents from the DJs and adverts. Thanks B3TA!" http://www.penistonefm.co.uk/ * BATTERY MOANS - many of your wrote in with sympathy about our battery problems. Lots of recommendations for USB Rechargables - who we have mentioned before: they stuck us on a press release list and we got emailed every time they farted. Also ajbeaumont, who writes, "HEY HOMOS. Batteries are so last century. A bit of wood, some wires and hey presto - Apple's magic mouse running on USB. Love you, bye!!!!" http://snurl.com/usbtrackpad ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * E-FIT-ALIKES - marko_b_1 asks, "Can you suggest in the things we'd like to see section a website that shows police e-fits and an actual picture of the criminal once they are caught please? I think this would be awesome but I'm a spaz and can't make it myself." * AN iPHONE APP FOR READING THE B3TA QUESTION OF THE WEEK - there's gold in those archives and we reckon they'd make perfect phone reading. * AN OFF BUTTON FOR FACEBOOK PLACES - oh there probably is one but we couldn't find it easily, it's like Facebook want us to use this shit or something. 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 ------------------------------------------------- THANKINGS: This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David Stevenson. Stuff sent in by Lu, Tab Hunter, mousemonkey, Griffy Savalas, ttdi, Terry Mynott, Mrs. Sp@m, PokeHQ, jemimah_knight, Peter (Lowe!) / pgl (sorry for not crediting you last week). subjlols via Griffy Savalas. Top Tippery by A Vagabond. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. ------------------------------------------------- : TOP TIP: Enjoy the benefits of date rape without the concern about prosecution, by simply spiking your own drink and having a wank.