we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 197: "YOU THOUGHT WE WERE JOKING WHEN WE SAID IT WAS A COOKING NEWSLETTER" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * FOOD - Kettle vs Pasta * WEEBL - Magical Trevor III * JUDO - Is it gay? ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | ___/ _ |/_ > Kettle vs Pasta << "Thanks for putting the breakfast ironing in last week," badgers Thomas Scott. "We got some wonderful emails and were even mentioned on a Welsh radio breakfast show. They suggested we try and make pasta and sauce in a kettle. So we did. It knackered the kettle, and one of us got boiling water in the eye, but it did seem to work." http://www.thomasscott.net/iron/pasta/ >> Haribo vs Bread << Continuing the theme of dreadful cooking, GigerPunk says "seeing as last week's Haribo wasn't working out, I thought I'd try cooking them in a bread-maker." Blimey. This looks sticky. http://gigerpunk.ukgeeks.co.uk/c692109.html >> Haribo SUCCESS! << They said it couldn't be done, but Mr_Pink has managed to sculpt the evil gooey stuff. And top marks for making it look like a cock. http://www.b3ta.com/board/5115054 ------------------------------------------------- : DAPHNE AND CELESTE UPDATE They'll never live down the bottles of piss Daphne & Celeste, once famous in the UK for their chipmunk-voiced novelty pop, are now more notorious for their exit from the music industry: having bottles of piss lobbed at them at the Reading festival. B3ta reader Bad Horsey caught up with them and asked all about it: Daphne: Believe it or not, we actually sold an official autographed bottle of Reading piss on eBay as a joke, and it went for three thousand pounds (buyer undisclosed). BTW: Lots of celebs can be summarised down to one-line facts. It's a fun game to play in the car or office. "Sarah Miles? Drinks her own piss." or "Madonna? Pisses on her feet in the shower." Er.. entertains us, anyway. ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK Playstation review, Magical Trevor III >> Wipeout Pure on a dropped PSP << Britain has gone mad for the Playstation Pocket. Why, we can't even visit Woolworths to buy some pic'n'mix without being assaulted by the kids tumbling over us to rob the game boxes. Jonti has caught the gaming bug and grabbed a unit to review on his site. But, er.. dropped it. The pathos alone makes it a better review than anything you'll read on Amstrad Action (or wherever the kids read about games these days.) http://www.weebls-stuff.com/articles/454/ >> Magical Trevor III << Sequels to sequels don't have a great tradition: Jaws 3D inspired Viz's Pathetic Sharks, Matrix Revolutions undermined the brilliance of the first film so successfully that it's embarrasing to even mention the films in company, and Addams Family Reunion went straight to video and didn't have the original actors in it anyway. Trust (the clearly busy) Jonti to buck the trend. http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/magical+trevor+3... ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Mothers-in-law Each week we collect your stories, anecdotes and lies into one handy place on the interweb. Last week we asked how the in-laws were doing: http://b3ta.com/questions/inlaws/ * Lost in Translation "So my wonderful Polish mother-in-law is cooking us dinner and as I'm sitting there, knife and fork clutched in my hands like Fred Flintstone waiting for his steakosaurus, the MIL decides to strike up a convo in fragmented English. Eyes looking up like she's trying to read the words off the inside of her skull, she stumbles out with 'Ania is so much calm now you are fucking her, yes?'" (Grrrmachine) * Foot-in-mouth "I don't think my mother-in-law ever really liked me that much. Perhaps our first meeting might have had something to do with it... Greeted with a peck on the cheek by my future wife, I am ushered into the living room where my ears are assaulted by what can only be described as the worst kind of middle-of- the-road music, the kind I utterly despise: 'Christ on a bike, what's this crap?' 'Alexander O'Neil. It's my mother's favourite.' 'Jeeez - so where is the tone-deaf old trout anyway?' 'Behind you.' Ah." (Scaryduck) * Frogs, box of. "My MIL is lovely, but a bit obsessed in the cleaning stakes. She cleans her skirting boards with a toothbrush, believes you can't clean a kitchen in less than five-and-a-half hours and owns three hoovers - one for upstairs, one for downstairs and one for outside. Yes, outside. In the winter, those pesky birds drop seeds and nuts from the bird feeder everywhere. The solution? Hoover the lawn. Oh yes. Mad as a goose on stilts." (Sausagegirl) >> This Week's Question << We'd like you to talk posh. Are you posh? Who's the poshest person you've met? Talk to us here: http://b3ta.com/questions/posh/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates. >> Run your car on dead cats << Fuel prices are rocketing sky-high at the moment, and numerous barking solutions are doing the rounds. We've had emails suggesting we water down our diesel with vegetable oil, tin-foil-hatted theories that the car indsutry has suppressed the invention of the water-powered combustion engine for 40 years, and best of all, this report on how to fuel your car on deceased kittens. Only need 20 of them to fill your tank. Woo. And if you keep running over your neighbours' pets, we'll have created a perpetual motion machine. http://snipurl.com/hqk7 >> Geeks. Click this one << Nerdy parents! Worried that your kids are growing up without Asperger's and a desire to case-mod their Vtech into a Commodore 64? Simply buy them this "Teach Yourself C" board-game. Sheesh! If your child can't write a recursive loop by the time he's six, there's simply no hope is there? http://www.c-jump.com/ >> Goth / Darkwave mini-pops << In the 80s, C4 used to broadcast a paedo-friendly TV show where tots painted their faces like child-whores and lip-synced to sexually suggestive pop songs. We want the show back, and for the kids to sing Sisters of Mercy, The Cure or even Devo. Much