"Whoever said, 'Money can't buy you friends' clearly hasn't been on the Internet recently," wrote The New York Times in April, pointing to various social media support services that create online superstars by augmenting one's Facebook "friends," Twitter "followers" and Instagram "likes." The reporter described how, by paying a company $5, for example, he immediately acquired 4,000 "friends," and had he splurged for $3,700, could have had a million on his Instagram photo account. Such services have been around for two years, but earlier, cruder versions (sometimes, just unmonitored email addresses) are now sophisticated "bots" -- groups of computer code created on algorithm farms in India and elsewhere -- that "behave" on social media with original messaging (often "drivel," wrote the Times) as if they were real people. [New York Times, 4-21-2014]

-- We All Scream: (1) In April, Haagen-Dazs announced it will introduce two new ice creams (thankfully, only in Japan): carrot orange (with bits of pulp and peel) and tomato cherry (made from tomato paste). (2) A South Wales ice cream maker ("Lick Me I'm Delicious") announced in April that it has perfected an ice cream containing about 25mg of Viagra per scoop (though it is not yet generally available). [Los Angeles Times, 4-21-2014] [Daily Mail (London), 4-11-2014]

-- Marketing Challenges: (1) In January, London's Daily Telegraph found three British companies in competition to sell deodorant supposedly made especially for women's breasts. According to one, Fresh Body, "We're replacing 'swoobs' -- dreaded boob sweat -- with smiles." (2) Owner Christian Ingber recently opened a sandwich shop in Gothenburg, Sweden, named "A F

Medical Marvels: (1) China's Chengdu Commercial Daily reported in March that Liu Yougang, 23, finally had surgery to remove that whistle he had swallowed when he was 9. He had been experiencing worsened breathing -- and had been making "shrill whistle sounds" nightly after falling asleep. (2) London's Daily Star featured Sarah Beal, 43, of Arley, Warwickshire, England, in a March story demonstrating her skin condition in which writing words on her skin makes it puff up for about an hour before it recedes. It is referred to by doctors as the "Etch A Sketch condition" (formally, dermatographia), and despite occasional pain, she described it as "cool" and a "party trick." [Chengdu Commercial Daily via Global Times (Beijing), 3-6-2014] [Daily Star, 3-6-2014]

-- The Job of the Researcher: Cornell University graduate student Michael Smith, disappointed at the paucity of research on the pain of honeybee stings, decided to evaluate the stings himself (but in line with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 on safe self-experimentation). Smith's protocols required five stings a day on various body locations for 38 days -- at least three on each of 25 body areas. The worst, according to his pain index, were the nostril (9.0) and the upper lip (8.7). [National Geographic blogs, 4-3-2014]

-- North Carolina's Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is already well known to News of the Weird readers for creating functional organs in the lab (most notably, perhaps, growing a human bladder and a rabbit's penis). In an April article in the Lancet, the program announced that it had implanted artificial vaginas in four women in the U.S. A functioning vagina, the director told BBC News, "is a very important thing." [BBC News, 4-10-2014]

-- While Medicare continues to be among the most costly federal services, and U.S. doctors continue to drop out of the program because of paltry fees for some procedures, other specialists are rewarded with such outsized compensation that almost 4,000 physicians were paid $1 million or more for 2012 and about 350 of those totaled nearly $1.5 billion, according to Medicare records released in April 2014. Ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen of West Palm Beach, Fla., took in more than $20 million and treated 645 Medicare patients with a total of 37,000 injectable doses of Lucentis (a much more expensive drug than the popularly regarded equivalent, Avastin), according to Business Insider. (In fact, taxpayers could have saved more than $11 million with Avastin on Melgen's billings alone, according to an April Washington Post analysis.) [Washington Post, 4-9-2014; Business Insider, 4-9-2014]

