In several European countries, identifying the "naughty" kids at Christmastime is not Santa's job but is left to unsavory legendary icons who have endured for centuries (according to a December series of articles in Germany's Der Spiegel). In Italy, determinations are made by the extremely ugly witch La Befana, who has the ability to fly her broomstick through keyholes into bad kids' houses. In Austria, Krampus pays the naughty ones visits as a 7-foot-tall horned devil with a long tongue and a goat's head. And in the Netherlands, Sinterklaas' helper is Zwarte Piet ("Black Pete"), who, unlike Sinter, gets sooty when climbing down chimneys delivering twigs to the shoes of misbehavers. (However, the Netherlands pair has a big advantage over the North Pole-dwelling Santa, in that they reside in sunny Spain and arrive at Christmastime by steamship.)

-- In a March change of regulations, the Pentagon began saving money by reducing "combat-injury" benefits for all except those wounded while actually fighting, explaining that combat-"related" injuries were simply not worthy of full compensation. Thus, in examples offered by The Washington Post in November, Marine Cpl. James Dixon and Army Sgt. Lori Meshell were not entitled to full combat-injury coverage for their Iraq wounds (Dixon from a roadside bomb and a land mine, and Meshell while diving for cover during a mortar attack) because neither was actually fighting at the time. (Dixon, initially denied about $16,000 by the classification, recently won a hard-fought reversal, but Meshell, drawing $1,200 less per month because of the change, is still appealing.)

-- The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reporting the latest of 10 lawsuits against dentist Thomas Laney, 55, found "flaws" in Washington state's medical disciplinary system, in that Laney was apparently doing "full-body cosmetic surgeries." Laney was being sued this time by a woman for allegedly botching her breast-reduction. His attorney told a reporter that negative outcomes happen, but that Laney should not be held responsible unless the patient suffers deformities that are "terribly, terribly wrong." (When an earlier patient of his died after surgery, Laney was "disciplined" with a fine and an order to get additional training.)

-- The British Federation of Herpetologists announced in November that the number of reptiles kept as pets in the U.K. is probably greater than the number of dogs (8.5 million to about 6 million, with cats at 9 million). One benchmark the federation uses for its calculation is the booming sales of reptile food, such as locusts, frozen rodents and crickets (now about 20 million a week).

-- The Wishroom lingerie shop on Japan's Internet shopping mall Rakuten announced in November that it had already sold more than 300 of its new bras specially made for men (about $30 each) since the product launch earlier in the month. A Wishroom official told a Reuters reporter: "We've been getting feedback from customers saying, 'Wow,' we'd been waiting for this for such a long time."

-- Twice recently (in November, off Atlantic Beach, N.C., and in October, off Amble, Northunderland, England), anglers encountered (and rescued) dogs that were swimming about a mile from land and headed toward the open sea. The pooches, a Labrador retriever and a cairn terrier, were both said to be disoriented and uncooperative with rescuers.

-- When Arien O'Connell posted the fastest time in October's Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, she expected of course to be declared the winner, but the shoe company apparently had promised a group of elite runners (to attract them to enter the race) that one of them would be the "winner," and consequently, first place went to a woman who ran 11 minutes behind O'Connell. After a storm of complaints, Nike reluctantly settled on calling both women "winners" and said next year it would scrap the two-tier system.

-- In November, the Swedish national newspaper Expressen revealed a 30-person bestiality ring operating out of a farm in southern Sweden, but the 45-year-old man who allegedly headed the group said his members were always respectful of animals: "Any of the times I did anything with (the dog), she was the one who backed into me and provoked it. She was in heat and made herself available. ... There were also times later when she didn't want to and then I backed out immediately."

-- London's Daily Mail reported (after an investigation under Britain's freedom of information act) that more than half of the local government councils responding admitted that they were using anti-terror laws and surveillance equipment to monitor such mundane activities as whether residents put their garbage out at the proper times for pickup. Said one prominent critic, "We are no longer living in what most would recognize as a free society."

