An option for suicide "with elegance and euphoria" is how Lithuanian-born Ph.D. candidate Julijonas Urbonas (London's Royal College of Art) described his "Euthanasia (Roller) Coaster," currently on the drawing board. Urbonas' model of "gravitational aesthetics" would be a third-mile-long, 1,600-foot-high thrill ride engineered to supply 10 Gs of centrifugal force (a spin at about 220 mph) to induce cerebral hypoxia, forcing blood away from the head and denying oxygen to the brain. Euphoria (and disorientation and anxiety, but not pain) are likely states to precede the brain's shutdown. Urbonas insisted that users would have the option through the first two minutes of the three-minute ride to rethink their decision and bail out (or else to push the final "FALL" button). (Suicide is legal in four European countries and Oregon and Washington.)

-- An open-government advocacy group's survey of federal agencies, released in July, revealed that eight of them have unresolved Freedom of Information Act requests that are over a decade old, including one pending for more than 20 years. (The 1976 FOIA law requires resolution within 20 business days, with a 10-day extension under "unusual circumstances.") (Also, regarding the FOIA, a June 2011 request by the city of Sioux City, Iowa, for background documents regarding the recent Postal Service decision to move jobs from Sioux City to Sioux Falls, S.D., was met promptly -- by the Postal Service's forecast that the likely fee for the documents would be $831,000, even though under the law the first two search hours and the first 100 documents are free.)

-- In August, the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspector general revealed that a $1,200 cash award was paid by the agency in 2010 to one of the very employees who had been specifically singled out for allowing Bernard Madoff to talk his way out of SEC inquiries in 2005 and 2006, before his epic Ponzi scheme was exposed in 2008. (The IG helpfully recommended that, in the future, awards not be given to employees who have recently been facing potential disciplinary action for poor performance.)

-- Among the aftershocks of the 9-11 attacks on America was the colossal budget-busting on "homeland security" -- a spending binge that, additionally, was thought to require something approaching uniform disbursement of funds throughout the 50 states. (Endless "what if" possibilities left no legislator willing to forsake maximum security.) Among the questionable projects described in a Los Angeles Times August review were the purchase of an inflatable Zodiac boat with wide-scan sonar -- in case terrorists were eyeing Lake McConaughy in Keith County, Neb.; cattle nose leads, halters and electric prods (to protect against biological attacks on cows, awarded to Cherry County, Neb.); a terrorist-proof iron fence around a Veterans Affairs hospital near Asheville, N.C.; and $557,400 in communications and rescue gear in case North Pole, Alaska, got hit.

-- The Office of Personnel Management's inspector general denounced the agency in September for promiscuously continuing to pay pension benefits to deceased federal retirees -- citing a 70 percent rise in bogus payments over the last five years. However, another federal inspector general (the Social Security Administration's) chastised its agency for the opposite reason: About 14,000 people each year are cut off from benefits after erroneously being declared dead.

The convenience store clerk, Ms. Falguni Patel, was giving testimony in the September trial of Morgan Armstrong (charged with robbing her in Hudson, Fla., in 2009) when she began shaking and then passed out while seated in the witness box. A relative of Patel's approached, removed her sneaker and held it to Patel's face, without success. The relative explained that Patel was subject to such blackouts and that sniffing the sneaker often revives her. (After paramedics attended to her, Patel took the rest of the day off and went back to court the next morning.)

-- Although Moroccan artist Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, 27, concedes that photographs can be misinterpreted, he maintains on his website that he never wants to hurt people's feelings. Nevertheless, he said he is proud of his photo exhibit in which he stands completely nude, allowing various verses of the Quran to be projected on his skin. His latest scheduled appearance was at an art fair in Marrakesh in October.

-- Two women were charged in September with what was likely a major art theft for Johnson City, Tenn. Connie Sumlin, 45, and Gail Johnson, 58, were identified from surveillance video as the ones who snatched two pieces of art off the wall in the entrance of a local Arby's restaurant (a picture of some pears, and a metal art object, with an alleged combined value, according to the police report, of "$1,200").

