Dutch inventors Bart Jansen and Arjen Beltman struck again recently when Pepeijn Bruins, 13, called on them to help him grieve over his pet rat, Ratjetoe, who had to be put down because of cancer. Having heard of the inventors' work, Pepeijn asked if they could please have Ratjetoe stuffed and turned into a radio-controlled drone. Jansen and Beltman, who had previously created an "ostrichcopter" and are now working on a "turbo shark," created Pepeijn's rat-copter, but remain best noted for their epic taxidermied cat, "Orvillecopter," created in 2012 (which readers can view at nydn.us/1r0WmmA). [BBC News, 9-10-2014; Daily Mail (London), 9-11-2014]

-- How to Confuse an Arizonan: In August, a state appeals court overruled a lower court and decided that Thomas and Nancy Beatie could divorce, after all. The first judge had determined that their out-of-state marriage was not valid in Arizona because they were both women, but Thomas has had extensive surgery and hormone therapy and become a man -- although he is also the spouse who bore the couple's three children, since he made it a point to retain his reproductive organs. [Associated Press via KSAZ-TV (Phoenix), 8-14-2014]

-- In August, for the 12th straight year, a group of Japanese adult-film actresses has volunteered their breasts to raise money for an AIDS-prevention charity event shown on an X-rated cable TV channel from Tokyo. The 12-hour-long "squeeze-a-thon" ("Boob Aid") sold individual fondles to men for donations of at least (the equivalent of) $9, with donors required first to spray on disinfectant. In all, 4,100 pairs of hands roamed the nine actresses. [Agence France-Presse, 8-31-2014]

-- Regulatory filings revealed in August that AOL still has 2.3 million dial-up subscribers (down from 21 million 15 years ago) paying, on average, about $20 monthly. Industry analysts, far from rolling on the floor laughing at the company's continued success with 20th-century technology, estimate that AOL's dial-up business constitutes a hefty portion of its quarterly "operating profit" of about $122 million. [Quartz, 8-6-2014]

-- Commentators have had fun with the new system of medical diagnostic codes (denominated in from four to 10 digits each) scheduled to take effect in October 2015, and the "Healthcare Dive" blog had its laughs in a July post. The codes for "problems in relationship with in-laws" and "bizarre personal appearance" are quixotic enough, but the most "absurd" codes are "subsequent encounters" (that is, at least the second time the same thing happened to a patient) for events like walking into a lamppost, or getting sucked into a jet engine, or receiving burns from on-fire water skis, or having contact with a cow beyond being bitten or kicked (since those contacts have separate codes). Also notable was S10.87XA, "Other superficial bite of other specified part of neck, initial encounter," which seems to describe a "hickey." [HealthcareDive.com, 7-15-2014]

-- More Drivers Who Ran Over Themselves: In June, Robert Pullar, 30, Minot, North Dakota, subsequently charged with DUI, fell out of his car and was run over by it. In July, Joseph Karl, 48, jumped out of his truck to confront another driver in a road rage incident in Gainesville, Florida, but as he pounded on that driver's window, his own truck (negligently left in gear) crept up and ran him over. Pullar and Karl were not seriously injured, but in July, a 54-year-old St. Petersburg, Florida, man was hurt badly when, attempting to climb onto the street sweeper that he operates for the city, he fell off, and the machine ran over his upper body. [KXMC-TV (Minot), 6-23-2014] [Gainesville Sun, 7-23-2014] [Bay News 9 (St. Petersburg), 7-22-2014]

-- For patients who are musicians, deep brain stimulation (open-brain) surgery can provide entertainment for operating-room doctors as they correct neurological conditions such as hand tremors. In September, the concert violinist Naomi Elishuv, who has performed with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, played for surgeons at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center so they could locate the exact spot in the brain for inserting the pacemaker to control the hand-trembling that had wrecked her career. (In fact, last week's winner of the annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, Eddie Adcock, 76, had finger-picked some tunes in the operating room in 2007 for his own deep brain surgery.) [Huffington Post, 9-11-2014] [New York Times, 9-16-2014]

-- Buddhists continue to believe in the wholesale "mercy release" of living creatures, with smaller and less consequential animals making even stronger statements of reverence, according to a July New York Times dispatch from Yushu, China, describing the freeing of river shrimp the size of a fingernail clipping. These specks of life, an advocate told the Times, "could very well be the reincarnated souls of relatives" who perished in the 2010 earthquake that demolished the local area. "We" workers, said another, "have the same feelings as the fish," alluding to his own occupation of "digging in the mud." [New York Times, 7-25-2014]

