This Week:
* LOVE - Joel loves Ben Goldacre
* PAWN - Cats for Gold
* VID - Best Batman spoof ever
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___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're eating lots
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B3ta email 405 - 20 Nov 2009
Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.
Love: b3ta-subscribe@
Hate: b3ta-unsubscribe@
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: SPONSORED LINK
Alice In Chains - 7th December - Brixton Academy
Here's some facts we've cribbed:
* Original singer Layne Staley died after
injecting a heroin and cocaine speedball. In
tribute - Wikipedia puts a little tombstoney
cross next to his name.
* Elton John appears on their new album, From
Black to Blue (absolutely not a concept album
about biros).
* Guitarist Jerry Cantrell shares his birthday
with Sophia Myles - who's extremely pretty and
was once on Doctor Who. In fact we've just
googled some pics of her. Gosh, yes, pretty lady.
http://sn.im/
>> Sponsor B3ta <<
Want this space? Then talk to us.
http://b3ta.
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK
Other than walking shit on our nice carpets
>> Ben Goldacre's big penis? <<
"I sort of tried to make a love song about
Doctor Ben Goldacre," confides Joel Veitch.
"Except it's not really a love song, it's more
about his crusade against evidence-less
assertions." The most beautiful thing we have
ever seen - we mean Joel's vid, rather than the
good doctor's sizeable love syringe.
http://www.rathergo
>> Close Encounters of the Redneck Kind <<
Inspired bit of soundtrack swapping by
Monkstar1. "We come in peace... Now let's you
just drop them pants."
http://www.b3ta.
>> Call of Duty: Secret Spielberg Level <<
The harrowing opening sequence of Saving
Private Ryan rendered as an X-Box shooter by
ratbanjos and crew. The voice chat is
excellent, giggling as they get their limbs
blown off and leaving part-way through, to check
on the baby.
http://snipurl.
>> Chris deBurgh is Dead <<
Yes, the shining light who brought us Lady in
Red has been snufed from the world. Ok, no, it
just a cruel, cruel hoax by Kaufman22. The
comments from fans add a lot of value.
http://www.youtube.
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Family Feuds
Last week we asked for your stories of families
at war. We've collected three short and funny
replies here, but do go read the the
heart-breaking tales of woe on the site.
SittingDuck'
http://b3ta.
* MEH - "My Granddad was the youngest of seven,
born in Yorkshire in 1930. When I was growing
up (and when my Mum was too - so ever since the
50s) we never, ever met any of his brothers or
sisters, despite all of them apparently being
alive. Was there some sort of massive reason
for the falling out, I always wondered? My mum
wasn't sure, so one day when I was a kid I
decided to just ask Granddad why he never saw
them. He thought hard for a moment, sucked on
his pipe, and said 'Because they're boring
bastards.' Different values back in them
days..." (SnowyTheRabbit)
* SMEGMA-BLE - "Not a major argument, but my
brother once hid my favourite marble up his
foreskin for a couple of days for no real
reason. I was rather angry to say the least,
and my marble smelt funny." (Monkey the Chicken)
* NICK-NICK - "My uncle Nick doesn't really get
on with anyone else in the family."
(apeloverage)
http://www.apolitic
>> This Week's Question <<
PE Lessons: a never-ending series of
punishments involving inappropriate nudity and
climbing up ropes until you wet yourself? Tell
us about your PE lessons and the psychotics who
taught them here:
http://b3ta.
------------
: SITES IN BRIEF
Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates
>> Cats for gold <<
In the current recession pawnbrokers have
descended on this land like vultures picking
flesh off sun-bleached bones. These people are
scum, their business immoral and ripe for satire.
http://www.catsforg
>> Top ten geocities midi tunes <<
Jason Scott is our nerd hero - he does cool
shit like backing up Geocities when Yahoo shut
it down. Yeah Geocities is a bit laughable but
as Jason says, "GeoCities was the largest
self-created folk-art collection in the history
of the world." He's also made a funny list of
the most popular midi files - so get ready for
some unfashionable 90s nostalgia as the theme
to the X-files is number 1.
http://ascii.
>> Reverse-engineering of Palin autobiography <<
"I'm always embarrassed when I see an index an
author has made of his own work. It's a
shameless exhibition - to the trained eye.
Never index your own book," wrote Kurt
Vonnegut. What he didn't say was that it's also
a perfect and unique format for writing gags.
Hoisted with his own petard and all that.
(Actually what is a petard? "A petard was a
small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when
breaching fortifications.
http://www.slate.
>> Public Transport People <<
When we get on the tube we like to sit opposite
the prettiest lady we can find and then imagine
having sex with them. Think on that ladies.
