we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "IF WE HAD A SPOON FOR EVERY READER, WE'D LIVE LIKE A SPOON KING" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * VIDEO - Bo 'He-man' Rhapsody * WEEBL - Frosties ad remix * INTERVIEW - Maddox / Best Page in the Universe ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | ___/ _ |/_ > Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then tempt us with offers of cash. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #1 Interview, Frosties, Planes & Noel Edmonds >> Maddox interview << Maddox has been rocking the web since '97 with his unique brand of arrogance and cynicism on his self-styled 'The Best Page in the Universe'. He's recently broken out of the net ghetto to produce an actual book, so we thought it was high time to catch up and ask him the completely irrelevant questions that a proper publication wouldn't bother with. Read it - the man is funny with the word stuff. http://www.b3ta.com/interview/maddox/ >> Frosties ad remix << Weebl jumps on the Frostie-haters bandwagon with this short but sweet re-edit of the horrifically monotonous advert and some CGI trickery. http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/frosty/ >> Dive-bomb your office << Great idea: using satellite photography, caz's site lets you fly a small plane over your native city. When you find your office you can shoot it or fly into the side of the building. We'd love it more if it had big bombs too, multiplayer option so you could dogfight with other players and an autopilot option that let you set a course by typing in a postcode. But still, excellent stuff. BTW: Someone give this guy a job, he's looking for one. http://www.isoma.net/games/goggles.html >> Your new wallpaper << "Erm, a mate gave me this poster," laments hotwhippets. "But I don't want it." Why ever not? We've now set it as the official b3ta wallpaper; a splendid montage of TV presenter par excellence Noel Edmonds in a variety of poses and costumes from his heyday as the golden, bearded boy of BBC1. Whether he's advertising cigarettes, driving a powerboat or nursing a sick calf with milk from his lactating fingertips, Noel remains a visual feast. If you could literally eat with your eyes, your irises would become unpleasantly fat. http://www.b3tards.com/uploads/poster.jpg ------------------------------------------------- : COOL WATCH Snakes on a plane - now officially uncool Jesus-shitting-Christ we're fed up with the pre-promotion of this film: * Idiots impersonating Samuel L. Jackson in the pub, "Snakes on a plane mouthafukka!" * Endless messageboard threads thinking of sequels, "Spiders on a submarine!" * A trailer on YouTube that isn't as exciting as imagining the movie in your head. All the marketing has peaked too early and we hope we're the first to point out the film has jumped a big snakey shark. ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Encounters of Royalty We wanted your best royalty stories, thinking we wouldn't get that many, but what we got would be tabloid gold. To our surprise, there's loads of fabulous royal stories and not one tapped phone in sight: http://b3ta.com/questions/encounterswithroyalty/ * Nearly 'shot' one of the buggers "I don't recommend doing this. Prince Phillip was visiting the building next to us on our Sheffield 'business park'. Our top floor had a cracking view of next door's reception. We had darkened windows (from the outside, can't see in) and I had a reasonably well powered laser pointer. Seriously, it's funny for about a second to try and 'draw' squiggly lines on the Queen's Husband's Forehead. Watching every single plain clothes copper in the crowd and surrounding area go fucking mental was a sight to behold. And the secret service. And the police. And the mayor. Philip, oblivious of course. My heart rate must have hit 4 figures until i disposed of the laser pointer, got to my desk and played it very very cool while the secret service came and spoke everyone in the building. I even managed to look annoyed at their presence." (I have run out of coke) * Never curtsey in fishing waders "Many, many moons ago, my Great Aunt was fly- fishing in a patch of river up in the highlands of Scotland. The side of the river she was fishing on was owned by some local laird, and on the other side was Balmoral Castle. It was late August, and it was fairly normal to see the occasional pair of Royals out on horseback on the other side of the river. According to the locals, the great rule was that unless they acknowledge your presence first, you ignored them entirely. Great Aunt was in a fairly deep patch of the river, and therefore in waders, happily fishing away. Suddenly on the other side of the river she sees the Queen Mum, walking along the river bank. The Queen Mum gives my Great Aunt a nod and so she, in her excitement, curtsies. In her fishing waders. In four and a half feet of water. Cue the waders rapidly