On Thanksgiving Day, VICE's senior parenting columnist, the professional rapper and male model Kool A.D., dropped a 100-song mixtape called O.K. The tape is meant to serve as a soundtrack to his forthcoming novel of the same name, due out sometime next year from Sorry House, an independent publisher and novelty coffee mug producer.

O.K. is a long, sprawling production stuffed with bangers, but one of the stand-outs is the album's eponymous track. The video for "O.K.," which was also released on Thursday, shows A.D. rapping on a beach and looking very Cool Dad-y in a suite while pouring gasoline on a burning guitar and cradling his baby in his arms (not at the same time).

Watch the video above and then go download O.K. on Bandcamp, if you haven't already. It's pay what you want but there are 100 tracks, so don't be stingy.

Disclaimer: these boats were not involved in the smuggling operation. Have they been involved in A smuggling operation? It's possible! We don't know. Photo via Flickr user Loco Steve

Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) seized nearly a pound of hash and marijuana, a firearm silencer (lacking a gun), and other illegal paraphernalia from a ship off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador last month.

Today's CBSA's press release noted that the civilian vessel was carrying 450 grams of hash, 35 cartons of cigarettes, and what appears to be a silencer for a pistol, all of which can't, y'know, be brought into Canada legally.

CBSA superintendent Robert Wellon told VICE that while the border officials conduct a number of seizures each year, this was quite irregular for the Atlantic coast.

"First time I've been with CBSA that I'm aware of a silencer ever being seized in ," he said. "We don't see seizures like this too often."

Read: Red Dawn: The Definitive Explanation for What Just Happened in the Newfoundland and Labrador Election

Wellon couldn't go into specifics as to what prompted border officials to search the vessel, but noted that any and all ships entering Canadian waters are open to inspection, much like anybody entering Canada. He did note, however, that only certain ships end up being searched, and that this ship in particular was returning from a foreign country when border officials asked to search it.

The two men who were on board were arrested and may be facing charges relating to failing to declare foreign items as well as a myriad of charges relating to possessions of drugs and paraphernalia. Some of the items on board, such as the silencer, are universally prohibited by federal law.

Wellon says it's not clear yet if the stuff the men had on board was for personal use or was meant to be brought into the country for another reason, but that the CBSA is thoroughly investigating the incident.

Surely, they had plans to smoke all 450 grams of hash and 35 packs of darts at one point or another.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

On Tuesday December 1, World AIDS Day, HBO premiered VICE's new hour-long special report, Countdown to Zero, about the breakthroughs in treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS. In it, VICE co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi talk to the patients, policymakers, activists, clinicians, and researchers leading the international charge for an AIDS-free world.

Smith also sat down with former president George W. Bush to talk about the PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) initiative, one of the lasting legacies of the Bush administration. Alvi and Bono—U2's singer and co-founder of (RED) and One—then headed to Rwanda, where PEPFAR's efforts have almost fully eliminated mother-to-child HIV transmission and cut infection rates in half.

While progress looks good in Rwanda, South Africa still struggles to stem the disease, but the country's clinics are about to launch the largest vaccine trial in history.

"We're on the brink of scientific developments that will end the disease for good—but it isn't gone yet," says Shane Smith. "Millions are still being infected every year. This documentary is a comprehensive look at the state of HIV/AIDS today, how far we've come in fighting it, and how far we still have to go."

The full special report is now available to view online for those of you who missed it on HBO. Give it a watch above to find out how close we really are to finding a cure for this disease and erradicating this global epidemic.

This story appears in the December issue of VICE magazine.

This August, VICE News filmmaker Medyan Dairieh gained exclusive access to the Syrian branch of al Qaeda, al Nusra, a jihadist group fighting against President Bashar al Assad's forces and the Islamic State.

Spending more than a month with al Nusra and exploring their expanding territory, Dairieh met the highest-ranking members of the organization, who revealed their identity onscreen for the first time and discussed their military doctrine.

Al Nusra, which swore allegiance to al Qaeda two years ago and is now emerging as a powerful force to rival the Islamic State in Syria, has seized several strategic towns in the northwestern province of Idlib. While it supplies water, electricity, and food to the local population, al Nusra is also running a school, the Lion Cubs Religious Academy, in Aleppo, where it grooms young boys to become the next generation of al Qaeda and prepares them for jihad.

Not all of the children in the Lion Cubs Religious Academy come from families affiliated with al Qaeda, but the majority do. Taught that dying in jihad will make them martyrs, they will likely join the tens of thousands of child soldiers being used and abused in conflicts around the world.

Abu Anas (left) a student who recently arrived from Uzbekistan, is still learning Arabic. He told VICE that he misses his relatives in his home country but doesn't miss Uzbekistan itself, because "they don't approve of jihad and they call us terrorists. They're frightened by us. They don't want jihad. They don't want Allah's laws." Questioned again later, he said his father "died as a martyr" but wouldn't disclose where.

The children sing songs with lyrics like: "Oh, Mother, don't be sad; I've chosen the land of jihad. / Wipe your tears, I only went to defeat the Jews."

Al Nusra now controls territories in Aleppo and Idlib. The group is currently fighting on three fronts: against the Syrian regime, Kurdish forces, and the Islamic State.

"The young will establish a caliphate, following the prophet's traditions, and they will carry the message of jihad," Abu Baser, the children's teacher, told VICE.

Even growing up surrounded by war, the young boys still experience many of the fixtures of a regular childhood. They play sports. They go on school trips to an old amusement park where they push bumper cars left immobile without electricity. They swim in a pool, some diving confidently, some clinging to rubber rings.

Many of the children have seen horrific acts. A boy from Idlib said: "I witnessed the Nusayris kill the men and slaughter the women and children.

"There are many without any religious knowledge," he continued. "I'll teach them and invite them, but if they don't listen, then I'll use the sword."

Abu Khatab al Maqdisi, the al Nusra Front member assigned to show VICE around, spoke of the students with pride. "God willing, we hope that these cubs will lead the nation and end oppression," he said. "Hopefully they'll be a powerful generation... The guys in charge of education are doing their best and working with the available resources to raise this generation, which will be leading the jihad in the future."

While driving to the front line at the Abu al Duhur airbase in Idlib, al Maqdisi said the Lion Cubs Religious Academy was a reason for hope. He rejoices "when one sees children like these who grow up obeying God... raised correctly, who in the near future will reach an age in which they can go into training camps and hold weapons. They will be the next generation to carry the burden of jihad and lead the nation... jihad in Syria and outside, God willing. One wishes to be a child again and be with them."

Back in the school, Abu Ashak (not pictured), a young student who looks to be about ten years old, said that his father and brother were fighting for al Nusra in Qalamoun, where they were under siege by the Islamic State and the Lebanese army. The boy said he hadn't seen or spoken to them in two years.

"My father reminds me of Osama bin Laden, who terrorized and fought the Americans, and one day my father will be like him," he continued. "And I want to be like Osama's son. He spends his time preaching to people, and from a young age he started learning the Qur'an, so he became a sheikh at a young age. That's why it's important to think about my future now."

Abu Ashak said attending the academy was vital because "it helps me prepare myself for Judgment Day, but also it's important to go to school to secure your future. You must plan for your future."

Meanwhile, Abu Ashak's younger brother, Abu Omayer (right), who appears to be about the age of a kindergartener, said his parents sent him to the academy. "I want to be an inghamasi for Allah's sake," he said, smiling bashfully.

Sheikh Abdu Salam, a leader of al Nusra who had never before appeared on camera, spoke to VICE in an exclusive interview. "The difference between the first generation of al Qaeda and the second one is that the first one had to operate secretly in areas under tyrants' control, like Syria and other countries," he said. "Then it changed to direct fighting as a group.

"The new generation, praise be to God, they saw the real face of al Qaeda. God made it easy for them... This new generation of al Qaeda is more aware, so we know that this battle, God willing, has a settled outcome, which is victory against the regime and establishing our own Islamic state."

The author, riding an as-of-now unexploded hoverboard. Photo by Mike Pearl

At last, we've gotten to the fun part of the hoverboard backlash. We've weathered the inane "wait, that's not a real hoverboard" storm, largely bypassed the "people falling off of them" stage (besides one video it wasn't even funny to watch people crash on them), and watched as Wiz Khalifa taped his own hoverboard arrest.

We've finally reached the "HOLY SHIT THE FUCKING HOVERBOARDS ARE EXPLODING!" phase of the hoverboard backlash. Last month, there were multiple reports of exploding hoverboards in the UK, who, much like with the Beatles and young adult fiction about magical teens, beat us to yet another trend.

A couple of days ago, there were reports of a hoverboard exploding in Louisiana, leading to the destruction of a home. In the past few days, video has surfaced of an Alabama man's hoverboard catching fire, only to have the thing straight-up explode after his mom threw some baking soda on it in a (really weird) attempt to put it out.

Watch the man, Timothy Cade, speak to NBC affiliate WKRG about the incident, which he partially captured on film.

Cade claims to have purchased the off-brand hoverboard for cheap from Amazon.

A recent Wired report credited cheap batteries on hoverboards manufactured in China with the explosions. So if you're in the market for a hoverboard, don't get a shitty one.

Follow Drew on Twitter.

Plastic surgeons, twin brothers Maurizio and Roberto Viel

Richard Jones, a journalist from Bromsgrove, England, is talking about his penis.

"I'm looking at it in the mirror now," he says down the phone. "It hangs almost half way to my knees. If you think of a tin of Right Guard aerosol, it's like that but a bit fatter. If I try and put my thumb and first finger round it, they don't meet."

He pauses for a moment. Then decides he hasn't quite offered enough detail.

"The first time my husband saw it, his expression was just terror. Safe to say, he very much likes it now."

Richard is one of a growing number of men who have had a penis enlargement. He paid £7,000 last October for a pair of London surgeons to augment him. Firstly, they sliced open the pubis and severed a ligament so that his manhood hangs an extra inch and half longer, to six inches flaccid. Secondly, they removed a quantity of fat from his stomach and injected it into the shaft of the penis to increase the girth by about two inches. Erect, it's worth noting, it's remained roughly the same size as before.

The whole operation lasted little more than an hour and Richard was able to have sex again within a month. Today, he says he has no visible sign of scarring.

"I was never small, but I thought it would be nice to have it done," shrugs the 39-year-old. "And it's improved my confidence so much. It's a lovely feeling, walking into a room and thinking, If we all got our cocks out here, I'd have the biggest. I see people in the gym showers checking it out. My only regret is I didn't have it done ten years earlier."

