Computer hardware engineer Toshio Yamamoto, 49, this year celebrates 15 years' work tasting and cataloguing all the Japanese ramen (instant noodles) he can get his hands on (including the full ingredients list, texture, flavor, price and "star" rating for each), for the massive 4,300-ramen database on his Web site, expanded recently with "hundreds" of video reviews and with re-reviews of many previously appearing products (in case the taste had changed, he told journalist Lisa Katayama, writing in April on the popular blog Boing Boing). Yamamoto said he had always eaten ramen for breakfast seven days a week, but cut back recently to five. "I feared that, if I continued at (the seven-day) pace, I would get bored."

-- In January the California Historical Resources Commission formally claimed, on behalf of the state, about 100 items of property on the surface of the moon having been left behind during the 1969 Apollo 11 landing (since California companies were instrumental in that mission and since only the moon surface itself is off limits to ownership claims under international law). Among the items declared are tools, a flag, bags of food and bags of human waste left by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

-- Nicolas Damato, 20, filed a lawsuit in March against Media, Pa., police officer Matthew Bellucci for false arrest after a 2008 traffic stop. Bellucci claimed Damato threatened bodily harm (but a judge later dismissed the charge). Damato acknowledged sending two letters to Bellucci's home, one of which said in part, "God is just, and you will be punished. F you! You are an a------! A f------ a-- ----!" (as the words were represented in the Philadelphia Daily News story). Damato said it was not a threat but that he was merely expressing a "religious" opinion.

-- Louis Woodcock, 23, testified at his Toronto trial in March that he was not involved in the 2005 shooting of a woman, despite being seen on surveillance video approaching the woman and holding his hand inside his jacket until gunshots rang out. He said he often kept his hand inside his jacket to keep from sucking his thumb, which is a habit he picked up in childhood and which did not go over well on the street. (The jury, apparently not seeing him as the thumb-sucking type, convicted him of manslaughter.)

-- In February, Jesse McCabe, 29, was spared jail time (probation and community service only) for his conviction in connection with a missing $18,000 in bank deposits he was to have made for his employer in New Port Richey, Fla. Police discovered 13 deposits, from a six-week period, in McCabe's home, but all the money was recovered, and McCabe persuaded the judge that he just hadn't been able to make it to the bank yet.

-- Karen Salmansohn, 49, prominent author of self-help books for women with relationship and career problems, including "Prince Harming Syndrome" and "How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Successful Dog Trainers," filed a lawsuit in March against cad Mitchell Leff. Salmansohn said Leff had strung her along for months with promises of marriage and a baby, but abruptly cut off support when she became pregnant. Said Salmansohn, "I'm a self-help author, not a psychic."

-- Former baseball star Lenny "Nails" Dykstra recently started accepting clients for his investment advice service, charging $999 a year, according to a March Wall Street Journal report. His Web site discloses that while Dykstra is "NOT" (his emphasis) a "registered" financial adviser, his "proven track record has caught the attention of many." (Dykstra filed for bankruptcy in July 2009 to stave off more than 20 lawsuits against him for entrepreneurial ventures gone bad, and in November, the bankruptcy judge denied him the right to reorganize his debts, converting his case to a chapter 7 liquidation.)

-- In March, Monica Conyers, pleading insufficient funds, was granted a court-appointed lawyer to appeal her bribery conviction stemming from her work as a city councilwoman in Detroit. Conyers is the wife of John Conyers, the Michigan congressman who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. (Mrs. Conyers arrived in court on the day of her sentencing clutching what reporters said appeared to be a Louis Vuitton handbag that sells for $1,000.)

-- Britain's National Health Service in Warwickshire recently assigned Mavis Eldridge to receive care at the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham for the age-related macular degeneration she is suffering in her left eye. The decision was puzzling to Eldridge and her doctors because her right eye is already being treated for the same disorder at University Hospital in Coventry, 20 miles away. University officials said they were booked up.

-- Paula Oertel, on Medicare, has a brain tumor that had miraculously been in remission for nine years thanks to a type of interferon approved for multiple sclerosis but not for cancer. Medicare had been paying about $100,000 a year for the drug, but when Oertel relocated from one county in Wisconsin to another, 30 miles away, it triggered an automatic, full-scale review of her records, at which point officials realized that her drug was unauthorized and stopped paying. According to a March Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report, her doctors scrambled to find a drug on the "approved" list, but discovered neither a less expensive one nor one nearly as effective, and Oertel's tumor has returned.