Professionals at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told an annual meeting of radiologists in Chicago in December that they had discovered an alarming new teenage trend of self-mutilation: girls deliberately inserting objects into their arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks (including needles, staples, wood, stone, glass and a crayon). According to the Chicago Tribune, the hospital reported extracting 52 such objects from 10 girls in a three-year period and regarded the practice as an extension of the more common self-cutting. Other studies have shown that at least 13 percent of high school students have deliberately injured themselves at least once.

-- Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) William Jarrett, 38, was charged in Hempstead Village, N.Y., in November with swiping a necklace from a 32-year-old pregnant woman and running off. Despite her condition, the woman chased him, screaming, for six blocks and caught up with him just as a police officer was arriving on the scene. (2) Muoi Van Nguyen, 31, was arrested in Spokane Valley, Wash., in November, charged with breaking a window with a hammer at a state liquor store and grabbing a bottle of wine valued at $9. Earlier, Van Nguyen had tried unsuccessfully to break the window with a rock, but decided he needed a hammer to do the job and went to a nearby store, where he purchased one for $11.

When News of the Weird last mentioned Andy Park, of Melksham, England, in 2002, he was in his eighth straight year of celebrating Christmas every single day of his life, with not only seasonal decorations and cards mailed to himself but a full holiday meal including turkey and champagne. However, as he told the Daily Mail in November, "The credit crunch is getting to me big time," and he has been forced to cut back a bit on the presents he gives himself. Nonetheless, every morning since July 14, 1994, Park continues to arise and open his presents before starting on his full meal and mince pie. He also watches the queen's Christmas speech on video. Yes, he admits, "People do think I'm (nuts)."

In 1983, convicted South Carolina murderer Michael Godwin, then 22, succeeded in getting an appeals court to reduce his death-by-electric-chair sentence to one of life in prison at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. Six years later, in March 1989, while sitting naked on a metal toilet and attempting to fix earphones that were connected to a television set, Godwin bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Thanks This Week to Candy Clouston, John Ellwood, Roy Henock, Perry Levin, and Steve Wettlaufer, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Geoffrey Egan, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and the News of the Weird Editorial Advisors (Paul Blumstein, John Cieciel, Harry Farkas, Fritz Gritzner, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

One of the world's best-known strategists on the game of checkers passed away in November. Richard Fortman was Illinois state champion six times, and in the 1970s and 1980s published a seven-volume handbook on rules and tactics. Many people now considering the game would be astonished to know that, as in chess, there are masters and grandmasters, and international rankings, that experts actually study historical opening moves and endgames, and that some play, move-by-move, via the U.S. Mail. A New York Times obituary noted that Fortman played as many as 100 games simultaneously, and won games blindfolded. Until the end, according to his daughter, Fortman spent "hours each day" playing checkers online.

-- Serbians, who have previously, bafflingly, constructed large, reverential public statues of martial-arts actor Bruce Lee and movie characters Tarzan and Rocky Balboa, built one of reggae musician Bob Marley in August in the village of Banatski Sokolac. Also planned was a statue of British singer Samantha Fox, but that project fell through. One Serbian artist who helped raise money for the Rocky statue told The New York Times, "My generation can't find role models (at home) so we have to look elsewhere."

-- The Gorani, a small group of Muslims scattered through the former Yugoslavia, lead mostly unremarkable lives, except for their singular distinction: Every five years, they gather in southern Kosovo for Sunet, a festival of mass-circumcision of toddlers, with a history tracing back centuries. Last year, 130 boys born since the previous Sunet were circumcised, without anesthetic, by Zylfikar Shishko, 70, for a small fee. Many Gorani are apprehensive about 2012, according to an October dispatch in Germany's Der Spiegel, because Shishko is 70 years old and the only skilled Gorani circumciser.

