NEWSLETTER: B3TA BEST OF THE YEAR... SO FAR
This Week:
* LINKS - Best B3ta stuff of 2006 so far...
* QUESTION - DIY Fashion Disasters
* IMAGE CHALLENGE - Demotivational Posters
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___/ _ |/_ </ __/ __ | "We're saving the
__/____/____/\__/_/ |_| web... together"
B3ta email 244 - 1 Sep 2006
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: SUMMER HOLIDAYS
Ginger Fuhrer's mountain retreat
It's that time of the year again when your
red-haired umlaut retires from his complex of
subterranean rooms and takes Eva and the
microfuhrer to the Berghof.
Hence, we bring you a 'summer best of' featuring
all the bestest stuff made by B3ta people since
last Christmas.
Normal service will resume next week.
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: BEST PROJECTS
As made by B3tards
>> Blackmail Web 2.0 thingie <<
Tedious barks, "It's been a while since I've
made anything, but I'm quite proud of this
one. It's what Flickr would be like if Flickr
was run by evil Eastern Bloc Mafia." We tried
to encourage Tedious to make this for real,
instead of it just being a joke, but he was
having none of it. Spoilsport.
http://www.extortr.com/
>> Sketch swap <<
Simple, sweet idea - draw a little picture, press
the button and you get to see someone else's
drawing, while yours gets shown to another
contributor later. Maybe you get a crudely-drawn
cock, maybe a little masterpiece. Simple, as we
said, but rather addictive. Kudos to Philipp
Lenssen and partner-in-crime Dominik Schmid.
http://www.sketchswap.com
>> Question Swap <<
Inspired by the previous item, phantomboner
has made Question Swap - ask any question you
like, then answer someone else's. In short order
you'll receive your own answer from a random
stranger. We found it particularly useful for
medical advice.
http://www.questionswap.com/featured.asp
>> Kitten-based security: Geeks only <<
You know those annoying "type this phrase into
the box" authentication things you get when you
sign up for a website? They're there to stop
spammers abusing nice sites like ours. Podgey22
has come up with a fantastic alternative: get
people to identify kittens. It's actually a
small stroke of genius - a challenge that
machines find hard, people find easy and best
of all, it's kinda fun.
http://www.thepcspy.com/kittenauthtest
>> Sickipedia <<
Whilst in the process of putting the B3ta Sick Joke
Book together, your ginger fuhrer had a thought,
"If anyone actually buys this book, then I'll probably
get crap jokes sent to me until the day I die. Er..
Maybe I should set up a website where people can submit
material without it having to go through my inbox?
A wiki, like Wikipedia should do it, wiki... sicki...
SICKIPEDIA!"
http://www.sickipedia.org
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: BEST COOKING
Yep, as made by B3tards
>> Pepto-bismol ice cream <<
Big food guru Fraser generally cures his daily
hangovers with a combination of ice cream and
Pepto-bismol. Realising he might be on to
something, he's sought to combine the two
products into one tasty treat. BTW: This is
directly against the advice printed on the
Pepto bottle, "Do not freeze."
http://www.blogjam.com/2006/07/20/pepto-bismol-ice...
>> Knob casting <<
Men - Sundaeg1rl wanted your cock. She's making
busts of penises and would like to make a plaster
cast of your cyclopean chum. "Don't be scared!"
she trilled. "I'm really very gentle." Then she
turned them into chocolate...
http://bcccastingcouch.blogspot.com/
>> Never let a vegan cook <<
"Look look look look look what I've done!"
trills Comma, "I've made a giant vegan Jaffa
Cake, aren't I great?" Ah. Um. Actually, this
looks kind of revolting and we're very glad
you're not cooking our dinner tonight.
http://www.ayliff.freeserve.co.uk/sarah/jaffacake....