-- Surgeons at the University of Arizona Medical Center removed a 47-pound tumor from a woman's stomach in April -- not even close to being the largest ever mentioned in News of the Weird, but likely the only such large tumor appearing in a post-operative photograph being cradled in the arms of a member of the surgical team. (The patient, without insurance, had been putting off the surgery for months, which allowed the tumor to grow and to complicate the surgery -- but credits "Obamacare" with finally allowing her to afford the procedure.) [Tucson News Now, 6-23-2014]

-- Previous reports of obsessively vengeful ex-lovers seem concentrated in Japan, where some heartbroken girlfriends have relentlessly harassed their exes with thousands of phone calls for months after the breakup. However, in a September report from Rhone, France, a 33-year-old man was sentenced to prison for 10 months for harassing his ex-girlfriend with a total of 21,807 phone calls and texts over the 10 months following the split (an average of 73 a day). The man insisted that he only wanted the woman to thank him for the carpentry work he had done on her apartment. [Agence France-Presse via The Guardian (London), 9-5-2014]

-- Size Matters (Sometimes): It's not the first time that a suspect has had the idea, but usually, judges are skeptical. This time, a court in Leer, Germany, ordered a medical examination of the manhood of Herbert O., 54, to help decide a criminal charge of exhibitionism. The man's wife testified that Herbert's organ is "too short to hang out of (his) trousers," as claimed by the victim of the flashing. The judge asked a local health official to make an exact measurement. [The Local (Berlin), 8-22-2014]

Clues at the Scene: (1) Alfred J. Shropshire III was charged in June with burglarizing a home in Lakewood, Washington, identified by his having accidentally dropped at the scene a plaque from a local Mazda dealer naming Alfred J. Shropshire III Salesperson of the Month. (2) John Martinez, 68, was arrested for allegedly robbing a Wells Fargo bank in Denver in July, having been identified by bank personnel who remembered that the robber wore a black T-shirt with "John" on it and in part because video revealed that a silver Honda registered to "John Martinez," was waiting outside for his getaway. [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 6-13-2014] [KMGH-TV (Denver), 7-23-2014]

Most victims seemed baffled or only modestly distressed by the obsession of Sherwin Shayegan, 27 (with one describing him as "completely harmless"). Shayegan's perversion is that, from time to time (allegedly dating to at least 2006), he befriends high-school male athletes, questions them in the locker room as a reporter would, and then, after distracting them with the inquiries, jumps on the athletes' backs and demands piggyback rides. No other overtures are made, and no injuries have been reported, and the principal complaint about Shayegan is his obnoxiousness. His latest arrest took place in May (2010) in Tualatin, Oregon, near earlier incidents in Washington state. [Tigard Times (Tigard, Ore.), 5-6-10]

Thanks This Week 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 WE cable network disclosed in August that it had ordered a nine-episode adaptation of a British series, "Sex Box," in which a couple enters a large opaque chamber on stage and has intercourse. The pair, pre- and post-coitally, are clothed and seated before a panel of probably D-List celebrities, and will respond to questions and comment on their feelings and techniques (likely enduring praise and criticisms about their "work"). The series will debut sometime in 2015. (However, as the Daily Beast website pointed out, it might also be true that still, in 2015, even a split-second's glimpse of a female nipple on any broadcast TV show would create a national scandal.) [The Daily Beast, 8-21-2014]

-- The "trendy" 25hours Hotel Bikini Berlin, located adjacent to the Berlin Zoo and offering some of the best views of the city from its floor-to-ceiling windows, has famously positioned the rest rooms of its Monkey Bar in front of the windows, also, and those heeding nature's call are clearly visible to gawkers. Guests are merely warned, by the Trip Advisor website and by the hotel itself (with the admonition, "Please be careful. Not only the monkeys are watching"). [Daily Mail (London), 7-30-2014]

-- London designer Gigi Barker recently unveiled the Skin chair (priced at the equivalent of about $2,500), made of leather but with a "pheromone-impregnated silicone base" that makes it feel (and smell, perhaps) like one is "lounging in the fleshy, comforting folds of a man's belly." The Skin was scheduled for exhibition this month at the London Design Festival. [Quartz, 7-25-2014]

