we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "300 NEWSLETTERS? IS THIS MADNESS? NO, THIS. IS. B3333333333333TA!" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * BOOK - Cooking with Pooh * HALLOWEEN - Dalek pumpkin * QUESTION MARKS - Used "inappropriately" ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're ___/ _ |/_ > Sponsor B3ta << Your brand tattooed on our newsletter bum. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK Old Men, Grey Men, Cubes and Cats >> Kitty McCanns << Now just to say, we don't necessarily condone the views expressed in subtitle form by these conniving kittens. But on the evidence of this, Monty Propps is clearly demented and we're scared to offend him. http://b3ta.com/links/Kitty_Gossip_as_seen_below_w... >> Grey Bloke tells a joke << Madridiot's punchline-free animation series covers new ground by actually including a joke. Although, as usual, it's the deceptively bland, low-key monologue that makes it good. http://b3ta.com/links/Grey_bloke_tells_a_joke >> Weebl, Bob and Cube << Clearly Jonti's been spending some time playing Portal as Weebl and Bob frolic with some of the game's more iconic props. http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/cube/ >> Jim Oldman << "Hey," greets allseeingjapseye. "I made a short film for my friend who does an audio podcast. He crank-calls the public in the character of 'Jim Oldman'- yes, he is a baffled old man." http://www.jimoldman.com ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Conned! Last week we wanted to know if you'd successfully conned someone or just been taken for a ride: http://b3ta.com/questions/conned/ * "When I was a mere 11 years old or so, I went to a local car-boot sale, and my mum gave me a quid to spend. With the words 'there are some things worth much more than that pound on sale here' echoing in my ears, I saw a kid watching his mum's stall. He didn't look bright. 'I'll buy that bit of paper off you for a pound.' 'Um, ok.' 'Thanks.' *exchanges pound for the tenner* I didn't use any mind techniques, I just picked on a daft looking kid. And now, nearly 20 years on I still feel like a heel. My brother and I dined on cola bottles that afternoon." (Humpty Dumpty was Pushed) * "When I was younger I had an argument with my brother about a nasty smell that was lingering in the air. 'Wasn't me!' I said. 'Wasn't me either,' said my brother. 'Was too!' 'Was not. I can prove it. Smell my bottom.' I lent forward towards his bent over arse and inhaled deeply. At which point the complete bastard farted a wet sloppy one. I'll never fall for that one again. I was 27."(plant) * "I was conned by an old man in a cloak. Yeah, it turned out those were the droids I was looking for." (abefroman) If you are going to read just one story, read this one that's too long to put in the newsletter: http://b3ta.com/questions/conned/post95200/ >> This Week's Question << What's the most expensive mistake you've ever made? Minus 500 points for "my marriage". http://b3ta.com/questions/expensivemistakes/ ------------------------------------------------- : LINKY SPONSOR...LINKY SPONSOR...LINKY SPONSOR.. Timeshift, it's a lovely, lovely game Controlling time would be great. Sadly we don't know how, and we can't help you with the legal complications if you get arrested for pausing time and peeking at women as they get changed. We CAN tell you about the amazing new FPS from Sierra, though, called TimeShift - http://snipr.com/timeshiftgame ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Pumpkin Dalek << Our local police force has virtually banned Halloween from a combination of fear of paedos and worries about kids menacing grannies. But life out of the inner-city slums is a more nostalgic affair, harking back to when geeks made their own entertainment by case-modding fruit into robots. http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/DalekP... >> Kitsch firearms << On pretty much every blog this week is this alarming and naff collection of guns decorated with kids' cartoons and rubbish celebs. Includes a Mother Teresa rocket launcher, Care Bear ammo jacket and a Lady Di Magnum. (Maybe her younger son could get one, and outdo his Nazi uniform stunt with a tasteless Dirty Harry gag?) http://www.glamguns.com/mothat.html >> Hypno toy << Back in pre-history days when we were wondering what b3ta should be about, a quickly rejected thought was a trippy stuff blog, logging a series of weird flash things that might look good after a smoke. Stuff like this: http://mrdoob.com/lab/pv3d/dof/05/ >> Family Fortunes << "I was playing an online version of Family Fortunes the other day when this question came up..." writes Ehehanne. Blimey. Swirly Face Man would be proud. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v41/aleox/b3ta/u... >> Inappropriate quotation marks << A game we sometimes play whilst walking the streets of London is to place imaginary inverted commas around words on signs and see how it changes the meaning. A favourite recently is the shop Mary Shoes, or as we like to think of it "Mary" Shoes. This site is similar, but real. http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO Apparently Guy Ritchie's wife has been asked to star in a tutorial on putting videos in Facebook profiles. It's called "Embed with Madonna." >> 'Glamorous' weather girls << Purporting to be 'New Zealand's hottest weather forecast', the Weather Angels is an extraordinary swerve to the lowest common denominator by the meteorological industry. Mind you, we were still looking at their tits while being appalled. http://snipurl.com/kiwibirds >> Wake up cat << Cute animation of a little cat exhausting all his tricks to wake up his sleepy owner. We wouldn't put this behaviour past a cat - they'll stop at nothing. