Observe the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl searching for radioactive beasts with VBS

by Justin Delaney on

25 years ago today, a catastrophic nuclear disaster took place at the Chernobyl power plant in the city of Pripyat. Haunted by the specter of radiation, the one time city transformed into a spread of creepy abandoned buildings and one of the most poisonous places on the planet – the Red Forest. With humans gone, the town has been taken back by wildlife. Today, wolves wander abandoned schools with kitschy Soviet propaganda peeling from the wall and bears lumber through the overgrown amusement park that opened the day after the disaster, April 27, 1986.

In this video by the crew at Vice, Shane Smith goes on a tour of Pripyat to hunt for mutant beasts and explore derelict buildings. The abandoned radioactive town is an eerie ghost-scape, but many travelers have been making the 100km journey from Kiev to visit this strange example of an abandoned modern town. The video is an interesting and somewhat humorous look inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Skydiving never looked so peaceful

by Justin Delaney on


Depending on who you ask, skydiving is either exciting, terrifying, or both. This video of divers from the Melbourne Skydive Centre coasting through the sky like jellyfish makes skydiving look like a peaceful sort of transcendence, more flying than falling. Instead of an adrenaline packed plummet down gravity’s vacuum, this video showcases the serenity of human flight. Filmed in February of 2011, world champions Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet from Soul Flyers visited Melbourne to provide 3D coaching to some of Australia’s top skydivers. The result is this ethereal video. Check it out in full screen mode and tell me it does not make you want to jump out of a plane.

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

Amazing San Francisco model built out of match sticks

by Grant Martin on



Laughing Squid pointed us to a nifty video created by Scott Weaver today. The artist has been working on a mockup of San Francisco made out of matchsticks for the last thirty five years, complete with weaving, secret passageways through which ping pong balls can navigate the structure. We’re not sure what’s more amazing, the fact that it’s made out of matchsticks, the time that went into building it or the sheer awesomeness of the model, but one thing is certain: this video is going on loop during our next Gadling happy hour.

[via Robert Reid]

Hilarious wipeouts from “Bring your own Big Wheel” race in San Francisco

by Justin Delaney on

Last weekend, on Easter Sunday, San Franciscans took to the streets for the annual big wheel race. The BYOBW (Bring Your Own Big Wheel) race takes place annually on Easter at Potrero Hill in San Francisco. It is a hilariously splendid event. Full grown humans dress up as luchadors, superheros, chickens, and even Michael Jackson and take to the hill on a variety of wheeled contraptions, including the eponymous big wheel. This video is a collection of some of the epic fails and crashes from the 2011 race. For a gallery of the many strange entrants on their racing wheels, click here.

Best Western produces indie film series

by Grant Martin on

Best Western just commissioned a series of indie films telling the story of some of their properties and the people who run them. While not the most altruistic of stories (of course they’re going to paint a good portrait of the brand), it’s an interesting experiment in indie film making for a large scale hotel chain, and the stories seem well thought out and composed. Now all they need is the momentum that the BMW Films gained (and perhaps the employ of Clive Owen) and they’ll be hits. You can see the rest of the series over on their site.