we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 176: "BIRMINGHAM EGG" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * GOOGLE - Play the "I'm not gay" game * SUBTITLES - Crap Chinese ones at that * FUNNY NAMES - Oh shit. They're back ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | ___/ _ |/_ > Advertise in B3ta << Want to buy this space? Then talk to us. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #1 Translations, Nose spoon, South Park thing >> Chinese film subtitles << Chinese DVD pirates are busy practising a form of surrealism unknown in the West. Why bother translating a film into Chinese when you can just make up what's going on? Scroll down for the transcript and marvel at Jude Law's love of singing German folk songs. We giggled compulsively like Stephen Hawking with a palsied typing finger. http://www.sinosplice.com/weblog/archives/001573.p... >> Jelly nose spoon << "We've invented an alternative way of holding a spoon and feeding jelly to someone," crows Tom Wyatt. A more pointless invention we have yet to see. What goes unmentioned is that the jelly appears to be in the shape of a cock. Simple, retarded joy for the whole family. http://johnnysausage.com/index.php >> Election animation << Ah, Manic. He loves bullying our prime minister. We think he secretly fancies him. Anyway, this week he's imagined what it would be like if Tony Blair and Michael Howard took on the roles of Terrance and Phillip from South Park and transferred that image via flash to us. Now, having seen into Manic's mind, we secretly fancy Tony too. But, alas, he's a married man... http://www.backingblair.co.uk/debate/ ------------------------------------------------- : BIRMINGHAM EGG OF THE WEEK Curry craze sweeps the nation Last week we asked you to cook up and try a dish we invented to amuse ourselves whilst waiting for our poppadoms in our local curry house. Birmingham Egg: Simply take 5 scotch eggs, halve them and serve with masala sauce. Three of you actually took us up on the offer and got cooking in the kitchen. You poor, poor people. And you know what? Apparently it's an absolutely blinding dish - you bloody well love it. http://www.jonatkinson.org/junk/birminghamegg/ http://zanchey.ucc.asn.au/begg/ http://www.mirvx.co.uk/index.php So thanks to Paul, Lyall Furphy & Mirvio for making our B3ta dreams come true. All we need now is for a restaurant to put this dish on the menu and our work here will be done. And if you haven't tried Birmingham Egg yet, get to your supermarket before the scotch eggs run out. There's going to be a rush, you know. ------------------------------------------------- : ANALLY RAPE ME WITH A BENT SPOON It's the return of funny names corner >> JVC Minge << Looks like JVC are making more than than shitty DVD players. Although we found this funnier last night, when we thought it was a JCB Minge. http://www.partstore.com/ProductDetail.aspx >> Wayne Kerr Chemistry << When chemists aren't getting their giggles from spiking cough medicine with laxative, they're roaring furiously at this "universal bridge" supplier. http://www.waynekerrtest.com >> Mangina << Obviously a neologism to describe the sight of an anus to a dictionary-wielding gay, we're happy that Mangina actually exists and she's a sports coach. Possibly a lovely lesbian too. http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mangina.html ------------------------------------------------- : INTERVIEW Steve Coombes - creator of TV's 'Outlaws' Last Sunday we got a copy of Outlaws, a BBC legal comedy drama set in Manchester. Frankly, we didn't leave the house all day, watching all 12 episodes in one sitting, mouthing the words, "It's sooo good. How come no one told us?" So we emailed Steve Coombes - the chap who created the show - and asked him a few questions for your reading pleasure. >> B3ta: Outline Outlaws in two lines. On TV, the police always catch the guy and the lawyer always gets him off. In real life and in Outlaws, it's the other way round. >> You did a lot of research for Outlaws - what's >> the strangest story you *didn't* use? My second day out with lawyer down a police station. We were waiting for a client in an interview room. Suddenly, the door opens and two PCs come in and ask: Has anyone seen a gun? They've lost one. We all look for a moment and then the PCs disappear. I never used it in Outlaws because I didn't think anyone would believe it. The most surprising thing I discovered is that it takes 400 policemen to arrest 4 terrorist suspects in Manchester. It then takes the detectives another four days to realise their tickets to a Man U match (the assumed target of their plot) are, in fact, two years out of date and just souvenirs. >> The plots are so packed, what's the secret >> of fitting it all into 30 mins? Originally, Outlaws was going to be 40 mins long, but during the research period, such slots disappeared from BBC 2. So we were left with a choice: spread to an hour or compress to 30 mins. The shorter format suited the choppiness of Magistrate Court, so went with it. But we always try and put an hour's worth of plot in a show, partly to show off and partly because we think audiences like it. Our credo was: they're not the Fast Show, we are. >> Where have you been hiding before this? I've spent my life