Penis enlargement is—and there's no way of avoiding the pun here—a fast-growing business. The increasing availability of pornography, the rise of advertising that features the male crotch—think David Beckham in his underwear, or Cristiano Ronaldo in his underwear, or Rafael Nadal in his underwear—and the ubiquitous spam emails telling us all we need to be bigger downstairs has, so the theory goes, created a generation of men anxious about what they're packing. One study carried out at King's College, London, found that a third of us stress over it.

All of this has led, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, to some 15,000 enlargements taking place worldwide every year, up from way under a thousand just four years ago. Which is why I am here at the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, the clinic of doctors Maurizio and Roberto Viel.

The twin brothers from Italy are largely acknowledged as Europe's finest penis boosters. Together, they have been performing what they term penoplasty operations since 1991. The pair—who both have medical degrees from the University of Milan—were the first surgeons to offer the service outside the US.

"It actually started with a girl coming into our clinic and asking if we could make her boyfriend's penis bigger," remembers Dr. Maurizio. "This was a request we had not heard before, but she'd read about it being done in America. So we looked into it and decided this was a service we could provide. The funny thing is the girl never came back. Maybe she split from him. Maybe he was less keen."

"Some men, as soon as they finish sex and lose their erection, they cover up immediately because they don't want to show their partner the flaccid penis. They feel embarrassed. That's no way to live."
—Maurizio Viel

Today, the pair perform more than 400 such operations a year at their two clinics in Dubai and London's Harley Street. They make more than a million pounds per annum from the procedures. Men from across Europe and Asia come to them, and there is no stereotypical patient, they say. Customers include everyone from high earners to the unemployed; gay, straight, young, old, and all nationalities.

"We had an African gentlemen visit us recently," says Maurizio. "And his size... I had to say to him, 'This is not a penis that needs making any longer, this is just fine how it is.' We ended up compromising and I gave him a little more girth."

The pair won't operate on anyone under 18 and tend to turn down anyone in their late teens or early twenties. "They are so young," says Roberto. "I say to them, 'Go out and use it first.' Then, if they're still unhappy in a couple of years, come back and we'll talk more. We have a duty of care to our patients. We don't just operate on anyone. We look into the reasons why they want this done and, only when we're certain this is not a psychological issue, only then do we proceed."

Which raises the key question here: Why exactly do so many guys want their dicks enlarged?

"To feel more confident," says Maurizio. "It's the same rationale as behind a woman wanting bigger breasts. These guys feel better in themselves to know they're bigger. Some men, as soon as they finish sex and lose their erection, they cover up immediately because they don't want to show their partner the flaccid penis. They feel embarrassed. That's no way to live."

Would they have it done themselves? I ask. There's a pause.

"If I felt it was something I wanted, yes," nods Maurizio. "Personally, though, I'm not the biggest—I admit that—but what I have is enough for me. I think, with sex, quality is as important as quantity."

Another pause.

"I've had a nose job—Roberto did it. So maybe when I'm 80 years old I will do this, just to try something new. Why not?"

A promotional image for the documentary 'Big Like Me,' in which Gregory Bergman tries a range of penis enlargement options

A penis enlargement is arguably more important for some men than others. One of the most common conditions the Viels see are guys with what's medically called a micro-penis.

"These are so small they do not hang below the scrotum," explains Roberto. "Some, they are like a button. You'd be surprised. It's not very common but it happens. For these men, the surgery is really very necessary. For them, we are offering a life-changing service."

The optimum penis size, the brothers reckon, is "whatever makes you happy." But if someone came in asking for, say, a 12-inch upgrade, they would tell them this was impossible.

"The lengthening operation—the cutting of the ligament—allows you to only extend a penis by two inches at most," says Maurizio. "If a surgeon promises you more, they are misleading you. Theoretically you can keep increasing the girth, but too much will lead to the penis being too heavy, causing erectile problems in later life. It needs to be done in moderation."

There can be complications, too. The doctors say that 90 percent of their patients leave—like Richard—delighted with the results. I speak to one other guy from Leeds who asks not to be named. He tells me that having "a cock like a can of Foster's is probably the best thing about me."

Nonetheless, issues can arise. An elongated penis rarely retains the same angle of erection post-op. Scarring occasionally remains visible under the pubic hair. Infections have been known occur. The pain in the first couple of weeks can be considerable—especially if the patient becomes erect.

"This is why we prescribe a drug to stop this happening," says Roberto. "Plus, we tell the patient: 'Stay away from the wife.' Do complications happen? Very occasionally. The important thing is that we deal with them right. The key thing—the thing that men are most bothered about—is will it work properly after the operation. And yes, it will. There is no doubt of that."

Related: Watch 'The Digital Love Industry,' our film about the ways that technology is changing sex.

Do they not worry that they are feeding on male insecurity? I ask. Did they really work through medical degrees for this?

"We don't save lives, this is true," says Maurizio. "But we do improve the quality of them. We make people feel better about themselves. We transform their confidence. You only have one life and there's no point spending it unhappily. I feel we're doing a good thing here."

As I think back to Richard and his husband and their delight at the results, there seems little arguing with that.

"It's very satisfying when you've completed an operation," nods Maurizio. "It's nice to look at a penis and know you've made it more pleasing."

Follow Colin Drury on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Donald Trump loves to talk about Donald Trump, which is not a problem because everyone loves to hear about Donald Trump. His fans love to bask in his increasingly-thinly-veiled fascism, and his anti-fans love to roll their eyes and gnash their teeth at whatever horrific idea he has just endorsed. You, reading this right now, are part of the problem, and so am I. Whatever else he is, the puffy-faced former TV show host is the hottest thing on the internet since a cat first adorably mashed a keyboard, and he knows it.

So it's no surprise that, while speaking to a rally in Georgia on Monday, Trump suggested, according to NBC News, that CNN should pay him $5 million to appear at the network's next GOP debate.

"How about I tell CNN, who doesn't treat me properly. I'm not gonna do the next debate, OK? I won't do the debate unless they pay me $5 million, all of which goes to wounded warriors or goes to vets," he said.

Trump previously wanted $10 million to be donated to charity in order for him to appear at CNN's first presidential debate, and it's become fashionable for the more anti-establishment GOP candidates to treat the networks not as the medium by which their message reaches potential voters, but as adversaries. Trump claimed responsibility for forcing CNBC to shorten its debate, and the Republican Party as a whole slammed that network for the moderators' supposedly biased questions.

The next GOP debate is scheduled to be held in Las Vegas on December 15. Trump is going to be there and we'll have to listen to him, again.

Follow Brian on Twitter.

Nativity illustration by Stephen Maurice Graham, originally commissioned for a very different feature

"Do you run a Christmas gift guide?" You'll be surprised how many times I've been asked this question, in recent months. Three—which is three more than I had last year, when I didn't do this gig full time. Which goes to prove, perhaps, that video games are more consumables than culture, more kitchen appliances than art. Argue that amongst yourselves, or don't, it's your time you're wasting.

Anyway, these questions got me thinking: what do I need a guide for? I've never needed one for shopping, for buying presents for friends and family—though I dare say that both wish that I had. (Always keep the receipts.) But I have used guides for role-playing video games. Definitely Final Fantasy VII, possibly others. (OK, I've flicked through them in GAME, and that's enough.) And because I just replayed The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which you can read about here, a little light bulb went off in this otherwise blacker-than-midnight brain of mine: a choose-your-own-adventure guide to buying the right games console this Christmas. Do it, the little voice in my head urged. Do it. And, naively, I did. Have "fun."

1

Do you actually want a new video games console?

Yes: go to 6
No: go to 3
Consoles? Ha! Baby toys. Buy a PC, you imbeciles: go to 15

2

Excellent. You're in the market for a second, then? There's only one choice, really: Nintendo's Wii U. Yes, I know, it's not as fast as that other box of buzzing and whirring noises and flashing lights you've got sat under or on top of or just beside your HD tellybox, and it lacks the third-party support of the PS4 and Xbone, which means no Metal Gear Solid and no Witcher and no Fallout. But the Wii U's exclusive games represent the best exclusive games available right now.

I can guarantee you that 30 minutes of online play in Splatoon will fill you with more cheer than three hours in the company of Black Ops III's multiplayer deathmatches. OK, I can't guarantee that—but if you legitimately prefer bloody headshots and wall-runs over squashing squiddy foes with giant paint rollers while attempting to splatter ink across as much of a shopping mall or art gallery as you can inside three minutes, you're a decaying husk of a human being. And Super Mario Maker is the single greatest does-what-it-says-on-the-tin game of this generation. Did you grow up dreaming of creating your own Mushroom Kingdom levels? Now, you can. And it's amazing. There are millions of levels online, right now, built by other players for complete strangers on the other side of the world to die in, repeatedly. I can't get enough of it.

Buy a Wii U. Just do it. You can play all the old Wii games on it, too, like the amazing Super Mario Galaxy and that Zelda game with all the waving about and Wii Sports, so all that Xbone backwards compatibility noise? Yeah, Nintendo trumped it at launch.

I'd really rather own anything but a Wii U, sorry: go to 12
I'm sold: go to 16

3

There's a video game for every kind of person under this shared sun of ours that will one day wipe out life as we know it, but fine. I can't help you. Here are some articles about furries.

4

Well, both the PS4 and Xbone run Fallout 4 just fine, in case you change your mind. We should probably find out what you do like.

Yeah, OK: go to 11

5

You want to play Uncharted, is what you're saying. That's as close a game as I can think of that adheres to a summer blockbuster format, only longer* and with more quick-time events. The next Uncharted, the fourth "proper" one, A Thief's End, is out in March 2016 and exclusive to PS4. If you can't wait that long, Rise of the Tomb Raider is essentially the same thing, but with a greater emphasis on (optional) puzzles and better ponytails, and currently exclusive to Xbone—but it will be on PS4 by the end of 2016. Neither of the two games is likely to pose a substantial challenge for the most beginner-level gamer, as both are designed to be played to their storyline climaxes. (*Future Michael Bay movies may trouble this, mind.)

Licensed products wise, Batman: Arkham Knight is great if you can get to grips with some dodgy vehicle combat – it's equally impressive on either console, but for the love of all you hold dear don't bother sticking it into a PC – and Mad Max, which is nothing to do with Fury Road whatsoever (apart from that very small thing about that guy, but never mind), is a graphical stunner even as it plays within predictable parameters. Now, are we done here, or what?