(1) A February New York Times/CBS News poll, asking respondents if they approve of gays serving openly in the military, found that 79 percent of self-identified Democrats approve if openly serving gays are referred to in the question as "gay men and lesbians." However, when the openly serving gays are referred to in the question as "homosexuals," only 43 percent of self-identified Democrats approve. (2) In March, the government of New South Wales in Australia granted "Norrie" a certificate as the state's (perhaps the country's, perhaps the world's) only official genderless person. Norrie prefers to live that way, and two doctors had certified that the former male is now "physically and psychologically androgynous."

What stunned officials in Polson, Mont., the most wasn't that Brent Wilson, 53, was charged in March with attempting to illegally acquire ownership of someone else's house. It was that Wilson had attempted to register the title as property located on the "third planet from the sun" and as a conveyance from God, in a transaction that has yet to take place (scheduled for the year 6010). Authorities believe Wilson might have fallen for the elaborate teachings of a scammer who conducts seminars on outsmarting the law governing foreclosures. Wilson was also charged with breaking into the house illegally and changing the locks. Said the recording supervisor of Gallatin County, "I can't explain why people do what they do."

In October 2003, West Point, Ky., hosted 12,000 visitors for the weekend Knob Creek Gun Range Machine Gun Shoot, billed as the nation's largest, with a separate competition for flame-throwers. Especially coveted is "The Line," where 60 people (the waiting list is 10 years long to be admitted) get to fire their machine guns into a field of cars and boats, and during which a shooter might run through $10,000 in ammunition. Among the champions: Samantha Sawyer, 16, the top women's submachine gunner for the previous four years. One man interviewed by the Louisville Courier-Journal said he met his future wife at a previous Shoot, impressed that "she could accept flame-throwing as a hobby." Said another: "This is one of those times when you know (America) is the greatest place on Earth."

A new sports center in Mexico City will be devoted to the revival of ancient Aztec- and Mayan-created games that are rarely played in Mexico because they are dangerous, including a field-hockey-like competition played with a fireball. In another game, "pelota mixteca," players wearing metal-knuckled leather gloves punch a 2-pound, hard-rubber ball that could knock opponents unconscious. One thrill of the flaming-ball game, "pelota purepecha," is that some play it at night on unlighted fields. (In Mayan culture, according to a March USA Today dispatch, the world began with the gods challenging two humans to a ball game, and beating them, at which point the two die and are resurrected as the sun and moon.)

-- Felon-Candidates: (1) John White, now running for sheriff in Roundup, Mont., will be unable to carry a gun if he wins because of a long-ago bank robbery conviction. (2) Convicted felons might be running against each other if they win their primaries in May for county judge-executive in Hindman, Ky. Democrat Donnie Newsome and Republican Randy Thompson were both convicted of election fraud (though Thompson's case is still on appeal). (3) Cynthia Diaz was re-elected town clerk in Coventry, Vt., in March, though still facing 10 felony personal tax-filing counts. (The town clerk is the town's treasurer, delinquent-tax collector and trustee of public money.)

-- The U.S. Senate passed a bill in March to correct a misimpression Congress had in the 1990s when it instituted mandatory sentences for crack-cocaine possession that were about 100 times the sentences for powdered cocaine. Scientists long ago pointed out that the two substances are chemically the same, and the new provisions set crack-cocaine sentences at only about 18 times those for powder.

-- Tackling the Big Issues: (1) The Utah legislature passed a bill in March to, for the first time, legalize the personal collection of rainwater. "Harvesting" rain has been illegal, but now would be allowed, with a state permit, in special state-approved containers. (2) The Tennessee legislature is considering removing a longstanding ban on fish tanks in barbershops. Currently, no "animals, birds or fish" (except guide dogs) are permitted where hair is cut. Opponents said they don't mind aquariums but fear that trendy pedicures by nibbling fish (now in New York and Los Angeles salons) might come to Tennessee.

-- On Jan. 29, more than 200 Alabama state troopers were amassed at 4 a.m. for the purpose of raiding several illegal bingo parlors. The raids were eventually called off, but a University of Alabama professor estimated the staging cost to the budget-shriveled state at $130,000. Said a spokesman for Gov. Bob Riley, "No matter what it costs, the law must be enforced."

-- A December Seattle Times profile of Rachel Porcaro (a single mother with an $18,000-a-year hair-cutting job, raising two kids, living with her parents) centered on the IRS's year-long, full-blown audit of her, and subsequently of her parents, because she was flagged for earning too little money on which to raise a family in Seattle. Ultimately, Rachel and her parents prevailed on every issue except the Earned Income Tax Credit, in that Rachel's kids receive a little too much help from her parents for her to qualify.

Raj Patel's recent appearance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" was ostensibly based around his work on global poverty and food production, but followers of an 87-year-old Scottish mystic named Benjamin Creme received a different message that Patel was the long-awaited messiah that Creme had been promising would appear to unite humanity. Overwhelmed by the followers during a recent book-signing tour, according to a March profile in London's Guardian, Patel made public denials of any messianic role (which of course only confirmed the sect's certainty that he is the man) and engaged a few in conversation, but, he said, talking to them "made me really depressed, actually."

