Hellooooooo! And welcome to the 118th EVER newsletter from rathergood!

First off, let me tell you about the new thing on the site- this is Tommy's Harmacy. It's like a pharmacy, but it is exactly the same opposite thing:

http://www.rathergood.com/harmacy

Isn't that lovely? It actually came about as the result of a conversation with Megagenius Jason Steele, creator of Charlie The Unicorn. How did I end up having a conversation with him? Well, we were hanging out at the wonderful and amazing ROFLCon at MIT last weekend. It was a fantastic trip and glorious in every way and you can read all about it and the amazing adventures we had here:

http://bit.ly/cAGkE7

What a wonderful time it was!

I did a quick interview with radio 5 live while I was there- at the start of this report:

http://bit.ly/bjzE2p

Also, my kittens t shirts are in the press at the moment in ads for IE8:

http://snurl.com/w1vp7

If you like that t shirt you can get it here:

http://snurl.com/w1vrk

It's all been go here at base as well – we've moved in to a new studio / workshop! Hoorays! Here's some photos if you're interested:

http://snurl.com/w1vvh

Well, I think that's about it for today! Phew! That was a lot of stuffs! Hoorays! Except, of course, to tell you that I love you! I love you so much I'd fly across the Atlantic on fire 50 times just to make you happy! Hoorays!

Mwah mwah extrasuperduperhugs and ultrakisses!

Yours sincerely

Joel Veitch

Founder of rathergood.com
Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
Winner of 3 Webby Awards
Master of Arts (Electronic Media) Oxford Brookes
Bachelor of Arts (English and History) University of Leeds
Marksman (.22, 5.56, 7.62, LMG)
Former Sixer of Grey Six, 19th Forest Hill Cub Scouts
Former Member of MGS school cricket team
Former Sergeant, Combined Cadet Force (RAF Section)
Silver Swimming Badge
3rd best Cross Country runner in my class at age 12
Once had a letter published in the New Scientist
Attended one-night Pork Butchery Course
Keen amateur ukulele player
Bronze lifesavers swimming badge
Full clean driver's license
Passed Cycling Proficiency Test
A levels – English Literature, French and History, all grade A
GCSEs 7xA 2xB
Good understanding of the principals of flight
Good understanding of the principles of spelling
Winner of the Head's Prize for Progress, first year, Aylesford School
50 meters swimming badge
Once did a wee in a loo containing Dannii Minogue's wee
25 meters swimming badge
Amateur experimental rocket / meat scientist
Has caught piranhas on a hand line
Willing to learn semaphore if required
Able to sing The Girl From Ipanema and Mas Que Nada in Portuguese
Survivor of Trans-Atlantic Airplane Fire Horror

We went to the wonderful ROFLCon! Yeah! It's a conference of people who make stupid stuff on the internet, basically, at MIT, and it was TOTALLY AWESOME! Here is the story of our adventure!

On Thursday we went to get on our plane to Boston from Heathrow. The Heathrow Express had been on fire, so Ed was a bit late, but it was OK. Me and Ed both got singled out for extra security checks before we got on the plane which was a bit odd but they didn't do full cavity searches so it could have been worse.

Half way out over the Atlantic, we noticed the plane was doing a major banking turn, which seemed a bit odd. Then we noticed the crowd of people around a seat on our row. I could see what looked like an oxygen bottle through the crowd so assumed someone had had a heart attack or something. “Oh dear” I thought. “Oh dear oh dear.” Then I realised that it wasn't an oxygen cylinder- it was a fire extinguisher. The plane was on fire!

A steward was there, with his professional and very badly strained grin still plastered to his orange face, emptying fire extinguishers in the chair. We took off our headphones at this point to pay attention. The captain came on the tannoy - “We have had a seat fire. We are diverting to Shannon. There is no need to panic.” I reckon they should use the phrase “no need to be concerned” in these situations. When the captain says your plane's on fire and you shouldn't panic, it definitely sounds like he might be lying about the need to panic.

Just mentioning panic is a bad plan when you're on fire 10 miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

Also, no-one is reassured by the steward with the fire extinguishers asking “what film were you watching that was so good your seat caught fire?” - that is just not convincing.

I looked out the window and saw a 747, lit gold by the setting sun, whoosh past in the opposite direction at really impressive speed. It didn't look very far away.

Anyway we flew to Shannon where we sat in the plane on the runway for a couple of hours or so. Firemen came on board to check whether we were still on fire or not – I got this photo:

As you can see from this photo we were more excited about being on fire than frightened. This is because we are not really very clever.

After some considerable time we took off for Boston again. No power in the back so no films or music and no light to read by. Sounds bad but it enforced sleep so was actually OK.

