we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "WHY IS THE BIBLE LIKE A PENIS?" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * ANIM - Rolf Harris bestial sing-song * GAME - Sprouts are evil * CHALLENGES - Lovely new democratic votey stuff ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | ___/ _ |/_ > Rolf Harris << Rolf facts: Drinks his own piss for the health benefits; Has a name amusingly close to the popular internet acronym ROFL (twits use this to mean 'roll on the floor laughing'); and, according to a BBC researcher we once chatted to in the pub, he likes 'goosing young ladies'. But all these merry facts mean naught compared to his mastery of the song. Witness this fantastic re-interpretation of his 1960 hit, 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' and giggle like we giggled at the B3ta Bunker. http://www.strawberrydragon.com/images/animation/r... >> Sprouts are evil << Official b3ta brother Duncan Manuel used to liven up dinner time with his reworking of the Tears For Fears hit, Shout. "Sprouts! Sprouts! Puke them all out! This is the veg we can do without!" So imagine our joy when Eyegas got in touch with an almost identical idea. Eyegas wins though as he's turned the whole thing into a fantastic vegetable bashing game that made us yelp, "Fucking hell. This is fantastic!" http://www.eyegas.com/xmas05/ >> Just say no to drugs, kids << "At school the other day, we were introduced to some anti-drugs software called D-Code," reveals Josh04, "It was bad. Really bad. Getting home, I decided to make a flash version of the offending program." Blimey. It's the shouting that made us enjoy this. Reminds us of Joel's 'Spoonguard' thing he did back in the day. http://www.mcnamee.co.uk/josh/drugs.swf >> Her Majesty << "I've made a demented flash film," screams Mutated Monty, "About my strange relationship with the Royal Family." Er.. Yep, this is fucking odd. http://media.putfile.com/queenie83 ------------------------------------------------- : SPONSORED LINK Japanese stuff delivered... J-List is a pretty cool place that sells everything from Japan you could want: * Domo-kun plush toys * "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" kanji T-shirts (and other original designs) * Wacky products for adults, including hundreds of bizarre and fun DVD titles * "Tabi" (ninja shoes) and "oppai ball" (a squeezable soft boob) * Anime, JPOP, Manga, Yaoi, and Tokyo Fashion magazine subscriptions * 150+ Japanese snacks with names like "Crunky" and "Melty Kiss" Please visit us now -- you've got a friend in Japan http://www.jlist.com >> Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then talk to us. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the recent couple of Challenges News! News! News! News! News! News! Do we have your attention yet? We've had a flurry of activity in the b3ta bunker and decided to re-jig how the voting works on the challenges. Basically we read a highfalutin book on 'the power of many, over the views of the one', and thought "we'll get everyone to vote on the best images and that'll make a lovely best of page. woo." * MUSIC AND FOOD - Frankly we were a bit dubous when our board demanded this challenge as we thought it would be all shit 'Kraftwok' puns. Props to Trinosaur for his disgusting Aphex Twin eats a Jaffa cake anim, and we also liked Eclectechs' cute re-drawing of the chestnuts/roasting joke. But fuck that, see for yourselves, all the best stuff as voted for by you. http://b3ta.com/challenge/musicandfood/ * IF PRODUCTS WERE MADE BY OTHERS - a dictator challenge chosen by the lovely and handsome Fraser, we thought would be a laugh, as it's a return to the classic challenges of "think of X if Y were true." Our personal favourites were the Polo condom (with a hole in it) and the Lilt VD ointment, "the scrotally topical paste!" And again, don't take our word for it, see how people have voted. http://b3ta.com/challenge/products/ * 2006 PREDICTIONS - and this week we're looking for your psychic thoughts on the events of the coming year. Make it a good one kids. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/2006/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates. >> Found camera photos << Ooh this is an interesting site that kept us busy for a couple of hours over the Christmas break. In short, this chap has been collecting cameras - complete with half-shot film - from junk shops and processing the pictures. Oddly fascinating - eerie even. BTW: Teched-up readers might want to try a similar idea from collecting memory cards and old hard-disks. http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm >> USB Digital bible << We've got a soft spot for crappy USB innovation, from the USB rubber-duck memory stick to the USB fish-tank that the official b3ta wife bought us for our birthday, we're amused by it all. And so we bring you King John's Bible on an electronic key-ring. God would want it this way. http://www.davidsteele.com/usb_digital_bible.html >> Vulcan sock puppet << Just a funny picture really; Star Trek's Spock rendered as a sock monkey. They missed a trick by not calling it the 'Spock Monkey' though. http://www.sockit2me.com/sockit2me/vulcanmonkey.ht... >> 500mhz Tattoo << Ok, we all know that extreme geeks like nothing better than tattooing their favourite technology on their pasty-white bodies. Fair enough, everyone loves Apple, but why-oh-why tattoo a 500mhz processor on your bloody forehead? Isn't it a bit like saying, "I'm really out of date and my brain isn't very quick?" http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20040720.html >> Psycho mom << Here's the story: 16 year old kid leaves his video camera on whilst his obviously upset and disturbed mother rants about his behaviour. There isn't much to look at and the audio doesn't kick in for about a minute, but damn this woman is angry and end result is upsetting, disturbing and voyeuristically compelling. reminds us of those NSPCC ads from a while back - except he is giving her a bit of lip in teenage style. http://gorillamask.net/psychomom.shtml >> Sindy doll story << Something for the ladies here. Plastic dolls in a camp, soap opera story-line. A voice in the b3ta bunker shouts, "Obviously made by mad, Northern gays" and all the better for that. http://www.funtime-sindy.co.uk/part_5.htm >> Monkey wanking [NSFW] << Years ago we watched as a work-mate congratulated a bitter rival, who'd just won a journalism award for being very clever and selling lots of magazines, by sending them his personal collection of monkey porn. So if you feel jealous of one of your colleagues for their recent promotion then say it in style. Say it with monkey porn. BTW: The photo is entirely NSFW and features an Asian gentleman being wanked off by a tiny monkey. (And the best thing is that they have tiny hands so your willy looks massive.) http://www.lamermelculo.com/imagenes/webs/051103/m... >> Racist BBC<< Ok this is a cheap shot. A reader wrote in mentioning that they'd spent the afternoon typing rude words into the BBC search for laughs and shits, and if you squint and pretend the country Niger actually reads n-word it brings quite a surprising meaning to a few of their headlines. Case in point: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/589625.stm >> Rod Stewart cross stitch << Imagine the horror of working for a cross stitch magazine. Day-in, day-out trying to think up twee ideas for mad grannies to stitch. Fuck knows what was in their tea. http://www.flickr.com/photos/stenno/76351178/ >> Viral boat marketing << Sellers! If you want your ebay listing to really get seen by lots of people then the trick is to include something rude and little bit hidden in the photos. A few years back we had all the reflectoporn stuff (naked men wanking reflected in a kettle), and now we've got people pissing on dogs heads. Er.. needs a catchy title for this to really take off. Pissy-crops? Urinemyphoto!? (Sorry.) http://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/view/F83656/ ------------------------------------------------- : THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH Hamster push-ups When historians come to write the 'History of the Web in Animals', the timeline will be as follows: 1995: Ascii cows 1997: Hamster dance 1999: Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys everywhere. 2001 onwards: Kittens, it's all about the kittens. Anyway. Let's take a trip back to the 90s and pretend hamsters are funny and cool again with this lovely little picture of Mr. Hammy doing his work-out. http://www.davesdaily.com/pictures/506-furryfriend... ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Panic Buying Last week in a vague attempt at being topical, we asked about panic present-buying: http://b3ta.com/questions/panicbuying/ Here's two stories of woe for you: >> Say it with flowers << "Two years ago, my Dad called to say he and my Mum were 'popping round' as she really wanted to see me on her birthday and I "hadn't bothered" to call in at theirs. In truth, I'd just totally forgotten. It was 8pm on a Sunday. They'd be here in half an hour. Fuck fuckety fuckfuck. I jumped in the car and flew down to the all night garage to get her some flowers, the only thing I could think of. Twatcakes! They didn't have any! Panicking I bought her a watering can and a DVD documentary about water voles. Sped home. Stopped half way. Looked at my forlorn gifts. Realised there was no way I could pass these off as anything other than a last-minute garage trip. Looked out of the window in despair. Saw... a load of bunches of flowers tied to the railings where some kid had got knocked down a month or so earlier. I am ACTUALLY going to hell. My Mum quite liked her three presents though." (grey kid) >> My Mum wishes she'd married me instead << "A couple of years ago I'd just gotten my first job. This was in no small part down to my Mother who had gone out of her way to help me get there in the first place. As a result I decided to blow quite a large chunk of my newly-acquired wages on a really nice birthday present for her; a gold bracelet. She opened it and the look on her face made my new found poverty (almost) worthwhile. After staring at it disbelievingly for a while she realised she wasn't done yet and turned her attention to my Father's present. 'What could top that?' she must have been thinking as she opened it. I'm guessing not a garlic press." (Gleeballs) Finally, a live report from our shopping correspondent Legless, "Errr - that would be me then. It's 1.15pm on Xmas Eve and I'm just starting my shopping. I haven't bought a thing yet. But do I panic? Do I run around town like a maniac? That would be no. Instead of cracking on with my shopping I walked into the first Internet Cafe I came across and logged on to B3ta to check what the question was this week. I'm so fucking sad someone should take me out and shoot me... Have a great Xmas." >> This Week's Question << We'd like to know what Urban Legends you've fallen for, or, even better, started: http://b3ta.com/questions/urbanlegends/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * AMUSING PACKAGING - We've been asking people to send in scans of advertising slogans that sound a bit rude. Thanks Erebus Dawn for this moderately amusing little innuendo: "We drink our own juice every day - and we'd like you to join us." Actually, The Organic Juice Co. has probably had to sit through the dull marketing seminar we once listened to where we were told to "Eat Your Own Dog Food" which made us thankful we worked on the internet instead of for Pedigree Chum. http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c393/Exoh3/mmmmj... * GEEK SONGS PART 40 - "Sorry to hark back to this little feature, but it tickled me greatly", burps swa110w, "and I do not feel it warranted the abuse it received." Hold on! What abuse? "To start the ball rolling again, I thought I'd tell you about a Geek Song I recently found myself singing whilst slaving over some hot code. To the chorus of "Take On Me" by A-ha... 