-- An administrative court in Sweden overruled a government agency in November, thus requiring that the Madonna of Orgasm Church founded by artist Carlos Bebeacua be registered as a legitimate religious community. "The orgasm is God," he said, and "should be worshipped" as a "metaphor of life." It should not be limited to ejaculation but can be taught "through art or by looking at a landscape and thinking, 'Wow!'" Bebeacua already claims "a few hundred" followers.

-- The streak for the longest continuous chanting (already noted twice in the Guinness Book of World Records) is still active, according to an August Indo-Asian News Service dispatch from Ahmedabad, India. Clerics at the Shri Bala Hanuman temple started intoning "Shri Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay Ram" on Aug. 1, 1964 (more than 23 million minutes ago).

-- "Intercessionary" prayer (having other people pray for you) is proliferating on the Internet, with the oldest such broker, Unity Church, now a Web presence (200,000 requests a year) after a century's operation by mail (500,000 last year) and telephone (another 1.3 million). Other Web sites also handle requests for life-saving miracles, inner peace and financial recovery (and one, on OurPrayer.org, quoted in a November New York Times report, asked for success on her financial accounting exam: "This is my third attempt on this paper, and I pray that the Lord will grant me wisdom and a clear mind").

-- It seemed like an obviously good decision by the Toronto Transit Commission in 2006 to curb counterfeiting of its aluminum coins and paper tickets by phasing in larger metal-alloy tokens as substitutes. By earlier this year, when the tokens had completely replaced the lighter coins and paper, the commission realized that its fare-sorting room was beginning to crack at the foundations because the tokens to be counted weigh about 60 tons more than pre-2006 aluminum and paper. A commission spokesman told the Toronto Sun in November that engineers were working on a solution.

-- In September, Atlanta-area educator Phillippia Faust, working on a $455,000 annual federal sex education grant, offered a $10,000 contest prize for an engaged local couple who had so far abstained from sex and would continue to do so until the wedding. (Any sex would be "risky behavior," said Faust, but worst of all would be living together before marriage, which is a "set up for the kill.") However, despite the large population of the area, she had no takers, and as the deadline approached, she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she even considered opening the contest to engaged couples who had had sex but regretted it. Faust eventually had to scrap the contest altogether because of conflicting federal grant rules.

-- In November, a judge in Dublin, Ga., sentenced Rico Todriquez Wright, 25, to at least 20 years in prison for the 2006 shooting of Chad Blue, who had told police initially that he didn't know who had shot him. Blue later heard a thug-life song on CD, "Hitting Licks for a Living," in which rap singer Wright brags, "Chad Blue knows how I shoot" and realized Wright was the one who shot him that night.

For 15 years, Eduardo Arrocha, 46, was different from us, as "Eak the Geek," the "Pain-Proof Man" at New York's Coney Island Sideshow, where he lay on nails, walked on glass, ate lightbulbs, and put his tongue in a mousetrap. However, in 2007, he traded everything in for a spot in the class at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Mich., where he is in his second year ("from one freak show to another," he said, "it's the most bizarre thing I've ever done in my life"). Job interviews may be tough because a three-piece suit will hide only his chest-to-toe tattoos; recruiters can't miss the stars and planets that cover his face.

-- Embarrassing: (1) A 49-year-old Leavenworth, Kan., man was hospitalized in November after (according to police) using a front-end loader to pluck an ATM from the Frontier Credit Union. He was hurt when he drove to the edge of a 50-foot embankment and tried to drop the ATM, imagining that the fall would break it open, but instead, he, the loader, and the ATM all crashed to the bottom. (2) British Muslim convert Nicky Reilly, 22, pleaded guilty in October in Exeter, England, to attempted terrorism for detonating a homemade nail bomb in the Giraffe restaurant. The plan failed when Reilly triggered the bomb in the men's room, intending to take it into the dining area, but then could not unlock the men's room door to get out. (His lawyer called him perhaps the "least cunning" person ever to be charged with terrorism in Britain.)

