we love the web email us go to messageboard newsletter archive home NEWSLETTER: "CAN BOB HOLNESS DIE AGAIN TODAY? WE LIKED THE NOSTALGIA LAST FRIDAY" next issue » « previous issue This Week: * STREET ART - best of 2011 * SLOTH - drip-dry baby * SOCIOLOGISTS - review children's books ------------------------------------------------- ________ ____ __ ___ ____/ _)|_ // /_/ _ | "We're eating our ___/ _ |/_ > Sponsor B3ta << Want this space? Then talk to us. We won't bite, unless you pay us to bite. http://b3ta.com/mailus/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK Other than making dirty protests >> Have you forgotten what happens? << "Have you forgotten what happens when you eat Kellogg's Cornflakes?" queries ratbanjos. If you have, here's a flashback. http://upthear.se/flakes >> Me and Reg << Enjoyable shaggy dog tale from 'freelance locksmith' cidercomic. "Apologies for length," he stutters. http://www.b3ta.com/links/A_short_film_we_made_the... >> Tumbleweeds << Save this link for when your jokes go down badly. A montage of tumbleweeds from various films and tv shows. Via dunk3d. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Tumbleweeds >> Harrison Ford watches 'Harrison Ford watches Indiana Jones for the first time' for the first time << "A lot of people have been getting angry at the vid I uploaded last week, that it was a hoax and faaake," explains dogfood. "Thought I'd put a nail in the coffin of those rumours." http://upthear.se/fordy >> I've got a house that looks like me << "This is a factual song about a factual situation," claims exploding stallion Joel Veitch. "At least, it will be fact when I am rich enough." Lovely bit of vid by Butters. NSFW: Cock. http://b3ta.com/links/Ive_Got_A_House_That_Looks_L... >> The Ballad Of Worrall Thompson << Fans of disgraced, bearded TV chefs have been glued to the news outlets as Antony Worrall Thompson's shoplifting saga continues to unfold. Here's a Fat Boab song and b3ta folks' photoshops of a man we predict as a future Celeb Big Brother contestant. http://www.b3ta.com/links/The_Ballad_Of_Worral_Tho... ------------------------------------------------- : QUESTION OF THE WEEK Books 2012 We always need something to read. There's only so much staring at naked people's bits we can take: http://b3ta.com/questions/books2012/ * OM NOM - "'In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf.' The humble origins of the 'little' egg and 'tiny' caterpillar and his quest for nourishment can be seen as a metaphor for sexual growth, where desire cannot be sated until, having sampled a smörgåsbord on the Saturday comprising 'one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon', he can take no more and becomes a 'big, fat caterpillar'. The Freudian depictions of the food - and of the caterpillar himself - reinforce the metaphor: size (and shape) is everything. Previous suggestions (Catface, 2010) that the story is a literal reading of eating-overeating-transformation can be dismissed as both reductionist and essentialist. The transformation, when it does occur, deals briefly with the liminal state as a necessary transition into full awareness and power - a phallocentric triumph. I have read this book to my child an estimated 485 times. That's about 484 times where I've had to pretend to sound enthusiastic about a bug. Don't even start me on 'We're going on a motherfucking bear hunt.'" (crackhouseceilidhband) * PLANTS - "Once when Terry Pratchett was doing a Q&A thing at a signing for 'The Last Continent' there were about 50-100 people present. There was time for one more question; I raised my hand. 'You, with the glasses at the back,' said Sir Terry. 'Fuck', thinks I, 'I didn't expect to have a question answered and all the good ones pertinent to the book and his previous writings have been asked... Ah, I know, he keeps carnivorous plants, I'll ask him how they're doing.' Silence greeted the question. Followed by, '...They're doing well, thanks.' And that's why I asked him to sign my copy 'To the idiot with the question about plants.' As a constant reminder that I shouldn't talk, ever." (Funkenschlag) * SPOILERS - "We read Of Mice and Men at school. A great book, somewhat tempered by the fact that come chapter 3 or thereabouts, someone had scrawled 'I don't want to spoil all the fun but Lennie gets shot on page 113.'" (The Silent Channel) >> This Week's Question - Messing with People << What have you done to fuck with people? Was it a long, carefully-planned piece of psychological warfare, or do you favour quick, off-the-cuff comments that confuse the terminally gullible? Have you been dicked with, and only realised many years later? Are you being dicked right now? Talk to us here: http://b3ta.com/questions/messingwithheads/ ------------------------------------------------- : SITES IN BRIEF Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates >> Useless stock photos << Not out-of-focus pics of Oxo and Knorr cubes but library photos so specific and odd you can't imagine placing them with any story. You might laugh. If the internet hadn't deadened your capacity for joy at anything that isn't misfortune. http://bit.ly/hPlKhV >> Restart nostalgia << If you're addicted to watching old PCs reboot then have we got a website for you. Fill your boots, reboot obsessives. http://www.therestartpage.com/ >> Bestest comic strip ever << A fantasy about how adverts could be improved, ending with the immortal line, "All commercials are now just a flaming baby skull barking ethnic slurs." A parable for our entire culture of poshlost. (Google the word poshlost. It's a very good word that we all should learn.) http://bit.ly/AF3Dar >> Street Art - Best of 2011 << The transformative quality of art can make you see the world anew. Walk your streets and imagine how a bit of tinkering could make people smile with joy. http://www.streetartutopia.com/ >> "Tiny things I hate" << Great blog listing in extreme detail the author's pet hates. Here's a quick list of our own. 1. People who press the pedestrian crossing button even though we've already pressed it. It's like they're saying we're rubbish at button pushing. Rude. 2. People who talk to us from another room without raising their voice expecting us to be able to hear. Or walk in so we can hear. Rude. 3. People who email B3ta with "I've got an idea for a website, if we built it, would you cover it?" Er.. no idea. Build it and then we'll know if it's any good. Rude! http://tinythingsihate.blogspot.com >> Total Perspective Vortex << Or as Carl Sagan put it, "Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." Happy new year. http://www.scaleofuniverse.com ------------------------------------------------- : PODCASTY BOLLOCKS Stick this in your CD Discman & walk in traffic: You've probably heard it by now but the American Life podcast on Foxconn - the Chinese company that manufactures much of our electronic gizmos - shines light into dark heart of globalism. Highlights include: * Unions illegal except for the official state union who, if you go to them with a complaint, puts you on a blacklist and you don't work again * Employee smashes hands in equipment - resulting in disability, before being fired for slowness. * Staff exposed to chemicals that means their hands are permanently shaking - screwed by the time they are 26. It's hard to think of a positive angle on this. Large parts of the West's manufacturing base have been shut down, destroying communities and their jobs given to slaves. Way to go power elite - loving your work. (Sent from an iPhone). http://upthear.se/miserypodcast ------------------------------------------------- : SOME JOKES TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD AFTER LECTURE (We wrote these ourselves, can you tell?) * Knock knock. Who's there? Lucy? Lucy who? Loo seat is broken, can I borrow your bog? * What goes ha ha ha ha bonk? A laughing prostitute. * What do you get if you pour boiling water down a rabbit warren? Six months to a year. * Doctor Doctor I feel like a pair of curtains. Then pull yourself together. That'll be £5,000 please. Privatisation innit. * Waiter waiter there's a shit in my soup. Well yes, this is a coprophagiac restaurant and you ordered shit soup. There you go. B3ta newsletter is all cheerful again. Yay kittens. ------------------------------------------------- : THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO AAHH Baby sloths! @Tannice_ writes, "this, without doubt, is the best drip-drying baby sloth video you'll ever see." http://www.youtube.com/watch ------------------------------------------------- : VIDEO SCHMIDEO A tiny cinema, where the usherette is Mr Clippy >> Culinary Propaganda << Totalitarian Chef Bartek tells you how you will eat. With inexplicable guest appearances from what appears to be Odin. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> Pizza boomerang << A lot of ads emphasise the positive qualities of the product. Junk food makers tend to go with "the world is an absurd collection of unconnected events, so eating our food might not kill you. Also, isn't Bill Lumbergh hot?" http://youtu.be/GrKSWocbbdw >> A Cappella Prodigy << Full-on choir performs a medley of electronic dance hits, using only their voiceboxes. Wisely, they avoid doing 'Charlie Says', which really fucks up your throat. http://www.youtube.com/watch >> "The Page Turner" << If Heath Robinson had invented the Kindle - maximum effort for absolutely minimum, but delightful, result. http://upthear.se/pagey >> An HONEST James Bond theme << The lyrics to the 007 theme turn out to be Bond boasting about banging bitches and being suave. http://upthear.se/bondytwat >> Fotoshop by Adobé << The beauty industry's best-kept secret revealed, or at least ridiculed for sniggering geeks. http://www.b3ta.com/links/Fotoshop_by_Adob >> The Lambshank Redemption << Successful chef Antony Worrall Thompson's world changes forever, when he's sentenced to life imprisonment at Lambshank Penitentiary. NSFW: Poignant. Er, we mean NSFW: norks. http://upthear.se/cheftwat ------------------------------------------------- : AMAZON REVIEWS THAT MAKE YOU GO HA! Sociologist reviews Mr Men books Let's just quote his entire review of Mr Messy - it's 100% brilliant: If '1984' or 'The Trial' had been a children's book, Mr Messy would be it. No literary character has ever been so fully and categorically obliterated by the forces of social control. Hargreaves may well pay homage to Kafka and Orwell in this work, but he also goes beyond them. We meet Mr Messy - a man whose entire day-to-day existence is the undiluted expression of his individuality. His very untidiness is a metaphor for his blissful and unselfconscious disregard for the Social Order. Yes, there are times when he himself is a victim of this individuality - as when he trips over a brush he has left on his garden path - but he goes through life with a smile on his face. That is, until a chance meeting with Mr Neat and Mr Tidy - the archetypal men in suits. They set about a merciless programme of social engineering and indoctrination that we are left in no doubt is in flagrant violation of his free will. 