'P...H...P... (P-H-P) P...H...P... (P-H-P) P...H...P... X-S-L-Ttttttttttttt'" Er.. yes. Actually did we mention we sometimes sing 'F.T.P! (aha aha)" to an old KLF tune whilst uploading bits of the b3ta website? Sad fuckers, all of us. * GINGER SPAM - Watch out kids, a reader informs us, "According to the latest spam to land in my inbox this morning, someone called Rob Manuel is offering me the chance to save up to 85 percent on Viagra." Fucking spammers. Don't take the Ginger Fuhrer's name in vain, else he'll make spammers wear little black triangles and visit the special showers or something. * FRASER WORLD DOMINATION - lovely, handsome and toothy like a russet Tom Baker, Fraser, has been all over the papers this week as his Kitten Wars reached overground and into popular culture. We loved his interview in The Sun, which makes him sound like the mad cat-lady and, cruelly, added 15 years to his age. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006000472,00... * SAYING SORRY FOR RAPE - before Xmas we suggested that a good idea for a B-Movie would be the "Time Rapist" and the complaints came flooding in. # "I wish that the people writing the newsletter could progress beyond the social awareness level of a fourteen year old boy with one hand on his dick and the other on his Princess Leia model." # "I love the newsletter, but the time-rapist request could be misinterpreted as you wishing that you could rape women (Albeit in different times). You ought to take care when it could be taken that you're encouraging rape. Just a friendly comment." # "Time travel rape of 'pretty ladies'? that isn't funny. Reading it made me feel miserable and sick. I used to love b3ta, I've even given you money." # "If you want to go back in time to have unrestricted sex, say so, but hopefully it would be consensual and not rape, okay?" We are deeply ashamed of ourselves and apologise profusely. However, it wasn't all doom and gloom. Curis wrote, "I made this teaser trailer for 'The Time Rapist' movie." Er.. Huzzah? Actually we kinda found this stuff interesting, 'rape' is proving to be a firecracker of a word, guaranteed to get people all shouty. http://media.putfile.com/Teaser-Trailer65 * COULD PEGASUS FLY? We asked how big his wings would be to take off. Graham Cox wrote us a long email with lots of science stuff in it, which is far too long to copy here but the end bit went like this, "That means that the wingspan is over 3/4 of a kilometre. In scientific terms, this is known as 'fucking massive'. This doesn't take into account the weight that these wings would add to the horse. Factor in the amount of energy it's going to take to flap them to achieve an airspeed of 80mph and I think you can start to see why there are no horse-sized birds....." Yay. Can't wait to see this in a film. "Pegasus. The Time-horse Rapist" (Sorry.) ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * MAN DIAMOND - we sat next to this gay chap at Christmas lunch who was telling us about his drag act "Mincey Willis. As we got progressively more drunk and excitable we tried to convince him that he should perform under the name "Man Diamond", have fat ankles, tell hoary old dead baby jokes, and use a catch phrase, "Gay. It used to be such a nice word." We failed to convince him, but maybe we can convince you? * MID-LIFE CHRISTIS - write an article for a Sunday paper about how when men turn 33 they looks back on their life and go, "Oh fuck I've achieved fuck all and if I was Jesus I'd have been crucified by now." We don't know if this is true, but we like the title. * TELEWEST TO SEND US A TVDRIVE BOX - we're feeling rather woo for the UK broadband and cable provider at the moment as they've upgraded our bandwidth by a factor of five and introduced a TV-on-demand service called Teleport which actually works rather well. (We've also been day-dreaming they should have a advert campaign where some brummy bloke goes, "Telewest. I'm quite impressed.") Furthermore they're introducing a Tivo-style box so we can pause live telly. However the fuckers announced it ages ago and haven't brought it to market it. SORT IT OUT. We need this now! 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. Links sent in by themichaelobrien, Rushy, SomersetChris, transcending_reality, oodle doodle, Nile, Disgruntled Dog, b3ta-brainburger & scottellis. Top Tippery by ausben. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. * Answer to joke: You get it forced down your throat by a priest. * Big yays to b4ta with special woos to RobT for sorting out the votey stuff. (106779 - 31702) ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Has your celery gone droopy? Put the offending vegetable in some cold water and into the fridge for a while for a welcome return to firm rigidity. 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