failing upwards. I started off writing sitcoms like Birds of a Feather, failed out of that into comedy dramas like Lovejoy or Frank Stubs Promotes and from there into straight drama like Roughnecks. By the mid-1990s, I was developing my own formats for TV whereupon I failed up into films. I had comedy made for Working Title and spent far too long writing the other film about Kinsey for HBO. Eventually, you can only fail up so far, whereupon you have to fail back down again which is when I started work on Outlaws in May 2002. >> What's your big unfinished project? On and off, I spent five years writing a film about Kinsey that never got made. At one point, Sydney Pollack was the exec producer, but he left to go and act in Eyes Wide Shut. >> Eastenders - how would you fix it? Go on... Bring back Leslie Grantham and give him a camera. He obviously likes to film more interesting things than the mob they've got now. >> ...and and and the classic "Tell us a joke" This one was told to me by Phil Daniels and is the least PC joke I've heard for years. Sex shops in Bolton have just introduced a new range of ethnic inflatable toys. There's a Jewish Princess, a Catholic Madonna and a Madonna Buddhist, but by far the most popular is the Islamic doll with a Burkah - because she blows herself up. Go on. Treat yourself. Buy Outlaws on Amazon and give yourself something descent to watch. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007IK65... ------------------------------------------------- : GAY GOOGLE GAME I'm Totally Straight, But ... A game bloggers have been playing this week, is typing "I'm totally straight, but" into google this week and finding how random web users finish this phrase. Favourites include: ... I don't mind other sexually aroused males in close proximity. ... I'm not scared to admit that another man is good-looking. ... just recently I've been experimenting by whilst masturbating I got the gf's sex toy and put it up the 'whoopsie'. If you can think of any good starting phrases for google and produce such good results then get in touch. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Walkman Flashbacks Each week we collect your stories, anecdotes and lies into one handy place on the interweb. Last week we wanted the tracks that trigger vivid memories when you hear them: http://b3ta.com/questions/flashbacks/ * RELAX - Frankie Goes To Hollywood "This always makes me cringe: I used to have very long hair, half way down my back. On my 35th birthday, my missus said she was going to take me out for a meal and a night in a hotel. Anyway, getting ready to go, "Relax" came on, so I'm naked, dancing around and singing along drying my hair with a pink and yellow hair-dryer when my youngest brother throws open the door. Unfortunately, all of my family and most of my friends behind him shouted "surprise!". The surprise party was certainly a surprise: to this day, even after 12 years, if "Relax" is heard by any of my family or friends they point at me and laugh." (peewee13) * DON'T YOU WANT ME - Human League "When I was around three, my parents split up. A year or so after that, Don't You Want Me was a hit and my dad told me, 'The next time you hear that song, you tell your mommy that this song is about me and her, okay?' Helping her tidy around the house it was on the radio. And I told her. And then she got upset and had to leave the room. Thanks, Dad. Now that's in my head every time the damned song is on." (Sydney Bintstow) * WHERE IS THE LOVE? - Black Eyed Peas "I fucking HATE this song. It's a steamy, wet turd of a song. So, I'm in the middle of losing my virginity, with Radio 1 on, and what decides to grace the airwaves? That song. Cunts. One of the most memorable times of my life, and that's the fucking soundtrack." (seventhsun) >> This Week's Question << We'd like you to tell us the things you simply don't understand. Talk to us here: http://b3ta.com/questions/huh/ ------------------------------------------------- I'm totally straight, but I like Malibu Rum & Pineapple. ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates. >> Transparent PC illusion << These chaps have set their PC's wallpaper to be whatever is behind the computer, giving an impression of having a transparent screen. It's really rather clever stuff, though we imagine that the sort of person who'd do this would wear a t-shirt with a picture of his guts on the outside and use his webcam as a mirror. Much like our mum. http://files.macbidouille.com/transparent/ >> Couples AMIHOTORNOT << In the glory days of 2000 the big hit of the web was AMIHOTORNOT, the site which asked you to rate an individual's attractiveness on a score of 1 to 10. Variants followed like AMIGOTHORNOT to our personal favourite, RATEMYKITTEN. The latest introduces a novel twist, showing two people side by side and asking whether they'd make a good couple. We found it interesting, if only to see our opinions continually reinforced by others. Pretty people should date pretty people and uglies stick with the uglies. Where it's safe. http://www.buttercouple.com/ >> Disco Apache << Ancient readers will remember the Shadows hit, Apache, no not the geek web server of choice, but a twangy guitar epic created by Hank "two-handed wank" Marvin. You probably don't remember this 1970s