-- Visitors to the New York City office of Clear Channel radio station group chairman Bob Pittman are greeted exotically as they step off the elevator by a "tunnel" of "fine mist." However, a spokeswoman told a New York Post reporter in March that it "isn't for cooling or humidifying," but to impress advertisers, in that Clear Channel knows how to project the advertiser's logo against the mist. (Clear Channel, the Post reported, is $21 billion in debt and has laid off "thousands" of employees.) [New York Post, 3-19-2014]

Par-tee! (1) In a springtime rite in Narcisse, Manitoba, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes slithered out of pits in March so that writhing males could hook up with "pheromone-spewing" females. London's Daily Mail called it the largest gathering of snakes on the planet -- with balls of males wrapped around females. (2) Once again this year, the Toads on Roads charity in Sleaford, England, called for volunteers in February to police a highway where post-hibernating female toads carry horny males on their backs across a road to mate in marshes. Without help, said the charity, up to two-thirds of the amorous toads would not survive oncoming cars. [Daily Mail, 3-12-2014] [BBC News, 2-26-2014]

Charged with exposing himself indecently to teenage girls in Durham, Ontario, in February: Mr. Chad Freake, 33. Arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in April and charged with illegal drug possession: Mr. Edward Cocaine, 34 (nope -- possession of Xanax!). [DurhamRegion.com, 2-7-2014] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 4-16-2014]

Universal Knowledge Allah, 36, charged with stealing a Stradivarius violin from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster (February); Theodore Edward Bear (aka Ted E. Bear), 29, charged with attempted murder, Great Falls, Montana (December); Ms. Cameo Crispi, 31, arrested for arson in Uintah County, Utah, charged with purposely leaving a pound of bacon frying on the stove to set her ex-boyfriend's kitchen afire (March); Mr. Bai Ting, 28, charged with biting a police officer in Singapore (April). Ms. Sue Yoo, an Asian-American lawyer mentioned in a BBC News magazine story on whether one's name is destiny (April). [New York Times, 2-6-2014] [KRTV (Great Falls), 12-23-2013] [KSL-TV (Salt Lake City), 3-26-2014] [The Independent (London), 4-9-2014] [BBC News, 4-1-2014]

The maximum penalty a drunk driver can serve in Missouri for causing another's death is 15 years in prison -- which is the same penalty handed down last year by Circuit Judge Kenneth Pratte to a brother and sister whose crime was getting caught with 20 marijuana plants (12 mature, eight sprouts), which they insisted were for personal needs. In fact, David and Natalie DePriest had not even taken the case to trial -- but had pleaded guilty, expecting, of course, minimum jail time (normally maxing out at about 120 days in prison, according to Missouri Department of Corrections statistics cited by Huffington Post). (David DePriest, though a licensed gunsmith, received seven more years jail time for having a rifle a quarter-inch shorter than permitted in Missouri.) [Huffington Post, 4-15-2014]

Recurring Theme: An unnamed "gangland" bomber was killed in March in Dublin, Ireland, when the payload exploded prematurely. The detonation occurred on the morning of March 30, which marked the daylight saving time change in Ireland, and police concluded that, most likely, the bomber had forgotten to set the timer ahead that morning, which would have given him up to 60 more minutes to plant the bomb and leave. (In 1999, two Palestinians, operating on West Bank time, but carrying bombs to the Israeli cities Haifa and Tiberius, which had already advanced their clocks that morning, were blown up -- along with only one bystander instead of the dozens or hundreds planned for.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 4-2-2014]

Thanks This Week to Andrew Hastie, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Bob McCabe, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Peter Smagorinsky, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).

The Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission in March reprimanded three pornography broadcast stations -- not for excessively erotic fare, but for violating Canada's protectionist, patriotic rules requiring that at least 35 percent of all content be of Canadian origin. According to its notice, the 24-hour AOV Adult Movie Channel, XXX Action Clips and Maleflixxx were falling short of the 8 1/2 hours a day of north-of-the-border sex action (and, in an additional charge, were failing to provide enough closed captioning to accompany the "Yeah's" and "Oh, baby's"). [National Post, 3-5-2014]

-- Drunk Logic: Wendy Simpson, 25, explaining her DUI arrest during a March incident in Huddersfield, England, pointed out that she had just minutes earlier walked to a McDonald's for a late-night meal because she knew she was too inebriated to drive. However, the dining room was closed, and she was refused service at the drive-thru window because she was on foot, and, she said, the only option left for her was to go home, get her car and return to the drive-thru. On the way back, she was arrested. [Daily Mail (London), 3-20-2014]

-- Efren Carrillo, a member of the board of supervisors of California's Sonoma County, was charged with misdemeanor "peeking" last year in Santa Rosa after he, returning home from a club late at night, saw his female neighbor's light on and decided to drop in on her (though he did not even know her name). He had knocked at her back patio door, carrying beers, but was dressed awkwardly, leading the woman to call 911. "In retrospect," the county supervisor told police afterward, "I should have had my pants on" (instead of just his socks and underwear). (His trial was underway at press time.) [Press and Democrat, 4-18-2014]

-- Among the arguments offered in March by Darrious Mathis' lawyers for his jury trial in Cobb County, Georgia, (for assault, kidnapping and carjacking) was the assertion that Mathis needed no force in order to have sex with the female victim on the night in question -- because Mathis is such a good-looking man. (However, the jury was not so dazzled and convicted him on all charges.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3-25-2014]

-- England's Stockport magistrates' court levied the equivalent of a $13,000 fine in March against Lorraine White, 41, who runs a part-time service as a dominatrix (chaining up and whipping "bad" men) in a "sex dungeon." Her business is apparently perfectly legal; the citation was for violating fire codes because inspectors could not see how a client, being properly disciplined (handcuffed and chained), might escape the dungeon in the event of fire. [Manchester Evening News, 3-13-2014]

-- Sounds Like a Joke: The Food and Drug Administration has had run-ins with "homeopathic" products that subtly market themselves as health remedies without ever having sought the required FDA approval. However, in March, a different problem arose, requiring the agency to order a recall of 56 different batches of homeopathic remedies made by the Ferndale, Washington, company Terra-Medica -- because they may have (accidentally) been genuine medicine. A variety of the firm's capsules, tablets and suppositories, said the FDA, might have contained actual penicillin, inadvertently produced as a by-product of fermentation. [The Independent (London), 3-26-2014]

-- Tiffany Austin called a KTVU reporter in March after being dismissed as a member of the Planet Fitness Gym in Richmond, California, after only one 15-minute workout -- because she was "too fit" and therefore making other members uncomfortable. Planet Fitness apparently takes seriously its business slogan guaranteeing "no gymtimidation," designed to keep out-of-shape women from feeling bad about themselves. Said another member, to the reporter, "It's unfair to show off your body." [KTVU (Oakland, Calif.), 3-19-2014]

-- A columnist for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Yawm Al-Sabi proposed in March that Egypt sue Israel in international court for reparations for the 10 Biblical plagues cast from Hebrew curses, including boils, lice, locusts and turning the Nile River into blood. Ahmad al-Gamal asserted that Israelites swiped gold, silver and other precious items as they began their legendary desert wandering. Al-Gamal also wants reparations from Turkey (for the 16th-century Ottoman invasion), France (for Napoleon's invasion in 1798), and Britain (for 72 years of occupation). [Jerusalem Online, 3-30-2014]

-- A California model, Elizabeth Dickson, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles in March against Playboy Enterprises for an injury she suffered as a guest on a Playboy Channel cable TV show in 2012 when she allowed host Kevin Klein to tee a golf ball off of her rear end. According to the $500,000 lawsuit, Klein took a swing at the ball that was teed between her cheeks, missed, and struck her buttocks hard, causing her "pain, suffering, worrying and anxiety." [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 3-13-2014]