Nope: go to 11
I can't bear any more of this, and have made my decision: go to 16

New on VICE Sports: The Cult: Gareth Southgate

6

Excellent, let's get this convoluted show on the virtual road. We're not actually going anywhere, you understand. You don't even need to leave your house these days, if you're in the market for a new games console—Other People will bring it to you once you've ordered what you want on the internet. I know, I know. It's the future, right now. Now, to help me help you, I need to know if you already own one of the two, let's say, "main" games consoles on the market as of right now. By which I mean the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, or the Xbone as we like to call it around these parts purely because it sounds a bit rude. Do you own either of those consoles?

Yes: go to 2
No: go to 12

7

You and every other bastard on the internet right now, eh? I am so bored of reading about Fallout 4, but that's the nature of the games media, isn't it? Wait for a big game to come out and absolutely rinse the thing until there's nothing left for the player themselves to discover, that hasn't already been given the op-ed treatment by one of those websites where whinging piss-babies go off on one anytime a publisher decides that they've gone and done wrong and takes the appropriate course of action. Sorry, I got a little off track there. Fallout 4's fine. You'll probably like it. How about we find out what else you like?

Yeah, OK: go to 11

8

Personally, I think the Xbox One has the PS4 beat in the racing genre. Its exclusive Forza Motorsport 6, which came out in the autumn of 2015, is several hairpins ahead of what Sony's offering at the moment ("at the moment" meaning "before the next Gran Turismo comes out"). You can also play the multi-platform Project CARS on the Xbone, which is a pretty dry sim when it wants to be, but strip back the realism and it becomes a rollicking arcade-y racer. Naturally, none of this compares to the shells-on-everything rush of Mario Kart 8, but we've already established you don't give a shit about Nintendo, so, what now?

I know what system to buy: go to 16
I'd like you to tell me about something else via this already-getting-tired format: go to 11

9

My personal favorite game of the year, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, is essentially what a Game of Thrones video game should be. It's that sort of vaguely low-fantasy, grit-and-gore (melo)drama set against a basic gameplay system that cribs from Rockstar's horses-for-muscle-cars Red Dead Redemption, takes out the guns and lets you spit fire from your fingertips instead. It's brilliant. I have put more hours into it than any other game of 2015 and I challenge you to hate it. You can't. It's bloody wonderful.

Some will argue The Witcher's not as good as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain when it comes to this year's most enveloping open-world games, but, y'know, they're wrong. The new Metal Gear is really good too, though, and just like Wild Hunt, it's pretty much the same whether you play it on Xbone or PS4. Somebody on YouTube has inevitably published a frame-rate comparison video, sliding one screen up against the other with a little wobbly graph thing bouncing around atop the two, so if you're a total dullard you can click across to that and really get a steer on which machine will deliver the optimum performance. But, honestly, the odd bit of slow down is very unlikely to affect your enjoyment of any game, unless it's set in Gotham. So if it's immersive role-playing games you love, both consoles have you covered. Sold yet?

Yep: go to 16
I'm still browsing: go to 11

10

Congratulations, you're the worst. Just kidding. I get that some people just want to play the stuff that everyone else in the entire world is playing, and that's cool—you can always get a match going online, which is more than can be said for Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash. Both the PS4 and the Xbone play FIFA and CoD real good. And if that's all you need, I guess you're sold?

Absolutely: go to 16
Actually, maybe I want to try something a little different: go to 11

11

Which is? (And if you've been here before, don't select an option you've already read or you'll be stuck in an everlasting loop of scrolling up and down and arriving at nowhere.)

Racing games: go to 8
Role-playing games that have more swords than Fallout 4: go to 9
Call of Duty and FIFA games, every year, without fail: go to 10
Action games which are basically movies but I press buttons: go to 5
I've heard about these "indie games": go to 13
What about console exclusives, like that one with the mustaches: go to 14

12

OK, you should probably buy either a PS4 or Xbox One, as while I love Nintendo's Wii U a little too much—I mean, look at how cute it is, and a whole bunch of its first-party games are just adorable—unless your blood flows red one way and green the other because Mario and Luigi are both your dad, you're going to be left wanting when the Big Shootybangs and Epic Adventures and Realistic Racers come along. The Wii U doesn't have those. It has Super Mario Maker and Splatoon and a bunch of other games you can play when there's a small child in the room, but no Fallout 4. And, be fair, you want a console that can run Fallout 4, right?

Nah: go to 4
Sure: go to 7

Article continues after the video below

Watch VICE's documentary on the world of eSports

13

I'm not about to get into the deeper details or debate around what is and what isn't an "indie" game – but both the Xbone and the PS4 (and the Wii U, for that matter) have their share of titles available that aren't made by massive teams with towering piles of money. Some of these indie games are platform-exclusive affairs, so it's worth checking out reviews and footage before deciding which is the right machine for you. (I mean, you should do that, anyway. Do your research. Don't buy a new console just because I tell you to. I'm not your dad. Probably.)

Microsoft's gigantic brick has Ori and the Blind Forest, a beautiful platformer that is as visually spectacular as it is pad-tossingly difficult at times, and coming up are a couple of potential crackers: Below is a top-down role-player that's promising Dark Souls levels of combat challenge and survival know-how, and Cuphead is a side-scrolling run-and-gun game that looks like it came right off a page at Disney in the 1940s.

On the PS4 you've already got the stealthy Volume, the action-RPG Transistor and the turn-based strategy of Invisible, Inc, all of which are worth investigating – and in 2016 comes the PS4-exclusive indie game that could change everything, No Man's Sky. Want to know about anything else?

Obviously: go to 11
Nah, I'm done and I've made my decision: go to 16

14

Now this is a battleground so littered with bodies from previous console wars that it's hard to get a true read of the lay of the land. However, with both the PS4 and Xbone now two years into their rivalry, a few gems have emerged. There's dross, obviously. Knack, on the PS4, is just... Look, just don't, OK? And then there's LocoCycle on the One, which takes your absolute lowest expectations for a game about a sentient motorbike dragging a mechanic around and stamps that already-don't-care understanding into the dirt until it's wholly unrecognisable. Both consoles have a handful of mid-tier titles worth a go if you're completely desperate—The Order: 1886 (fantastic facial hair) and Ryse: Son of Rome (shiny shields and swords) certainly look good while playing entirely ordinarily, on PS4 and Xbone respectively. Which brings us to the essentials.

FromSoftware's gothic masterpiece Bloodborne is easily the standout PS4 exclusive of 2015, closely followed by the entirely under-hyped horror of Until Dawn, while the remastered version of the PS3's The Last of Us is a must-play-no-seriously-I-mean-it for when the properly new adventures are on pause. My favourite online multiplayer game of 2015, the jet-powered cars-playing-football hilarity of Rocket League, is PS4 only when it comes to consoles (for now). On the Xbone, the timed exclusivity of the Uncharted-alike Rise of the Tomb Raider makes it a platform-specific best in show, for now, and you've also got Halo 5: Guardians and next year's Gears of War 4 never going blue. Pays your money, takes your choice – assessed purely on exclusives, the two machines are fairly neck and neck, right now. Need to know anything more?

Please, if you don't mind: go to 11
My decision is made: go to 16

15

You terrific bore.

16

I'm happy for you. Have all the joy with your new games console.

I appreciate that I could have gone into detail about the hardware, what pad feels better five hours into a session, and which machine streams that episode of Doctor Who you missed last Saturday with no hiccups, but mostly, who cares? You're in this for the games. Those are what matter, and if you're one of these weird partisan freaks who'll only ever buy consoles bearing a certain brand, with no regard given to what fun you can or can't have with it, then more fool you. Course, the correct thing to do is to own all three consoles, so maybe don't eat properly for a few months. It's almost Christmas: steal leftovers from every party, freeze those scraps, and spend what you save across the beginning of 2016 on video games. You'll thank me come March when you're not only a level 39 Witcher, but those Easter Eggs have never tasted so delicious.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

Illustration by Elizabeth Renstrom

This story appears in the December issue of VICE magazine.

Sometime around 2008, the website AzizIsBored.com began redirecting to the more straight-ahead AzizAnsari.com. Old website names can tell you something about their creators, in this case, actor and comedian Aziz Ansari. When AzizIsBored.com was first purchased, in 2005, Ansari was finishing up a marketing degree at NYU, hitting up open mics and comedy nights around the city. Since then, he's become one of America's most popular stand-ups and distinctive comedic actors, selling out national tours and starring alongside Amy Poehler for seven seasons on the hit TV show Parks and Recreation. Since this time last year, Ansari has published Modern Romance, an engaging and unexpectedly research-driven pop-psychology book on relationships in the digital age; sold out Madison Square Garden twice in the same night; toured with Amy Schumer; and, not least of all, created and starred in a new show, Master of None, which debuted ten episodes in November to wide acclaim and a slew of media coverage, from Fresh Air to Fallon. These days, it seems safe to assume, the prolific 32-year-old has been less bored. Aziz Is Really Busy would seem more like it.

A few days before the show's release, I met Ansari for lunch at an upscale bagel spot in SoHo, where the hostesses and server greeted him with familiarity (whether it was as a celebrity or a regular customer was hard to say). Although he now lives in Manhattan—and has on and off since enrolling at NYU in 2001—a lot is made of Ansari's being a native son of South Carolina, where I was born and raised, also by Asian immigrant parents. I wanted to know what his experience of growing up in Bennettsville, a town of 9,000 with an Asian population of less than 0.5 percent, was like.

"It was weird," he said, "but it was one of those things where I'd never lived anywhere else or had a frame of reference to know it was weird at the time. I was the only minority; it was only white kids in my school. People always ask me, like, 'Were people racist?' And I'm like, 'No, not really.' I mean, occasionally, but it was never super mean, not as mean as, like, other crazy stories I've heard from friends."

This wasn't the answer I had expected, given my own experience of small-town South Carolina, which I found to be a fairly antagonistic place, more in line with the nuanced if blunt observations to be found in Ansari's act, when he describes the state as a crossroads between racism and good biscuits.

I asked whether growing up as an outsider had shaped his perspective as a comedian, and Ansari redirected the question. "Again, you don't feel that when you're there," he said. "Like, me being an Indian guy from South Carolina was not treated as such a crazy thing until I came to New York. It was not a thing in South Carolina; it's now when it's a thing."

"We're a generation that has so many choices, that finds it really hard to make its choices. Your thirties is when you finally have to fucking make those choices."