-- China's insurance companies offer some of the world's quirkiest policies, according to a September Reuters dispatch from Hong Kong. People's Insurance Group, for example, will pay out in case a customer's children display disappointingly "mischievous and destructive" habits. The Ancheng company offers a policy protecting a customer in case his mouth is burned eating "hotpot." Ping An Insurance Group (actually, the world's second-largest by market value) has recently offered an "accidental pregnancy before honeymoon" policy, and is one of three companies that competed to sell couples compensation in case a marriage is disrupted by a "concubine." [Reuters via Business Insider, 9-1-2014]

-- New Orleans Juvenile Court Judge Yolanda King, already indicted for falsifying her home address in her 2013 campaign for office, was spotted by a Times-Picayune reporter on Aug. 20 filing three registration papers for the Nov. 4 election in which she swore (under oath) to three different addresses -- two of which appeared to be clearly erroneous. Her lawyer told the newspaper that the judge, who was suspended by the Louisiana Supreme Court following her indictment, had merely "misinterpreted" the instructions. [Times-Picayune, 8-21-2014]

-- As part of a nationwide distribution of surplus military equipment, 10 Texas school districts eagerly acquired a total of 64 M-16 rifles, 18 M-14s, 25 automatic pistols and magazines capable of holding 4,500 rounds of ammunition. District officials referred generally to the need to protect against school attacks such as the notorious incidents in Colorado and Connecticut, but a local Houston area police chief, seeking to reassure a nervous public, promised that the equipment would be used only by tactically trained officers and that, otherwise, would be locked in the department's armory. A critic of the program told KHOU-TV that statistically, the typical active-shooter school situation lasts 12 minutes, hardly enough time to get to the armory and load up. [KHOU-TV, 9-5-2014]

-- In July, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Detroit, ruling on a judicial corruption complaint, managed to describe the actions of a Michigan state judge, "Hon." Wade McCree, as "often reprehensible" -- in that he had been carrying on a romantic affair with a woman involved in a child custody case he was judging. (The woman, of course, received favorable rulings.) However, the Court of Appeals judges told the unlucky father that McCree cannot be sued because judges are generally immune from lawsuit. [Detroit Free Press, 7-26-2014]

-- Nick Olivas, 24, is a rare American. At age 14 (an age that, in Arizona, makes him legally incapable of consenting to sex), he fathered a daughter with a 20-year-old woman -- paternity that he learned of only two years ago. The mother filed against Olivas for child support that now totals $15,000. Olivas is rare in that most states exempt rape victims from child-support orders -- except that, since Olivas never made a police report of the incident, Arizona Child Support Services will not exempt him, and instead has obtained an order garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month. [Arizona Republic, 9-2-2014]

-- According to legal scholars consulted by the Associated Press, it is conceivable that Nicole Diggs, of Yonkers, N.Y., even if convicted of negligent homicide in the upcoming trial in the death of her severely disabled 8-year-old daughter, could nevertheless inherit the remains of the child's $2 million trust fund originally established for her care. Evidence is strong that Diggs had neglected the child's hygiene and diet for stretches at a time and overtrusted her less-caring new husband with the girl's well-being, but New York law uniquely still allows, in principle, a convicted mother to inherit from the child as long as she did not "intentionally" harm her. [Associated Press via MSN.com, 9-1-2014]

(1) Clearwater, Florida, police pulled over a "suspicious" car on July 24 and ultimately arrested the driver and his passenger. The back seat was loaded with potted plants -- in fact, potted pot plants (i.e., marijuana), so crowded that the leaves and branches of some plants were sticking out of the car's windows. (2) Daniel Warn, 28, was arrested in July in Costa Mesa, California, and charged with the burglary of an El Pollo Loco restaurant -- a caper that was captured on surveillance video. Police were notified later that day when Warn -- wearing the same distinctive hat and bright green shirt worn by the burglar -- came to the restaurant to order a meal. [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 8-6-2014] [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 7-18-2014]

-- Jonathan Thomas, 50, was charged with DUI and disorderly conduct in Washington Township, Indiana, in August after driving through two backyards one Friday evening and getting his vehicle stuck in the second. Police reported that Thomas "show(ed) his teeth to officers" and later "growled" at hospital security staff. Thomas' day job is director of the Porter County Animal Shelter. [Times of Northwest Indiana (Valparaiso), 8-4-2014]

