-- A spokesman for the Internet site offering "Kaboom: The Suicide Bomber Game" (the more bystander-victims, the more points) told The New York Times in December that the game had been played by computer users about 875,000 times since its introduction in April and is but one of several of the site's questionable-taste games based on contemporary events, including "Extreme WTC (World Trade Center) Jumper," "Sniper's Revenge" and "Pico's School" (modeled after the Columbine, Colo., tragedy). Said the site's Web master, "People ... need to lighten up and realize there are far worse problems in the world than what games people are playing."

-- Singapore neurosurgeon Keith Goh and his colleagues said they would decide by the first of the year whether to attempt the unprecedented head-separating surgery requested by 28-year-old Siamese twins in Iran. Laleh and Ladan Bijani are law school graduates who claim to need the separation because they have grown apart psychologically. "We have different lifestyles," said Ladan (the more extroverted). "We think very differently about issues."

Administrators of the 162-year-old North Carolina state capitol authorized an inspection by the Ghost Research Foundation following years of disquieting complaints by security officers about middle-of-the-night "choral singing" and "door-slamming" (October). And in Dallas, Ruben Garces Moreno, 39, was convicted of killing his wife, motivated, he said, by the fact that a fortune-teller had informed him that the wife had been unfaithful (November). And the inexplicably charismatic Judith Lynn Ashmore, 57, charged with fraud in August, was revealed to have enticed a family of four to naively accompany her on her four-month, eight-state crime spree by telling them first that she needed help with her terminal cancer and then that she was in a witness protection program.

-- In Bennington, Vt., in October, Nicholas Perotta, 18, was charged with traffic violations that resulted in minor injuries to himself and two passengers in his Dodge pickup, caused when he collided with a utility pole. Perotta told police that there was a short-out in one of his stereo speakers and that he deliberately ran off the road seeking something to bump into in order to jar the speaker back into working order.

-- According to testimony at the trial of Anastazia M. Schmid in Lafayette, Ind., in October, a motive for Schmid's having murdered her boyfriend, Tony Heathcote, was that she snapped during a consensual sexual bondage session with him when he allegedly suggested, "I'll be the daddy, you be the little girl." Unfortunately, Heathcote allegedly made that suggestion only two days after Schmid had learned that Heathcote had been accused of molesting Schmid's own 6-year-old daughter. (She was convicted.)

-- In August (in Kenora, Ontario) and September (in Albuquerque), good-Samaritan motorists decided to pull over and offer help to police officers involved with traffic stops at the side of the road. The 27-year-old (unnamed) Ontario man was cited for DUI after he backed into the patrol car while parking, and the other Samaritan, Eddie Trujillo, 55, was cited for DUI after he badly slurred his earnest offer of assistance to the patrolman.

-- John Perkyns, 48, who in September pleaded no contest to charges of destroying homosexual-themed books at two San Francisco libraries, also allegedly vandalized as part of the same rampages books by authors Gay Talese and Peter Gay and a book of poetry about the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (the Enola Gay).

-- An 18-year-old, Winnipeg, Manitoba, high school student (not named in a Canadian Press report) was let off easy on drug charges by Judge Cathy Everett, in that she sentenced him merely to write a report on the evils of the drug Ecstasy. In December, he handed in a 24-page essay that began with the foreword, "All I ask is that (the judge) keep an open mind while reading this paper," and continued with a trashing of the concept of teaching drug abstinence (because it's only natural to be curious) and with detailed suggestions on how to take Ecstasy safely and in moderation. The ever-tolerant judge ordered a rewrite.

In a still-unfolding story from Kassel, Germany, a man identified only as Armin M., 41, gave police a videotape in December showing him killing a 42-year-old companion who had answered Armin's Internet ad reading, "Gay male seeks hunks 18-30 to slaughter." Armin allegedly admitted that he is a cannibal and that he froze parts of the victim's body for later meals. According to police, the victim (an upscale professional) had methodically put his financial records in order before leaving his Berlin home to meet Armin, and according to one newspaper, the men are shown on tape eating the victim's penis, after he consented to castration. Armin also reportedly told police that he would never eat a woman because "they are too important for the survival of mankind." Stunned police investigators reportedly had to undergo psychiatric counseling after viewing the tape.

Matt Boswell of Dallas apparently became the latest victim of thieves who make bad guesses about the value of packages they believe are worth swiping. In December, Boswell reported spotting a man rummaging through his truck, and when Boswell yelled, the man grabbed two containers and fled. As Boswell later explained to a Dallas Morning News reporter, the containers held pickups from customers of Pet Butler, Boswell's pet waste-removal service (advertised by signs on both sides of his truck).