After our server stacked an impressively architectural arrangement of our dishes—including plates of whitefish salad, sable, and meticulously sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion, with other salads and a basket of everything bagels to the side—we constructed our sandwiches and discussed the origins of his show. As the semiautobiographical character Dev, a struggling Indian American actor in New York, Ansari makes his way through his early 30s like many in his demographic—going on dates, attending weddings, grabbing coffee with friends, cooking pasta for his girlfriend (Noël Wells), reevaluating his relationship with his aging parents, and trying to get ahead in his career—in short, he's a rounded character whose parents happen to come from India. Starring as members of Ansari's inner circle of friends are Kelvin Yu, Lena Waithe, Ravi Patel, and Eric Wareheim (of the comedy duo Tim & Eric)—"my token white friend," Ansari recently quipped to Jimmy Fallon. The cast is a refreshing change from the historically lily-white worlds of similar ensemble comedies set in New York—Girls, Seinfeld, Friends, the list goes on—where people of color rarely appear in any significant way.

Co-creators Ansari and Alan Yang, a writer on Parks and Recreation, set out simply to do "a premium-cable-type show, with cursing and no content restrictions." But when they started writing, they realized that they were in a unique position to tell stories informed by the kinds of personal experiences that are rarely shown on TV, as they did in the episode "Parents," which dramatizes the divide between immigrants and their American-born children and features Ansari's actual parents as Dev's parents.

"No show starring a white guy is going to do an episode like 'Indians on TV,'" Ansari told me, referring to the standout episode that deals with racist stereotypes and quotas in media. He brought up a recent round table with Empire creator Lee Daniels. "Black people hate white people writing for black people," Daniels told the audience. "It's so offensive."

"I really related to that because a lot of times people don't get it right," Ansari explained. For Master of None, he worked closely with Waithe to develop the character of Denise, Dev's friend, who is a black lesbian. " really helped tailor everything to make it sound right, and there's stuff in there that I wouldn't have been able to write without her help. I try to be very conscious of that issue with all the characters."

That a show as diverse and representative as Master of None exists is offered by some as evidence of changing times in the TV industry, where diversity has finally started creeping in, with shows created by and starring people of color, such as Empire, Key and Peele, The Mindy Project, and Fresh off the Boat, among others. Still, Ansari isn't convinced. "Guess what?" he'd said during an Entertainment Weekly panel in October. "Every other show is still white people." Ansari told me how Brian, Yu's character, was an important one for them to get right. "Asian guys have had such a rough time in their representation in film and television. That's one thing Alan always used to say: 'You think everything's all right? When's the last time you've seen an Asian guy kiss someone?' Only in the past few years has that really happened.

"They don't fuck anybody at the end of those movies," he added, laughing, and it's worth noting that is not the case in Master of None. Sex plays in Ansari's stand-up act too, in the exaggerated form of now retired frat-bro alter ego Randy (or, as he calls him, Raaaaaaaandy, "with eight A's"), who boasts of such feats as giving cunnilingus while underwater and receiving blowjobs in an igloo.

READ: Realistic Asian-Americans Have Finally Arrived on TV

But Dev is a far cry from Randy or from the role Ansari is best known for, Tom Haverford, the catcalling government employee he played on Parks and Recreation. The new character's views about sex and women are more like the real-life Ansari's, whose 2015 Live at Madison Square Garden comedy special included bits about how frequently women are harassed by men—basically all the time. This reality is echoed in the episode "Ladies & Gentlemen," which shows the stark difference between a female character's frightening late-night walk home, tailed by a stranger, and the 2 AM jaunt of Dev and Arnold (Wareheim), set to the tune of "Don't Worry, Be Happy." When Dev finds out about her experience, he seeks to better understand—and help enact some change.

It's a socially-engaged approach to making comedy, as well as to just being a decent human being, which still isn't without its drama. " figured his shit out for the most part," Ansari told me, helping himself to some whitefish salad. "But that's still scary. You're like, 'All right. I guess this is who I am as an adult.' Whether you decide to get married or have a kid, that changes the course of your life. We're a generation that has so many choices, that finds it really hard to make its choices. Your thirties is when you finally have to fucking make those choices."

Making the right decisions in a world overloaded with choices is a primary theme, too, in Modern Romance. "Historically, we're at a unique moment," Ansari and his co-author, psychologist Eric Klinenberg, write. "No one has ever been presented with more options in romance... With all these choices, how can anyone possibly be sure that they've made the right one?" The mood of inquiry continues throughout Master of None. Constantly, characters are bogged down by things that need deciding: whether to go to Nashville on a first date, whether to break up or settle down, whether to do a racist accent to land a role, where to get tacos. It's over these conversations that Master of None lingers and ruminates with a patient, if occasionally slack, naturalistic style.

"Our influences were a lot of these seventies films where things have a little bit more room to breathe," Ansari explained. "Now I think the instinct is just so fast-paced. We wanted to slow it down," he said, citing influences such as Woody Allen, Hal Ashby, The Heartbreak Kid, and The Graduate. He complimented Richard Linklater's Before trilogy for its "natural-sounding dialogue."

"No, no one cares. It doesn't matter what the ethnicity of these characters is, as long as it's real and funny and good."

As we finished lunch, our conversation returned to "Indians on TV." The episode opens with a brutal montage of Indian caricatures in media, ranging from Ashton Kutcher hawking potato chips in brownface to that guy who eats chilled monkey brains in Indiana Jones. Next we see Dev and Ravi's auditions for a role as a cab driver. When asked to read in an accent, Ravi, played by Patel, is fine with it, but Dev protests and isn't called back. A little later, the two are vying for spots on a sitcom but are flatly told, "There can't be two."

"My favorite thing about it's proving the point the whole time," Ansari said. "It's saying no, no one cares. It doesn't matter what the ethnicity of these characters is, as long as it's real and funny and good."

What carries Master of None, ultimately, is these moments when one senses a funny yet piercing truth in the scenarios, a kind of personal testimony. At their best, these moments deliver something reminiscent of the hilarious yet searing social critiques of Chris Rock and Louis CK, two of Ansari's comedy heroes, but are also original in their mash-up of immigrant narratives and cultural issues such as gender privilege and stereotyping in the media.

"That opening scene of me at the audition, like, that's real," Ansari admitted toward the end of our meal. "You go into an audition and you see all these Indian guys there and you're like, 'Oh, I get it. I know what this is going to be.' And someone asks you do to an audition in an accent, it's a weird moment. And you do have to decide if you're going to do it or not. Some people are comfortable with doing it; other people are not. We tried to get all the kinds of perspectives."

As we left the restaurant, Ansari came across a friend, a well-dressed Asian-American woman around his age. They'd been chatting before we sat down for lunch, and I had apologized for interrupting them.

"Oh, don't worry about it," she'd replied. "I get to see him all the time." With the success of Master of None likely meaning greater opportunities for Ansari, and perhaps others from underrepresented groups, America might also be so lucky.

Follow James Yeh on Twitter.

Robert Lewis Dear. Photo via El Paso County Sheriff's Office

Four days after the deadly mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado Springs, a crucial question about the suspect, 57-year-old Robert Lewis Dear, remains: Was the assault a political act, or simply the random undertaking of a madman?

The question is important politically. Planned Parenthood itself and many on the left side of the American ideological spectrum have said extremist anti-abortion rhetoric is at least partly to blame for the violence, and view this as just the latest chapter in a decades-long campaign of violent terrorism against reproductive freedom. The right, on the other hand—which often views abortion itself as an act of violence—has largely dismissed Dear as a crazy person unrelated to any mainstream politics, an interpretation offered by Donald Trump, among other wannabe statesmen.

A deeply reported New York Times story that dropped Tuesday afternoon attempted to suss out the answer to that question. Dear was certainly disturbed, the paper found, but he also apparently had longstanding anti-abortion views:

A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent, though another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said "no more baby parts" to investigators, a law enforcement official said.

One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing "God's work." In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as "heroes" members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.

In addition to sympathizing with murderers, Dear allegedly beat his second wife, committed serial adultery, and even raped a married woman he became obsessed with after meeting her at a Sears. He seems to have alternated between fits of religious frenzy, often expressed in all caps on the internet, and episodes of (sometimes-violent) hedonism.

It's safe to say the religious right—and, for that matter, Republican presidential candidates—aren't likely to admit their own rhetoric has any kind of impact on people like Dear. And as the New Yorker has noted, unlike many terrorists who have attacked Planned Parenthood clinics in the past, Dear wasn't a veteran anti-abortion activist, so the linkage between him and right-wing extremism isn't so clear-cut. But whatever his mental state, it's increasing clear that this man's choice of target was not a random one. In other words, there's a reason that some Planned Parenthood clinics across America are currently reviewing their security measures.

Follow Matt Taylor on Twitter.

The Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis that was the site of an apparently racially-motivated shooting last week. Photo via Flickr user Tony Webster

Every blue moon, they make their way into the news cycle: so-called "sovereign citizens" groups. These anti-government crusaders believe they are not subject to laws on the local, state or federal level. That means they often refuse to carry proper ID, or pay taxes, which they deem illegitimate—if not unholy. They don't even recognize United States currency. These types don't much trust police, either, and in that sense, you might expect them to share a kinship—however tenuous—with protesters outside a police department.

But sovereign citizens are also frequently racists, and the people protesting American police in 2015 are often black. Maybe that's why, when a hail of bullets erupted last Monday during a protest headed up by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP outside Minneapolis's fourth precinct police department, the gunfire allegedly came from at least one man linked to the anti-government movement.

Last week, several people suspected of involvement in the shooting were arrested. Among them was 23-year-old Allen "Lance" Scarsella, a former high school football player who allegedly fired eight times into the crowd, injuring five. In his indictment, under a section marked "statement of probable cause," investigators suggest Scarsella subscribed to the sovereign citizen movement, and that he went to the protest with friends to "stir things up" and "cause commotion."

Suffice it to say he got his wish.

The activists had gathered to protest the November 15 shooting of 24 year-old Jamar Clark, who was killed by Minneapolis police with a shot to the head. Not only was he unarmed, but witnesses say he was handcuffed when police fired the fatal shot. Ever since, protesters have encamped themselves outside the police department's fourth precinct, not far from where Clark took his last breaths. They're demanding that a video of the shooting be released, and have vowed to stay put until it is.

This protest apparently rubbed Scarsella and his friends the wrong way, and they made a point to show up to videotape and harass protesters on November 23, according to prosecutors. Scarsella supposedly told his cohorts to dress normally and blend in with the protesters, encouraging them to feel free to carry weapons. Avideo made public shortly after news of last week's shooting shows Scarsella and another man, both wearing masks, talk of their intention to "make the fire rise," at the protest, an apparent reference to a line the villain Bane utters in The Dark Knight Rises that has been adopted by some white supremacists. They sign off by saying, "Stay white."

Once there, protesters quickly tired of Scarsella and his antics, which included videotaping them despite their objections and his refusal to take off his mask or identify himself. A protester threw a punch, a chase ensued, and Scarsella's wish to "cause commotion" was fulfilled in the form of bullets fired from his .45-caliber handgun around 10:40 PM.

