still good for last weeks compo!

de-RIS with BBC and YouTube
(Fri 6th Mar 2015, 5:47, More)

Sag ihm nicht, Hecht!

(Tue 17th Feb 2015, 1:24, More)

(gets ball rolling)

(Wed 17th Sep 2014, 14:35, More)

Love it or hate it, it'll eat you for breakfast

(Mon 5th May 2014, 14:48, More)

Andy and Pablo


finally got that out of my head
(Mon 3rd Feb 2014, 13:27, More)

Sometimes the bad guys should win


bonus
(Mon 13th Jan 2014, 7:58, More)

It was bound to happen one day

Worf is so badass he takes him down, at distance, *with his eyes closed*
(Fri 3rd Feb 2012, 15:10, More)

I used 14, but close enough for my sanity

(Sun 22nd Jan 2012, 13:17, More)

Eating disorders were inevitable

Delurking - surprised there haven't been more anims in this compo, although this took way too long.

Edit: was missing the last 4 frames (223 now!), now loops properly. Thanks for all the kind words and clicks!
(Tue 14th Apr 2009, 15:32, More)

» Parsimony

scared shitless of spending anything
First place I worked at was in IT Support at a college. The head of the repair department - lets call him Tony - was well known for being tragically tight - Tony always bought his lunch in, never bought a coffee, never went for a lunchtime beer, used teabags twice, grew a beard so as to save on buying razors.

Anyway, one day a new guy is starting, and - unusually - the manager of the whole department (different fella) decides we should go out for lunch to welcome him. This was uncommon, because he was a crap manager.

Tony is shitting himself - he's actually going to have to spend money. He makes it perfectly clear we are NOT splitting the bill when we get there, as he's "not very hungry". We go to this pizza place, and like me everyone is ordering what they actually fancy: giant pizzas dripping with ingredients, beers, garlic bread - who cares. I'm only on a small wage, especially compared to Tony, but it's hardly breaking the bank.

Tony scans the menu carefully, and orders a small neapolitan pizza. Tomato and Cheese. That's not a pizza, that's a pizza base. No drink, nothing else at all. The waitress brings them out, and puts condiments on the table - parmesan, dried oregano, etc. Tony cautiously asks "Are these free?". Fuck me - the poor twat has just outed himself as being so tight that he has obviously never been to any kind of cafe or restaurant in his life. Even the waitress is laughing at him.

Tony POURS on the dried parmesan, POURS on the dried oregano until his tiny crappy pizza is buried under a mountain of yellow-and-green dust. Not just too tight to spend money, but too tight not to take advantage of freebies and utterly ruin his food. Tony, tightwad though he is, is no iron-stomach champ. He's choking on this dry dusty shit pizza, but he's determined to finish it all. Meanwhile we're sipping beer, eating large moist slices of delicious pizza each larger than his tiny beermat of a pizza.

At the end, Tony is there red faced, practically dry heaving - but looking very smug. He's out of this for a fiver despite eating a fivers worth of parmesan and oregano on top. Practically cancels the expense out! While us idiots have gone through god knows how much money on our huge lunch and beers, despite actually enjoying our meal and ready to groan home on very full bellies. The bill comes, and Tony's eyebrows shoot up in smug curiosity - "How much is it!" He's DYING to know just how smug he should be.

"Who cares," says our usually crap manager "lunch is on me."

Tony's face loses all physical support and sags into crestfallen shock - he would have pigged himself stupid and ordered more to take home and freeze if only he'd known. I don't think he spoke to any of us for the rest of the week.

TL;DR - tightwads too tight to risk money on a free lunch
(Wed 9th Mar 2016, 11:39, More)

» The B3ta UK Manifesto

Global Manifesto
Force everyone to randomly swap countries every 5 years. Hopefully it'll motivate us to stop fucking the place up for each other, and when numbnuts start chanting shit like "Britain First!" the natural response will be "Why?"
(Fri 24th Apr 2015, 13:01, More)

» Travel

I went to Australia for a few weeks holiday
and never came back - been 8 years now, it's a terrific place!

tl;dr I'm an immigrant
(Fri 19th Apr 2013, 1:12, More)

» The Emergency Services

Ambulance Accident
My neighbours son is a paramedic - someone else drives the ambulance while he's in the back keeping the patient alive. Unfortunately while racing to the hospital the driver rolled the ambulance - the paramedic is now facing spinal surgery due to his injuries.