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> I can be your Facebook stalker << Plaintive plea to a hot girl on Facebook. Guess it's a relationship of a kind. Some nice touches of obsessional detail, like a route planner with exact times marked. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Even bastards become top blokes after death << When people die their faults are quickly airbrushed over. Apparently, this song caused quite a stir when it broadcast in Australia. We're not sure which of the dead celebrity savagings would have kicked up the stink. Maybe it was Diana. Yeah. http://snipurl.com/bigdownunder >> Oscilloscope demo << Impressive graphics display from a bloke with an oscilloscope plugged into his PC. It's a low-tech phantasmagoria and we like to imagine the technical instrument salesman trotting out this beauty to wow his boffin customers. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Oscilloscope_demo ------------------------------------------------- : FUNNY NAME CORNER Cooking with Pooh Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, it's an innocent cookery book for kids. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570822611/... ------------------------------------------------- : T-SHIRT OF THE WEEK I Love Horse José el Gorrion smirks - "I really like your 'I love Heroin' T-shirt, but here's a word of warning, when I was at Glastonbury a few years ago, I made a T-shirt with the slogan 'I Love Smack' and wandered around with it on. During the following 30 minutes of wearing it, I was threatened with death by deranged junkies on five separate occasions. They didn't appear to like the bane of their life being lightly mocked in sartorial form." Aha. But this week you should be ok with our 'I love Horse' shirt complete with a LloydsTSB Bank-style black stallion mainlining skag into an equine vein. http://www.iloveheroin.com ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Infidels Challenge Last week we wanted to see propaganda against the West. Your favourites included: * CHART - either fiendishly clever double-speak or fundamentalist extremism - we're not too sure (londoner) * MEDIA - it's a rare b3ta image that makes poignant points regarding history, urban planning, sexism and the media, but here's one (clopinettes) * TREKKIE - revealing the tragic human story behind the terrible events of 9/11 (Smallbrainfield) All these images, and the highest as voted by you can be found here: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/infidels/ >> New challenge: Spoonerisms << Is the Lord a loving shepherd or a shoving leopard? This week's challenge is to portray Spoonerisms, those cheeky plays on words in which consonants, vowels etc. are switched round to great amusement. Challenge suggested by The Hedgehog From Hell. http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/spoonerisms/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * KITTENWAR BOOK LAUNCH - Radio Five was at the glittering premier of Fraser and Tomsk's publishing magnum opus and here's the broadcast result. Also, brief chats with Joel, Rob and some lolcats guy. Good stuff. http://b3ta.com/links/Radio_5_Live_at_the_Kittenwa... * CUPCHICKS AGAIN - as part of our perversely unceasing promotion of a site we didn't like and would advise you not look at. Slippydisco fell into the same trap and put 'urging you not to visit www.cupchicks.com. Just don't do it, ok? I'm scarred for life' as his Facebook status. "So the majority of my Facebook friends (school teachers, council workers etc.) decide to look," he reveals with some glee. "I received loads of emails questioning my sanity and sexual desires. Now my proper mates are fine about it but cautious around me and the 'pretend' mates have blocked me and think I'm someone who gets off on shit eating, puking lezzas." Wethinks he doth protest too much. * MP3 SEARCH ON THE iPHONE - cr3ation has made a version of his awesome free mp3 searcher for the smug iPhone-owning set. Looks good. Although it is intended for the phone and your PC won't thank you for trying to use this version on it. http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/site/music-plus/iph... * WIQUOPEDIA - a couple of weeks ago we newslettered a suggestion that people might like to add tiny pictures of Status Quo to high resolution images on Wikipedia. A kind of not-shit "Where's Wally." This didn't go down too well with one Wikipedia editor who took it upon himself to savagely remove half the B3ta article, leaving some sentences incomplete and incompressible, and deleting the Rob Manuel entry. The reason given? "a website of questionable notability whose members have specifically targeted Wikipedia for hard-to-find vandalism." Despite this unpleasantness we're very pleased to report that other editors look a more thoughtful approach and restored the pages to their former glory. This makes us extremely happy, as despite our playful nature, we LOVE wikipedia, and our poking about is only the over-friendly love of a man who squeezes his kitten too hard. ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * IF I DID IT - a book by Kate McCann. * NOODLESMAID - Stick a Pot Noodle in a Teasmaid. And Cock-a-noodle-doo! Fresh, delicious noodles in the morning, the perfect seven-day breakfast for the busy bachelor. * A COMMUNITY ARTS THEATRE, in West London, named, wait for it, Lights! Camera! Acton! 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 Black Books, Gerbilinafishtank, Glum Reaper, Matt Smith, Bigeyedeer, Saltygoodness and Ana. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke. Single quotes in double quotes to b4ta. ("''") Subject line from The Great Architect with that bloke, you know the one, yep, Scaryduck. Xing the Y from Glued Eel. ------------------------------------------------- SICKIPEDIA: What is the difference between a cow and a tragedy? A scouser wouldn't know how to milk a cow. http://www.sickipedia.org/tag/scousers 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