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NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 191: "HAVE YOU SEEN THE SIZE OF MY CRACK?"

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This Week:
* ROSS KEMP - TV Hardman gurns for Britain
* VIDS - Slow-mo film trickery
* WORDS - Accidental quimnuendos

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________  ____ __  ___
____/  _)|_  // /_/ _ |      
___/  _ |/_ </ __/ __ |      "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_|       web... together"

B3ta email 191 - 29 Jul 2005

Read this issue in your browser:
http://b3ta.com/newsletter/issue191/

       Subscribe:  [email protected]
         Unsub:  [email protected]
 
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: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #1
  Vegas, Hard-man Ross Kemp & DIY office weapons

  >> Vegan Whopper! <<
  "You might enjoy", states Kirby Ferguson, "our
  commercial parody about a super-sized vegan
  restaurant." We do enjoy it, it's actually
  rather fantastic.
http://www.goodiebag.tv/video/ttt.htm


  >> Ross Kemp <<
  One for our UK readers here. Acrim & Oz write,
  "We made a loop of Ross Kemp's face from a
  documentary he was in and couldn't stop
  laughing at it for about an hour after."
  What can we say? At 3 O clock this morning
  this seemed the funniest thing the world.
http://www.rosskemp.co.uk/


  >> DIY Office weapons <<
  "Regarding last week's office bow & arrow",
  gripes CMU, "I've been making crap like that
  at work for years. Bloody newcomers, I
  dunno." Woo. We particularly like the ballista
  and the wind-up car. Although the catapult
  is more of a crapapault.
http://deeperbeige.com/site/silly/boredatwork/crea...


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: ACCIDENTAL QUIMNUENDOS
  Errors of the furry cup

  The hot topic of conversation this week at B3ta
  HQ has been about the times you've said something
  quite innocent and only afterwards, when the
  sniggering started, you realised exactly what
  you've uttered.

  Our favourites include:

  * On vegetarianism, "How could anyone munch on
    something furry?"

  * To the gay gardener, "Kevin, what do you think
    about my bush?"

  * On visiting a garage with a broken windshield,
    "Have you seen the size of my crack?"

  * A mum to her son's new red-haired girlfriend,
    "I love ginger pussies" (they'd just got a
    new cat.)


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: SITES IN BRIEF
  Stuff we like that wasn't made by our mates.

  >> Slow-mo film trickery <<
  People's faces - wobblier than you'd think.
  These high-speed camera vids let you watch
  at a normal pace things that usually happen
  very quickly. The best ones are the slaps
  and the tongue-waggling. As ever.
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/high_speed_vide...


  >> Thai wives <<
  This is Brian - he's lovely. As if the whole mail
  order bride-type deal wasn't creepy enough, check
  out this testimonial by a satisfied customer. Brr.
  You can practically feel the slight embarrassment
  of everyone around him - and he's the best they
  could come up with!
http://www.thai-wives.co.uk/


  >> Rosie Grier's 'Needlepoint for Men' <<
  He's big and butch and he doesn't care if you
  think needlework is for sissies. This series
  of photos comes from his 1973 magnum opus. Obviously
  women shouldn't be tempted to try any of these
  patterns out - they are far too testosterone-packed.
http://snipurl.com/flickrrr


  >> Crap drugs <<
  Students like drugs, students have no money to
  buy drugs and, hey, maybe don't want to break
  the law. What to do? What to do? Why not test
  out some of those ridiculous 'high from household
  objects' stories we've all heard. Charming in its
  very shiteness.
http://www.grimsplayground.co.uk/freddy/pics/drugs...


  >> Porcupined dog <<
  Poor, or perhaps pathologically foolish, mutt.
  Looks like it didn't just try to chase a
  porcupine, but persisted in biting it and holding
  on in defiance of all common sense. Ouch.
http://snipurl.com/gl1t


  >> Date Lance <<
  Funny joke, or workplace bullying? Lance's
  workmates reckon he just needs to meet a nice
  girl and to this end bought a huge billboard ad
  calling for applicants and set up a website to deal
  with enquiries. It doesn't seem to have occurred to
  them that he might just be a member of the gays
  on the quiet - he is from Utah.
http://www.datelance.com/index.html


  >> Maxwell's Silver Hammer <<
  Nicely-executed cartoon that managed the tricky
  task of getting us to enjoy one of our least
  favourite Beatles songs. The charming tale of a
  serial killer and his favourite weapon.
http://snipurl.com/gl1s


  >> Schoolkid forums <<
  This is a good reason why it's a bad idea to allow
  secondary school children anonymous, unmoderated
  access to the school yearbook. A sweary, puerile
  treat.
http://snipurl.com/gl1r


  >> Magic mural man <<
  Well, okay, there really isn't any magic. But
  what's amazing in these pics is how much difference
  a bit of paint makes to ugly, blocky buildings.
http://jimvestments.com/mural/


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: THE PAINFUL RETURN
  of funny names corner

  Let us introduce you to Dr Tits.

