The Plaid Zebra
The Plaid Zebra
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The Plaid Zebra is an alternative news and entertainment website for the curious and inquiring focusing on the independent lifestyle. Broadening the horizons of possible lifestyle choices.

Have we become puppets of our technology?

BY: ATLAS “How do you live?” I got used to hearing that question. It typically followed immediately after the asker discovered one of two things: that I didn’t have a cell phone or that I didn’t have Facebook. For a…

The best damn travel tips you’ll ever need

by RYAN BOLTON Travel is the best education. It’s also the ideal form of rebellion. It’s the no-bullshit way to find out who you really are and what you’re really made of. Quite possibly some of the best travel advice…

The death of consent in porn (condoms in porn California)

By GARY SEWARD INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT A well-lit room. Candles are on the surface of an IKEA style headboard. A woman, Jessica, in her twenties, black with the body of a gymnast is laying spread eagle on a plush…

Why did it take so long for the American mainstream to embrace tattoos?

BY: TYLER FYFE Tattooing has been practiced by various cultures for at least 8000 years.  From New Zealand’s Maori, to Siberia’s Pazyryk nomads, little has changed in the very natural desire to modify the human body. So why did it…

Did you know you can grow mushrooms in coffee grounds?

By: PILGRIM Like a pair of ’80s stockbrokers, Nikhil and Alejandro grew their success from the decaying remains of another business. Fortunately, their success was founded in the realization that gourmet mushrooms could be grown from cafes’ discarded coffee grounds,…

Wildlife (band) lays carnage to tired clichés

BY: ATLAS Between winning the SiriusXM Indie Award for rock artist of the year and debuting a behind-the-scenes studio documentary, Toronto five-piece Wildlife is having a big year. Frontman Dean Povinsky talks about clichéd heart metaphors, Bruce Springsteen, and what…

Four solar inventions that could power our planet’s future

Somewhere on the list of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns—wedged between video games, smart watches, and cult movies—you’ll find a project that could change more than just how we spend our leisure time. Last month, the Idaho-based startup Solar Roadways…

Burlesque: Expression through sex

  I’ve never been a fan of strip clubs. Sometimes, the sleaziness is what makes it fun, but mostly, they’re dingy and expensive, and they make me feel desperate. However, I try not to hold fast to this perspective, as…

Living as a god among men – The beard life

BY: RYAN BOLTON There’s a lot of fur on my face. Like if a possum gave up on life and took up permanent residence on my cheeks. I have a beard. Not a small, I haven’t shaved for three weeks beard.…

How body language can save your ass in a fight

I could feel his breath on my face. He swayed side to side as I repeated the question “is there a problem here?” The tribal-tattooed frat guy smiled and adjusted his sleeve. He looked down towards the left; pursed his…

How three fired guys started a craft beer revolution (Steam Whistle Brewing)

BY: TYLER FYFE In 1988, Greg Taylor was a bike courier pedalling nervously towards the house owned by his girlfriend’s boss, clad in a cheap-checkered-necktie. He had been invited as her “plus one” to The Upper Canada Brewing Company’s employee…

This is what drowning sounds like- AquaSonic (Underwater Band)

BY: LUC RINALDI When discussing music, people have a tendency to exaggerate originality. Stray from the typical four-chord structure and you’re innovating. Compose in an unconventional time signature—groundbreaking. Merge, defy, and subvert standard genres? Revolutionary. While most artists fail to…

Here are 4 reasons list articles are making you stupid

BY: TYLER FYFE We have begun to consume information in the same way we swallow fast food and frozen dinners. List articles are the McDouble of the mind, providing the same instant satisfaction and slow brewing disease as two hormone-injected…

How this man stopped eating food for 30 days and stayed healthy

BY: LUC RINALDI In February 2013, a twenty-something Atlanta tech entrepreneur named Rob Rhinehart posted an entry on his blog, Mostly Harmless, titled, “How I Stopped Eating Food.” In it, he detailed his frustration with food—how much time it took…

These engineering graduates created a bong that lets you get drunk and high at the same time (video)

By: PILGRIM A long, graffiti-bombed school bus turned up out of the dust and opened its doors. “Coming along?” In the passenger seat, sat a tall and slender Caucasian in his mid-twenties with a handlebar moustache that reached down to…

Detroit is decomposing: The beauty in decay (Photos)

BY: RYAN BOLTON He stood alone with a mammoth building looming behind him. There were puddles at his feet. The sky was slowly clearing up as beams of sun pierced through languid clouds. His dark sunglasses, well-kept mustache and military-grade buzzcut…

Are you actually helping Africa?

BY: DAVID PATON  In 1899 Rudyard Kipling, the likeable and well-meaning British author of The Jungle Book, penned a poem he entitled The White Man’s Burden. It was a love poem to colonialism, painting the world as it was –…

How crowdfunding could turn your startup into a multi-million dollar company overnight

BY: LUC RINALDI Surfing the web the other day, I discovered Coolest—that is, “a portable party disguised as a cooler.” Boasting a built-in blender, Bluetooth speaker, USB charger, cutting board, bottle opener, and more, the Kickstarter project is undoubtedly the…

This commune in BC lets you live for free and pays you in drugs (Video)

BY: ROBERT HOFMANN Poole picked out a white dried-up mushroom the size of my thumb and snapped it in two. “A gram for each of you,” says Poole, and hands me my half. One gram, it seemed, was a bit…

Why politics has become a dirty word

BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Youth of today speak of the Canadian political system as if it has never belonged to them. Today we face a world characterized by forecasts of environmental catastrophe and a growing social inequality preserved by insatiable…