As animal hoarding goes, the 30 seized from Darlene Gardner's double-wide trailer home in Kootenai County, Idaho, last year weren't particularly noteworthy, even though two of them, deer, were living inside, each in its own bedroom. Authorities released the deer and other healthy animals into the wild and euthanized the rest, and Gardner's husband pleaded guilty to one animal cruelty charge. However, in November, Darlene filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against the county's "jack-booted thugs" who, acting without a search warrant, she said, had "killed my babies," referring to the animals that "were my life and my family."

In Toronto in March 1994, Sajid Rhatti, then 23, and his 20-year-old wife brawled over whether Katey Sagal, who plays Peg Bundy on the "Married with Children" TV show, is prettier than Christina Applegate, who plays her daughter. First, the wife slashed Rhatti in the groin with a wine bottle as they scuffled, but, remorseful, she dressed his wounds, and the couple sat down again to watch a second episode of the show. Moments later, the brawl erupted again, and Rhatti, who suffered a broken arm and shoulder, stabbed his wife in the chest, back, and legs before the couple begged neighbors to call an ambulance.

The Christmas Nativity scenes in northeast Spain's Catalonia region have, for three centuries, featured not only Mary and the Three Wise Men but the ubiquitous "caganer" icon, always portrayed with pants down answering a call of nature (and often so obscured in the scene as to popularize Where's-Waldo-type guessing by children). The origin of the caganer (literally, "pooper") is unclear, but some regard it merely as symbolic of equality (in that everyone has bowel movements). Catalonia is now home to artists who craft statuettes of religious figures poised to relieve themselves, and the franchise extends to renditions of sports figures and celebrities (and even a squatting President Bush). One family in Girona province sells about 25,000 a year, according to a November dispatch in Germany's Der Spiegel.

Larry and Diana Moyer set out in November from Beaver Dam, Wis., in their oversized RV to spend some warm days in St. Petersburg, Fla. Since they travel with their pets, Jack (Diana's "service" kangaroo) and Edward (an elderly goat that uses a cart for mobility because of front-leg paralysis), their route south was circuitous because of some states' restrictions on "exotic" pets. The RV broke down three times. In Florida, Larry had a stroke and was hospitalized for two days. Then, a fuse box short-circuited, and the RV burned up, torching their money and ID. Diana was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. With Red Cross help, they found a motel that accepted goats (but not kangaroos, so Jack went overnight to a wildlife facility). At press time, according to a Tampa Tribune report, the couple had bought a junk car and were headed home, with Jack curled up in Diana's lap.

-- Budget Relief for the California Government: A homeless transient, Steven Butcher, 50, was convicted of starting fires in the Los Padres National Forest near Santa Barbara in 2002 and 2006 (the latter which burned 163,000 acres) and in November was sentenced to nearly four years in prison. When Butcher gets out, he can work on the other part of his sentence, as he was also ordered to pay back the state for the fires' costs, in the amount of $101 million.

-- When the Poway Unified School District near San Diego cut teachers' printing budgets this year, some handout-intensive instructors had to dip into their own pockets to keep their students supplied. Calculus teacher Tom Farber decided in September to sell ad space on page one of his exams, at $10 for a quiz and up to $30 on the semester final. As of November, he told the San Diego Union-Tribune, only parent-sponsored inspirational messages have been bought, but he said he would welcome certain retailers' ads.

-- Economic Stimulus: A British surgeon will spend an estimated 250,000 pounds ($370,000) to equip her luxury home in Gloustershire with a state-of-the-art, three-room suite for her two Great Danes, including cameras so that she can monitor them via the Internet while she is away. Instead of an ordinary dog door, a retina scanner will control entry, and rather than rely on human stewards, the big darlings will be dispensed filtered water and dry food automatically in self-cleaning bowls. A temperature-regulated saline spa is available for relaxing dips before turning in for the night on sheepskin-lined dog beds.