  * Dr. Tits received a 1985 NSF Presidential
    Young Investigator Award.

  * Dr. Tits' main research interests lie in
    various aspects of numerical optimization.

  * Dr. Tits' group have developed
    software packages.

  He also has a quite lovely beard.  
http://www.enee.umd.edu/~andre/


-------------------------------------------------

: WHAT B3TA PEOPLE HAVE BEEN MAKING THIS WEEK #2
  B3ta FP widget & Tech support animation

  >> Konfabulator: B3ta image viewer <<
  Keen web watchers will have read the news
  of Yahoo buying Konfabulator. This tech is
  pretty exciting stuff, as it allows you to
  run mini applications (or widgets) based on
  websites on your desktop, and it doesn't
  care if you're on a Mac or PC. Dave Barton
  has bashed up a quickie that takes the
  images from the front page of our website
  and then sticks them in a lovely little
  frame on your desktop. Great for decorating
  your second monitor (if you're posh, like,
  and have two.)

  Right, so first you need to install
  Konfabulator.
http://www.konfabulator.com/download
 
  Then you need to run the widget. All we
  need now is LCD wallpaper so we can decorate
  our house with lovely gifs.
http://www.b3ta.com/download/b3ta.widget


  >> Tech support woes <<
  "Myself and a colleague have come up with this",
  screams 'Rolf Harris', "a character called Jebs
  and we've animated in 3D a fantastic sketch of
  him as the office technical support guy."
  Woo. This is all, like, properly animated and
  stuff. How nice.
http://www.weakendproductions.co.uk/movs/jebsjobs....


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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
  Weddings

  Each week we collect your stories, anecdotes
  and lies into one handy place on the interweb.
 
  Last week we asked for your wedding stories:
http://b3ta.com/questions/weddings/

  Here's a selection of the shorter ones:

  * No one wants to upset a blind man
    "At a cousin's wedding reception, I noticed
    another reception in the hotel next door. I
    have an uncle who's blind and a bit of a laugh.
    He lent me his dark glasses and stick. Cue me
    walking down the line of bride, groom and
    family in the hotel next door, doing the
    shaking hand bit, and telling them what a
    lovely ceremony it had been. They were all
    pointing at me and mouthing "Who's he?"...
    I then asked the DJ to play a Stevie Wonder
    tune, and stood in the middle of the empty
    dance floor doing my best Stevie Wonder
    playing the piano impression. Half way through
    the tune I had to do a runner because I could
    hold back the laughter any more." (Edenmonster)
     
  * Welcome to the Family, son
    "I was invited to the wedding of one of my
    home town's largest criminal families (I was
    very matey with bride's brother). The bride
    was 17, the groom 30. She was obviously knocked
    up. He was at least 22 stone. All went smoothly
    until the groom's mates thought they'd help
    themselves to the wedding cake using their hands,
    before the happy couple had cut it. The bride's
    family took umbrage to this, particularly the
    bride's brother who promptly plunged the cake
    knife into the best man's stomach. All hell
    broke loose, with chairs, tables, bottles,
    glasses and cutlery being thrown. My most
    lasting memories of the evening had to be
    the bride slipping over on the best man's
    rapidly pooling blood - concussing herself -
    and the bride's father lovingly stamping on
    his new son-in-law's head whilst screaming
    'Cunt! Cunt!'" (bigmeuprudeboy)
     
  * Mr and Mrs Bishop
    "I was 10, it was my cousin's wedding, and there
    was champagne by the bucketload, with lots and
    lots of half empty glasses lying around. I
    decided to be helpful and finish them up for
    the nice people. Pretty soon I was unable to
    work out why everyone was smiling and laughing
    at me (apparently drunk 10 year olds are quite
    easy to spot). Speech time came and at the end
    of it my uncle proposed a toast to the happy
    couple, Mr and Mrs Bishop... I jumped up onto
    the table and hollered, "to Madge and Harold!"
    (starfish)


  ...And the best response to the "any lawful
  impediment to this couple being married"
  question has to be 'browser's friend's brother
  who shouted "cos he's a fucking gaybo" at the
  top of his voice.


  >> This Week's Question <<

  We'd like to know the strange traditions that
  have been imposed on you. Talk to us here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/weirdtraditions/


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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
  Results from the Real Life Logos Challenge

  Each week we run a competition to test your
  creative skills. We set a challenge and you
  open Photoshop and mess with our heads.