A 19-year-old man was fatally shot in the forehead by his 17-year-old brother after sneering that the kid didn't have "the guts" to shoot him (and mock-commanding him, "Shoot me, you (expletive deleted in the original story)") (Albuquerque, September). And a 23-year-old man, who had opened a van's sliding door and begun pelting cars and mailboxes with rocks as the van drove by, was killed when he fell out and hit his head (Clark County, Ore., August).

An official at Sundon Lower School (Bedfordshire, England) prohibited parents from videotaping the school's nativity play this year because she feared that photographs could somehow be commandeered by pedophiles (November). A priest, feuding about policy matters with the president of the local Church of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, pulled out a gun (but accidentally shot himself in the foot) (Lebanon, Pa., December). A computer records investigation by the Fox TV station in Seattle found that 347 fugitive felons in the Seattle area are routinely receiving state welfare benefits because law enforcement's computers can't access the Social and Health Services computers (December).

The World Bar (in New York City's new Trump World Tower) introduced a $50 cocktail (Remy XO, Pineau des Charentes, freshly pressed grapes, and a dash of liquid gold, among other ingredients). A 29-year-old man was arrested in possession of three homemade bombs, which he said he carried around in case he ran into al-Qaida terrorists (Twin Falls, Idaho). A 45-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison for the Pakistani crime of being a follower of a bogus prophet (Faisalabad, Pakistan). A jury put Landon D. May, 20, on death row for two 2001 murders (where he'll join his father, Freeman May, condemned in 1995 for a murder he committed just after Landon was born) (Lancaster, Pa.).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

-- Some callers to Boston's major homeless shelters became angry that their requests to help out this year on Thanksgiving and Christmas day were rejected because the shelters have too many volunteers on those days (yet too few on the other 363 days a year). A Boston Globe reporter found that volunteers even try to cajole officials to bump them up the waiting list (170 on one shelter's list, which started accumulating names in August), but express disappointment at suggestions that they help at less "popular" (and less prestigious) suburban shelters.

Ian Jewell, an employee of the West Somerset (England) District Council, was rewarded by his bosses after his counting revealed that the toilet paper in the restrooms contained fewer than the 320 sheets per roll stated in the supplier's contract (September). And a popular pastime in Bismarck, N.D. (according to an October Associated Press report), is a game called "Slip," in which teenagers walk the city during summer nights trying to avoid cars' headlights. (If they get flashed, they're out.) Said one teenage girl, "It's better than sitting around on the couch on a Friday night watching a movie." And in many cities, the opening of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop has been marked by fans queueing up several hours in advance, but Peter Bolland and his son, P.J. (both grown men), lined up 30 hours early for the store's debut in Kitchener, Ontario, in November. ("(This) sounds so ridiculous," said P.J.)

-- "It's sick, disgusting and perverted. I know all these things (but) I can't go to prison for the rest of my life ... without seeing (some)." (spoken by confessed murderer Cory Stayner, offering police a deal in which he'd describe his crimes in detail if they'd give him a "good-sized stack" of child pornography to look at) (San Jose, Calif., July) [San Jose Mercury News, 7-24-02]

-- "It was like a 'Blazing Saddles' routine, because every time these (management) guys would move on their seats, you could hear flatulence." (spoken by a participant at a September labor-management session in San Francisco, describing a union man's prank of having placed a small flatulence-sound-producing device under the table during a Pacific Maritime Association negotiating session with the dockworkers union, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle)

-- "(M)any top businessmen spend more of their time in hotels than in their own home. ... So when they get home, they like to re-create the hotel experience. ... Many of my clients (for example) have their own mini-bars in their bedrooms. ... They come to me (to make them) a hotel-style (closet)." (spoken by Arnold Chrysler, owner of Chrysler's World of Hotel Decor, on trial in London in October for stealing 40,000 hotel coat hangers (the bottom part, useful only if affixed to the closet's hanging bar))

-- Slow Crime Days: Two St. Petersburg, Fla., police officers were suspended in November after allegedly using their in-car terminals to send each other a total of 4,232 non-duty messages in a one-month period (about 10 messages each, per work hour).

-- James Sabatino, already serving time in a Putnam County (N.Y.) prison for attacking a federal officer and having recently served time in England for a telephone-based scam, had his telephone privileges removed because Putnam officials said he spent almost eight hours a day on prison phones, for five months, before they caught him in another scam. According to officials cited by the New York Post in November, Sabatino called phone companies and convinced them he was doing movie shoots and needed dozens of cell phones quickly (and was able to order about a thousand activated phones, delivered to places arranged by his girlfriend, without spending a penny).