Anyway - these chaps prefer to spot the
mentally ill and photograph them. Can't be
legal, but then nothing fun is.
http://www.peopleof
>> Playboy in Braille <<
Surely a gag that's already been done to death
in our photoshopping boards but this looks
real. There's also some site knocking around
which does text descriptions of porno videos
for the blind. What next? An eating dog for the
anorexic? (This is our favourite gag ever, and
credit where credit is due, it was written by
Prince Philip to amuse The Queen.)
http://www.banteris
>> Amazon laptop steering wheel desk <<
Amazon was web 2.0 before web 2.0 knew how to
count - it's all about the user generated
content and it's at it's best when users upload
really naughty things and then people email
them about going, "ha ha, look at amazon" and
it all works as happy marketing for the
long-tailed super-mall. The latest lol is a
laptop desk for your carwheel and some minor
social satirist has uploaded a series of
crashed cars for the "customer images| bit.
http://snipurl.
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: VIDEO SCHMIDEO
Like a stunted version of You've Been Framed
>> Possibly the best Batman spoof ever. <<
By a kid and his mum - this child will either
end up a fantastic film maker or a serial
rapist. There is no in-between in our land of
false dichotomy. BTW: If you don't know what
dichotomy means, it's basically like a
tracheotomy but for lesbians. Oh we're so shit,
sorry.
http://www.b3ta.
>> Rubbish Josh Stone video <<
Apparently made by her brother and then
suppressed by EMI for being embarrassingly bad.
Stuff to watch out for:
* Randomly crap lighting - like Ed Wood with
an anglepoise.
* Unconvincing bridesmaid that has a tokenist
Windows Party quality to her. "She's black!
It'll make Joss look more soulful!"
* Joss dressed as a WPC - with all the bad
acting of the intro to a porn tape
* WTF! It's all gone black and white like Black
Adder goes Forth.
* Er.. We're giving up describing this shit -
there's too much of it and it's just mental.
http://www.youtube.
>> Peaches Geldof- Master of The English Language. <<
Gosh, it feels like we're bitter old men
ragging on young ladies here because they
wouldn't look twice at us and we're past it
grandad. But no - how can you fail to enjoy
this compendium of Peaches Geldof saying "like"
on some useless TV show about her life?
Although, we suppose, if someone did the same
to us with the word "er" and "um" we'd look
equally shit and a lot less attractive.
http://snipurl.
>> Stuffed Animal TV <<
Fuck it - we've got a theme going, let's run
with it. This time it's a REALLY REALLY young
lady and something bad happens and then we feel
guilty. This sounds like a set-up line for a
paedo joke, but no, we don't joke about
paedophilia as that's just fucking immature.
http://www.liveleak
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: FUNNY NAME CORNER
The section you won't let die
* MAJOR DICKIE HEAD - "Working for machinations
of our government I stumbled upon the
aforementioned gentleman's name in the email
address book and assumed it to be a prank by
some witty techie, but lo and behold a year
later..." (tk0345)
http://news.
* HOMO MILK - it took us a good 20 seconds to
work out that homo is short for homogenised
rather than homosexual. BTW: Our favourite line
in 30 Rock recently was "Are any of you
gay men?" "No! I'm bi-larious!"
http://i.imgur.
* YES IT"S A DOCTOR WANG JOKE - but the context
gives it a little extra. "I saw this in an
empty show window this morning on my local high
street. It must be true because I saw a little
Oriental fella locking the door as I walked
past." (benhammy)
http://i168.
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: ASK B3TA
Recycling conspiracy?
Last week we asked for evidence that the
council really does sort out the recycling
properly and doesn't just bung it into a
landfill whilst whistling and grumbling, "dunno
what you're talking about guv."
* NO CONSPIRACY - "I used to work for Barking
and Dagenham Council's call centre, and
answered a lot of calls on this. People were
convinced that it was all a lie. The recycling
and rubbish were collected in the same lorry,
but they were sorted out later on. The
residents had to put all recycling into orange
bags, and the proper rubbish into black bags.