  Last week we wanted you to close photoshop for
  a change and recreate corporate logos with
  everyday objects:
http://b3ta.com/challenge/reallifelogos/

  We asked B3ta boarder 'toxie' to  judge the
  entries - here are her 3 faves.

  toxie writes -

  #1 "Lawn attack - For sheer effort, first place
     goes to a giant lawn based thing. Just
     because. (RedWine)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/4924040

  #2 "Saucy hardware - Inspired.I hope he ate it.
     (Hunter Kappa)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/4923002

  #3 "What better use for a pair of hands?
     Though it took me forever to work out what
     most of them were." (collapsibletank)
http://www.b3ta.com/board/4921122

  >> This Week's Challenge <<

  This week, b3ta contributor 'fool_on_the_hill'
  gave us the suggestion "Power Strike!"
http://b3ta.com/challenge/powerstrike/


-------------------------------------------------

: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
  Follow-ups on previous stories.

  * STUDENT SURVIVOR - Farcicle Pseudonym writes
    "I just wanted to thank you for doing
    something wonderful for me. A few months
    back you featured a little Student Survivor
    game, which (if your student survived) also
    allowed you to enter a competition. I won,
    and will now get my first year's accommodation
    at uni for free." Huzzah! Well done you!


  * COOKING WITH ELECTRICITY - Regarding your
    recent weeks' write-ups on hot dog cooking,
    "beams Barnaclese, "The same can be done with
    a pickle, except, due to something in the
    cellular structure of the ex-cucumber, the
    pickle will, in fact, glow when a current is
    passed through it." Fancy! Video, please...


  * JUANZO THE WOLF BOY - Readers thrilled to the
    story of CCC and his (fictional) wolf-boy
    baby's entry into the (genuine) beautiful
    baby section of his local paper. "Any chance
    of an update?" asks emadex. "I live in
    Australia and my daughter printed out the
    story and took it in for show and tell. Went
    down a treat!" CCC replies, "Sorry to report...
    Juanzo didn't win." Looks like they caught
    on. Bah!
http://voteforjuanzo.blogspot.com


  * SPACE WANKING - We asked for it last week.
    For some reason. Anyway, a special prize to
    all the porn connaisseurs who instantly fired
    off emails to tell us about 'The Uranus
    Experiment'. A sci-fi porno partly filmed on
    the famous 'Vomit Comet' plane. It was entirely
    sold on featuring the world's first zero-G
    cum shot.
 

  * GEEK SONGS - Obviously inspired by our
    irregular feature on the tunes you hum while
    doing computer stuff, here is 'Lock the
    Taskbar'.
http://taskbah.ytmnd.com/


  * MORE GEEK SONGS - p_gasston works as a web
    developer. He likes to sing Mister Mister's
    HTML classic 'Take... These Broken Links'
    when looking at non-functioning anchor tags.


-------------------------------------------------

: FRIDAY GAME
  Cursor thief
 
  Keep your mouse-pointer safe from this
  persistent little cursor-stealing shit, who'll
  stop at nothing to grab a hold of it and smugly
  taunt you in Japanese. Brilliant and infuriating.
http://www.onemorelevel.com/games/avoider.html


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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

  * OFFICE SEX TOYS - and you make a wind-up
    vibrating anal dildo out of some rubber
    bands and fat marker pen? 

  * THE GREAT I.T SUPPORT TEST - turn down
    the contrast on all the office PCs and
    see how long it takes them to fix it.

  * MORE KONFABULATOR B3TA - we've got lovely
    RSS feeds for you to play with. Go and make
    something useful.
http://www.b3ta.com/xml/


  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 Shiksa, tim.brown, Ash,
  Felchman, Murray of Commercial Breaks & Beats,
  ProfHawking, I'm Meeeelllllltttting, Le Brad,
  social hand grenade, stosiem, ian_mclellan & Badger
  Top Tippery by CaroWallis / Bad Horsey
  Additional linkage by Fraser Lewry.
  Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
  Image challenge handled by Mystery Bob.
  Proofing by the postprandial b4ta brandies.
  (104123 - 27413)
 

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  TOP TIP:
  Don't have an eraser to hand? Don't worry;
  ordinary Blu Tak works just as well.
 
 
  NOT THE TOP TIP:
  Make your colleagues think you have an active
  social life by sprinkling private appointments
  through your Outlook calendar at lunchtime
  and in the evenings. Erm. It sounds rather
  tragic to us. And that's assuming that your
  workmates are going to spy on your Outlook
  appointments in the first place.

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