Sadomasochism practitioner Steven H. Bailey, 54, was indicted in St. Paul, Minn., in November in the bondage death of a sexual partner (one of 5,000 he said he's had); Bailey calls himself "The True Master" of his craft but allegedly failed to render assistance when his partner stopped breathing through the chloroform-soaked bag over his face. And in November, The Washington Post disclosed that one of the members of the United Nations weapons inspection teams headed for Iraq was also an uncloseted S&M master: Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge, 53, of Woodbridge, Va., an instructor in "Dungeon 501," featuring activities involving knives, ropes and choking devices.

Capt. Van Fussell, a Florida Highway Patrol district commander in Venice, Fla., accidentally shot himself in the foot as he was holstering his Glock pistol while taking his annual firearms test in November. (He'll have to take it over.) And the previous week in Brooksville, Fla., homeowner Jimmy Batten walked in on Sean Todd Duval, 26, who had apparently broken in to steal Batten's guns. Batten was puzzled that Duval did not try to run away, but the reason was that minutes earlier, Duval had accidentally shot his left middle toe off with one of the guns and was so despondent that he told Batten: "Finish me off. Go ahead and blow my brains out."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was considering purchasing out-of-service cruise ships to alleviate the nightly overcrowding at the city's emergency shelters (November). And prominent, board-certified Independence, Mo., psychiatrist Donald Hinton, who seriously swears that he has been treating Elvis Presley for the last five years, was put on probation in November by the state for overprescribing a painkiller to a patient (not Elvis). And the Urbana, Ill., mother who was still breastfeeding her 8-year-old boy lost partial custody of him to the state (November).

A 46-year-old non-swimmer drowned in his apartment house pool during an attempt to overcome his fear of the water (Galesburg, Ill., October). A 73-year-old man died from the extreme heat caused when a thermostat broke and would not shut off (creating such heat that, for example, all of the water evaporated from a toilet) (Great Falls, Mont., November). A 21-year-old student accidentally strangled himself with his belt, which he had looped around a door handle in a contraption to keep his head from nodding off during a marathon study session (Bangkok, Thailand, July).

Two customers and an employee were trapped inside Sam's Mini Market for two hours on Thanksgiving Day by successive swarms of bees that coated the front door, until firefighters foamed them off (Chatsworth, Calif.). Panda bear experts announced that "dating" software had been developed to match males' and females' personality characteristics so as to improve mating opportunities (Beijing). An aboriginal Manitoba (Canada) woman alleged racial profiling when she was not allowed to buy hairspray at an Extra Foods store, probably because owners feared she only wanted to drink it (Winnipeg). Britain's Office of Fair Trading charged the toy company Hasbro (maker of Monopoly) with retail price-fixing.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

-- British Army officers examining highly motivated potential recruits in the Commonwealth's Pacific island of Fiji reported in November encountering an alarming number of the men with marbles sewn under the skin of their penises, apparently to heighten pleasure during sex. According to an Agence France-Presse report, Capt. Sarah East said that the marbles were not an automatic disqualifier.

-- Several news outlets in Johannesburg, South Africa, reported in November that, in front of several witnesses, a 20-foot-long African rock python swallowed a 10-year-old boy in the brush near Lamontville (which is near Durban). Some experts, including snake park owner Craig Smith, said the evidence and the witnesses' accounts were credible, especially since the snake had probably recently awakened from hibernation and was famished. According to the boy's terrified playmates, it took about three hours for him to completely disappear.

Humming Rage: Sheila Raven Lord, 49, stabbed a companion with a steak knife because he was humming a Megadeth song louder than the Celine Dion song she was listening to (Glenview, Ill., November). Mailbox Door Rage: George Krushinski was charged with planting small bombs in a mailbox and a letter carrier's vehicle because a weekend carrier had been leaving Krushinski's mailbox door down (Lexington, Ky., November) ("I've warned you bastards many times about leaving my mailbox open," Krushinski wrote, "(and) now you will pay.") Wrong Socks Rage: High school student-musician Trevor LeBlanc won $25,000 in a lawsuit against his band director, Tom Cole, who, at the 2001 Tournament of Roses Parade chewed out LeBlanc for wearing the wrong-color socks (San Diego, November) ("I ought to wring your (expletive deleted in original story) neck," Cole reportedly said as he grabbed LeBlanc by the throat.)