We arrived in the early hours, checked in to the Cambridge Marriott and got some kip before the conference in the morning.

First thing, we went and had a massive breakfast with Matt and Ed from the Viral Factory. YEAH! Then registration, which was basically the internet distilled in to a single room. Loads of amazing people there! Met up with Jason Steele and Chris Alex from FilmCow. Jason is the creator of Charlie The Unicorn – one of the greatest achievements of Western culture.

Also Dan Walsh, the lovely dude who does Garfield minus Garfield and the guys from Sleeveface.

Anyway I was on the very first panel after the introduction keynote. It was The Longview Panel, which I was on with the amazing and multi-talented Neil Cicierega, who I've known of for many years originally for his animutations but who is now more well known for The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny and the Potter Puppet Pals:

And the truly lovely Rob Cockerham of http://cockeyed.com/ who makes great things in the real world and plays pranks and stuff.

Basically we've all been making things for 10 years or so which in internet years makes us like a BILLION YEARS OLD so we were talking about how things have changed, that kind of thing. It was great.

That evening we decamped to the pub where I met a dude who turned out to be LEEEEEEEEEEEEEROY JEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS

I also met Charlie Schmidt, the legendary man who owned and performed with Keyboard Cat! Here we are looking lovely!

Charlie is an amazing man and should be proclaimed King of the Internet. When he is in charge, the world will be a better place.

http://charlieschmidt.com/keyboardcat.asp

On Saturday I saw Jason Steele's brilliant panel with Nick Prueher from the Found Footage Festival

As well as Dan Walsh talking with Chad Vader and the Juggernaut Bitch guys. l also watched the autotune the news brothers do a panel with the Fake AP Stylebook people and I was really pleased to see Big David and Little David from David After The Dentist talking on the same panel as Charlie- they were very lovely. Also I will be in the background dancing on the next video from Matt Harding from http://www.wherethehellismatt.com

Then the very interesting end panel with Greg Rutter from youshouldhaveseenthis.com, the guys from Know Your Meme, Ben Huh from I Can Haz Cheezburger and failblog, and moot from 4chan.

On from there to a lovely VIP party, then to the official ROFLParty at Machine in Boston, which was a gay club and hence only had one toilet, though I never heard any complaints from the ladies about having to walk past lots of guys at the urinals.

After that we ended up in the hotel room of the guy who made Obama Girl, drinking with Charlie Schmidt, the guys from Sleeveface and Dan Walsh.

The next day, nursing hangovers, we headed back to Blighty without catching fire at all in any way.

All in all it was a truly truly wonderful time with truly truly wonderful people! Hoorays for ROFLCon! Hoorays for The Internet!

Hellooooo! And welcome to the 117^th EVER newsletter from rathergood!

We've got some wonderful stuff for you today! Look! This is Defendercocks – Attack Of The Boobulons!

http://www.rathergood.com/defendercocks

Nobody knew they were out there. The Boobulons! Their only objective, to destroy humanity.

We've got some amazingly stylish Defendercocks tshirts in the shop as well, you should totally buy one you will look incredibly cool:

http://snurl.com/vpxbq

Also, it's come to our attention that Party Cat has been advising David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. Here's the result:

http://www.rathergood.com/party_cat

He'll go far in Westminster, that cat. Far indeed.

There's lovely Party Cat tshirts too innit!

http://www.printshop.co.uk/RatherGood/PrintShop/Designer.html?customdesign=1309

I think that's about it for this week, except to tell you that I love you! I love you so hard! I'd do anything for you! I'd tell you all about sea slugs! In fact I'll tell you all about them right now! Here are some amazing facts about sea slugs!

The largest sea slug is the Granite Titan Slug from Panama - they can grow up to seventeen miles long.

Sea slugs are capable of firing beams of focussed energy, powerful enough to crack the sun in half.

Experts disagree on exactly how intelligent sea slugs are, but they have been known to solve complicated quadratic equations and construct machines capable of faster than light travel.

All sea slugs wear sophisticated invisible mono-fiber clothing of their own design. Nanobots in the cloth break down any salt that connects with them and converts it to anti-matter, which they then use to power their planet-shattering technology.

Sea slugs have no natural predators, except for weasels. Weasels can burrow into the sea-slugs using special hyper-phasic drilling technology stolen from the spider crabs. Once inside, they can use their weasel-magic to control the slug, riding them around like massive battleships. The slugs hate that.

Mwah Mwah ultrahugs and hyperkisses!