How much can a shoplifter stuff in his pants? A man seen on surveillance video at a Mobil on the Run convenience store in Bloomfield, Conn., in February fled after stuffing at least 17 cans of Red Bull energy drink down his pants. And in Cairns, Australia, a 51-year-old man was caught shoplifting in March, witnessed by security staff putting three limes and a package of beef tongue in his pants. When cornered, the man (like clowns exiting a clown car) pulled out an additional two onions, three trays of rump steaks and a packet of lamb forequarter chops.

(1) Schoolteacher Lucia Carico, who has been in good standing in Hawkins County, Tenn., schools since 1973, was fired in March over an incident in which she stabbed a 7th-grade student in the arm seven times with a pen (because, she said, he had been unruly, singing and passing gas). (2) Teacher Randolphe Forde was fired in January by the Clayton County, Ga., school board for an October incident in which he allegedly "put a hit" on an 11th-grade student (offering $50).

Sex for One: (1) In February, police in Upper Darby, Pa., said they had to delay processing accused molester Siri Pinnya, 36, because he would not stop masturbating. Said the police superintendent, "We only fingerprinted his left hand." (2) Martin Guerrero, 17, was eventually arrested in his W.T. White High School classroom in Dallas in December after the teacher noticed him staring off into space. When she approached his desk, he shouted, "Ay Mami," and continued masturbating. (3) Shanna Vonfeldt was fired from her job at KUSA Aviation in Beaumont, Texas, but claimed in a lawsuit filed in January that she left only because of boss Kyle Knupple's habit of masturbating in the office.

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Russell Wayne Upton Jr., Reno, Nev., March (charged at last in a 1995 murder); Kenneth Wayne Scott, Fort Worth, Texas, March; John Wayne Wilson, Bethel Springs, Tenn., March; Robert Wayne Hurst, Knoxville, Tenn., January; Bart Wayne Johnson, Pelham, Ala., December. Murder trial completed, awaiting delayed judgment: Steven Wayne Hillier, Canberra, Australia, April. Convicted of murder: Kevin Wayne Dunigan, Sacramento, Calif., November; Michael Wayne Wesley, Eugene, Ore., November. Appeal denied: Kelly Wayne Dozier, Houston, April (convicted of a 2006 murder).

(1) Itinerant contractor Billie Bobbie Harrison, 24, was charged in Spartanburg, S.C., with indecent exposure in February, after he approached a homeowner, lowered his pants, and offered to pave her driveway later if she would have sex with him. (2) Hemingway, S.C., police, responding in March to shots fired at the BT Express gas station, apprehended James Scott after he and Jackie Dollard had finished cleaning a chicken. Witnesses said Scott and Dollard fought over who got to keep the chicken.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" TV audience in June (1998) that the city of Orlando, Fla., was taking a big risk to sponsor the recent "Gay Days" festival. "I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes," he said, "and I don't think I'd be waving those (Gay Days logo) flags in God's face if I were you." Homosexuality, he said, "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor." (In fact, 1998's first hurricane, Bonnie, made landfall two months later in North Carolina, near the Virginia Beach, Va., headquarters of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.)

Lax on Perverts: In February, the Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners relicensed Scott Fredin even though he is still registered as a sex offender following a 2003 conviction for fondling two female patients during "examinations." Released from jail in 2006, he had re-applied to the board, which then found him "rehabilitated." He agreed to several restrictions on his office practice, but the board declined to order him to disclose his crime to patients. (And in March, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners finally expelled Dr. David Livingston, whom it had licensed in 1992 despite knowledge of his sex-crime-related expulsions in two states and his being labeled a "violent sex offender" by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.)

-- Ralph Conone, 68, was arrested in Columbus, Ohio, in March after witnesses identified him as the man who several times had walked up behind young children, punched them on the head when their parents weren't looking, and walked away as if nothing had happened. According to police, Conone confessed that he had been punching children in public since January because he liked the "excitement" of getting away with something.

-- Police who were called to a home in Charleroi, Pa., in February arrested Linda Newstrom, 49, for allegedly swinging a baseball bat (reportedly, a genuine Louisville Slugger) at her 21-year-old son, Jeffrey, because he had come home drunk. (She whiffed on the first two swings but connected on the third.) Newstrom told police, "I brought him into this world, and I'll take him out of this world."

-- Roberta Feinsmith, 67, who had been fired by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, filed a wrongful-discharge lawsuit in February, claiming that, despite glowing job reviews for 12 years, she was terminated because of her age and because she complained to other workers about her recently hired supervisor's "constant barrages of ... flatulence."