-- Just Like the Script: (1) In August, a Bradenton, Florida, deputy sheriff was forced to duplicate a classic scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when he was advanced upon by a menacing-looking, samurai-sword-swinging, 31-year-old man. The deputy, perhaps as nonplussed as Indiana Jones was, shot him dead. (2) Rule No. 9: The 15-year-old granddaughter of Cliven Bundy (the Nevada rancher whose dispute with the federal government caused a notorious standoff in March) told Las Vegas' KSNV-TV that her dad (Bundy's son) was withdrawing her from her high school because officials would not allow her to carry a knife on campus. She said her dad has taught his kids (just like "NCIS's" Leroy Jethro Gibbs) to "always" carry a knife. [Bay News 9 (St. Petersburg), 8-28-2014] [KSNV-TV, 8-28-2014]

(1) Annual Bunyola "fiestas" on the Spanish island of Mallorca were canceled in September out of respect for an 18-year-old man who fatally hit his head after receiving an electric shock on a lamp post he was leaning against as he urinated at a street corner. (2) A 23-year-old medical student suffered a fatal heart attack in September while perusing a sex magazine as he attempted his fourth sperm donation in a week at a clinic at China's Wuhan University. (3) A 15-year-old boy driving a "skid loader" on a farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, suffocated in August when the machine accidentally flipped him directly into a manure pit (the sixth such death locally since 1989, according to the Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal). [The Local (Madrid), 9-1-2014] [Daily Mail (London), 9-12-2014] [Associated Press, 8-9-2014]

Thanks This Week to Russell Bell, Craig Cryer, and Terry Young, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Nicholas Felton's latest annual recap of his personal communications data is now available, for just $30. Key findings, graphically presented, of Nicholas' busy 2013 (according to a report by FiveThirtyEight.com): He received 44,041 texts and 31,769 emails, had 12,464 face-to-face conversations and 320 phone calls (all detailed by communicatee, from where, at what time, in what language). He reported 385 conversations, for example, with female cashiers, and that 54,963 exclamation points were used across all methods of written communication. (The 2012 report went for $35, but is, along with 2010 and 2011, "sold out," according to feltron.bigcartel.com). [FiveThirtyEight.com, 8-24-2014]

-- The U.K.'s Barnet Council got aggressive in August against a landlord in Hendon, in north London, who had defied an earlier order to stop offering a too-small apartment for residential rental. Landlord Yaakov Marom said tenants were still eager for the room even though the entryway required most people to drop to all fours, since it was less than 28 inches high (and therefore a fire-code violation). Council officers checking on the earlier order against Marom found a couple still residing there, paying the equivalent of $685 a month. [The Guardian, 8-22-2014]

-- When he was 19, Rene Lima-Marin (with a pal) robbed two Aurora, Colorado, video stores at gunpoint and, winning no favors from the judge, received back-to-back sentences totaling 98 years. In 2008, eight years into the sentence, Lima-Marin was mistakenly released and until this year was a model citizen, employed, married with a son, on good terms with his parole officer. However, the mistake was found in January, and he was returned to prison, and according to his lawyers in their August appeal, the original sentence has been reimposed, thus moving his release date to the year 2104. [KMGH-TV (Denver), 8-22-2014]

-- Among the more than 350 convicted violent felons whose right to carry guns has been restored over the past six years by the state of Georgia were 32 who had killed another person and 44 who were sex offenders, according to an August report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As pointed out by ThinkProgress.com, among those who once again can carry is Dennis Krauss, a former Glynn County police officer convicted of raping a woman after a traffic stop. According to the 2003 Georgia Court of Appeals decision affirming his conviction, Officer Krauss had drawn his service weapon and said he wanted to anally penetrate the woman with it. (However, he was convicted only for his extortionate demand for sex.) [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8-23-2014]

-- On Aug. 21 and 22, in front of Linwood Howe Elementary School in Culver City, California, traffic officials posted a towering parking regulation sign pole (reportedly, 15 feet high) with at least eight large white signs, one on top of the other -- in familiar red or green lettering, restricting access to the school's curb lane. Each sign contains orders either to not park or to park only under certain conditions, each with its specific hours or other fine-print limitations. The mayor ordered the signs replaced on Aug. 22. [KABC-TV (Los Angeles), 8-22-2014]