Yours sincerely

Joel Veitch

Founder of rathergood.com
Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
Winner of 3 Webby Awards
Master of Arts (Electronic Media) Oxford Brookes
Bachelor of Arts (English and History) University of Leeds
Marksman (.22, 5.56, 7.62, LMG)
Former Sixer of Grey Six, 19th Forest Hill Cub Scouts
Former Member of MGS school cricket team
Former Sergeant, Combined Cadet Force (RAF Section)
Silver Swimming Badge
3rd best Cross Country runner in my class at age 12
Once had a letter published in the New Scientist
Attended one-night Pork Butchery Course
Keen amateur ukulele player
Bronze lifesavers swimming badge
Full clean driver's license
Passed Cycling Proficiency Test
A levels – English Literature, French and History, all grade A
GCSEs 7xA 2xB
Good understanding of the principals of flight
Good understanding of the principles of spelling
Winner of the Head's Prize for Progress, first year, Aylesford School
50 meters swimming badge
Once did a wee in a loo containing Dannii Minogue's wee
25 meters swimming badge
Amateur experimental rocket / meat scientist
Has caught piranhas on a hand line
Willing to learn semaphore if required
Able to sing The Girl From Ipanema and Mas Que Nada in Portugese

Hellooooooooo! And welcome to the 116th EVER newsletter from rathergood!

The big news this week is that we've made a new TV ad for Crusha, with the kittens at the roller disco. Have a look, it's lovely!

http://www.rathergood.com/rollerkittens

The shoot didn't go entirely smoothly. I've got a couple of out-takes from the day, things that didn't go entirely to plan! In this take, Errol was supposed to glide gracefully past the camera on his roller skates but he totally misjudged it!

http://www.rathergood.com/camera_smash

Ouch! In this take, the bottle of Crusha came down to fast, with disastrous results! Poor Errol!

http://www.rathergood.com/bottle_smash

Poor cow as well! No-one was hurt though, it's OK. No need to worry.

In other news, our Axolotl Song has been very popular! It was featured on the ever-wonderful Attack Of The Show at their number 1 spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSo4DNQN05M

It was also on NBC Chicago- have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQf7jqb_6Og

In personal news this week, I have completely lost my voice- it's been gone for a whole week! Also, Zak has got chicken pox. THE POX! It's all fun here at rathergood towers, I can tell you.

I think that's about it for today, except to tell you how much I love you! I love you really HARD! I love you so hard I'd make my special soup for you! My special soup that is actually a massive 650lb jellyfish, 12 feet across! With its delicious aroma of rancid rotting jellyfish you won't be able to resist it! It's so delicious! Especially the stingers! They're like hot chilli, in that eating them hurts a lot! I've just eaten one of my special soups and my larynx is a mass of venom-soaked welts! That's how I lost my voice!

The main difference between my soup and a chilli is the regular cardiac arrests from the massive dose of venom, so I'm wired up to a defibrillator. Seems to be working so far.

You are going to LOVE my special soup! You LUCKY LUCKY THING!

Hey, yesterday I found out that leeches are annelids, like worms. Did you know that? I always thought of them as blood-sucking slug things, rather than as carnivorous hell worms. So there you go! Sweet!

Ooh, also, I'm in need of studio space for me and my glamorous musical assistant Ed in the Shoreditch / Hackney areas of London. Anyone got any good tips? Drop me an email if you have eh?

Mwah mwah extrasuperduperhugs! Turbokisses!

Yours sincerely

Joel Veitch

Founder of rathergood.com
Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences
Winner of 3 Webby Awards
Master of Arts (Electronic Media) Oxford Brookes
Bachelor of Arts (English and History) University of Leeds
Marksman (.22, 5.56, 7.62, LMG)
Former Sixer of Grey Six, 19th Forest Hill Cub Scouts
Former Member of MGS school cricket team
Former Sergeant, Combined Cadet Force (RAF Section)
Silver Swimming Badge
3rd best Cross Country runner in my class at age 12
Once had a letter published in the New Scientist
Attended one-night Pork Butchery Course
Keen amateur ukulele player
Bronze lifesavers swimming badge
Full clean driver's license
Passed Cycling Proficiency Test
A levels – English Literature, French and History, all grade A
GCSEs 7xA 2xB
Good understanding of the principals of flight
Good understanding of the principles of spelling
Winner of the Head's Prize for Progress, first year, Aylesford School
50 meters swimming badge
Once did a wee in a loo containing Dannii Minogue's wee
25 meters swimming badge
Amateur experimental rocket / meat scientist
Has caught piranhas on a hand line
Willing to learn semaphore if required

The ever-wonderful Attack Of The Show featured our Axolotl Song last night. Hoorays!