A group of recently published cookbooks touting imaginative dishes served by world-renowned chefs includes Ferran Adria's volume on just his everyday fare at the world's top-rated elBulli in Spain. Probably too complex for home cooking are the parmesan ice cream sandwiches, quail eggs with crispy caramel coating, calamari tube ravioli with coconut gel, and especially the preserved tuna-oil air (to create foam). However, for about $250, wannabes can purchase Adria's "Sferificacion MiniKit" with utensils and guidance on more manageable possibilities, such as watermelon soup with tomato spheres.

-- Latest Off-Label Uses of Viagra: Britain's The Sun reported in November that Calvin Muteesa, 2, of South London has been forced to take Viagra four times a day since he was 3 months old to stave off a potentially fatal case of pulmonary arterial hypertension. And Bentley, a 7-year-old springer spaniel, has apparently recovered from a potentially fatal lungworm attack on his chronically weak heart via a Viagra regimen at a clinic in Highgate, England. (And last year, Argentinean researchers discovered that hamsters fed Viagra endured the rigors of jet lag about 50 percent better than hamsters fed a placebo.)

-- In October, ABC News profiled a 6-year-old boy with a rare coordination disorder called Angelman syndrome, which makes the afflicted seem stiff and jerky, but which also fosters a cheerful, gregarious (though non-verbal) personality, leading the disorder to be known as the "happy puppet syndrome." Seizures are a consequence, but so is excessive laughter, which is a major hindrance to early diagnosis, according to a pediatrics professor.

-- "This is a rare occurrence," said a Loyola University (Chicago) neurology professor in September, describing to WebMD.com only the seventh reported case of someone's suffering a stroke during orgasm. Several things must be present in series to create the condition, including having an unnatural opening between the two upper chambers of the heart (a "PFO"). Also, a blood clot must develop and break loose and then get sucked through the PFO at the moment of ecstasy, sending it directly to the brain.

-- Robert Garrett, 33, and Jesse Dyer, 32, were arrested in Lincoln, Neb., in November and charged with burglary and the theft of a 55-inch TV, which they had taken to their car, only to realize that it wouldn't fit. When a next-door neighbor spotted them, they tried to bribe her for $100, to hold the set until they could return with a bigger car, but she called the police.

-- Joseph Barton, 62, and an associate were arrested in November by local drug officials in Hurley, N.Y., and charged with a marijuana growing and distribution scheme of "epic scope and sophistication," according to a Middletown Times Herald-Record report. Besides the 45 pounds of marijuana seized, the chief evidence is copies of Barton's self-made biographical DVD chronicling a life of drug deals, describing candidly his adventures and business acumen.

More people who put their brains on "standby" while using satellite navigation systems: (1) In July, a group of 10 children and 16 adults from California were stranded in their cars in wilderness near cliffs close to the Grand Canyon, to which they had been misdirected by their navigation system. Rescuers were able to talk them back the next day on their cell phones. (2) Also in July, a truck driver hauling a 32-ton load from Turkey through several European countries headed for Gibraltar in the southern tip of Spain missed his destination by about 1,600 miles, winding up at a dead end in Skegness, England. (Gibraltar is a British territory, though nowhere near the British Isles, but both places have a "Coral Road," which was the destination.)

Saskatchewan physician John Schneeberger, then 31, implanted a thin, 6-inch tube of someone else's blood in his own arm in order to beat a DNA test after two female patients had accused him of rape. He cut open his bicep, inserted the tube, and pushed it down to the crook of the arm from which blood is usually drawn. Thus, "his" DNA didn't match the rapist's, and the cases were closed. However, one victim later hired a private detective, who exposed the scam, and Schneeberger was convicted in 1999 (though he maintained that he was forced into the deception because someone had framed him by breaking into his house and stealing a used condom). (Update: Schneeberger served four years in prison and was deported to his native South Africa.)