Rehabilitated: Cook County, Ill., judge Cynthia Brim is awaiting the Illinois Courts Commission's decision as she seeks to be reinstated following her suspension in 2012 for mental health issues. Brim has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, has been hospitalized "multiple" times since 1993 (according to a Chicago Sun-Times report), and now claims to be fine, provided she takes her meds on schedule -- which her doctor said she will need to do for the rest of her life. Her suspension came after a manic courtroom outburst lauding her heroic "testicles" and which preceded a scuffle with sheriff's deputies outside a county judicial building. [Chicago Sun-Times, 3-28-2014] [WLS Radio, 2-5-2013]

Genres That Never Get Old: (1) Evelyn Hamilton, 37, was arrested in Lufkin, Texas, in April as merely the most recent person to complain to police that in a recent street transaction, she had been sold inferior marijuana. "Seeds and residue," she whined to the nearest officer, as she pulled a stash from her bra. (2) Though many people are remorseful about their first tattoos, Jeffrey Chapman is apparently more so. His ultra-cool inking (the word "murder" on his neck in reverse image, clearly readable only in a mirror) is now awkward as he prepares, at press time, to stand trial for first-degree murder for a 2011 killing in Great Bend, Kansas. [Associated Press via Athens Banner-Herald, 4-7-2014]

Jerry Hartfield lost again. In the Texas case mentioned in News of the Weird in March, the illiterate, borderline-incompetent black man sought release from prison because his constitutional "speedy trial" right was violated. (He had been sentenced to death row in 1977 for murder, but his conviction was overturned in 1983, and the then-governor quickly "commuted" the sentence to life in prison. Hartfield languished behind bars for 23 more years before realizing that there was no "sentence" in effect in 1983 to "commute" and petitioned to be freed since Texas was, basically, mocking his speedy-trial right.) However, in April, district judge Craig Estlinbaum once again turned him down, hinting that Hartfield must have consciously ignored his speedy-trial right for 23 years because he was content to be imprisoned (and might even have been purposely lingering in lockup to make his eventual speedy-trial claim stronger). Obviously, Hartfield's lawyers will appeal further. [The Week via Yahoo News, 4-17-2014]

Americans (mostly men) continue to accidentally shoot themselves. Several men from law enforcement did: a cop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in the leg at a bagel shop (December); a former police officer and firearms instructor in Glenwood, Nebraska (January); a sheriff's deputy, in the leg while defending himself against an aggressive dog in Riverside, California (April); and the police chief in Connersville, Indiana, in the leg (January), but -- over 14 years had passed since the previous time he accidentally shot himself! Some familiar (recurring) incidents: the accidental testicle shot (holstering his weapon into his pants, Portland, Oregon, January); the motorist looking to intimidate in a road rage incident (but shooting his own leg, Orlando, Florida, January); the man demonstrating gun safety to his girlfriend by pointing the "unloaded" gun to his head and firing (fatally) (Oakland County, Michigan, February); and the butt shot, while reaching for his wallet at a Home Depot (Brighton, Michigan, December). Bridgeport: [News 12 Connecticut (Norwalk), 12-24-2013] Glenwood: [Omaha World Herald, 1-25-2014] Riverside: [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 4-18-2014] Connersville: [Palladium-Item (Richmond, Ind.), 1-20-2014] Portland: [The Oregonian, 1-29-2014] Orlando: [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 1-20-2014] Oakland County: [Detroit Free Press, 2-24-2014] Brighton: [Daily Press & Argus (Livingston, Mich.), 12-30-2013]

Thanks This Week to Mark Stevens, Clayton Melanson and Al Strauss, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

