Traditional independent meat markets are dying off faster than the products they serve, though these 15 unusual butcher shops somehow managed to make the cut.

If a møøse ønce bit yøur sister, here’s your chance for revenge… or so it would appear. Gord’s Butcher Shop was run (by Gord, presumably) out of an abandoned trailer in Port au Choix, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The above images taken in January and September of 2012 don’t reveal if Gord really butchered moose (mooses? meeses? whatever!) inside, and we may never know for sure: when Flickr user Oleo snapped the store in 2015 it had lost its power connection. Don’t ye be messin’ wit’ da moose, lord tunderin!

We Bloody Well Deliver

Flickr user Dan Field (FieldDan) came across this curious Granada Hills, CA combination meat/mail market on September 15th of 2007. “Going postal is much easier when you have a meat cleaver,” observes one of the commenters at the photo page… gee thanks, Erik, for that disturbing observation.

Edible Animals

If the sign says Meat You Can Eat, you know you’re not in my kitchen. Flickr user(s) Stig & Lisa snapped this snappily-named meat market on July 27th of 2008 though the shop was closed at the time. As the sign in the window advertises “Whole Baby Rump,” one would hope local child protection services made the closing permanent.

Abe Froman, I Presume?

No, Bueller-fans, the Bari PORK STORE is located in Brooklyn, not Chicago. Flickr user Frank Winters snapped the self-styled “King Of The Sausage” on February 16th, 2009. Known For Quality, the Bari PORK STORE offers “self service” (butcher your own hogzilla?), caters parties – sausage parties, most likely – and proudly boasts “Nobody Beats The King”… at least, not in the category of over-the-top store signage.

Too Fresh Flesh

OK, we all know where the packaged meat sold in supermarkets originally comes from but isn’t this a little too close for comfort? Won’t somebody think of the children? Speaking of which, hey little Jimmy, stop petting that rib roast!

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Butcher Chopped 15 Bloody Unusual Meat Markets

How would someone who designs motorcycles for a living approach creating a kit of drums, and vice versa? Yamaha’s Project AH A MAY explores that question, swapping the roles of designers in very different fields to produce the kinds of creative epiphanies that can only occur when taking a truly fresh look at a subject.

The RAIJIN God of the Thunder Drums, for example, seat the performer inside a cage, surrounding them with drum surfaces in a nearly-full sphere. This puts the musician in the driver’s seat metaphorically, and encourages them to have an even more physical interaction with their instrument. The same goes for FUJIN God of the Wind, a marimba that has two people playing at once as if they’re sitting on a two-seater motorcycle.

Meanwhile, the ROOT motorcycle design is incredibly sleek, with brass parts contrasting against a whole lot of matte black. The flowing seat form runs from the front all the way to the fuel tank, with instrument panels and meters hidden underneath so the driver is fully focused on the experience of riding and watching the scenery.

The Zero Plus/Minus Zero electric bicycle fits into a very musical-looking charging stand; to juice it up, you simply pedal. The energized battery can then be used to power all sorts of electronic gadgets around the house – including musical instruments.

Forget crackers and candy bars – you could be buying live lobsters, bike parts, whole heads of lettuce and even freshly baked baguettes with the push of a button from vending machines across the world. In fact, if you’re willing to blow into a breathalyzer and show your ID to a camera, you can even get a bottle of wine. These 18 vending machines take instant gratification to surprising extremes.

Anger Release: Break a Plate

Few things are more satisfying when you’re feeling livid than smashing a fragile object to smithereens. This vending machine caters to anyone who needs to release some anger , offering your choice of statues, vases, plates and glasses in highly breakable materials – though you won’t get to break it yourself. The satisfaction comes from watching the item fall into the bottom of the machine.

Live Crabs & Lobster

Vending machines aren’t exactly the most humane places for live animals to live, but that doesn’t stop people from offering both lobsters and crabs that you can either take home and kill yourself or have cooked at a restaurant. ‘Lobster Zone’ is actually an arcade game where you have to manipulate a mechanical claw to pluck a live lobster from the bottom of the tank. The slogan is ‘You catch ’em, we cook ’em!’ In China, vending machines offer Shanghai Hairy Crabs in a range of sizes for $1.50 to $7.50

Bikes & Bike Parts

The Bike Dispenser will spit out a dorky looking bicycle in exchange for your cash. While it’s just a concept, the idea is that you can either bring the bike back to the original vending machine location when you’re done, or ride it one-way to another machine. The bikes are fitted with RFID chips to keep track of them.  In New York, cyclists can find another bike-related vending machine that’s actually pretty handy: Bikestock offers bike parts, tools and locks as well as food and a quick tire fill-up.

Blue Jeans & Socks

Let’s say you’ve landed at the airport in a strange city after a red-eye flight only to find that the airline lost your luggage. You might be happy to see vending machines filled with blue jeans and socks. The brand ‘Closed Jeans’ has installed vending machines in train stations across Europe. Sock vending machines offer everything from colorful, stylish options to the most basic white athletic socks. The latter can sometimes be found in bowling alleys.

Hot Pizza, Mashed Potatoes & Chicken

If you’ve ever stared at the sad, cold offerings in a vending machine, wishing you could have some hot pizza instead, you might be in luck (if you can actually find one of these.) Pizza vending machines have been common in Asia for a while, and are now popping up in the U.S. thanks to Wonder Pizza USA, which offers steaming nine-inch whole pizzas in two minutes. If you prefer to mainline your refined carbs, hoover up some instant mashed potatoes and gravy at your local 7-Eleven courtesy of Maggi’s gross mashed potato machines. Other hot foods that can be procured disturbingly quickly with the push of a button include french fries, hot dogs, fried chicken and even squid.