A couple hours later, investigators have learned, Scarsella called a police officer acquaintance of his outside of Minneapolis and told him he'd shot the five protesters. That officer advised him to turn himself and his guns over to police, and told investigators of Scarsella's fondness for the sovereign citizen philosophy, and that he knew him to carry guns. Scarsella, the officer told investigators, had "very intense opinions," and "negative experiences with and opinions about African Americans."

Investigators arrested Scarsella the morning after the shooting at his Bloomington, Minnesota, home, which they proceeded to search. They found "numerous guns and ammunition," according to the indictment, including a .45-caliber handgun similar to the one fired at protesters. They confiscated Scarsella's phone, discovering on it texts that further illustrated his alleged plans to disrupt and possibly disband the protest. Also in the phone were several photos of Scarsella carrying guns and some racist images, including his posing with the confederate flag.

Scarsella was charged, along with three other men, on Monday, and his bail was set at $500,000, according to Reuters. At a court appearance Tuesday afternoon, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman slapped the foursome with felony riot charges, and Scarsella with assault with a dangerous weapon.

Follow Brian McManus on Twitter.

Since last Saturday's violent clashes between desperate refugees and police, the scene at the camp outside Idomeni—the last Greek village before the border with Macedonia—has changed radically.

The refugees, who had been camped there while trying to enter Western Europe, have now been removed from the railway lines by border police. Barbed wire now blocks entry to the railway crossings and Macedonian soldiers have completed work on a three-meter-high metal fence erected along the border with Greece in an attempt to keep out any more refugees trying to get into Macedonia.

Protests began last Saturday, after one refugee was electrocuted when attempting to climb on a train wagon by accidentally holding onto the electric wires. He was one of about 1,500 people from the Middle East and North and Central Africa stranded between Greece and Macedonia after countries on the Balkan migrant route started turning away "economic migrants," letting in only Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans—or "war migrants"—after the Paris terror attacks.

Refugees stood in front of special security forces and the Macedonia Army guarding the passage, holding placards saying "Open the borders" and "We are not terrorists." At least ten Iranian demonstrators called a hunger strike, sewed their lips shut, and sat down in front of lines of Macedonian riot police.

But protests finally peaked in Idomeni on Saturday morning with the completion of the fence, and the electrocution of the 32-year-old Moroccan man, who was taken to a Red Cross hospital with severe burns. Riots broke out, with frustrated refugees throwing stones at Macedonian police forces, demanding they open the border. The police responded with stun grenades and tear gas, pushing the crowd back into Greek territory, injuring 18 police officers and an unknown number of refugees.

But the question still remains about what to do with the thousands stuck in Idomeni. As "war refugees" from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan continue to arrive from the islands of the eastern Aegean, tensions are mounting. The weather is worsening and clashes between campers of different nationalities—Morocans, Iranians, Pakistanis are still breaking out. Yet still, there seems to be no realistic plan for dealing with the problem.

We spoke to some of the refugees stranded at the Greek-Macedonian border:

Hamid Baba Ali, 18, Morocco

I was born in Casablanca, in western Morocco. I finished school there, but my parents died and I could not live alone. I have one sister, who is happily married—she stayed back with her husband. But I had no money and no work, so I decided to come to Europe for a better life. I arrived in Turkey and then went to Lesvos. I want to go to Munich, where I have friends and family, or to Utrecht. I want to study electromechanical engineering. But I have been trapped here at the Greece-Macedonia border for five days and do not know what should I do now.

Mohamed Biplob, 33, Bangladesh

I am from the capital, Dhaka. I am a member of the opposition party, the BNP, which denounced the 2014 elections. Two leading members of the party were killed recently. I had to leave the country, because the situation is very bad. I left behind my parents, my wife, and two daughters. I traveled through Turkey and I arrived in Greece via Kos. I want to go to Italy, to Rome because my cousin lives there and will be able to help me. I've been stuck at the border for ten days but no one is telling us what will happen.

Aladino Sfaxzer, 20, Tunisia

I have been trapped in Idomeni for 12 days now, in the buffer zone of the border. I've so far paid traffickers 2,500 euros to arrive at this point. I do not know where I will go or where I can live well. I used to work at a local radio station back home and because I wanted to express my opinion freely, I was arrested and beaten. Those of us who speak against the system receive the same treatment. There is no freedom there and I could not stay another moment. I can't predict what will happen to me now.

Amin Najafi, 26, Iran

I've been trapped at the border for ten days now. It's hard here—it gets so cold when it rains and we have no dry clothes. We live in small tents that let the air in. In Tehran, I had work and I dreamed about the future. I worked as a welder in a factory and was about to progress my life. But then I lost my job, so I decided to follow a group of my friends to Europe. I want to go to Germany or Sweden. I don't have someone waiting for me there, I hear different things from people who have gone ahead of me, but for now the only thing that matters is to get myself away from here.

Faysal Hassan, 16, Somalia

I was born in Mogadishu and from the first day of my life until now, the civil war and the fighting has been ongoing. My parents had a little money and sent me to a private school, which was destroyed by terrorist groups operating in the area. I left the country together with my sisters—I am now the man of the family and I want to get to Germany to start our lives from scratch. I came from Turkey to Greece, I do not remember which island we arrived on with the boat. We have been trapped in Idomeni for 12 days we have no other hope apart from this.

Millions of people take drugs. Hundreds of millions if you include alcohol and nicotine and, if you're a pedant or the author of the actual UK government's Psychoactive Substances Bill, caffeine—or anything else that has any kind of tangible effect on your brain or body.

Last year, 100,000 of those people took part in the Global Drug Survey, which is exactly what it sounds like: a chance for drug users around the world to contribute to a study into how people get fucked up.

This year's survey launched a couple of weeks ago, so if you want to take part and contribute to a bank of information that helps the GDS team develop handy tools like the world's first guide to safer drug use, or Drugs Meter, a phone app that tells its user all they need to know about their personal drug use, click here.

Look at Stephen Maurice Graham's website, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

All I need is a mattress on the floor and a wifi connection. And my bike. Also, I could use some cheap beer. Do you sell beer any cheaper than this?

All I want out of life is to spend time with my friends every day. And to be able to travel, to have enough free time to work on projects, to stay up-to-date on movies, books, and music, and to constantly be learning and bettering myself. I just want a Dilbert–type gig, something cubicle-based that gives me free time to focus on the creative stuff that's my actual work—you know, until I get some recognition and can quit the day job. I don't feel like I'm asking for too much.

Man I hope I get some recognition soon.

Nobody told me my new meds would react like that with alcohol. My feet are sore from dancing. The party was so awesome, I ended up talking to some weird hippie guy about philosophy for three hours. No, obviously I didn't drive afterwards. I don't know who drove. I don't know whose car that was.

On Broadly: The Internet's Secretive Sprained Ankle Fetishists

Should I start applying to grad schools? Should I learn Japanese? Should I have majored in something like petroleum science? Should I blow off tomorrow's job interview and go to Joshua Tree with you guys?

I'm not really thinking about where the relationship is going. I'm not sure I'm even a relationship person. I guess I can see myself just dating one person if we had some kind of supernatural, soul-to-soul connection. Kids are disgusting.

Sorry in advance about my place. I've been too depressed to clean. I quit taking those meds. I'm not sure I'll ever be society's definition of "happy." I'm not sure there's really such a thing as being "happy."

I can't even really imagine what I'll be like when I'm older than like 35.

To be honest, I don't even plan to live that long.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

"You are punks"

Are you doing your part in the fight against ISIS? Are you, for instance, refusing to call them ISIS? For a while now, world leaders have preferred not to say ISIS, which is sinister and glamorous and sounds like the villain in a budget superhero movie, and opted instead for ISIL, which sounds like conjunctivitis medicine. But it turns out that what ISIS really hates is being referred to as Daesh, an Arabic acronym that sounds a bit like daes, someone who tramples or crushes, and dahes, someone who sows discord. Please, they're begging, don't call us Daesh, we hate it, it's our only weakness; get Suzanne Moore to stop saying "Daesh" in the Guardian and we'll do anything you want.

What other things might ISIS hate? We have to find out, so we can start doing it immediately. Start with the obvious: Muslims hate pigs, right? Racists have been throwing bacon at mosques for years now, but after the attacks in Paris one inventive Californian proudly posted evidence (or possibly an old, unrelated photo) of the row of pig's heads he'd supposedly laid across his street to protect his neighborhood from the global Islamic menace. (Question one: Did he really think Muslims couldn't just step over them? Question two: What happens when he needs to drive somewhere? Question three: Where do you even get 20 pig's heads, and what happens to the rest of the pig?)

What else? You pour warm beer and double cream into a single funnel, the tube coiling directly into your open mouth: I bet those guys in ISIS are really gonna hate this! Sorry, honey, I know you don't like it when I leave the toilet seat up, but ISIS dislikes it even more. We could take in Syrian refugees, we could try to stop the flow of arms and cash fueling the conflict, or we could watch Family Guy while pissing in the bathtub, something that famously makes ISIS absolutely furious. Once citizens in wartime were told to cut back and make do, sacrifice their private needs for the national effort; now if ISIS hates the West for its smug, childish brutality, we're going to win by being more smug, more childish, more brutal, more bloated, more obnoxious, more selfish, more stupid than we were before.

This is the world that the Open Letter to ISIS on Facebook inhabits, at once blindly pigheaded and incredibly lonely. Statistically speaking, you have probably either seen or composed one of these: Thousands of people, apparently under the strange misapprehension that all their friends have joined ISIS since the last school reunion, have taken to the internet to directly address the masked instantiations of metaphysical evil.

Finchie's open letter

Some of these have become inexplicably popular. For instance, the most recent to go viral, prompted by an ISIS video that included Ireland in its "coalition of devils" (along with other similarly aggressive imperial powers as Switzerland, Kosovo, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). "What's the craic lads!" our author writes, immediately justifying a massive retaliatory strike against Dublin. He explains to ISIS that the Irish are peaceful folk, unlike that other country immediately to the east, but should ISIS try to attack anything other than Bono's house or County Leitrim "in the name of Alan, (or what ever he's called)," they will "beat the shit out of all of you using mammies wooden spoon."

The letter has done the usual rounds, being featured on the Lad Bible and on countless of those creepily algorithmic clickbait sites—occasionally with the baffling title "This Irish Guy's Open Letter to ISIS Has Everyone But ISIS Laughing." Because ISIS aren't laughing. They read it, and they're really pissed off.