disco remake complete with dodgy porn moustaches and red indian disco dollies. You will now though. http://www.zeronews-fr.com/flash/70s.php >> Self-flushing cat toilet << Our B3ta wife recently complained that although science has given us Spepper (saving us from the drudgery of using salt and pepper in separate shakers) it hasn't produced the self-cleaning carpet. Sensing a challenge, we didn't offer to help clean up, but went on a self-indulgent orgy of googling. The best we could find was the self flushing cat toilet, mainly because it was removed from the market as it flushed regardless of whether the cat was in it or not. Ooops. http://www.smarthome.com/6123.html >> BBC Breakfast lady pr0n << There's a theory of sexual attraction that states men fancy women only slightly better-looking than themselves. It's about obtainability: Lorraine Kelly after a few glasses of cider might give you a hand-job in the car park, whilst you know that Gwyneth Paltrow isn't going to put out without rohypnol. Only such thinking can explain this dedication to making this collection of pornographic nudes of the ladies of UK morning TV. NSFW. But this link is probably going to going to do the rounds of the BBC. http://www.breakfastfakes.co.uk/ >> Chalk Fighter << These people have found a way of playing Street Fighter with only some chalk and a blackboard. We hope there were strict rules and that it's an impossibly-complicated game to play, but suspect that the only rule was "If it looks good, draw it". http://ueba.com.br/forums/index.php ------------------------------------------------- I'm totally straight, but I'm very curious about having a guy's hard cock inside my tight arse. ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #2 Scientologists, Evil phones & Scary stuff >> Playing with Scientologists << Iain has bought a house. Unfortunately, its former owner still gets lots of letters from the Church of Scientology. Fortunately, Iain has decided to reply to them and see what happens. We're hoping that he follows this up with more adventures with Scientologists. This could run and run. http://www.big-iain.com/TheJimThompsonLetters/ >> Dobber of the week << You know those mobile phone scams where you get a text from a fairground informing you that "U won gldfsh. Call this number...", then when you phone it back, you're connected to a premium rate line? Apparently, if it doesn't inform you that it's premium rate then a quick report to ICSTIS can get them into rather a lot of trouble when you dob them in. Hurray! We're like Watchdog but without the old bag with the plastic face. http://www.producemonkey.co.uk/icstis.html >> Short scary animation << We're scared of lots of stuff. Spiral staircases, spiders, flushing toilets, opening letters from the bank, basically we're scared of most stuff. Including JMS's short and effective animation. We shit our pants. http://www.crumblewall.com/files/eyes.html ------------------------------------------------- I'm totally straight, but I can't resist sucking the occasional cock. ------------------------------------------------- : THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH Pug puppies Not hugely bothered by dogs at B3ta Towers, they smell when it rains and all that stick fetching makes us suspicious. However even our fag-blackened hearts were softened by B3ta reader Jared's new pug. He's called Magnus and he's recently had his 6 week birthday. http://www.peckish.org/images/magnus6wksm.jpg BTW: What's the cutest thing you've seen on the web recently? Tell us. http://www.b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from Tragic Roundabout Challenge Each week we run a competition to test your creative skills. We set a challenge and you open Photoshop and mess with our heads. Last week we wanted you to find the secret undercurrent of depression in kids' TV shows. http://b3ta.com/challenge/tragicroundabout/ We asked B3ta boarder '100% Gibbon' to judge the entries - here are his 3 faves. Gibbon writes - #1 "Orville - I'm with Cuddles The Monkey on this matter, I fucking hate that duck. Nice to see him plummeting and also suffering a slow, painful death. It's all in the wing twitch. (pobblepop) http://www.b3ta.com/board/4437994 #2 "Tucker's Duck - Tucker looks delighted with his duck, but I think that the duck might be about to throw its wing out and break his arm. Or is that swans? I can't put my finger on why, but this made me wee my pants. (previously on the west wing) http://www.b3ta.com/board/4426624 #3 "As if by magic - Ah. The costume change that Mr Benn wanted most of all - and even gayer than his cowboy costume. Nice to see him shopping at the same fancy dress shop as Prince Harry." (mozza) http://www.b3ta.com/board/4427948 Special mentions to these two Mr Men entries. Everybody needs a bit of Shabba in their lives, and Jonathan looks delighted to be on his way to the school gates, presumably to meet up with his friends Mr Glitter and Mr Jackson (veracity statement to be confirmed by American court, but he is odd, isn't he?)" http://www.b3ta.com/board/4435357 http://www.b3ta.com/board/4432414 >> This Week's Challenge << This week, the Challenge Dictator told us to take a magnifying glass in hand for "Extreme Close Ups" http://b3ta.com/challenge/zoom/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * URBAN