-- Earlier this year, Marion Laval-Jeantet won a notable Prix Ars Electronica award for her "hybrid" work that, she said, intends to blur the boundaries between species. Laval-Jeantet stepped onstage in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as a horse-human, having earlier injected herself with horse blood (after prepping her body for several months with different horse immunoglobulins). She also walked with stilts that had "hooves" affixed to the bottom. She capped the show by extracting some of her own presumably-hybrid blood, to be frozen and stored for future research.

Indecent-exposure flashers appear to be invading even off-limits sanctuaries in their quest to be seen -- in Florida, anyway. In Sarasota County in September, Shane Wheatley, 31, was arrested after a Comcast cable customer complained that Wheatley had begun fondling himself while installing the woman's TV service. Three days earlier, in Niceville, a 14-year-old boy (whose name was not released) was charged with indecent exposure after a worshipper reported him masturbating openly during services at the First United Methodist Church. The boy admitted he had done the same thing during services the week before because he was "bored."

In September, a jury found Terry Newman, 25, and an associate guilty of aggravated assault for a home invasion in San Antonio in 2009, thus adding insult to Newman's injuries. Newman was shot by a resident during the initial invasion, and then again by another resident when he returned 15 minutes later to retrieve his car. Finally, after police encountered Newman following a short chase, he resisted officers and was shot again, for the third time. (None of the injuries was life-threatening.)

An inquest in Yorkshire, England, in September found that the February death of Brian Depledge, 38, was accidental -- that he had inadvertently strangled himself after falling onto a folding clothes horse (of the kind often used to hang recently washed laundry on to dry). The coroner concluded that Depledge's body had become trapped between rungs in such a way that the more he moved his arms to extricate himself, the tighter was the pressure that was unavoidably placed on his neck.

After Emmalee Bauer, 25, was fired by the Sheraton hotel company in late 2006, she sought unemployment compensation under Iowa law that affords benefits to employees terminated through no fault of their own. However, the judge decided Bauer did not qualify. She had written a 300-page journal, during office hours, describing in detail her efforts to avoid work. Among her entries: "This typing thing seems to be doing the trick. It just looks like I am hard at work on something," and "Once lunch is over, I will come right back to writing to piddle away the rest of the afternoon," and "Accomplishment is overrated, anyway."

Risky Business Models: (1) Orlando-area cosmetic surgeon Jeffrey Hartog inaugurated Liquid Gold, a storehouse for patients' frozen liposuctioned fat, charging $900 to safekeep a coffee-cup-sized portion and $200 per year storage (in case the fat is needed later, as for smoothing facial wrinkles). A Massachusetts General Hospital physician shook his head, telling the Orlando Sentinel, "(F)rozen fat doesn't hold up as well as fresh fat." (2) German biochemist Peer Bork told the journal Nature in September that he and his partners built the not-for-profit MyMicrobes.com social network so that people with similar stomach bacteria can commiserate over diet and gastrointestinal woes. The $2,100 signup fee includes a full gut-bacteria sequencing.

-- Wild Things: Motorist Clyde White of Corbin, Ky., was charged with attempted murder in August after police finally collared him following a road-rage chase that reached speeds of over 100 mph. White, who had repeatedly rammed his two siblings in their vehicle, is 78 years old, and in that other vehicle were his brother, 82, and his sister, 83.

-- According to a recent report from Britain's Office of National Statistics, there are 297,000 households in the country in which no adult has ever held any kind of job. The number of individuals who thus may never have developed the "habit of work," and who instead have grown accustomed to the country's generous welfare payments, might total 700,000. (In an example cited by the Daily Mail, one such couple in their late 30s, and their children, "earn" the equivalent of almost $1,100 per week in income support and disability payments.)