But that was, at least nominally, only a bit of fun. There are others—too many others—which are either deadly serious or a joke far more finely and deftly ironic than any of us deserve.

Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion programs in cities like Seattle primarily help low-level offenders, especially the poor and homeless, avoid jail. Photos by the author

A man is stopped by the police. He has seven grams of crack, and is selling it on the street. He's black. The cop asks him a series of questions, ending with, "Would you like some assistance with the problems that led you to selling drugs on the street today?" In this case, "assistance" doesn't mean a jail sentence, but a case manager that can offer help finding the man housing, a job, health care, and substance abuse treatment.

It sounds like some kind of Scandinavian dream, but in some American cities, this is actually happening. Take Seattle, where former public defender Lisa Daugaard wanted to take on racial inequality in the justice system. "But you can't be serious about that if you don't take on drug enforcement," she says. For years, she filed motions accusing the Seattle police of racial profiling, before meeting with cops to work out a way to avoid locking up so many people of color for minor offenses.

The population of King County, where Seattle is located, is only about 8 percent black, but black inmates represent roughly 36 percent of county jail inmates. Nationally, the war on drugs has had a similarly disparate effect on people of color: While America is 13 percent black, black inmates make up 40 percent of the over two million people incarcerated in this country. A black man between the ages of 20 and 34 is nine times more likely to be jailed than his white counterpart. Together, blacks and Hispanics make up just over a quarter of the country's population but nearly 60 percent of those incarcerated.

In July this year, more than 30 jurisdictions were represented at a White House event where Daugaard and others presented on the success of Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, since it began in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood in 2011. The program is designed to replace some policing practices and divert some low-level drug and sex work offenders from local jails. In Seattle, as in many cities in the US, these offenders are often chronically homeless and struggle with either mental health or substance abuse issues, or both.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, implemented LEAD in April 2014 , targeting heroin and opiate users and subsistence dealers. Albany, New York, has signed a memorandum of understanding between local government entities to get their own program off the ground. City officials in Atlanta are expected to vote this month on the creation of a design committee for their own LEAD pilot, which would be supported by an Open Society Foundation grant also awarded to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and four others jurisdictions devising their own LEAD program. Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, San Francisco, and others are considering LEAD, too, suggesting a genuine alternative to some of the worst policies of the war on drugs is closer than you might think.

One evaluation of LEAD in Seattle found that participants were 87 percent less likely to be incarcerated after their initial diversion than members of the non-LEAD control group. (Another study found a 58 percent reduction.) The annual cost associated with people in the LEAD group dropped by an average of $2,000, while control group costs rose nearly $6,000. Daugaard argues that a better measure of cost savings could be done after LEAD is implemented to scale—since right now it's limited to Belltown, a notoriously crime-ridden part of downtown—when perhaps a courtroom or wing of a jail could be shut down. But even now, she argues, LEAD "achieves significantly better outcomes and is somewhat less expensive... so there's not much of a case to keep doing the system as usual".

The program is addressing longstanding racial inequality in the city's justice system, one that offers hope for the rest of the country.

"When LEAD came I feel like we managed to identify a whole community of people that we had not been serving, that were mostly African-American," says Chloe Gale, co-director of a program within Evergreen Treatment Services, a local social services nonprofit that houses LEAD. The new clientele had similarly severe mental health and substance abuse issues and medical conditions, but had lacked the same level of access to services as others. "Their constant movement through the criminal justice system was so disruptive to them making any progress in any other service system," Gale argues.

Daugaard and the Defender Association's Racial Disparity Project brought together the American Civil Liberties Union, law enforcement officials, the elected prosecutor, the city attorney, a local social services organization, and the neighborhood business association back in 2011 to spearhead the first known US pre-arrest diversion program for narcotics and sex work charges. Years of litigation during which the ACLU challenged Seattle's alleged "selective enforcement of drug laws against African Americans" did little to resolve the dispute between prosecutors and public defenders, but both sides acknowledged that policing and prosecuting tactics at the time weren't effective, regardless of whether that was a result of racial bias. Ultimately, Steve Brown, the Seattle Police Department's narcotics captain at the time, posed a question that led to LEAD's creation: What do you propose we do instead?

"We were coming at this possibly for different reasons but with the same degree of commitment to ending a stupid—a really stupid—era in American history," Daugaard says.

"In most cities there is a population of very high-rate, low-level repeat offenders," explains David Kennedy, a professor at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York. "There's a heavy overlap between these folks, and drug and alcohol problems, mental illness."

While enforcement-based approaches, such as incarceration and probation, are appropriate for some, Kennedy says, when people seem to become "immune" to punishment, continuing to punish them is ineffective and inefficient. For evidence of this we need look no further than the regularity with which they commit low-level crimes: "If what we were doing was working, they would not be high-rate repeat offenders," he says.

LEAD's success using case management that does not require abstinence to reduce arrests came as no surprise to a Seattle man named Ron Jackson who has been receiving social services for 30 years. "I mean if you look around see a homeless, single adult, that typically means that either they're addicted and/or mentally ill, and in many cases it's both of those," he says. "Expecting them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps is just ludicrous."

Another local man named James, who was sober for 76 days when we met—the longest he'd gone without using in years—could be in a very different place in his life had LEAD existed a decade ago. The black 31-year-old has been homeless in Seattle for over eight years, and addicted to methamphetamine. He was arrested for trespassing years ago, he said, just the kind of homelessness-related offense that can connect individuals to case management today.

Regardless of whether a crime has been committed, LEAD police officers—those in the department who are trained in and implement the program—can refer low-level offenders to case managers before any arrest is made, allowing the individual to evade the barriers that come with an arrest or conviction on their criminal record.

Discretion as to which low-level offenders are offered participation in the diversion program is left to law enforcement officials. There are roughly 320 participants in Seattle's program so far, many of whom are referred not as an alternative to arrest but through "social contact referral," an avenue designed to allow law enforcement officials to refer individuals they think would benefit from the program.

These people are given 30 days from the referral to enroll in the program, after which a warrant is issued for their arrest. (According to Daugaard, over 90 percent of those referred to LEAD in Seattle enroll.) If they do choose to participate, individuals are asked to create a list of goals, which the case manager generally supports, financially and otherwise. Participants' goals range from reconnecting with estranged family members to receiving job training. But unlike many pre-trial diversion programs that take place within drug courts, LEAD participation is not contingent on being—or even aspiring to—abstinence from drugs. Examples of support include housing, meals, clothing, job training, help with civil legal matters such as Medicaid or disability benefits enrollment, rehab and methadone treatment, and a range of recreational activities, like a gym membership or art supplies, that case managers say help quell drug dependency.

"We like to think of it as the bridge you cannot burn," Gale of Evergreen Treatment Services says, referring to the participant–case manager relationship. Once enrolled in LEAD, the participant is eligible indefinitely as long as they don't end up in drug court and aren't sentenced to prison for a year or more. Participants aren't required to meet goals or reduce drug use, but only to engage with caseworkers in some way.

The program's use of a "harm-reduction model," where abstinence is markedly absent from the conditions required to receive services, is a central component of LEAD. Some elements of the public health approach founded in the 80s may sound familiar thanks to needle exchange programs and the use of designated drivers. Harm reduction is centered around acceptance of licit and illicit drug use —"a part of our world," as advocates say—and aims to minimize harmful or negative effects on the individual and the community. Lately, the approach has gained traction as largely white, suburban communities search for ways to reduce heroin overdosing.

"The goal in drug court is, 'Are you drug-free?'" explains Dan Satterberg, Seattle's prosecuting attorney. Treatment programs in drug courts require abstinence and are offered after the arrest and booking has been recorded. If the individual has a "dirty" urine analysis—random testing is often part of the program—they are sent to jail. But public health and criminal justice reform advocates argue that relapse when reducing or eliminating drug use is likely, and "does not mean that treatment has failed," as noted by the government-funded National Institute on Drug Abuse. Satterberg says the emphasis in LEAD is instead placed on getting people off the street and committing fewer crimes, which he believes is working. "If you try to help people on the margins of society, it turns out you have better luck than if you punish them," he says.

A prominent homeless encampment, or village, in Seattle

King County Metro Police Captain Marcus Williams and his colleagues knew a large majority of the "frequent flyers" in the jail system, now LEAD participants, before the diversion program began. The program gave him a chance to offer help for the drug dependency, psychosocial illness, and homelessness issues he saw long ago. "I think it's really changed the attitude of police as far as how do you best deploy your resources," he says. "Do you spend your time continuing booking people in jail for small offenses, or do you try and engage them in something different than what you've been doing for a long time that isn't working?"

The culture change hasn't gone unnoticed among Seattle's most vulnerable citizens.

"None of our clients—the people sleeping on the street—had much experience with the cops helping them," Daugaard says. The idea that an officer would ask if you wanted help, and would then take you to a case manager and not a jail cell was, for them, unprecedented, she says. "People were very skeptical of that." So skeptical, in fact, that some who witnessed the police diverting a LEAD participant by opting not to make the arrest suspected they were confidential informants for the cops.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, LEAD has been ongoing since last spring and primarily targets opioid users. New Mexico has seen one of the highest rates in the nation for unintentional overdose deaths for two decades, about a third of which were caused by heroin. But the state has seen a sharp rise in the number of deaths due to opioid pain relievers such as morphine and oxycodone.

Unlike in Seattle, LEAD participants in Santa Fe are largely Hispanic, the majority of them young women, and "marginally housed," which is to say lacking a stable home of their own but finding places to stay with friends or family, according to Emily Kaltenbach with the Drug Policy Alliance in Santa Fe. Social contact referrals are a crucial avenue for many—nearly half of the participants accessed services this way. An evaluation of the program is underway, but Kaltenbach expects it to show reduced recidivism, which would save the city money since it currently has a contract with the county jail to pay per bed.

Still, it's not what Kaltenbach argues would be best from a public health perspective. "Ideally it would look like Portugal, where all drugs have been decriminalized and problematic drug use is treated as a health issue and not a criminal one," she says, pointing to the policy the country adopted in 2001 when it decided that, after decades of waging a war on drugs, individuals found with any drug would be sent to a team of a doctor, a lawyer, and a social worker for treatment or a minor fine and no penalty otherwise. LEAD, she says, is as close to the Portugal model as American has gotten to date. "Although it still resides in the law enforcement criminal system, it's at least considered to be treated as a health issue pre-booking, so we're eliminating the entry into the criminal justice system."

Watch late VICE Prison Correspondent Bert Burykill try to keep it on the straight and narrow after getting out from behind bars.