filling with water, Great Aunt shrieking from the cold, and the Queen Mother absolutely wetting herself with laughter. Family legend." (hakkety) * Prince William stole my job "I had just finished a Masters course and was desperate to get work experience on a research project called Shoals of Capricorn, based somewhere idyllic in the Indian Ocean. They were studying marine plankton ecology out there, and I had just received a distinction for my 6-month MSc project all about marine plankton ecology. My MSc group was a small one, so I have little reservation in saying I was probably the best qualified graduate in the country for the position. I am also a qualified SCUBA diver. They turned me away, saying they wanted 'someone better qualified.' Imagine my surprise when, 4-weeks later, an 18-year old Prince William got the position as part of his Gap Year. He was the perfect candidate - the Sun newspaper told me - 'because of his A-level geography qualification.' But I'm not bitter. No, wait! Yes I am." (daytripper) >> This Week's Question << We'd like your stories of running away. Have you bottled it recently or as a kid?. Talk to us here: http://b3ta.com/questions/runningaway/ ------------------------------------------------- : YOUR GUIDE TO CREATIVE SWEARING The other day we jokingly called the official b3ta dad a schmuck. He was bewildered, never having heard it before and asked what it meant. We had to google it - it literally means 'foreskin', which is an excellent and underused insult. We're going to be calling lots more people foreskins now. What new insults are you using in your neck of the hood? Share them with us, web-mongs. http://www.b3ta.com/mailus ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Debbie Mcgee << To our non-UK readers, Debbie Mcgee is the wife of a crap magician and is largely notorious for a rumoured photo of her being brutally buggered by the family dog. She's also recently set up a modelling agency, although quite why she's picked such a bunch of mingers is anybody's guess. Although our bet is that it's probably a new reality show or some such malarkey. http://www.debbiemcgeemodels.com/models.php >> Dogs in ties << It's a B3ta cliché - animals in clothes. There's probably a marketing agency somewhere right now going "How can we get into b3ta? We need animals in clothes and maybe a logo that looks like a penis." Anyway, here you go - sartorial stylings for your poochy pal. Useful, if he has an important job interview coming up or something. http://www.dogtie.com/ >> Over the top marketing horse-shit << Fuck knows what these guys are trying to market. But we want some of it. Turn up the sound. http://www.xy7.com/livelarge001.htm >> Cardboard office Always love these office pranks things. Bloke at work goes on holiday, comes back to find everything in his office replaced with a cardboard replica. Love the childish, scrawled quality of the stuff. Proving the paperless office a hollow fiction. http://www.geekinvasion.com/mikeprank/index.html >> Rubber band with a moustache << We wouldn't even mention this eBay auction if the moustache in question wasn't quite so dapper. Why not use it as a cock-ring to dignify your sex-gherkin. http://snipurl.com/ebay_laccy_tash >> "I mummified my rat!" << Grim shock site of the week. The more sensitive of you may want to turn your monitor to face the wall whilst wanking into your waste-paper bin to pictures of a rodentine Mumm-Ra. http://www.ironcircus.com/mummification1.php >> Bouncy bouncy flash thing << This cute little toy kept us quiet for a few minutes rebounding the slightly nervous-looking characters off each other and the sides of the screen. Then we went back to playing with our balls. http://www.deviantart.com/view/36214245/ >> How much is your website worth? << Webmasters: find out how much your website is worth, through some completely bogus back-link tracking maths thing. But hey, we're happy because B3ta turned out to be worth more than all any of our mates' websites. So yay for that. And if anybody wants to buy b3ta for £1.5m get in touch. http://directory.sootle.com/website-worth/tata.php ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO Can't think of any pun except YouPube. Sorry >> Picture every day for 4 years << This girl took a photo of herself daily for four years to document the changes in hr features. Apparently there was fuck all - except at one point she got some nicer glasses, then lost them and had to go back to the old, clunky ones. http://www.b3ta.com/links/1095_pics_of_one_girl >> Nob in a tumble dryer << We can't condone this, but bloody hell it made us laugh. Hot on the heels of the 'chavs on a roundabout' clip and coming on like the Kersal Massive's younger brothers; little kid gets himself spun around in a tumbledryer. It's the youthful enthusiasm and giggling that make this so good. Or maybe it's just a viral ad for Zanussi. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Half woman trickery << Baffling illusion by US goth magician Criss Angel. We figure it's all done with midgets, amputees and stooges. But isn't that impressive enough? http://www.youtube.com/watch ------------------------------------------------- : READER Q&A Like Notes & Queries but a bit shit >> Four by fours? << Last week we had a bloke wondering why four-wheel drive vehicles are known as 4x4s. Literally hundreds of you wrote in. Here's David Allen's textbook response: "4x4 is a term used to denote the number of wheels a vehicle has and how many supply torque. i.e. Four wheels and four of them supplying torque = 4x4. So a Robin Reliant is a 1x3 and a motor cycle a 1x2. So most cars on the road should be called 4X2's but people don't bother." We also enjoyed Dionysian's answer: "4x4 refers to the number of wheels multiplied by number of brain cells of driver." This week: - >> Why did Battersea smell in the 70s? << "When I was a young thing I used to go Battersea Festival Gardens, in the park," reminisces greenbadge. "But... the local area had an eye-watering stench that almost made you choke. I never knew what it was. Anybody?" The first answer to come to mind; because it was full of hippies. Can you do better? http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : FUNNY NAME CORNER Hold our sides nurse, we may vomit with laughter >> Book of the month << If you were writing a children's book would you call it 'Floppy and the Bone?' That's two penis references in one short title; One flaccid and one hard. Surely a reference to homosexualist erectile disfunction, if we've ever heard one. http://snipurl.com/homoerotic_kids_book >> Gay dogs << If we had a dog and we fancied booking into a holiday of a lifetime we'd be booking him into the 'Gay Dog Boarding Kennels and Cattery'. Quite why this place is so named is mystery, it's not even in Brighton. http://www.gaydog.co.uk/ >> Dick Lovett << "I've got some funny name nonsense for you", exclaims furey, "also, if you flip his logo it looks a bit like a close up of a bum that some poo has just dropped out of." Huzzah. http://www.dicklovett.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #2 Bullshit, He-man, BBC, Virgins & Toes >> Bullshitting your co-workers << "I recently worked for a local council, which has an online 'Marketplace' system where employees can buy and sell items privately," confides Dancing Yak. "One of the ways to alleviate the soul-crushing tedium that consumes you in the office is to check the Marketplace every five minutes." Shame on you Dancing Yak, you devious shit. You've made up a completely bullshit auction just to mock the confusion of his hapless colleagues. http://snipurl.com/technobabble >> Bo 'He-man' Rhapsody << "I created this animation after a brainwave," emotes Emmson. "I noticed that 'Bohemian Rhapsody' is only one letter away from 'Bo He-man Rhapsody'." We didn't want to enjoy this - really. but we just couldn't help ourselves. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Bo_Heman_Rhapsody >> Shove your license fee << For non-UK readers, the license fee is a tax that every TV owner in the UK has to pay to fund the BBC. "I hate it," confesses 835rocks, "for many grown-up and properly thought-out reasons. So I got razzed on heroins last night and made this sweary folk protest song thing." We're not actually that bothered about the license fee - but we like things that irritate large corporations. Yay. http://www.sillyarse.com >> Divine Comedy video-thingy << Divine Comedy - best-known for doing the theme to Father Ted (and being Chris Evans's second-favourite band after Ocean Colour Scene). Now they have a new single out (which we like) and they ran a competition to make a video for it. Not just a way of reaching out to the fans but also saving a bit of cash. Congratulations to b3tard Fluff and his mate Steve who not only entered the competition but bloody won it too. Excellent dancing in pants. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Infected big toe megamix << "My big toe got infected," moans Karl. "I went to the Doctor who prescribed some antibiotics. Here's a short animation I've done." It's the guitar solo that makes this great. http://snipurl.com/big_toe_of_doom ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Transformers Challenge Last week we wanted to see the Transformers that never made it to market, and you supplied the blueprints. Your favourites included: * IVOR THE AUTOBOT - If Ivor The Engine were based in Japan rather than Wales, this is exactly what it would look like. Wonderful. (mutated monty) * TURBOFLUSH - The deeply tragic story of the most neglected Transformer of all. (Threepwood) * GYPSYTRON'S CARAVAN - You should never trust a pikey mechanic to work on your Transfomer. Fact. (Degenerate) All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/transformers/ >> New challenge: The Nanny State << Don't drink and drive. Don't go off with strangers. Don't play football on railway lines. The Government seems determined to make our lives less fun... but where will they stop? Show us the excesses of the Nanny State of the future. Challenge suggested by Trinosaur. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/nanny_state/ >> Your challenge ideas << We want your image challenge ideas. Then we want you to vote on the challenges suggested by other people. It's easy. http://www.b3ta.com/questions/imagechallenge/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow ups and random bollocks as usual * GAY SAUSAGE - when we link the newsletter from our blog we often write quite nonsense. Last week we claimed, ...featuring a small gay sausage called Henry. WARNING: May not contain gay sausage." Biro artist extraordinaire NobbyNobody rose the the non-existent challenge and writes, "I thought I'd create Henry so people wouldn't be disappointed again next time." Close, but this is clearly a drawing of a BIG gay sausage. http://www.biro-art.com/gaysausage.html * T-SHIRT COMPO WINNERS - we recently gave away some shirts to the following people, Cathleen Kelly - New York, Rob Bolt - cheshire, Ben Tymens - Camblesforth, Nicholas Allison - Leeds, Edward Walsh - UK and Marven Kortemeier - Las Vegas. Thanks to the lovely people (and skinny fashion shirts) at Chateau Roux for bribing us with a couple of bottles of Jack Daniels to sort this out. http://www.chateauroux.co.uk * FUHRER RADIO - keen BBC listeners might spot your red-haired umlauts occasional appearances on Phill Jupitus's breakfast show, wittering about gadgets. In the interests of sharing he's written up last weeks show with animated gifs and an MP3 extract. You lucky, lucky people. http://www.snurl.com/pjupitus * KITTEN WAR ON TV - sadly Tomsk and Fraser haven't sold the TV rights just yet, but this big-up on an American satirical show could be the start of something huge. BTW: Their book is still in the works, Fraser tells us that he handed in a first draft last week. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Kittenwar_on_The_Colbert... * RAPE FISH - in reference to some funny name corner crap we ran last week, Sandrastica informs, "You have Spanish readers! Rape means angler fish. I'm sorry to disappoint you." Yay. How fantastic. * ALPHABET SWEARS - we asked you to think of the rudest phrase you could using all 26 letters of the alphabet. Beardedquiche boasts, "I set about this using scrabble tiles, and oddly enough, as my Mum was in the room she decided to join in. It was a rather surreal experience listening to my Mother moving round letters and muttering things like 'where can we put quim, and occasionally giggling like a school girl. Anyhow, the point is, we managed to come up with two phrases using 22 letters. These were, 'Strangled whimpy fuckbox' and 'frumpy gloved bitch wanks', also only 17 letters but my personal favourite which I thought worthy of mention: 'Gay bum sex with Rolf'." Others included "Pork jism wad flung by vetch" (23 letters, Boff) "Fry quick, lewd spaz-mong!" (20 letters, *not logged in*) * UNLIKELY ENQUIRY OF THE WEEK - "I am producing a documentary for BBC 3 about Cleft Palates," mumbles Steve Saul, "It is my hope to contact as many people as possible who either have a cleft lip and/or palate as possible. Can b3ta help?" Er.. ok then. If you've got a hair-lip and fancy going on telly then send an email to [email protected] - blimey and gosh. ------------------------------------------------- : FRIDAY GAME Game for mentalists It's Dance Dance Revolution meets Tempests and it's so fast as to completely do our heads in. http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/SpinItUp.php ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * PANT CHALLENGE - photos of you wearing every single pair of underwear you own all at the same time. We reckon due to the laws of physicals more than eight is impossible. * NASAL CHALLENGE - we can fit two fingers up each nostril, making a total of four fingers in our nose. Can you beat us? * QUESTIONS - listen up cyber-fruits, we're mucking about with a new section. Last week we set a question (over 1 hundred of you replied) and we also asked for your questions (only 1 of your replied.) We do really want your questions, stuff that Wikipedia can't answer etc. 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 Weetobix, Canyousmellonions?, hahn, Sarita, will, fish, beakerajg, Fred Trellis, phil, paul mortonvilla, Andy and Dixon_Bawls. Top Tippery by via the magic of Google. Please send in more tips kids. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. B4ta is more useful than you'd ever know. (109789) ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Too much salt in your casserole? Peel a potato, cut into chunks and simmer. Remove the potato when soft, it should have absorbed a lot of the salt. 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