-- Chicago massage therapist Liudmyla Ksenych, testifying for the prosecution in August in a sex-trafficking trial, happened to notice from the witness stand that the defense lawyer, Douglas Rathe, was formerly a client of hers. The judge immediately declared a mistrial. Rathe later said he visited Ksenych four times in 2009 but that "nothing inappropriate" happened.

(1) What Year Is This? In August in Lubbock, Texas, Carl Wade Curry, 44, was sentenced to 99 years in prison for cattle rustling. (Said one of the victims, Curry tried to be a smooth-talking, handshake-dealing cattle seller, but "he wasn't capable.") (2) In Jackson, Minn., in March, Andrew Espey was sentenced to 90 days in jail for improperly shingling the roof of his house. Complained Espey, "(A) drunk can drive down the highway and get a lot less (of a sentence)." (He had affixed new shingles without first removing the old ones.)

-- Larry Stone, jailed on property crimes in Tavares, Fla., because he could not make the $1,250 bail, posted the bond in July by earning $1,300 in telephone-company money after discovering a management error that credited his jail account $46 for every international call he pretended to make. (The company figured out the problem a day later and recovered all the payouts from the accounts of Stone and 250 other prisoners who had learned of the glitch. Stone's bond was revoked, of course, and he was returned to lockup.)

-- "Sorry, Honey. I Was Aiming at the Dog": (1) Betty Walker, allegedly firing at the pit bull that she saw lunging at some children, hit the dog with one shot and her husband, 53, with a second shot, killing him (Jackson, Miss., July). (2) Brent Bader, allegedly firing at the family dog, instead hit his wife once in the head, killing her (Twin Peaks, Calif., February). (3) Samuel Campos, 46, allegedly firing to put away the family Chihuahua after having inadvertently wounded it the day before, instead hit his girlfriend, 41, killing her (Willits, Calif., March).

While too many children in Third World countries die from starvation or lack of basic medicines, the preschoolers of the TLC TV channel's "Outrageous Kid Parties" reality show celebrate birthdays and "graduation" (from or to kindergarten) with spectacular events that may cost their parents $30,000 or more. Typical features, according to an August ABC News report, included a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster, a dunking booth, animal rides and a cotton candy machine, as well as the obligatory live music and limo or horseback (for grand entrances).

Strategies: (1) Alicia Bouchard, 41, was arrested in Jackson County, Fla., in August, accused of hatching a plot with her husband to impregnate a 12-year-old girl for the purpose of producing a baby that would eventually earn an additional welfare check. (2) In August, the Japanese construction firm Maeda Corp. ordered its 2,700 employees to adopt standard, short hairstyles (a "bob" for women with a longer fringe that could be swept to the side, and a routine short-back-and-sides cut for men with a slightly longer cut on top). Maeda said it was responding to the government's plea to reduce energy usage (less water, less hair dryer time).

(1) Travis Keen, 28, was arrested in Ouachita Parish, La., in August and charged with indecent exposure while driving around the parking lot at a Walmart. According to the police report, Keen explained that, based on experience, "when he comes to Walmart, he gets aroused." (2) William Falkingham, 34, was warned by police in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in August that he'd better stop wearing his large, black bunny-rabbit suit in public. One resident complained that his son had been frightened and that others were "greatly disturbed," and besides, Falkingham sometimes wore a tutu with the bunny outfit.

(1) Lon Groves, 40, was arrested in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after a brief standoff with police in July following an incident in which he allegedly held a handgun to the head of his wife in an argument over which of their granddaughters was the wife's favorite. (2) Pastor Daryl Riley of the New Welcome Baptist Church in St. Elmo, Ala., was tased, allegedly by the church's music minister, whom Riley had just fired in August (which led another parishioner to pull a knife and begin stabbing wildly in a melee). Said the music minister's mother, "He done cut (me) before anything started."