Florida was one of 26 states to decline billions in federal funding under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") to establish their own state insurance "exchanges" (including expanding their state Medicaid programs). Florida legislators chose instead to offer a separate state program, funded at less than $1 million, to provide a small level of assistance, including help to the 764,000 people whose low income qualified neither for Medicaid nor Obamacare subsidies. The Tampa Bay Times reported in August that according to the most recent tally, the nine private plans under Florida Health Choices had registered 30 people (26 of whom receive only discount plans for prescription drugs or vision care). [Tampa Bay Times, 8-28-2014]

-- Guests at the May wedding of Shona Carter-Brooks in Ripley, Tennessee, reported that the bride's idea for integrating her month-old daughter into the ceremony consisted of tying her ("well-secured," she said later) to the long train of her wedding dress, dragging the child as the bride walked the aisle. Carter-Brooks was forced to take to her Facebook page in defense: People always "have something negative to say," she wrote, but her wedding was "exclusive and epic." [People.com, 6-2-2014]

-- For their first anniversary in August, Londoners Dan MacIntyre and Dunya Kalantery decided on an odd commemoration: their outsized fascination with their city's notorious 2013 crisis over the 15-ton "fatberg" that clogged a sewer line. They giddily donned waders and went exploring for more masses of the congealed-oil-and-sanitary-wipes, but told The Guardian that they mostly encountered only smaller chunks. (Update: Their timing was off; a "fatberg" "as long as a 747" was spotted in a sewer in west London about a week later.) [The Guardian, 8-19-2014] [Sky News, 9-1-2014]

Plastic surgeons, first in University of Missouri research in 2000 and recently in a study by Singapore doctors in the journal of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, have postulated that the "ideal" navel is basically vertically shaped with slight hooding -- and, of course, an "innie." The earlier study "analyzed" photos of 147 females aged 18 to 62, while the Singapore surgeons gazed at shots of 37 Playboy playmates and used a computerized tool to measure "vertical ratio," "midline horizontal position," length "from the xiphoid process ... to the lower limit of the vulvar cleft," and how nearly oval-shaped the belly buttons were. [Today.com (NBC News), 8-22-2014]

(1) Inmate Corey McQueary, 33, passed away in Jessamine County, Kentucky, lockup in August of a methadone overdose. According to state police, another inmate had soaked a pair of underwear in methadone when he was out on release, then brought the item to the jail for McQueary, who tore off piece after piece and swallowed them. (2) Ten years ago, New York City skyscraper heir Robert Durst beat a murder charge by claiming self-defense, and now lives more quietly in Houston. However, police in that city accused Durst in July of, "without provocation," urinating on a cash register in a CVS store, "drenching" a candy rack. [News4SanAntonio, 8-26-2014] [Houston Chronicle, 7-23-2014]

Unclear on the Concept: A 20-year-old woman was arrested in Seattle in August after calling police to complain that she was being harassed by a man who was following her. Police arrived to find that the "stalker" was simply trying to get his phone back after the woman stole it from him while he was napping on a bus. [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 8-12-2014]

(1) A Washington State Patrol lieutenant pulled over a 28-year-old drunk driver on Aug. 9 in a logistically impressive arrest. The lieutenant, when he spotted the driver, happened to be in the 36-foot-long motor home converted to the department's mobile unit for processing DUIs, but nonetheless maneuvered the vehicle well enough to pursue and stop the driver. (2) Sarah Espinosa, 22, crashed into a fire station in New Hyde Park, New York, on Aug. 4, notable for the involvement of two factors -- alcohol and the presence of a python draped around her neck. (She was charged with having just stolen the snake from a Petco store.) [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 8-18-2014] [Wall Street Journal, 8-5-2014]

They Don't Make "Drug Lords" Like They Used To: (1) Widely feared Jamaican drug kingpin Christopher "Dudus" Coke was arrested in June (2010) and extradited to New York City after being picked up wearing women's clothes and a too-small 1970s-style Afro wig. The Jamaica Observer reported that Coke wet his pants as he was arrested. (2) Longtime South African drug lord Fadwaan "Fat" Murphy, speaking at a bail hearing in January (2010) in Cape Town, disclosed that he was born a hermaphrodite and has a separate identity ("Hilary"), which puzzled arresting officers, who had discovered that Murphy was wearing a strap-on penis. Murphy was insistent. "I look like a man. I talk like a man. I am a man." [Daily Mail, 6-24-10; Jamaica Observer, 6-27-10] [Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 1-10-10]

Thanks This Week to Kat Alessi, Kyle Gray, and Perry Levin, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.