VANCOUVER - ANDREW WK WAS SUPPOSED TO INTERVIEW NARDWUAR

Last week Andrew WK and The Evaporators launched their split 7-inch,  A Wild Pear, in Vancouver. Andrew WK was actually supposed to interview Nardwuar about the new record but Nardwuar kept accidentally grabbing the microphone and asking all the questions himself. Oh well: a leopard can't change its spots. Or is it that you can't change a leopards spots? Anyway, something about leopard spots.

NETHERLANDS - YOU ARE ONE SICK MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCKER

When we talked to Dutch artist Tinkebell a couple years ago about her “Save the Males” campaign, a project that involved throwing baby chicks through a woodchipper at a flea market, that piece garnered a lot of angry comments by anonymous blog commenters. So imagine the shitstorm of hate mail she received when she made a handbag out of her cat and posted a how-to manual about it online. After that flood of hate mail, she teamed with Coralie Vogelaar and looked up as much personal information about those people they could possibly find. Together they made a book out of it. A lot of people who thought they sent anonymous hate mails lost their anonymity that day…

MEET THE NIERATKOS - LONNIE INVASION

Sunday we took my wife’s retarded Uncle Lonnie to see a 60s cover band called The British Invasion Tribute Band at our local community center. Lonnie—or Lonald, as I often call him, or Lon Da Milan or Lonzie or Lonnie Bonnie Bo Bonnie—is a H-U-G-E Beatles fan. He knows every word to every song from every album. The Beatles are his shit. He’s kind of like the retarded version of John Cusack in High Fidelity.

HALIFAX - DEATH POOLS ARE SICK, TWISTED PASTIMES

The best thing about living in a port city like Halifax (aside from the excitement that comes with the potential for international drug busts) is that people are always coming and going. When they come, they bring new ideas and bizarre traditions, and when they go, we throw big, boisterous parties. A good friend who came to us from Toronto brought with her my most beloved tradition: The Death Pool. At first glance, you might envision The Death Pool as a festering pit of rotten flesh and decaying bone. But it isn’t. 

AUSTRALIA - TASMANIA BEATS WORLD AT OPIUM, WALLABIES GET THE SPOILS

There’s been a fair bit in the news about vast poppy fields in Afghanistan, but if you think most of the world’s opiates come from the Middle East you’re around 10,000kms off the mark. An interesting fact tailor-made for dinner party conversation is that over half of all pharmaceutical-grade alkaloids are derived from crops grown in Tasmania. How do we know this? Because stoned wallabies have started making crop circles.

ATLANTA - PLEASE HELP BURY BOBBY UBANGI

Last night Atlanta's good-vibes comptroller BJ Womack died of cancer at the age of 34. He was a member of a bunch of amazing bands like the Lids, the Gaye Blades, and the Carbonas, released a scattered assortment of records under his stage name Bobby Ubangi, and was pretty much the lynchpin/inspiration/impresario for anything fun and exciting that's happened in the city over the past decade. Check out a scant fraction of his work and help his friends pay for his funeral over at VBS.

TORONTO - WE'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU

As noted yesterday, Toronto celebrated Canada Day by having tons and tons of fetid, steaming garbage heaped all over the city. Do you know what it smells like over here? It smells like the puke of a dog that went on a buffet run through the back alleys of Tijuana. It gets in your mouth it's so bad. This trash strike is going on 11 days now, and people still smiled when we snapped photos of them standing in front of heaps of consumer waste.

LONDON - GROWING UP IN FAIRYLAND

On my walk to work every morning I glance around and resent the purely functional titles of the streets that I live on: Fashion Street, the place where all the clothes shops were, or Brick Lane, the road that used to house brick manufacturers. These are the products of an unimaginative society. Where's the romance? It's not like this everywhere though. Our intern Liz comes from a wonderful place–a place called Fairyland.

LONDON - THE CHOIR QUIT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO

In five nasty minutes listening to the radio this morning, I learned that today was the center point of London's record-breaking “level three” heat wave, which will eventually explode into violent and unpredictable weather patterns. I also learned that we were now in “phase six” of the swine flu pandemic, and that right now the terrorist alert is “severe,” which is another way of saying that it’s slightly more likely today than it was yesterday that your bus to work will soon be converted into a chemical warhead.

STUFFWATCH - THE JUMBO POLO

There's no denying that we have what one might call very strong opinions as to what we like and dislike about everything around here. We don't care about nonsense fashion trends and that's probably why we attract a lot of weirdos who try too hard to "think outside of the box." I don't know if every magazine gets the same ridiculous emails, but I'm always receiving packages full of retarded stuff from PR reps who think they've perfectly nailed the "Vice image."