The bags all got chucked onto a conveyor belt
at the rubbish place, and a camera recognised
the orange bags and sent a flap thing to push
them off the belt into a skip that went off to
a recycling place. So it does get sorted out,
honest. I saw it with my own eyes." (gumblina)
* NEW SCIENTIST THING - "They had an article
where they tagged ten bits of rubbish in
Seattle and monitored where it ended up (19
September issue)... and most of the recycling
did actually get recycled." (julesmbrown)
* OK, SOMETIMES IT FUCKS UP - "Last year we had
a letter to our local newspaper (either the
Wirral News or Wirral Globe if you can be arsed
to check their websites) where someone blew
the whistle on recycling being dumped on the
local landfill. The council admitted that the
facilities could only handle so much recycling
a day and if the limit was exceeded the freshly
collected recycling was dumped on the landfill
site." (hagis_uk)
>> THIS WEEK WE'RE ASKING... LIFT BUTTONS <<
"It's A Vagabond here, and I have a question
for the clever peeps of B3ta - praps the
newsletter - which is 'When facing multiple
lifts, does pressing the call button repeatedly
make any difference to the speed at which any
of them up?'"
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Baddies Goodies Challenge
Last week we wanted you to make baddies good,
and vice versa.
Your favourites included:
* BUSH - with Obama in the White House, its
former resident finally does the right thing
(cockweasle)
http://www.b3ta.
* HE-MAN - the most powerful man in the
universe snaps (2 Can Chunder)
http://www.b3ta.
* TALIBAN - once all that Middle East stuff has
been sorted, suicide bombers will need to find
alternative employment (HappyToast)
http://www.b3ta.
All these images, and the highest as voted by
you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.
>> New challenge: Celebrity Cut-out Dolls <<
This week's challenge is to create cut-
out-and-keep dolls based on celebrities. For
extra points, photograph their exploits during
the hours of fun they'll almost certainly
provide.
http://www.b3ta.
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: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
Follow-ups on previous stories.
* MAKE YOUR OWN MORSE SWEARS - "I," begins
social hand grenade, "have found a site that
lets you type a message of up to 200
characters, convert it to Morse, and then
download the MP3." Enjoy your new ringtone!
http://www.morseres
* I SING COMMENTS - "Hi," trills HenDeadly.
"This is my new project in which I will sing
comments, all and any comments, via the power
of autotune! Post a comment and I'll add it to
the song - your words will be immortalised! Big
thanks to cr3 for the youtube wizardry that
made the site work. Fa la la-la-la!" We may
start doing Funny Name Corner this way too -
it's the future!
http://www.henrysin
* KATY vs ZOOEY - We asked for a quiz to tell
the difference between Katy Perry and Zooey
Deschanel - so one of our loyal readers
invented a time machine, travelled back 18
months and created one! Hurrah - and thanks to
Phil Evans for the tip-off.
http://snipurl.
* WINE BOX ALCHY I - "How do you get the last
dribble of delicious booze out of a wine box?"
asked thirsty Martin last week. Scoltock
reckons: "Simply put your mouth over the tap,
press the button and blow. You will inflate the
bag, removing all the tedious crinkles and the
last glass will come out no problem." If you
over-inflate then it comes out as champagne.
* WINE BOX ALCHY II - "In true Jim'll Fix It
Style, I have come to Martin's wine-box rescue,"
claims Sarah. "He's fed up of badly designed
boxes which make getting to his wine feel like
a Krypton Factor challenge. He ought to check
out FreshCase and we can help.
"Happy to offer some FreshCase samples to you
and Martin to check out for yourselves and see
if it meets your needs."
Wait, what? THESE GUYS ARE PROMISING TO SEND US
FREE WINE TO TEST THIS OUT? 8 YEARS OF WRITING
THIS FUCKING NEWSLETTER SUDDENLY MAKE SENSE!
http://www.freshcas
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: 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:
* HUGH LAURIE FANBOY SUPER-CUT - "Recently,
while watching Hugh Laurie in the House, we
came up with an idea that we are neither
skilled enough or clever enough to execute.
What we want is a compilation of Dr House's
facial expressions for every 'eureka' moment in
the first five series." (Mark & Kaye)
* A BLOG CALLED "GOING STRAIGHT" - where a gay
man tries to live as a heterosexual person for
a while and hilarity ensures.
* THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO... swallowed a
fly, I don't know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she'll die. Rework this song with
increasingly large storage media. Whether you
go from tiny physical size to large (SD cards
to 12" floppies) or via capacity is entirely up
to you.
Send contributions via the mail form.
http://www.b3ta.
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.
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THANKS:
This issue was written by Rob Manuel with David
Stevenson. Stuff sent in by via soupeh,
conster, digitalraven, rotational, @EdStern and
Fishcat. Additional linkage and image challenge
by Fraser Lewry. Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
Subjlols via Nikorasu. Sickipedia CTRLC+V from
IndigoFlow. Props to David Harrison for buying
the ad at the last minute.
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: SICKIPEDIA
The homeless problem would be solved if the Big
Issue had tits in it.
http://www.sickiped
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