BOWLING - "Hello, we're Australian," barks spanishcatfish, "and we just finished doing some high-quality urban bowling you requested a few weeks ago. It was fun." Ooh, by the looks of your video, you had a lovely, if vaguely uneventful day out with your new friend. We're still hoping for someone to bowl down the slope between two escalators on the tube. http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~nick_turner/bowl_0004... * SHIT SCALE - last week we mentioned the Bristol Stool Scale, a high-tech medical system for describing poo. "It's real!", exclaims Chris Wheatley BSc FIOT MSCCT, "Here's a link to a magazine I write for, complete with photos." http://www.n2nmagazine.co.uk/articleDetails.asp * ANIMAL REVIEW THANKS - the team write : "Thanks for bigging up Animal Reviews in your newsletter a while back - we've since been in the Guardian and are soon to be interviewed by the BBC. You guys are the best." Yes, we are the best. But those BBC guys? They smell of wee. * SOCIAL ENGINEERING DE-BUNKED - hamburger operative Ian scowls, "All it boils down to is being a cheap bastard and making unnecessary inconvenience for the poor people working at the restaurant. Giving it a fancy name doesn't change anything. Notice the years of pent-up bitterness I gathered working in such a restaurant exploding here." * WHAT'S IN THE BOX? SOLUTION - last week we presented you with a mystery box and asked you to work out what it was. Although we were charmed by your ideas that it was to make Pom Poms, polish teeth, and design bobble hats, the correct answer was pointed out by Irish piano tuner Mick Danby who wrote, "You've stumbled across a piano technician's box of paper and card washers. The small paper ones are used to adjust the height of the keys, the bigger ones adjust how far the keys go down." So it looks like our question-master has basically stolen the livelihood of a poor blind person. The fucker. * KOALA BEAR ERRATA - reader Richard exclaims, "There is NO FUCKING SUCH ANIMAL AS A KOALA BEAR!!!!!!!!!!! It's not a fucking BEAR! It's a Koala!!! Glad I've got that off my chest." There there dear. It's only a newsletter. * PANCAKE COCKS - we asked for you to draw penises in coffee froth and none of you did. Slackers. Anyway Ladymortisha got stoned and did have a go with pancake mixture. Nice one. Could probably do with some maple syrup spunk though. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/whiskeyfair... ------------------------------------------------- : 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: * MATT BIANCO MOMENTS FOR A NEW GENERATION - Old fuckers remember Matt Bianco being called a "bunch of wankers" on Saturday Superstore. It was a delight. It happened to 5 Star too, being asked why they were so fucking shit. There's more rubbish celebrities now than ever and yet this sort of thing just doesn't seem to happen any more. So get your kid brother to give Ministry of Mayhem a call and inform whichever 'star' they have that week (hopefully it's the moronic Easter island statue-faced singer from pop band the Bravery) to "Get off my digital television, you're a waste of pixels". Or something. * PRIDE ANTHEMS FOR NEW MINORITIES - We love "Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud" and "Sing if you're glad to be gay", and we hope that there's a bootleg available for people who are both. But what about the minorities without anthems - the dwarves, the gingers, the tories and the goths, to name but four? If you belong to a songless minority, get a group together and belt out your pride for us in a short catchy anthem that can be sung forevermore. * SECRET COCKS ON PRODUCT DESIGN - do you make the packaging for kids' sweets? Maybe you make Braille pamphlets for the blind. Cover them in hidden penises and we'll make you famous. 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: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] ------------------------------------------------- THANKS: This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David "Geek Hunk 2005" Stevenson. Links sent in by jeremy, pirate_gyrate, smiling.carcass, beanmom, gay google liberally robbed from rcade at cruel.com, blork101, todd and about a million people with stuff about that fucking box. Top Tippery nabbed from Encyclopizza. Read the site if you want to spend 5 hours learning how to run a pizza restaurant. Oddly good. Additional linkage by Fraser Lewry. Yay Fraser. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Which he does well. Image challenge handled by Mystery Bob. Proofing by the evil b4ta overlords. (101223-24087) ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: The "chef's secret" for removing garlic and onion smell from hands is to (1) wet the hands with cold water, (2) rub them with salt, (3) rinse off the salt, then rub with lemon juice, and (4) finish off by washing with soap and water. next issue » « previous issue Newsletter We run a free weekly B3TA email reporting on the coolest stuff on the net. _____________________ [ go ] -------------------- THIS WEEKS HEADLINES -------------------- * TYPE-IN MAGAZINE - LAUNCHED FOR YOUR FINGERS * AI SLOP - GET READY TO OINK FOR IT, PIGGIES * GET WELL SOON - WISHING WELL TO DAVE BAGPUSS READ LATEST ISSUE archive