REVIEWS - EXOTICAL PRIVATES

Wondering what those guys in Cex have been up to lately? Well, evidently still riding high from making the male half of our office feel like horrible scumbags with their last release (and making the female half really confused for a few minutes), Cex have cooked up another gem of a cover. The actual record is an EP of remixes from the kiddie-porn record, but I'd be surprised if between handing the sleeve to everybody who comes over to my apartment from now on and asking if they're into "bubblegum" it ever ends up in the stereo. I also like that while rat-braining the clientele of any number of record stores is fair game, spelling out the word "fucking" didn't make the cut (click the picture to make it big). Nice discretion, guys.
LEROY GUMPTION

MISAKI'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

Artist Misaki Kawai completely charmed us when we met her at her recent exhibition in Stockholm. She’s got those big black, wild animal eyes and has this frailness to her that just makes you want to tuck her in bed and feed her muffins. She wears sweaters with little squirrels on them and prints her own money (Beaver Dollars) that she slips into friends' wallets when they're not looking. She even makes coins. CUTE. She’s been exhibited all over, which isn’t the least bit surprising since her art is absolutely irresistible - intentionally naïve, funny, simple and refreshing, trademarked by meticulous, nutty details, great colours and unconventional materials...

DIRTY BOMB BUST

Yesterday's arrest of a gang trying to sell a million dollars of enriched uranium shows that the blackmarket for dirty bombs is still thriving. Despite increased security at nuclear facilities worldwide, we managed to meet up with a real, in the flesh nuclear arms dealer in Bulgaria and documented our trip in the VICE Guide to Travel.

LONDON - THE GOD OF GIFS

We're not sure what it is that makes the British so much better than us at turning people into hideous monstro-beasts. The class system, maybe? Anyways, following in the proud misanthropic tradition of Terry Gilliam and Ralph Steadman is Cyriak (not to be confused with his Indian counterpart, Cyriac). He makes some pretty solid comics and parodies of British TV shows, but his best work is in the medium of GIF. As in those tiny thumbnail animations that used to litter everybody's geocities page back at the beginning of the internet. Cyriak has made literally hundreds of the little buggers, running the gamut from really cute to really grim to seems-really-cute-for-the-first-couple-seconds-but-then- something-horrible-happens-like-the-baby- barfs-out-all-its-organs. You can sort through the whole lot of them on his website one at a time, or you can treat yourself to a little five-minute break and watch this compilation of the best set to a score of his own creation. It's hands-down our favorite thing on the internet for at least the next half-hour. Our UK office recently tracked him down to find out how someone with such a terrible name could turn out such excellent crap.

PARIS - ONE MORE TIME

In case you didn't already know, another French suburb is up in flames. The residents of Villier-le-Bel are protesting about the death of two fifteen-year-old boys who were killed in a hit-and-run with a cop car. This time the rioters have stepped up their game. No longer content with burning cars as they did in 2005, they've armed themselves with pellet guns and air rifles to take on the riot squads. See we weren't kidding about how much the French love a good riot...

CANADA - DO THE TABARNAK

There's good news for the Montreal crunk scene. For those thrown off by the multi-limb complexity of the poutine dance, the "tabarnak" has just arrived. Apparently, all it takes is raising one leg in the air and sort of wiggling it around—a move so confounding in its simplicity that half the people in this video are totally incapable of either doing it or making it vaguely resemble a dance. Unlike the uniformity of Aryan Krump or Crank Dat or any of those other more rigid dances, this one here is all about improvisation—any variation necessary to keep balance. It also wins points for taking the best Quebecois swear-word ever as its namesake.

NEW YORK - THE MORNING SPEWS

On the way into work today a couple of us noticed this garbage bag full of smaller bags full of something. The boys guessed dog dookie, but every girl we showed it to said it was puke in bags and we think they’re right no matter how brown it looks (we tried to figure it out by smell, but it was just sort of generically gross). It’s basic logic: Bulimics who have roommate situations and can't always puke in the toilet will puke in bags, store the bags up, and then throw them out all at once. You remember that MTV thing with the plastic tub full of vomit in that girl’s closet? Same deal. Now, tell us this, who in the hell saves up dog shit? Even if you were extremely lazy, you’d just leave it on the ground, and even if you were really into your dog’s shit you presumably wouldn’t dump it on the street in an untied garbage bag. So anyways: Barf. Case closed, right?

THE GOD OF GIFs

Way, way back in the 1990s the best way to jazz up your web-page was to add an animated image called a GIF. Remember those spinning globes or a flaming torches? They look pretty ghetto, huh? Well, now that most animation is done through Flash or video, the humble GIF has gained cult status. A guy called Cyriak has gained a rep for making funny, lo-fi animations. He's recently made a film featuring his greatest GIFs and it's probably the best thing we've seen online this week...

EXTREME EATING

Those poached mouse snacks we munched in Malawi left us hungry for more exotic nibbles. Having had our fill of Braised Puppy, we fancy something a bit different. So we've shopped around and cooked up a buffet of bizarre delicacies from around the world...

VICARIOUS VOYAGES

It isn't your average pointless website that you waste your time looking at for second before never looking at again. Passing By pieces together video shot by the public from the windows of moving cars, trains, boats and planes. You see the seen-along-the-way scenes from hundreds of journeys around the world and it's strangely hypnotic ... actually no, wait a sec, it just got really boring. Next!