Can't imagine any practical way he could have been protected and still able to do his job, short of all-encompassing air bags ala "Demolition Man".

No idea if the patient was conscious or not (or survived), would have been a nightmare for them considering they were already in bad enough shape to require speedy transport to hospital.
(Thu 16th May 2013, 13:52, More)

» The B3ta Cookbook

fucking good risotto, feeds two
I'm disturbed at how many of the recipes so far are "simple" and "shit". Here's a bloody awesome recipe that isn't actually hard but certainly takes some preparation. Is it worth it? I think so, but then I don't see "quick and simple" as inherently worthy goals when cooking.

Before you can start making your risotto, you have to cook and eat an entirely different meal a day or more before:

Roast a Chicken for the pair of you, have roast spuds, plenty of veggies - just cook it yourself, don't buy an already cooked chicken. Make sure you buy a chicken large enough that you'll only consume half of it.

Put your vegetable peelings in a large saucepan (3 litre capactity). Before you wash up, scrape all the meat and fat juices into the saucepan too.

Take the chicken carcass and remove all the chicken flesh (and only the flesh) into a bowl or container, and refrigerate. Into the large saucepan of peelings etc goes all the bones, skin, internal organs.

Boil up 1.7 litres of water in your kettle, pour into saucepan with bones etc. Bring saucepan to a vigorous boil, take down to a bare simmer and simmer for at least 2 hours, checking every now and then to make sure the heat is okay and to turn over the contents.

Once the water level has dropped a few inches, pour the contents of the saucepan through a colander into another saucepan. Throw the bones and crap away, leaving you with about a litre of beautiful golden chicken stock, entirely unlike the shit liquid you buy in a carton or dried brown flavoured salt you buy as a cube.

Let this cool, put it into a suitable container and refrigerate.

Next day, or day after, it's time to make some awesome chicken risotto.

Other than your 1 litre of beautiful stock and chicken meat (torn into small strips), you will need:

1 cup of risotto rice (about 180 grams).
1 cup of white wine (what about 180 grams of uncooked rice looks like) make it a good enough wine to serve the rest with dinner.
1 large onion
1 handful of mushrooms
trimmed green beans
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
fistful of fresh parsley - finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
30 grams of butter
olive oil
salt
ground black pepper

1. Pour your stock into a small saucepan, warm it up and keep it warm (do not boil). Put in a few pinches of salt.
1. Chop up your onion and garlic.
2. Heat the butter and a decent glug of olive oil into a 3 litre saucepan. Once the butter has melted, chuck in the onion and garlic and cook for 3 minutes on a medium heat.
3. Stir in your risotto rice and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently (it'll get a bit sticky) until the rice has begun to colour.
4. Turn the heat down a bit. Ladle in 1 cup of your warm stock. This will bubble magnificently and quickly be absorbed/boil off.
5. Put in 1 cup of white wine, no more. This should not bubble magnificently, but still absorb fairly quickly - otherwise adjust your heat. Stir occasionally until the liquid is almost gone (the risotto will become stiffer and harder to stir - don't let it bubble too much or burn).
6. Once this has absorbed, chuck in your mushrooms and 1 cup of stock. Stir occasionally while the stock is absorbed.
7. As each cup of liquid is absorbed, put in another cup, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in a seperate saucepan, cook your green beans.
8. When you are down to your last cup of stock, try some of the rice: it should not be gritty*. Put your chicken and final cup of stock in, and stir. Once this has begun to absorb, put in your parsley, grind in some black pepper.
9. Once the stock is absorbed, take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the parmesan cheese.
10. Serve, with green beans on the side.

*if your rice is still a bit gritty and you're almost out of stock, you're going to have to use your last cup of stock now. Unless you have a stash of beatuiful home-made stock in the freezer you can quickly defrost in a suacepan/microwave, any further liquid required will have to be plain boiled water 1 cup at a time. Do not use a stock cube with it. If you had 1 litre of stock to begin with and cooked 1 cup of risotto rice, this should not occur.

Tips: never, at any stage, be tempted to put more white wine in - it will totally dominate and ruin the flavour. If you don't see the point in parsley, try it anyway - it makes all the difference in this dish. Always use risotto rice. If when making your stock you forgot about it and the liquid almost simmered away, just boil a kettle and top it up again to 1 litre. Let it simmer for about 5/10 minutes and it should be absolutely fine.
(Sun 1st Jul 2012, 16:52, More)