First-term U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida is already among the House's most conservative members, but his Republican primary challenger claims to be even more so -- but with a quixotic, longtime hobby as a costumed, role-playing "gamer." Challenger Jake Rush (in his day job, a lawyer) portrays supernatural characters as a prominent member of the national Mind's Eye Society and Florida's Covenant of the Poisoned Absinthe, including a vampire named "Chazz Darling," who, according to a Yahoo message board, once left an explicit, body-parts-bloodying threat to a role-player with whom he had been feuding. (The Florida political report SaintPetersBlog broke the story -- and was quickly criticized, less by Rush's political defenders than by the indignant "cosplay" community, feeling mocked.) [SaintPetersBlog, 4-1-2014] [MiamiNewTimes.com, 4-1-2014]

-- A scandal erupted in 2013 at Minot (N.D.) Air Force Base when missile-launch specialists were charged with cheating on proficiency tests, but additional documents uncovered by the Associated Press in March 2014 show that the problem was worse than originally reported. The overall missile-launch program, run by "missileers," was judged "substandard" -- the equivalent of an F grade in school -- and "rehabilitated" in the eyes of Air Force officers only because the 91st Missile Wing Command's support staff (cooks, drivers, clerks, etc.) scored very high and brought the command's overall performance to the equivalent of a D. [Associated Press via PBS Newshour, 3-14-2014]

-- The tax software company Vertex reported in March, via the Tax Foundation, that tax-hating American states have somehow organized themselves into nearly 10,000 sales/use-tax jurisdictions with distinct rules, coverages or exemptions. Ironically, states criticized as tax profligates sometimes have the simplest systems (e.g., one set of rules covering the entire state, such as in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) while states regarded as refuges from intrusive government often have the most complicated (e.g., 310 different jurisdictions in Utah, 587 in Oklahoma, 994 in Iowa and 1,515 in Texas). [TaxFoundation.org, 3-24-2014]

-- Formally asking a sweetheart to "please be my (boyfriend/girlfriend)" is said to be a traditional romantic milestone in Japanese relationships, and the town of Nagareyama in Chiba Prefecture now provides a government document to commemorate that big step (for a filing fee, of course). In fact, according to the news site RocketNews24.com, since only one party need file the document, the town hopes the form will become a strategic step to declare one's love without the need for messy, face-to-face, rejection-risking confrontation (and also become a robust municipal-revenue producer). [RocketNews24, 3-10-2014]

-- British artist Millie Brown, 27, profiled in January in London's Daily Mail, creates Jackson Pollock-style canvases by vomiting on them after ingesting colored soy milk. Brown (whose work hangs in London's Ripley's Believe It or Not! showcase) said she fasts for two days prior to public performances and, as the show starts, times her ingestions so that the proper hues don't prematurely mix in her stomach. Her appearance, at work, in a Lady Gaga music video brought her a somewhat larger audience. Said the understated Brown, "I am able to challenge people's perceptions of beauty." [Daily Mail, 1-31-2014]

-- Paris' Hunting and Wildlife Museum hosted, from April 1 to April 13, artist Abraham Poincheval's real-time demonstration of "birth and rebirth" -- his living completely inside a hollowed-out bear carcass the entire time, eating, drinking, reading, sleeping and relieving himself (down the bear's legs) before a live camera, with a viewing window for spectators. Poincheval, who in a previous installation lived for a while in a hole, likened the experience merely to the cramped quarters of astronauts. [Huffington Post, 4-11-2014]

-- Petty Theft: (1) Although Douglas Lydic, 29, escaped from a patrol car in December in Commodore, Pa., while handcuffed (and was soon re-captured), prosecutors declined to charge him with fleeing since he was merely being "detained" at the time. However, they did charge Lydic with theft of the handcuffs. (2) Petty and Tacky: Dustin Bell, 25, wearing a police officer's badge that had been stolen from the Sand Springs, Okla., department, apparently only casually considered how to wield his newly acquired "authority." He was arrested in April after asking at a Tulsa tanning salon for a law-enforcement discount -- to get a $34 session for $10. [Associated Press via PoliceOne.com, 12-25-2013] [KOTV (Tulsa), 4-6-2014]