Albany, too, is set to begin the pre-arrest diversion program after help from Kaltenbach and others at the Drug Policy Alliance. Like those Seattle and Santa Fe, the New York capital's program would be partially funded by private foundations, but will also be supported by the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare.

All three cities implementing LEAD are in states that have expanded Medicaid, critical to the program's affordability. "That is the key in making a lot of this happen," explains Steve Krokoff, former police chief in Albany and chief of police in Milton, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. He says that having the insurance in place makes staying on medication for mental illness, for instance, much easier, and the individual in turn is less likely to commit a crime related to their illness.

This month, Atlanta's city council will vote on whether to establish a committee of stakeholders to design a pilot LEAD program of their own. But funding sources remain uncertain. Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Joseph Spillane says the best-case scenario is one where a non-profit organization "takes the lead" and secures funding for the social service resources and case management support.

"The resources have to be there for us to divert them to," he says. And with state leadership historically opposed to Medicaid expansion, the poor, homeless, mentally ill and/or substance addicted population LEAD advocates want to target in the city will be hard-pressed to secure the support the diversion program is based on.

Some things change faster than others.

Follow Camille Pendley on Twitter.

Work by Liz Atkin as part of a Los Angeles residency

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) can manifest itself in myriad ways. Sufferers of the condition have a distorted view of how they look, which can lead them to compulsively check their appearances in mirrors, or, conversely, avoid reflective surfaces completely. Obsessive skin picking, seclusion, and cosmetic surgery are also common amongst people with BDD. These behaviors can shut sufferers off from the world and trap them in a cycle of fear and self-loathing. In the most extreme cases, BDD can lead to suicide.

Despite the odd celebrity confession, it's still a "new" condition in terms of understanding and public awareness. It was only recognized as being on the 'obsessive-compulsive spectrum' related to OCD in 2013. One in 100 people in both the US and UK are thought to suffer from the disorder, although it is likely this number is higher. Experts in the field tend to agree that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), along with anti-anxiety meds, are currently the recommended starting point for therapists and doctors to go about treating it. But there's also a "human problem-solving process" that's been with us a while longer: manifesting and facing our vexations through art.

Two artists taking the raw material of their fears and obsessions and turning them into photography, performance, and film are Liz Atkin and Leigh de Vries.

Atkin, who works mainly in photographic self-portraiture, has been affected by compulsive skin picking since the age of eight, when the condition gave respite from the anxiety caused by conflict in the family home. She trained originally in dance and drama, but it was through a study project where she was asked to record her body that she began to think about her condition creatively. "I had to confront the illness head-on when I started a masters degree in dance when I was 29, and it was then that I realized I could use the illness and study it in terms of a movement pattern in and on my body. I had no idea that was going to turn this disorder around... it was life changing."

Beginning with a flat-bed scanner, the only image capturing device on-hand, Atkin began to record her own image, using whatever was nearby—milk, hair, glue, paint—to create new images. The surfaces and textures of her body and surroundings fascinated her, so she decided to "go in" for more detailed examinations of these parts of her body she obsessed over.

A site-specific performance of 'Curdled' by Liz Atkin

At the first Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation Event at London University's SOAS Building earlier this year, Dr. David Veale, one of the UK's leading experts in the field of BDD, held a discussion on how self-portraiture could help in the treatment of the condition. One of the recent findings he brought up was how a person with BDD or OCD has a different reaction to anxiety than a non-sufferer. Essentially, when the limbic cortex/fight or flight centers of the brain are active, a BDD sufferer will attempt to deal with the fear by switching on the part of the brain that deals with detail. In order to become or feel "safe," the brain of a BDD sufferer will focus in on something—hair, skin, legs etc.—as the source of distress, and obsess, hide, or mask, in an attempt to feel better. Or, in the case of Dermatillomania (skin picking), the act itself will induce a soothing, trance-like effect. This tuning in on detail is something that Liz Atkin's work on her skin picking captures brilliantly.

De Vries is a musician and artist who had been plagued with negative thoughts about her appearance since adolescence. "In all the projects I worked on up until this point, I was putting out how I wanted the world to see me. But because of my BDD, weeks before a photo shoot, video shoot, or going into the studio to sing, my BDD would really attack me on multiple levels. It got to a point where I isolated myself in my house for a few months—I didn't even make contact with anyone. Then it came to me: 'Why don't I express this through my art?'"

Leigh de Vries with her prosthetic face piece

De Vries came up with the video and audio installation Exposure—The Broken Reality Tunnel, a walk-in, two room box that features two videos of her walking around Manchester town center wearing a prosthetic face piece, created by make-up FX expert Shaune Harrison. The two video rooms are connected by dark tunnels, where the voices of de Vries and other BDD sufferers talk about the condition. It's a darkly beautiful construct that reflects the feeling of being trapped with your thoughts.

"I wanted to create the monster I perceived myself to be and physically wear it in public to create some mending in my mind by having the actual experience," says Says de Vries. "When we have something in our mind, versus the physical, the version in your mind is way worse. Shaune and I worked through a mood board of what I thought I looked like. I imagined I looked like someone with Elephantitis, with huge growths coming out of my face and body. The closest we got was a huge tumor growing out of my face. I had the idea to work with secret cameras—I wanted to capture my own journey of isolation but also make a social commentary on how people react to people with deformities. We had these great secret cameras called pivot heads, on glasses that have full HD and motion, and I had a little button camera on my blouse so we had three camera points. It was possibly the scariest day of my life so far."

Neither artist has sought professional help for their condition. De Vries has been in contact with other sufferers via social media, and also through working with the Body Dismorphia Disorder Foundation. For her, the work itself creates relief. "It's quite beautiful in that way, that by revealing my darkest secret, I'm with it in a compassionate way and instead of being ashamed, I'm proud. I feel revealing the chaos means I feel closer to people and people feel closer to me—it's kind of like this weird way of saying 'I'm fucked up.' And people then say 'Oh my God, so am I!'" Likewise, Atkin talks about how the process of creating art mirrors the "tuning in" and focused relief of skin picking ("It's the same "hit" making art—using fingers, scrutinizing my body"). When, during a tough period in her life four years ago, Atkin did approach a doctor for the first time, they advised her that she was already engaged with what therapists would call advanced, breakthrough stages.

A still from 'Exposure' by De Vries

Both Atkin and de Vries want to use their work to help others. They are involved in outreach programs, particularly youth groups—as these are conditions that usually begin in adolescence—and art therapy. Atkin has done talks about her condition and is intending to do more outreach work here when she returns from her fact-finding mission to the US, which she is paying for via crowdfunding. "The USA is many years ahead in terms of awareness and research for skin picking and hair-pulling disorders." She has also been invited to show her work at the UCLA Medical Center and University of Southern California.

We all pick at ourselves—and on ourselves—from time to time. And we're all susceptible to negative self-image. When our minds take us to dark places, it's good to have art to show us that we're not alone. Liz Atkin and Leigh de Vries have shown us that art doesn't have to be conventionally pretty to be beautiful. And neither do we.

Note: In the column "How Scared Should I Be?" VICE staff writer and generalized anxiety disorder sufferer Mike Pearl seeks to quantify the scariness of everything under the sun. We hope it'll help you to more wisely allocate natural resources: your fear.

The little blurb above all these columns says I rate the scariness of "everything under the sun," but in retrospect, the sun is pretty scary in its own right. I already know it was worshipped as a god by pretty much every early human culture, probably because it's an all-powerful, benevolent, and sometimes vengeful ball of fire. It's bigger than I can possibly wrap my earthbound brain around, its core is almost exactly 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and if it ever switched off, we would all have 8 1/2 minutes to kiss our asses goodbye.

To make matters worse, the sun is also the scariest kind of god—the unpredictable kind.

Solar storms are the sun's way of reminding us not to get too comfortable. The sun's just chugging along like normal, then suddenly it belches out a blast of energy the same intensity as 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT. Expressed in Hiroshima A-bombs, that's about nine trillion of them—in other words, a really big blast.

While most of that energy can't reach us on the Earth's crust, it can screw up our gadgets, some of which are now essential for our everyday lives. In the case of a severe storm, we'll have about 12 hours of advanced notice to batten down the hatches, and that's good news because in 1989, an unexpected solar storm plunged all of Quebec into darkness.

Humanity is only beginning to figure out when to brace for impact though. Last year when scientists told us to expect solar storms on Earth, the storms hit Mars instead. Even in 2015, we know a fair amount about what's going on inside the sun, but we can't necessarily link it to what happens on Earth. It's mildly unsettling to know there's one more thing out there that can randomly impact my day. But how bad could it really be?

Like stories about outer space? Check out this VICE documentary:

"I don't want to scare people," said Antti Pulkkinen, a heliophysicist who monitors and studies space weather—that's what they call it—at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center where he leads a group that provides weather information relevant to NASA space missions. Solar weather, he told me, "has a real impact that needs to be considered and understood."

Pulkkinen explained that turbulence within the sun causes what he called "complex structures in terms of a solar magnetic field." Some of that complexity shows up in what we call sunspots, which are dense pockets of magnetic activity that appear during the more active periods in the sun's 11-year activity cycle. Sunspots appear to result what Pulkkinen calls the "1-2-3 punch" of a solar storm. And each punch comes with its own effects on us Earthlings.

"The first punch is the flare—the release of electromagnetic radiation," Pulkkinen said. "That release can actually alter upper atmospheric composition, and that can lead to changes in radio wave propagation, and change how, for example, GPS signals go through the upper atmosphere."

These aren't the kinds of GPS errors that make you turn down the wrong street when Google Maps fucks up. You're only likely to encounter a problem when you're doing serious precision work, for instance, piloting a passenger jet. "If you're flying an aircraft and you're using GPS service to get your position, when you have these kinds of storms, you may actually have some error bars in your location," Pulkkinen told me, five days before I'm about to get on a plane, I should note.

If GPS fails, he said, "they have to fall back on secondary position services. This can definitely affect airline operations, and any other type of activity that requires high precision for the position."

Solar flares can also hinder radio communications. Since the wifi I'm using right now uses a type of radio to transmit signals, I asked if a flare could knock out my internet connection. It probably couldn't he said. When Pulkkinen said "radio," he meant "the kinds military operators use that broadcast radio waves through the air, or use the upper atmosphere to bounce the waves." The military shoots radio signals into the upper atmosphere—sometimes for mysterious reasons—but apart from the possible national security implications if those signals failed, that doesn't really affect my everyday life.

The second punch is particle radiation—as opposed to the more benign electromagnetic radiation from punch number one. But even if I were sunbathing naked during the biggest solar storm of all time, I probably wouldn't absorb any of it. "You would be completely safe," Pulkkinen said. "Earth has a thick atmosphere and a magnetic field, and those two are really good shields from the radiation."