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: BEST VIDS
Unsurprisingly, as made by B3tards
>> Arson Sam <<
Genius idea here. John1024 has taken the
children’s TV show Fireman Sam and played
it backwards so that Sam starts fires. He
writes - "it's the Welsh Mafia in action in
Pontypandy with Sam turning in to a right
little arsonist." It's the subtitles that
make it - we were crying with laughter.
http://snipurl.com/arsonsam
>> Pepsi vs Mentos <<
"After seeing all these exploding Pepsi bottles
with Mentos videos", splurts Davideo, "I wondered
if its actually possible to mix the ingredients
internally and jump up and down." Check the
results, we suspect this will go down well on
the web, not just because it's a nice simple
joke, but because it's performed by an attractive
woman in a low cut top. (And we've just trebled
the clicks by writing that.)
http://www.davideodesign.co.uk/pepsigirl.htm
>> Derek & Clive chimps <<
It's the classic Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore
sketch about Jayne Seymour's bum-lobsters, but
dubbed onto chimps by CCC. It's great, like
the ad campaign PG Tips should have run...
NSFW if you object to monkeys saying "fuck."
http://www.youtube.com/watch
>> No props sci-fi <<
"My brother and I made this film," confides
Mechalex. "We wanted to dump all the boring
stuff like props, sets, costumes and dialogue
in favour of shooting things, blowing stuff up
and robots." Starts slow, excellent when it
kicks off. The bloke in a hoody pretending to
be robotic is the funniest thing we've seen
this week.
http://www.diecastfilms.co.uk/
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: BEST ANIMATION
Fuck me, more stuff from the B3tards
>> Rolf Harris, King of Wankers <<
"I recently got the 'Definitive Rolf Harris'
album and it was worth the download",
recommends Fantastical monkey, "and this is
the result of listening to it." He also claims
it's got a great ending, but we laughed so
much at the intro we never got that far.
http://www.fantasticalmonkey.co.uk/Rolf/rolf.html
>> Kurt Kobain in 10 seconds <<
Mushybees - who for our money is always at his
best when being wildly offensive - has produced
a short little video telling the story of the
doomed singer from Nirvana. BTW: If he had lived
he would be 40 this year. Kurt we mean, and not
Mushybees, who like everyone on B3ta is a child
prodigy and aged about eight.
http://www.b3ta.com/links/1808
>> 'Internet outrage' animation <<
Eclectech has put some nice visuals on a
DogHorse and Miss Prism track about how the web
is full of EVIL PREDATORS and no-one should go
online ever. Good recreation of the viewpoint of
an ill-informed right-wing newspaper. Now with
a foppish sheep wearing an unfeasibly large
bow tie. Great song though.
http://eclectech.co.uk/dailymailpicnic.php
>> Jonti eats crabs <<
Jonti has written one of his song loops about
shoving crustaceans in his mouth. He claims, "It
was about George Bush to begin with but the
missus pointed out that I'm shit at politics."
We like it for the blood.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/crabs/
>> Beastenders <<
Mutated Monty is pushing the cut up photoshop
flash stuff forwards with his disturbing take
on UK soap Eastenders. Really worth a look,
the visual style will soon be ripped off by TV
ads.
http://b3ta.com/links/Beastenders
>> Record store cats <<
C_kick is a blokey on our board who has spent
the last few months photoshopping cats
enjoying their favourite tunes. They've been
turning up in emails, been synced to videos on
YouTube and the other day we got an email from
a mobile phone company asking for the rights
to flog them. We forwarded the note and we got
the reply, "Another proposal.. ha ha. That
would be the tenth.. I'm currently finishing
up a deal with biggest fish out there."
Anyway, if you haven't caught them yet, you
are in for a small but perfectly formed treat:
http://b3ta.hnldesign.nl/rsc/
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: BEST GAMES
Altogether now, "As made by B3tards"
>> 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
>> Sprouts are evil <<
Official b3ta brother Duncan Manuel used to
liven up dinner time with his reworking of
the Tears For Fears hit, Shout. "Sprouts!
Sprouts! Puke them all out! This is the veg
we can do without!" So imagine our joy when
Eyegas got in touch with an almost identical
idea. Eyegas wins though, as he's turned the
whole thing into a fantastic vegetable
bashing game that made us yelp, "Fucking hell.