-- Misunderstanding: Four Maine State Police troopers rushed to a home in the town of China in January, alarmed by 911 calls about an assault in progress (according to neighbors who reported raucous screaming). Trooper Thomas Bureau found that the suspected "crime scene" was the home of a pig farmer, who showed troopers the pen out back in which a male had been placed with five sows "in heat" and that the squealing (either by the sows or the beleaguered male) was not unusual. [Morning Sentinel (Waterville, Me.), 2-5-2014]

-- Hard Times Ahead: (1) Ms. Terry Boyd, 52, was ordered to probation in Wausau, Wis., in February on charges of imprisoning two men in a second-story bedroom, leaving them screaming for help from a window. According to police, Boyd had refused to release the men until at least one agreed to have sex with her. (2) After Maria Montanez-Colon, 58, called 911 in February in Punta Gorda, Fla., the responding officer reported that she immediately began fondling him, describing herself as "horny," noting "I haven't been penetrated in years." The officer politely declined and warned her about frivolous 911 calls, but Montanez-Colon was arrested shortly afterward when she called again, asking the second responding officer, "How else am I going to get (to have sex)?" [Wausau Daily Herald via Stevens Point Journal, 2-28-2014] [The Smoking Gun, 2-25-2014]

-- Possibly DUI: (1) Michael Moore, 61, who had left home in a huff on March 4 after his wife accused him of excessive drinking, was arrested later that night in Hobe Sound, Fla., after more drinking at a bar. He suggested to police that he knew he was drunk, but had taken the wheel to try to "drive it off." (2) Bryan Hill, 24, was arrested in Indianapolis in March, passed out in the driver's seat of his car at 4 a.m. wearing only a T-shirt, underwear and one sock. The officer said Hill "did have pants on, but they were on his arms. Both arms were inserted into the legs of his jeans." [WPLG-TV (Miami), 3-7-2014] [The Smoking Gun, 3-24-2014]

(1) Japan's largest, most influential organized-crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi, recently launched an extensive anti-drug, humanitarian campaign with a website and folk-song-like ballad extolling the group's civic-mindedness backing up photographs of earnest, joyful men at work in their communities. (2) Italy's former premier, Silvio Berlusconi, booted out by voters last year after he finally embarrassed them (and who is awaiting sentencing for tax evasion and trial for bribery), began a comeback in March -- by becoming the face of a dog-and-cat rescue program. "Dogs and cats," he assured supporters, "will help (the Forza Italia party) win the European elections." [The Guardian (London), 4-2-2014] [The Independent (London), 3-30-2014]

In April, Louisiana state senators rejected Sen. Elbert Guillory's over-the-top campaigning to make "chicken boxing" legitimate, dismissing his proposed bill and leaving the "sport" banned along with cockfighting. The proposed law would still have permitted sharp spurs on fighting roosters' legs, but required promoters to cover them with rubber gloves. Guillory had pleaded with colleagues, "(There would be no) blood ... no knives ... no cruelty ... no abuse," as he futilely held up pairs of the tiny "chicken boxing" gloves. [Times-Picayune, 4-7-2014]

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Mr. Yafait Tadesse was sentenced in federal court in March to a year in jail for filing fraudulent tax returns for certain "Wal-Mart employees," from fictitious addresses, for 2012 and 2013. Among the fake returns that Tadesse apparently failed to double-check was that of supposed Georgia Wal-Mart employee "Eric Holder" -- the U.S. attorney general. (2) Ryan Trembly, 29, was charged with trying (futilely) to rob Bubbles Hair Salon in Annapolis, Md., in April. Explained the salon's receptionist, "He was like, 'Give me all your money,' and I said, 'Not today!' Who tries to rob a salon?" Trembly left, to the sound of her laughter, and was picked up at his mother's house. [Fox News, 3-13-2014] [WJZ-TV (Baltimore), 4-10-2014]

Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.