-- In February, a one-armed man swiped a single cufflink from the CJ Vinten shop in Leigh-on-Sea, England, and in March, a one-legged man swiped a single Nike trainer shoe from a store in Barnsley, England. The one-armed man is still loose, but the one-legged man was arrested.

-- A popular TV chef in Italy was fired in February after musing on the air about the historical popularity of gourmet cat meat. According to Beppe Bigazzi, 77, cat stew is best cooked after leaving the meat under running water for three days to tenderize it. "I've eaten it," he said, "many times." Bigazzi later explained that he was referring only to a tradition in Tuscany in the 1930s and 1940s and never intended to encourage eating cats today, but apparently his bosses could not endure the public outcry.

-- Unintelligent Design: (1) China's Yangcheng Evening News reported in March that a 6-year-old boy in Ha'erbin City, with 15 fingers and 16 toes, had surgery to get down to 10 and 10. (2) In March, Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou Village in China's Henan province, was reported to have a "rough patch" of skin on her forehead that had recently grown to a length of 2 1/2 inches in the shape of a horn. (However, dermatologists in the U.S. point out that the condition is not all that rare.) (3) In February, the parents of Deepak Kumar, 7, of Belhari in India's Bihar state, sought financial help for surgery to remove the parasitic twin joined at the hip with the now-eight-limbed boy. (His father told an Agence France-Presse reporter that he rejected suggestions that Deepak remain as is so that villagers could worship him as a deity.)

-- Supervisors at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle, England, issued a directive in March to short-handed staff on how to ease their telephone workload during the busy midday period. Workers were told to pick up the ringing phone, recite a message as if an answering machine ("Due to the high volume of inquiries we are currently experiencing, we are unable to take your call. Please call back later.") and immediately hang up.

-- The city health office in London, Ontario, created an online sex-education game that officials hope will appeal to teenagers in that its messages are delivered by a cast of iconic superheroes. According to a February report by Canwest News Service, the players are Captain Condom (who wears a "cap"), Wonder Vag (a virgin girl), Power Pap ("sexually active") and Willy the Kid, with each fighting the villain Sperminator, who wears a red wrestling mask and has phalluses for arms. The characters answer sex knowledge questions and, with correct answers, obtain "protection," but a wrong one gets the player squirted with sperm. At press time, the game was still accessible at www.GetItOnLondon.com/.

-- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals almost never encounters an "improper" conviction, but managed to ease up in February by taking the death penalty off the table for double-murderer Charles Hood, who had been sentenced to die by a jury in Plano in 1990. Hood had learned in subsequent years that his prosecutor and his judge had had a sexual relationship during his trial, but both denied it, and courts refused to investigate. Finally, by 2008, both had confessed to the affair, but the Court of Criminal Appeals still declined to call the trial unfair. In March 2010, several days after a New York Times report on the case, the court found a technical, face-saving ground on which to lessen Hood's sentence (while still ignoring the issue of the affair).

-- Despite Texas' severe pro-conviction history, one man actually received a full pardon in February. Tim Cole had been convicted of rape in 1986, though relentlessly proclaiming his innocence, and a 1996 confession to the crime by another man did not move officials to re-investigate. When a DNA result (ordered in 2008) confirmed the 1996 confession, Cole's innocence could no longer be ignored. In March 2010, Gov. Rick Perry issued a full pardon, but Cole could not enjoy it. He had died in prison in 1999 after wrongfully serving 13 years, the last three despite the fact that the actual rapist had already tried to turn himself in.

Not Much of a Challenge for Cops: (1) William Edmunds, 32, was charged with DUI in March when his car weaved up to the guard gate at the loading dock for the Montgomery County, N.Y., jail, and he asked if this was the Canadian border crossing at Niagara Falls (more than 250 miles away). (2) Travis Neeley, 19, was arrested in Lake City, Fla., in March for burglarizing a car, caught red-handed by the owner, who used the remote control to lock Neeley inside. Neeley tried several times to unlock a door and exit, but each time, the owner relocked it before Neeley could get out, and he finally gave up and waited for police.

In 1990, News of the Weird reported on a "cargo cult" on Tanna, one of South Sea islands comprising the republic of Vanuatu. "Cargo" comes from the cults' belief that the food and supplies that Americans brought to World War II military staging areas arrived by divine guidance, and they continued to worship the empty cargo containers long after the war was over, hoping their prayers would restock them. In May 2004, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, violence broke out on Tanna when breakaway Christians, calling the cargo business nonsense, fought with supporters of "John Frum," the iconic American who symbolizes continued worship of cargo lockers. About 25 people were hospitalized, and police had to be dispatched from Vanuatu's capital of Vila.