Police in Fulton, Ky., investigating a marijuana-smoking complaint by William Hainline's neighbors in September, found dope burning on a backyard grill with a large fan on the other side of the house sucking the smoke through the home (in effect, said Police Chief Terry Powell, "turn(ing) the house into a large marijuana bong"). Hainline said he was merely having a 52nd birthday party, but police seized four pounds of marijuana.

-- In October, the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, Fla., became the latest to debut a version of the church's 22-year-old "Theology on Tap" series, introducing young adults to the church by holding lecture and discussion sessions about contemporary issues, mostly sexuality, in local bars, with parishioners and potentials free to eat, drink and smoke. (In November, the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio, began the second year of its program.)

-- According to the police report on Farhad Qaumi, 19, who was arrested in Parramatta, Australia (near Sydney), in October and charged with raping a 16-year-old girl, Qaumi said he removed his Islamic pendant before the assault, telling the girl, "I have to take it off, as it is disrespectful."

-- In Bridgeport, Conn., in October, Roger Chimney, 34, pleaded guilty to two convenience store robberies; the police got him because he had accidentally dropped his name-inscribed Bible at one of the crime scenes. And in Augusta, Maine, in August, Craig Golden, 18, pleaded guilty to criminal mischief for vandalizing a farmer's field; the police got him because his name-inscribed Bible had fallen out of his truck during the incident.

-- The Lord as Micromanager: (1) "It isn't easy, but God said to (beat them)," testified former nun Lucille Poulin, before being convicted in October of assault in the harsh disciplining of children at her commune (Charlottetown, P.E.I., Canada). (2) "(G)od became my art agent. He basically gave me ideas," said Thomas Kincade, the pop artist who has sold $450 million worth of machine-produced paintings in 13 years, to the chagrin of art purists (Morgan Hill, Calif., March). (3) "God brought me down here," said Angel DeGroff, auditioning in November to be one of the competitors in the next round of the TV show "The Bachelor" (Hales Corners, Wis.).

In October in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Mr. Rosaire Roy was sentenced to a year in jail for hiring someone to rob his store so Roy could fulfill a sexual fantasy; he had arranged for the robber to force him to undress, along with an unsuspecting female acquaintance who was in the store at the time, because Roy wanted to be tied up naked with her. And in November, sheriff's deputies in Fayette County, Ga., acting on a tip, arrested Sandy Creek High School teacher Damian Belvedere, 44, who (using his webcam) was in the middle of a live Internet performance of fondling himself, nude, in his otherwise empty classroom.

-- News of the Weird has reported several times on men either killed or injured falling down embankments at night after stopping their vehicles on the side of the road to seek a secluded place to urinate. In September, Rick Schultz, 34, and James Esposti, 21, were taken to Punxsutawney (Pa.) Hospital after being knocked down when their Ford Ranger truck coasted backward into them while they were urinating at the side of a road.

-- The art of protest by sewing one's lips together is apparently becoming more popular. A 34-year-old man in Estonia, facing a charge of setting a Mercedes-Benz on fire, showed up in court with stitched lips in May. And in June, 50 refugees, held at the Woomera detention center in Australia, sewed their lips shut to emphasize their hunger strike as they lobbied for asylum. And a 39-year-old man from Iraq with bright red stitching on his lips was picked up by police from a city square in Zurich, Switzerland, in September (but he was unable to tell police what he was protesting, if anything).

-- A 1999 New England Journal of Medicine article warned that even putting a dead rattlesnake's head in your mouth can be fatal, and News of the Weird has run stories of men cuddling their pet rattlesnakes, particularly in conjunction with alcohol use. In November, Matthew George, 21, of Yacolt, Wash., was hospitalized in serious condition after the rattlesnake he was kissing bit him on the lip. Apparently, George was proudly showing to a friend the snake that he had found in the Arizona desert in October. Snake expert Richard Ritchey, asked by a reporter for The Oregonian whose fault the incident was (George's or the snake's), answered, "The one with the bigger brain," but he did not say which one he thought that was.

-- A leading British plastic surgeon said that human face transplants will be possible within a year (although the recipient would not necessarily look like the donor). And a woman named Kristina, 21, won the beauty pageant (talent, swimsuit, gown) at a woman's prison in Panevezys, Lithuania, but declined to reveal to reporters why she's in the slammer. A community redevelopment agency announced it was evicting 40 Hispanic migrant workers the week after Christmas, with no relocation assistance, so that Habitat for Humanity could build low-income housing on the site (Palmetto, Fla.). An inmate returning to jail from his day job at a recycling center tested higher than 0.20 blood-alcohol, gained by mustering last drops from all the empty liquor bottles he sorted (Charleston, W.Va.).

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or Newsweird@aol.com, or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com/.)