like this odd little clip. http://snipurl.com/hqla >> Necro-swallows of DOOM! << This was interesting - a photographer makes up some story based on his observations of a swallow "trying to save" its dead friend. "Please wake up!" and so on. Then some science bloke comes in and spoils it all by explaining that it was actually trying to fuck the corpse. Nice. http://snipurl.com/necrodoom >> Mo Molam: Still dead << Poor old Mo. Before her untimely bucket-kickage, she was booked on a speaking tour of the UK. Check out the sensitive way this threatre site chooses to announce her death. (Scroll down.) http://www.blackfriars.uk.com/live_events.htm >> Gay Judo << We were amused by this heart-felt plea for the return of more man-to-man grappling and less throwing in Judo. Kinda interesting in a historical way - was Judo traditionally the sport of closeted homosexuals? Actually that reminds us of a girl from school who claimed she wasn't a virgin because her hymen had been broken by a horse. We imagine she's still living that story down. http://www.matbattle.com/articles/bjj/new_gay_judo... ------------------------------------------------- : GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN Retro Gamer magazine Despite our inveterate addiction to interwebs, we've still got big-love for magazines at B3ta HQ - mainly because we can't read Wikipedia in our local cafe. (Mario's, Kentish Town, visit if you're in the area for fantastic home-made chips. Can we have a free meal now, Mario?) So it was with sad hearts that we read an email informing us that our favourite magazine has closed down. "Hi, B3ta, "My name is Andrew Fisher, and I'm the editor of a new CD-based magazine called RETRO SURVIVAL, dedicated to old computer games. The people involved were all severely shafted by the closure of the commercial Retro Gamer mag, and are now putting together our tribute/two-fingered salute/money-grabbing CD." Anyway. If you are interested in buying the CD then have a gander at the site: http://www.retrosurvival.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------- : THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH Otters vs Sloths When God finally calls all his creatures to judgement, are the otters going to Heaven and the sloths to Hell? >> Otters << The case for otters: * You can use them to write 'otterly' great puns, * In the film Tarka The Otter they were voiced by the world's greatest raconteur, Peter Ustinov, * They're as clever as monkeys, and will use rocks as crude tools to smash open tasty crabs. http://www.seaworld.com/seaworld/ca/_downloads/ott... >> Sloths << In defence of sloths: * Due to their slow speed they are preyed upon by the harpy eagle. Their solution? Hide in a palm tree and pretend to be a coconut. Fuck, that's the only good fact about sloths, so we guess the otters win. http://www.cultofdegan.com/images/costarica/sloths... ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from Your Boring Movie 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 design movie posters of your own lives. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/boringmovies/ We asked b3ta boarder homonk to judge the entries - here are his 3 faves. homonk writes - #1 "Sock 2 - it's very rare that a sequel is as good as the original, even rarer that it is better. However with this entry this is the case. It's the 'contains mild cotton' that makes it. (Samwidge) http://www.b3ta.com/board/5099889 #2 "Gone with the Bins - Fantastic and very well executed. I'd go and see this film. I'd probably buy the DVD as well. (citizen loz) http://www.b3ta.com/board/5100669 #3 "Hammersmith Park - This made me laugh, it's simple, funny and true so I gave it third place. Brilliant. (Zaphod's Wombat) http://www.b3ta.com/board/5104292 >> This Week's Challenge << This week, the Challenge Dictator wants to know how we can make church popular again. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/makechurchpopular/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * GEEK SONGS REDUX PART 10 - "During the filming of many a crap student film while at Art College, the sound men did a mean rendition of the Sade classic, Boom Operator." * PAUL DANIELS BLOG - many of you wrote in to say that it is indeed his site. Dhughes also mentioned "that cunt should not be given the oxygen of oxygen let alone the oxygen of publicity." * PSYCHO OF THE WEEK - jwtaylor876 got in touch to say, rather disturbingly, "I'm going to uni next week and just bought my first knife, so now I'm singing 'It's My Knife' to Bon Jovi's 'It's My Life'." Er.. Why do you need a knife to go to college? Actually we used to work with a bloke who would get out a pen-knife, stroke it, and call it "mother". We think he was trying to be funny, but it was a little disturbing all the same. ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * SWIMMING-POOL PISS CHALLENGE - is it true that urine in a swimming pool turns a dark colour, or just a myth? We imagine that a digital camera and a reader willing to get banned for life from their local leisure- centre could get us a definitive answer. * COUNCIL SMOOTHIE - liquidise two pounds of jellied sweets, down it in one, then video your subsequent vomiting or amphetamine-a-like sugar high. * SUPERGLUE WALNUTS - to your garden patio and watch the squirrels go mental. Or think of your own variation of a Jeremy Beadle camera prank and play it on an animal. 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 Stevenson. Stuff sent in by Emvee, kcmkelly, HowayTheLads, Vectrex, jess.woah, FatherJack, gingerwizard, david.marrs, Hapax Legomena, pauljbeard, & DrDerekDoctors. Top Tippery by Rob. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Proofing by the mysterious RJT. (104697 - 29324) ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Make your photos not look like shit by taking them in daylight, using a tripod and shooting more than you need. This may sound obvious, but it's amazing how many people don't know these simple things. 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