This is fantastic!"
http://www.eyegas.com/xmas05/
>> Milk the giraffe <<
Meanwhile, in another part of the world,
Matazone has been labouring mightily and the
fruits of his crafting is truly, in his words,
"the best giraffe-milking game that you've
ever played." Uncannily realistic. For all
we know.
http://www.matazone.co.uk/animpages/gm/giraffe-mil...
>> Finger Fandango <<
Think you're pretty hot stuff with the touch
typing? Have a bash at Steff's Finger Fandango.
Essentially the same deal as DDR - hit the
right key on the keyboard at the right time and
get the right result.
http://www.h4sh.com/FingerFandango
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: QUESTION OF THE WEEK
DIY fashion disasters
We wanted the clothes you'd made to look cool
that in hindsight weren't such a good idea.
Some of you brave people have posted photos,
so go look, point and laugh:
http://b3ta.com/questions/diyfashion/
* ACCESSORIES ARE ESSENTIAL
"Accessories are what fashion is all about:
like the stuffed toy parrot I sewed onto my
shoulder as a child in order to gain extra
pirate respect points off my friends. Needless
to say I now have no friends."
(davidblunkettsdogblankets)
* I'M A BIG, PINK FACED TRANNY
"Age 20-odd I went to an indie night at Wigan
Pier. Me and my pals were going through a bit
of a Barbarella phase, so we thought it'd be
a great laugh to go dressed in a futuristic
spacey agey way. I'd just reached a shade over
six foot tall. However, the rest of me hadn't
caught up: I was incredibly thin and had
absolutely no tits. Think slightly startled
anorexic giraffe. So I dressed myself in a
rather fetching tiny silver minidress and
silver platform knee high boots. I then hit
on the idea of dying my very short, scruffy
blonde hair candy pink. Some metallic jewellery
and voila! Instant cool. Had a cracking night,
danced my little socks off in a hot and sweaty
club. After an hour or so, my mate tells me
to go look in the mirror. I go to the loo to
discover that the heat and the sweat have made
my hair dye run. All over my face. And it's
showing no signs of shifting. But that wasn't
the worst bit: oh no. As I leave the toilet
to go home, a bouncer comes over, "Oi, sunshine,
none of you pervy types in here, next time use
the gents like the rest of the blokes." Yup,
he thought I was a tranny. A big, pink faced
tranny. I bought a Wonderbra after that." (Rakky)
* CROSS-DRESSING GOT ME SACKED
"I'm in a very long distance relationship; my
lovely lady flies over to visit a couple of
times a year from Tokyo. I miss her terribly
when she's gone. Once she left one of her
skirts behind and a mixture of curiosity and
loneliness convinced me it'd be a good idea
to wear it to work. Here's me at Scottish Gas
HQ, just before my attire was deemed inappropriate
and I was sacked:" (r3c^)
http://www.vacant-cs.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/11422957...
>> This Week's Question <<
Ever been banned from somewhere? Still smarting
about it? Join the rest of the world here:
http://b3ta.com/questions/barred/
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: B3TA IMAGE CHALLENGE
Results from the Predator vs Prey Challenge
Last week we wanted to know what life
would be like if the law of the jungle
were reversed.
Your favourites included:
* PUMPKIN - Halloween will never be the
same again if this terrifying vision
of the future comes to pass. (mofaha)
* INDIANA JONES - The Temple Of Doom is
revisited as Indy ends up a pawn in the
ongoing axis of evil negotiations.
(frogdoctor)
* HEDGEHOG - A thousand years of Hedgehog
torment ended in a single, triumphant
moment. (Caustic Armadillo)
All these images, and the highest as
voted by you can be found here:
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/predator_vs_prey/
>> New challenge: Demotivational Posters <<
Yep, we've all seen posters like these in
the shops, but we're positive that b3tards
can bring their unique brand of spazdom to
the concept. So fire up Photoshop, get
googling for images, and show us the results...
http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/demotivational_poste...
>> 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/
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THANKS:
This issue was written by Rob Manuel with
David Stevenson. However, whilst the cat is
away, the mice are playing.
Image challenge by Fraser Lewry.
Mike Trinder is QOTW bloke.