Eggs & Fresh Lettuce

Lettuce doesn’t seem like an ideal item for a vending machine, considering its tendency to wilt pretty quickly. But this particular machine takes care of that problem by actually growing the lettuce on sponges under fluorescent lighting. Chef’s Farm, found in Japan, can produce 60 heads of lettuce per day. In rural Japan, where convenience stores are hard to come by, it’s not uncommon to find vending machines offering cartons of eggs.

Fresh Bread in Paris

Need a freshly-baked baguette at three in the morning? If you’re in Paris, you’re in luck (for a number of reasons). A baker decided to take advantage of the August holiday season, when most bakeries close up shop, by offering a 24-hour baguette vending machine filled with partially cooked loaves that are finished off just when you need them. The baker, who lives above his shop, came up with the idea after being repeatedly disturbed by potential customers knocking on his door after hours.

Gold Bars

Isn’t it annoying when you need some gold bars fast, but all the banks are closed? Gold to Go has got you covered with blast-proof, camera-guarded vending machines that will dispense small wafers of gold in exchange for your cash. The prices are updated automatically every two minutes to keep up with constantly fluctuating gold prices. The machines can be found in airports and shopping malls in Abu Dhabi, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and a few U.S. locations.

Beer & Wine with a Side of CCTV

Show your ID to a real live person watching you via CCTV from a call center, blow into a breathalyzer to prove you’re not already drunk, and you can get a bottle of wine from a vending machine in Pennsylvania. The kiosks, introduced in response to the state’s archaic liquor laws, can be found in grocery stores. In Japan, some vending machines will pour you a pint of draught beer, while others offer a range of cans. For a promotion, Amstel offered free beer to any customer who could stand completely still in front of a vending machine for three minutes.

iPods & Other Gadgets

Best Buy’s airport kiosks are an increasingly common sight, offering last-minute, travel-oriented gadgets like digital cameras, phone batteries, headphones and pre-paid international cell phones. Better hope you press the right button, because if you need to return something, you’ll have to call an 800 number and wait for a prepaid label to come in the mail. Vending machines offering virtually every iteration of the iPod have also been spotted, and it’s almost guaranteed that they aren’t endorsed by Apple. 

It’s well known that smashing something – a dish, a TV, a watermelon, or whatever else is within reach – is great therapy when you’re stressed. All over the world, clubs and organizations are popping up for the sole purpose of bringing frustrated people together to smash stuff. But there is nothing else quite like The Destruction Company, an exclusive private club in New Jersey that allows wealthy people to whack the stuffing out of just about anything.

(all images via: Daily Mail)

The Destruction Company is not your run-of-the-mill plate-smashing operation. It’s an exclusive club based in a secret New Jersey warehouse that is open only to the most wealthy clients. The club allows its members to seek revenge on the objects they most despise: technology, automobiles, or maybe those dumb little knick-knacks your ex-wife was always fussing over.

For a confidential annual fee (plus the cost of whatever the member decides to wail on) rich folks can destroy expensive electronics, cars, clothing – as long as it’s not a living creature or documents of any kind, The Destruction Company will acquire the target object. Less imaginative members can pick from a pre-set list of smashable items. On the day of the smash-fest, a chauffeured car comes around to pick up the club member and take him to a private warehouse. He can choose from a number of protective outfits – umpire, hockey goalie, medieval knight – and weapons – we imagine samurai swords are a popular option.

The party then moves to the roof of the abandoned warehouse, where the club member is free to go nuts on the chosen object. Cameras capture the destruction and members are sent home with video records of their exploits so they can re-live their moments of glory at home. As in any good human vs. object fight club, there are a few restrictions: no fire, no guns, no drinking or drugs on the day of the smash-up. But don’t think you can fight your way into this club; membership is only granted with sponsorship from an existing member. And this is no boys’ club – club representatives say that around 40 percent of their members are females. Even ladies need to let their inner Hulk out once in a while.

Although some may see this blatant wastefulness as a crime against humanity (or maybe a boon for the economy), it would seem to be a better use of disposable income than nightclubs and sushi. According to the club’s administrators, The Destruction Company isn’t about violence; it’s about experiencing freedom from the objects that vex you the most.

Artistic inspiration can strike anywhere. For Swedish photographer Magnus Muhr, inspiration came from dead insects. As bizarre as it sounds, the photographer poses tiny dead flies onto paper, draws arms, legs and backgrounds behind them, and then photographs them in their new environments. The result is a hilarious series of photographs.

The pictures are simple and fun; the backgrounds are kept clean and minimalistic so they don’t interfere with the overall picture. The little arms and legs actually look like they belong to the critters. There’s no word on whether the insects died of natural causes or were killed by the artist.

The insects look at home in pretty much whatever configuration Muhr puts them in. They manage to be adorable, even though playing with dead bugs is a bit gross. Looking at them up close may inspire shudders, but they’re actually very innocent-looking compared to other insect photography subjects. In the pictures above, the text roughly translates to “It was good?” “You’ve done great with the British cuisine…it tastes like shit!” and “Guys…I have to sneeze…”

Above, the captions read “It’s the latest craze” and “Are you bi, or…?” (in Swedish, the words for “bee” and “bisexual” are similar). The configurations that Muhr puts his insects into can be alternately weird, cute, and puzzling. But they’re always interesting little worlds. Who knows where Muhr’s imagination will take the little bugs next? Muhr also creates more serious photography, which can be found in his online portfolio.