'But I like being messy,' he protests as they anonymize both his home and his person with their relentless cleaning activity, a symbolism thinly-veiled. This process is so thorough that by the end of it he is unrecognizable - a homogenized pink blob, no longer truly himself (that vibrant Pollock-like scribble of before). He smiles the smile of a brainwashed automaton, blandly accepting what he has been given no agency to question or refuse. It is in this very smile that the sheer horror of what we have seen to occur is at its most acute. Somewhere behind this blank expression though is a latent anger - a trace of self-knowledge as to what he once was - in the barbed observation he makes to Neat and Tidy that they have even deprived him of his name. The book ends with a dry reminder from Hargreaves that just as with the secret police in some totalitarian regime, our own small expressions of uniqueness and volition may also result in a visit from these sinister suited agents." More here, comrades: http://upthear.se/funnyreviews ------------------------------------------------- : FOLLOW FRIDAY Your guide to Twitter "lols" @StealthMountain alerts Twitter users who've typed "sneak peak" when they meant "sneak peek" then favourites the replies. Very gentle trolling, basically. http://upthear.se/twittertwats ------------------------------------------------- : B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE Results from the Stamp Challenge Last week we wanted you to make stamp designs for the Royal Jubilee. Apparently it's 1977 again and the Queen wants us all to have a street party or something. Anyway, good excuse to thumb our noses at the old Nazis. Our favourites included: * KATE MIDDLETON GETS MAIL - BTW it was her birthday this week so happy birthday Kate Middleton! We'd buy you a gift but we're a bit skint after helping pay for your wedding. Which you didn't invite us to. http://b3ta.com/board/10650658 * CHARLES HAS BIG EARS - you know why he has big ears? Because Noddy wouldn't pay the ransom. (ha ha ha circa 1977 again) http://b3ta.com/board/10655021 * QUEEN AND CORGI - if you see a Queen doing this it's a sure sign of worms. Crush some Bob Martin worming tablets into her delicious meaty Queen-chow. http://b3ta.com/board/10656094 All these images and the highest voted by you can be found here - because we have real democratic elements in B3ta. Yay. http://b3ta.com/challenge/jubileestamp/ >> New challenge: Right to Parody << This week we're supporting the Open Rights Group and their "Right to Parody" campaign. It's about getting UK law changed so we don't get sent to prison for making shit photoshops. http://b3ta.com/challenge/righttoparody/ ------------------------------------------------- : WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Follow-ups on previous stories. * CASHPOINT EASTER EGGS REFUTED - Mat, who assures us he does this stuff for a living, writes, "The comment in the newsletter about 'typing an amount not divisible by 5 at an ATM will reveal how much in the machine' is indeed complete, unadulterated bollocks! "Replenishment figures and cash levels are never displayed except in 'supervisor' mode -- which can only be entered by opening the cabinet or safe. "Typing an amount not divisible by the lowest denomination in the machine will simply result in the ATM's workflow branching to a screen to inform you that you need to try again. "Some ATMs show a 'current screen ID' which is a four-digit code (sometimes in hex) in the top right corner - for exception/error screens. I bet the bloke who told you this saw that and thought he'd seen something secret. * CASHPOINT EASTER EGGS CONFIRMED - Nirmeth & HarleyQuinn1234 write, "Me and the missus were at the ATM tonight and thought to check the cashpoint easter egg mentioned in the newsletter. And it works!" http://neilmasters.co.uk/images/cash_machine_value... BTW: We suspect this figure doesn't represent the total amount in the machine but something else. Maybe something to do with lizards. ------------------------------------------------- : FRIDAY GAME Slowest pee ever When you pee it normally turns into a torrent pretty damn quickly - can you train your urine muscles only to dribble it out? We don't mean stop/start, that would be rubbish, but control the volume per second. How long can you make a piss last? Great game for all the family. ------------------------------------------------- : 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 * RACE ON SOCIAL NETWORKS - Do white people disproportionately follow white people? Has anyone studied following patterns? Are our communities mixed but our social networks following some unconscious apartheid? * APP IDEA - 'Cassette Deck': Record up to 90 mins of audio in two 45 mins chunks. Additional C90s available as in-app purchase. * THE ONLY WAY IS CHINA - a documentary about the pampered lives of the children of Chinese industrialists. Are they having tit jobs? No idea, but we like the title anyway. 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. ------------------------------------------------- Happiness: [email protected] Death: [email protected] ------------------------------------------------- THANKS: This issue was written by Rob "I've got tits" Manuel with David "I've got a minge" Stevenson. Stuff sent in by @qwghlm , @ImVincentMurphy, Fluffster, judderman, Stashie, h7dd3rs, maryepworth, @jongomm, @qwghlm, @tadd31, @HurricaneMedia, quadraspazzed on a lifeglug, @ricardopresto Top Tippery by SonoraAeroClub. Additional linkage and image challenge by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is a good bloke. ------------------------------------------------- TOP TIP: Make your other half think the cat's got a tapeworm by sticking a grain of rice to its arsehole. 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