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A reader let us know in the Contribute section about a puzzle whose pieces seem to be strewn about the city, and which point to a Flickr photo pool with instructions to "Shoot. Upload. Solve." We haven't seen any of these puzzle pieces firsthand yet. What about you guys?......

Torontoist featured video of an absolutely insane series of explosions at a propane facility in the north end of the city last weekend.Despite an eventful week at the Olympics, Phillyist focused on local, Philadelphia teams.Seattlest, freshly aware of their "Junior High Readability Level," implemented a new weekly feature spotlighting a local they’re totes crushing on. First up, a guy they met at the Seattle Tattoo Expo.LAist reported on a protest by bicyclists in Santa......

A tall, icy glass of our favorite internet junk, just for you. The world's oldest Bible is going online! All we want to know is, how are they going to jam those fragile old pages down the tubes of the internets without ruining them? (Via Jill) Sounds like NBC is doing a not-so-good job at selling their new programs to TV critics. (Via Jill) It's Comic-Con time! Cinematical has a preliminary post, then coverage of......

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Photo of Cody by Dan Bergeron Torontoist took a look at Regent Park, a low-income neighborhood whose soon-to-be-demolished buildings are being graced with huge wheatpastes of the area's displaced residents. (On that note, they also tried to find a legal middle ground for street art.)Phillyist curated their first art exhibition, and posted pictures from its opening.Gothamist was shocked when surveillance footage was released of a Brooklyn hospital's staffers repeatedly ignoring a patient—who had waited......

Photo credit: sushiesque/Flickr Bostonist attended the Anime Boston convention and took some glorious pictures of anime fans showing off their costumes at the mall, much to the delight of civilians.Seattlest took a trip on Virgin America Airlines and lived to tell the tale of its awesomeness.Londonist experienced a total lack of surprise at the chaos, crisis, and near-collapse of famous English reserve at the opening of the hotly opposed new airport terminal T5 at......

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets. This is truly beautiful news: icanhascheezburger.com is teaming up with Jones Soda to create lolcat soda. There's even a contest to create more lolcat images specifically for the soda bottle labels. (Via Sarah) Some photos apparently taken by a spy on the Star Trek set have made their way online (via). They give us a look at a uniform and a shuttlecraft. For......

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The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. That the movie's called Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead and that it's directed by Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman should tip you off, but just to be absolutely clear: this trailer is filthy, offensive, and disgusting. It's also pretty funny. Remember when we said the next Rambo would be filming in Bulgaria soon? Well, that doesn't mean it's......

LAist initially met the coolest police officer at the Anonymous protest, and then later caught thousands of UCLA students celebrating spring break in their undies....

SFist worried over drugstore chain Walgreens' celebration of Black History Month.Gothamist was surprised that apparently New York City is the fourth most miserable city in the country, after Detroit, Stockton, CA, and Flint, MI.Shanghaiist finds out what the Chinese think of Hillary and Obama.It was with a healthy amount of schadenfreude that Phillyist reported that former Eagle, and now Cowboy (ew), Terrell Owens owes the Eagles a significant wad of cash.Torontoist is two weeks......

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Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt,......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally topped off, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist......

From the creative pursuits of the local public artists to the Mural Arts Program, you can pretty much count on seeing some form of street art no matter where in town you go. But in an artform where what goes up today could be covered by tomorrow, permanence is never guaranteed. So where does this drive to create come from? Public Wall Writing in Philadelphia, a new photography book, examines just this. Published by Megawords......

As the world holds its breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

Skateboarding is cool. Really elaborate street art is cool. But as for the soundtrack, well, we kinda prefer the Dandy Warhols' version. (Wow... We forgot about that feature.)......

I guess I've got kind of a thing for Philly street art - you know, the posters, stickers, and graffiti you see all over town. Here's a fine example that I found on the wall of a building at the corner of 12th and Spruce about a month ago. It doesn't appear to be an ad for anything - it's just sitting there, looking cool. I like that. Click through for the full version......

Oh, readers, how we love you! We were halfway through this post when the gods of the internet decided not to shine favorably on us and we lost everything. But, afraid to disappoint, we started over again from scratch. That's how much we care. LAist: What a dillema! Austinist wants to save your soul. SFist: Somebody has seen Death Race 2000 too many times. Gothamist: Phillyist is definitely visiting Bamn! the next time we're in......

The shapeless dough of the internet, formed into tasty pellets and baked to perfection, just for you. The story's old, but the pictures are still great: it's Charlie the chimp fishing! And boy, does he look like he's having fun. We bet you've seen El Toro, Nose, or Bob around the streets of Philly. They're characters that appear in street art created by Frost, Nose, and Robert W. Reign, respectively. We're particular fans of El......

Even though we usually delight you with an extra-long Elite -ist after we miss a few, today's Elite -ist is going to be normal length. We need a little vacation after our vacation, see. We figured you and the rest of the -ist-a-verse would understand. So here's what we could get you after a quick scan -- we stopped reading when we found something juicy. Sampaist: Awesome street art! Or maybe Phillyist just likes naked......

Our -ist pals are probably as tired as we are. That might explain why they don't seem to be up to much today. But here's some of what we caught them doing. Bostonist: Life as a single guy in Boston sure is depressing! Torontoist: This picture is a little scary. DCist: United 93 opens this weekend. Is it exploitation? Londonist: Can you figure out the secret code? Chicagoist is in the middle of an existential......

Today, we've taken out all the colons. Non-surgically. SFist has more photos of Barry Bonds in drag, complete with an update on his upcoming reality television show. Parisist has pictures of women with electric tape covering their nipples. That's all well and good in France, but you folks in more conservative offices might find the photos NSFW. Shanghaiist has a job tip for westerners living in China. Austinist was liveblogging during the Oscars. Gothamist was,......

The Wooster Collective - an on-line repository of street art - recently posted this picture of a gentleman vandalising a Philadelphia location with cartoon characters all playing with Sony PSPs. (We don't recognize this location, but we believe we've seen similar figures near South Street Tattoos.) Apparently, strikingly similar art work has been appearing in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco as well. We do not doubt that this is some strange ad campaign -......

When Phillyist returned a truck to 12th & Washington not long ago, bright colors caught our eye as we crossed Carpenter on our way home. As we walked over to check out what turned out to be a mural on this building, something much more rare and more beautiful emerged from a abandoned lot: genuine graffiti pieces. Phillyist doesn’t mean the mural wall in the playground (which isn’t half-bad, actually) - if you’re there, wrong......