Anecdotes have surfaced over the years about an alleged sexual fetish of purposely pumping air into the rectum, and the Snopes.com "urban legends" website accepts that at least one instance has been reliably reported (in 1993 in Thailand, although that involved not self-gratification but a prank that got out of hand, resulting in the death of the victim). In July 2010, in Hull County, England, electrician Gareth Durrant, 26, was the victim of a prank that mirrored the 1993 case except that a quick-acting colleague removed the air hose, which had been inserted by co-workers as Durrant lounged on a break. Durrant said his body felt like it was inflating. In August 2011, as his lawsuit went to Hull Crown Court (as he has been unable to work ever since), he said that he still suffers headaches and stomach pains.

Because perhaps hundreds of Japanese Yakuza gangsters are nearing retirement age, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has drafted rules for the former gambling, loan shark and protection workers to qualify for benefits, according to a March dispatch from Tokyo in The Times of London. Since organized gangs avoid paper trails, ex-mobsters must supply a letter acknowledging retirement from their crime boss in order to sign up, although local governments are expected to accept as provisional proof criminal records, gang tattoos and demonstrations of missing fingertips (traditional Yakuza punishment for mistakes).

LEAD STORY

The medical establishment generally regards placentas (afterbirth) as biohazardous waste, but to New York City placenta chef Jennifer Mayer, they are a nutrient-laden meat that can alleviate postpartum depression and aid in breast milk production (among other so-far-unverified benefits). Mayer typically sets up in clients' own kitchens, she told New York magazine for an August story. Some placentas are "really intense, with grief or sadness or uncertainty." Others might be "joyful," "big and round." Mayer's method: Drain the blood, blot dry, cook for a half-hour (leaving something resembling brisket), chop into slivers, dehydrate overnight (rendering it jerky-like). For a popular touch, Mayer then grinds it in a blender and pours the powder into several dozen (one-a-day) capsules.

-- The Learning Channel's "Toddlers & Tiaras" series has pushed critics' buttons enough with its general support of the competitive world of child beauty pageants, but a recent episode provoked unusually rabid complaints, according to a September New York Post report. Mother Lindsay Jackson had costumed her 4-year-old Maddy as "Dolly Parton" -- anatomically correct (chest and backside) Dolly Parton. The Post described Maddy as "embarrass(ed)" at her chest when another 4-year-old pointed at her and asked, "What is that?" (Ultimately, the judges liked Maddy -- for "sweetest face.")

-- Things You Didn't Think Existed: (1) World Record for Length of Tonsils: Justin Werner, 21, of Topeka, Kan., was certified in July by the Guinness Book, with tonsils measuring 2.1 inches and 1.9 inches, respectively. The old "champion" was Justin Dodge of Milwaukee. (2) Global Competition in Dominos: The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia will be the site, in October, of the world domino championship. (Twenty-five countries belong to the International Domino Federation.)

-- Retired U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Rob Dickerson finally received his Purple Heart this summer, four years after he was seriously wounded in a rocket attack in Iraq and two years after he began a paperwork battle with the Army to "prove" his injury. Recently, the Army had apologized and mailed him the award, but it arrived C.O.D., leaving Dickerson to pay the $21 fee. (The Army subsequently reimbursed Dickerson the fee, but Dickerson said he hasn't been able to cash the check, in that it was erroneously made out to "Roy Dirksen.")

Madrid's Getafe soccer club, struggling for customers, startled Spain this summer by commissioning a porn movie, with zombies, hoping to attract more fans. As if that were not quixotic enough, it then tied the movie to a campaign to solicit sperm-bank donations. Explained the film's producer, Angel Torres, "We have to move a mass of fans to seed the world with Getafe supporters." A promo for the film follows a Getafe fan, armed with a copy of the movie for his viewing pleasure, as he disappears into a clinic's private cubicle to fulfill his donation.

-- "Do You See the Blimp Who Robbed You?": In August, 400-pound Eric Kenley, 48, won a new trial for his two New York City robbery convictions after appeals court judges realized that the police lineup that identified him was unfair, in that he was apparently much fatter than the other men in his lineup. The police had attempted to compensate by using larger-than-average men and by presenting them all seated, to minimize the weight difference.