But that's not to say humans will never be impacted by sudden radiation storms from the sun—they just have to be in space. And as much as I'd love to take a trip to the ionosphere with Elon Musk, I'd have to get pretty far into space to have my health jeopardized by blasts of radiation—even the International Space Station is too close to the Earth to be affected.

"As we move forward and go to deep space missions—asteroid capture, or maybe Mars missions at some point in time—that's when these fast-moving particles become an issue that really needs to be addressed," Pulkkinen said.

It's worth pausing here to note that the radiation that comes from solar storms would have been a problem for Matt Damon's character in The Martian, since Mars' atmosphere is much thinner than the Earth's and the planet doesn't have a magnetic field. But according to Pulkkinen"it's the transit from the Earth to Mars, and from Mars to Earth that is the high-risk part of the mission." He said NASA's future plans for a spaceship that goes to Mars include a kind of pop-up radiation panic room, where astronauts can hide in order to prevent themselves from getting horrible, sun-induced cancer.

Blackouts, like the one in Quebec in 1989, are caused by the third punch, known as coronal mass ejections.Those are the actual particles fired at super-high speeds toward Earth, forming what Pulkkinen called "magnetic storms." In addition to the Quebec incident, Pulkkinen said, "there was actually a transformer in Salem, New Jersey, that got damaged by the extra heating during a magnetic storm."

Magnetic storms can also move low Earth orbit satellites around. "It can actually lift the atmosphere a little bit," Pulkkinen said, which can cause jitters and lost connections. Low Earth orbit satellites include the ones that take satellite photos, and unless these messed-up satellites photograph me pooping, I'm not too worried about this effect.

But storms don't always happen during the sun's peak activity periods, which makes predicting them precisely even more difficult. "We do have space weather during solar minimums, so the storms can take place at any part of the solar cycle," Pulkkinen said. "It's just more likely from a statistical standpoint that they'll take place around solar maximum conditions."

So when billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer warned investors that the economic effects of 2014's solar storms—the ones that never materialized—might impact their pocketbooks, he may have been working from bad intel.

"There have been studies where people have correlated solar activity with all kinds of phenomena, whether it's birth rates, death rates, or economic fluctuations," Pulkkinen said. "Maybe there is something to it, but until we understand the causal connection, we should be really careful jumping to further conclusions."

While the idea of a blackout or a plane going off course makes me uncomfortable, it's not like solar storms are likely to cause some kind of global catastrophe. For the time being, the odds of my personal safety being jeopardized seem astronomical. A lost signal here and there seems like the likeliest horror I might ever endure as a result of the sun's wrath.

"If you look at the historical events, these electric power issues are one of the most significant impacts we've experienced already," Pulkkinen said. But he didn't let Earth completely off the hook:

"I think as our technology advances and we explore new worlds, it's likely that we'll be more and more exposed to space weather," he said. "Space weather will be a growing dimension of our endeavors as a species."

But here in 2015, I can't seem to get scared.

Final Verdict: How Scared Should I Be of Solar Storms?

1/5: IDGAF

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Jake Ouimette with a century-old cannibal trophy from the Philippines. Photos by Alexandra Heck

Driving along Weston Road, a quiet area northwest of downtown Toronto filled with old churches, restaurants, and boarded up storefronts, it's easy to trip out on the weird nostalgia that comes with seeing so many old shops with obscure signs. But there's one place where the vibe is most appropriate—an old building where the door is closed and the blinds are pulled, and there is no sign except for a little paper stuck in the window that reads: The Skull Store.

I'm here to talk to the two brothers that run the store, Jake Ouimette and Ben Lovatt, because they are the only dealers of human skulls in Canada.

Walking into the store is almost a sensory overload. Skulls and bones of almost every kind line the walls, cases, and shelves. The place smells like a distinct mix of cleaning products and musty attic.

As I find out, that's exactly what it is—Ouimette and Lovatt specialize in cleaning and selling fresh bones of animals as well as dealing with ancient artifacts, sometimes human.

An abnormal skull and a 1940's medical specimen with labels.

"We don't have a lot of human things, because they go fast," says Lovatt while leading me to the tall wooden case by the cash. In it are two heads; one is from a medical cadaver and the other is an ancient decorated skull from the Dayak tribe of Borneo.

I ask them how difficult it is to obtain these skulls and how it's even legal.

"It's actually relatively easy for us," says Lovatt, explaining that most animals require a CITES permit, which is a regulatory body that controls international animal trade. "Humans are the only primates on that planet that don't require a permit," he said.

Baffled, I quizzed the pair.

I asked them if a man came in the store tomorrow, terminally ill and said that after he dies he would like to donate his skeleton...

They both shook their heads before I could finish.

"A fresh one is a whole different game," said Lovatt.

They sell cleaned pig, sheep, and beaver skulls that many artists purchase for both inspiration and material for projects.

Due to the number of bans and rules on the trade of these specimens, most of what they deal in are antique pieces from private collections.

Lovatt explained that there are still companies that deal in cleaning and preparing medical cadavers in the United States through the official avenues. In our country he says the rules are very strict around the making of fresh medical specimens.

"In Canada we're very protective of that stuff," he said.

The medical skull on the shelf is $1,000. Lovatt says that it was from an elderly person, so the lower jaw had already degraded and someone had fitted a new set of teeth on it. He says generally, people who buy skulls are looking for unaltered specimens, so that's why it's cheaper.

An unaltered specimen goes for approximately $1,200.

Some customers are artists looking for subjects to paint, or paint on. The brothers provide coyote skulls for one tattoo shop in Orangeville that does an annual art show.

Other customers are collectors, zoos and museums. Bones from The Skull Store have even been used as props for film shoots. The brothers provided the crew of Suicide Squad with animal skeletons while they were shooting in Toronto. The brothers don't know how they were used in the movie, "but we're excited to see," said Lovatt.

Ben Lovatt and the elephant skull.

"We've had stuff in Vikings and Planet of the Apes and all that stuff as well," he said.

Sometimes, full human skeletons come through the store.

One skull they have is a 1940s medical skull covered with labels and writing. The wife of a doctor brought the skull into the store after her husband passed away. Those old bones were just sitting around, collecting dust. The brothers put the specimens on the museum side of the shop, they are not for sale.

"This," says Ouimette, pulling a large board of skulls off the top of the cabinet, "is probably the craziest thing we have."

The piece is a collection of two boar skulls with a human skull fixed to the board in the centre— a 100-year-old cannibal battle trophy from the Philippines. The entire piece is charred black, and still smells of campfire.

Ouimette and the trophy

The warriors had slain the man whose skull in now in the centre, and as part of the ritual cooked him with the two boars.

They believed that in order to channel the spirit of the killed warrior they would eat the flesh.

The pair have also had shrunken heads, elongated heads and even hands of mummies.

The pair got into the bone business after working in the exotic pet rescue. Lovatt says that they acquired some of the rarest animals on the planet and when the animals died, throwing out the carcasses seemed like such a waste.

One day one of the world's rarest crocodiles showed up in a tub on Lovatt's front door.

"It was on the edge of death and was too far gone to save. We wanted to do something to preserve it," he said.

"There's a legacy they can continue to have if they're preserved," said Lovatt.

A beaver skull close up

Ouimette was working as a contractor before teaming up with Lovatt. He was sick of getting hurt on the job and was looking for something new.

When they became business partners, "we never would have guessed it in a billion years," said Lovatt.

Their families were a little bit skeptical at first, but after the brothers were able to show their family the store they began to understand their passion.

Lovatt says after the exotic animal rescue, The Skull Store was not a total shock to the family. If anyone was going to pick a weird job, it would be them.

"Dad was happy the gators I wrangle these days are dead," said Lovatt, with a chuckle.

Lovatt holding two vertebrae from the Pilot Whale that he and Ouimette collected last spring.

The brothers have purchased private collections of bones as well as the contents from a museum that was shut down in a school in North York.

Many of these pieces are placed on one side of the store, the museum side. They are not for sale.

"People bring their kids in here on weekends," says Lovatt, explaining that there is an education and preservation aspect to their business.

Lovatt speaks passionately about each specimen in the shop. Aside from human rarities, the store has a wide variety of animal bones, dinosaur bones and other artifacts.

"We have a real raptor's egg for sale," says Lovatt.

He points out an egg, slightly larger than a mango, in the case beside the front door.

"Oviraptor from Mongolia, about 75 million years old," he said, explaining that it was dug out of the ground over 100 years ago and traded internationally through private collections before coming to them.

Bones being cleaned by flesh-eating beetles

They supply bones and artifacts to both the ROM and some zoos in Canada, as well as clean the skeletons of deceased zoo animals.

One recent project was the skull of a young elephant that passed away in the zoo. Her massive skull sits on a cart in the back room of the store.

In the same room is a massive tank that holds a lizard.

Psycho is Ouimette's pet Nile Monitor. When Ouimette is cleaning bones, Psycho loses it in his tank, waiting for scraps.

He runs around and presses his face against the glass, excited for a nibble of exotic jerky.

They lead me into the far back room, where all of the cleaning goes on. The smell of sweet, acrid decaying flesh is highly concentrated in the small space.

I try and pull my shirt over my nose as I peer into one of the fish tanks full of bugs. They use beetles to break down the flesh left on the bones. Inside the tank, half-cleaned beaver bones are scattered about, covered in flesh-eating beetles.

I get on a ladder to see in properly. The smell gets stronger.

The small room has a counter and a stove. Under the counter are Rubbermaid bins brimming with partially cleaned whale bones.

The brothers made a trip out to Nova Scotia last spring and collected the remains of a 14-foot pilot whale that had washed up on shore.

They drove back to Toronto in a Dodge Grand Caravan, filled with rotting whale.

I cringed imagining the smell.

"Febreze made a few bucks that day," said Lovatt.

A human skull that was bought with the North York School board collection. It has some sort of abnormality, possibly dwarfism.

A few large soup pots sit on the stovetop. Sometimes they have to cook the flesh off the bones.

"Bleaching and boiling are no-nos in our industry," said Lovatt, who explained that they try and avoid those two practises as it makes the bones very brittle, and in time they'll crumble and disintegrate.

Ouimette opens up a cooler filled with yellow soapy water. Inside is a beaver head, soaking to soften the flesh.

"Do you mind picking it out for me?" I ask him.

He grimaces and gets a soup strainer. The head still has its tongue, jaw meat and eyeball set far in the skull.

It's clear that there is a long way to go before it's a bleached white skull ready for sale, a steal at $85.

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