-- Obviously intense about potential child-trafficking, the government of Quebec, Canada, requires strict proof of a live birth, certified by a doctor or licensed midwife. However, the waiting list to hire either one is long, and Heather Mattingsly went with an unlicensed midwife, whose word the Directeur de l'etat civil declined to accept. Four months after the birth, the agency ordered Mattingsly to submit to a vaginal examination. After "calls from the media" (according to a Montreal Gazette report) persuaded the agency that such an exam was useless, it finally agreed, on Aug. 26, to grant a birth certificate if Mattingsly submitted a doctor-certified copy of her pre-birth ultrasound.

-- You're Doing It Wrong: Jason Dean, 24, was arrested in Ringgold, Ga., in August and charged with false imprisonment after he waited in the parking lot of a Taco Bell, approached an 18-year-old woman and handcuffed her to himself. After her screams brought others to come help her, Dean explained that he had been trying for several months to get the woman to go out with him but that she had so far refused.

-- A New York Times obituary for former lead singer Jani Lane of the heavy metal band Warrant revealed that Mr. Lane's birth name (he was born a year after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy) was John Kennedy Oswald. Rebellious musicians (Warrant's debut album was "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich") often adopt provocative stage names to enhance their image, but Mr. Lane must be one of the very few to have abandoned a provocative birth name in favor of a bland one.

No Respect: (1) The man who approached tellers at the Eastern Bank in South Boston on Aug. 25 eventually fled empty-handed, but only after one teller had refused his order for "all your money" (she told him she was "closed") and another had scolded him for breaking into the front of the adjacent line and for not removing his hoodie. (2) A man dressed as Gumby was ignored by a 7-Eleven clerk when he tried to rob the store in Rancho Penasquitos, Calif., on Sept. 5. The clerk told "Gumby" not to waste his time, and "Gumby" finally fled. The clerk had such little respect for "Gumby" that he did not even report the "robbery"; it came to light only when his boss was reviewing surveillance video.

Richard Kreimer (whose appearances in "News of the Weird" in 1991 and 2006 achieved "Classic" status earlier this year) is back, apparently still defiantly malodorous. He recently filed four lawsuits against NJ Transit, alleging that he has been illegally prevented from boarding trains just because he is homeless. (NJ Transit says his behavior and lack of hygiene irritate passengers.) A former Kreimer lawyer told the Newark Star-Ledger in August that Kreimer virtually runs "sting" operations, waiting for people to offend him so he can sue. Kreimer, who tape records all his conversations, told the Star-Ledger that the lawsuits will continue, although he looks forward to one day being able to "close my law practice." However, for now, he says, "Business is booming."

Mennonites, a famously patriarchal, closed-sect religion, often live in colonies such as the one in Bolivia founded by a group from Manitoba, Canada. At press time, eight men from the colony are on trial in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for rapes of up to 130 women and girls from 2005 to 2009, allegedly instigated by Peter Weiber, 48, the colony's veterinarian. Weiber supposedly converted a cow anesthetic into an aerosol sedative that he sprayed into the victims' open bedroom windows at night, after which he and his co-defendants would enter and have their way with the victims. According to an August dispatch in Time magazine, the case is hampered by shamed victims' reluctance to testify and by the behavior of the defendants, who have been "laughing" at witnesses, "jok(ing) with guards," or "fall(ing) asleep" during the trial.

When Billy W. Williams, 53, skipped out during his trial for aggravated assault in 2003 in Dallas, Judge Faith Johnson was obviously annoyed, though Williams was nonetheless found guilty in absentia. When Williams was recaptured and returned to her courtroom in October 2004 for sentencing, Judge Johnson organized a "welcome back" party in his "honor," with balloons, streamers and a cake, to create a festive backdrop for her gleeful announcement that she was sentencing him to life in prison.