Tourists and father-son duos looking for out-of-this-world bonding experiences are paying up to $50,000 for the opportunity to "hunt" feral hogs from helicopters in Texas, sometimes using machine guns.

"There's only so many places in the world you can shoot machine guns out of a helicopter and no one shoots back," said HeliBacon company co-owner Chris Britt.

Texas passed the "pork-chopper" bill in 2011 allowing aerial hunting of feral hogs, and in May, legislators approved hunting from hot-air balloons, which are quieter and give hunters a steadier shot. [Reuters, 6/12/2017]

Pre-Existing Condition

Enterprising mother Jeannine Isom in Cedar Hills, Utah, took her 7-year-old son's dental care into her own hands in June when she purchased hand sanitizer and needle-nose pliers at Walmart, then ushered her son into the store's restroom and pulled out two of his teeth. Police were alerted after the boy's older brother heard him screaming. The mother was charged with felony child abuse. [Deseret News, 6-5-2017]

Sweet Revenge

A frustrated victim of bedbugs in Augusta, Maine, reacted to city inaction by bringing a cup of bedbugs to a municipal office building and slamming it down on the counter, scattering about 100 insects and forcing the closure of several offices as officials scrambled to contain them. The apartment dweller had requested help finding other housing, but city officials told him he didn't qualify. [Kennebec (Maine) Journal, 6/5/2017]

Things We Didn't Know We Needed

Are cute vegetables easier to swallow? A Chinese company has developed fruit and vegetable molds that form growing foods into little Buddhas, hearts, stars and skulls. Farmers afix the plastic molds over the stems of growing plants, and the fruit fills the mold as it grows. Some designs include words, and the company also offers custom molds. [Daily Mail, 6/15/2017]

Fashion Emergency

French fashion label Y/Project, in an apparent response to the eternal question, "Do these jeans make my butt look big?" is selling buttless jeans. The waistband attaches to the legs of the jeans with a series of clasps and straps, so the pant legs hang loose on the wearer. The Detachable Button Down pants are priced at $570. [KSHB-TV, 6/15/2017]

Compelling Explanations

College student Lydia Marie Cormaney almost made it out of a Gillette, Wyoming, Walmart with more than $2,000 worth of merchandise without paying for it. When police arrived, she was ready with a reason: She was doing research about kleptomania, which also explained the stockpile of stolen items in her dorm room. However, as she was enrolled in only a biology class at Gillette College, it was unclear what she planned to do with the results of her study. [New York Daily News, 6/13/2017]

Ewwwww!

-- The Happiest Place on Earth was a little less joyful for 17 visitors in June, when a hazardous materials team was dispatched to Main Street at Disneyland after park-goers reported being struck by feces. Experts quickly realized that rather than being victims of a bathroom bomber, the park guests had been regrettably positioned beneath a flock of geese flying overhead. The victims were ushered to a private restroom to clean up and were provided with fresh clothing. [The Associated Press, 6/10/2017]

-- Maintenance workers at the courthouse in Jonesboro, Arkansas, are fed up with people urinating in the elevators, especially considering that restrooms are within spitting distance of the elevators. Craighead County officials hope to stem the tide with newly installed security cameras, which have caught three men in the act since their installation last fall. [The Associated Press, 6/16/2017]

Undignified Deaths

Robert Dreyer, celebrating his 89th birthday, suffered no apparent injury when he crashed his car into a fire hydrant in Viera, Florida, in May. But as he got out of the car to check the damage, he drowned after being sucked into the hole by the strong water pressure where the hydrant had been. A bystander tried to rescue Dreyer, but couldn't overcome the water pressure to reach him. [NBC News, 5/11/2017]

Frontiers of Marketing

Male baseball fans attending the June 15 Jacksonville (Florida) Jumbo Shrimp minor league game were treated to a novel promotional giveaway: pregnancy tests. The "You Might Be a Father" promotion was conceived to help fans decide whether they should return for the Father's Day game on Sunday, June 18. [The Associated Press, 6/13/2017]

People and Their Money

-- Because leaving your falcon at home while you do errands is too painful, high-end automaker Bentley now offers a customized SUV featuring a "removable transportation perch and tether" for hunting birds and a wood inlay in the shape of a falcon on the dash. At a starting price of $230,000, the Bentayga Falconry also features a refreshment case and special compartments for bird hoods and gauntlets. "Falconry is regarded as the sport of kings in the Middle East, so it was vital that the kit we create ... appeal to our valued customers there and around the world,” noted Geoff Dowding with Bentley's Mulliner division. [TIME, 5/18/2017]

-- A stretch limo wasn't posh enough for Saudia Shuler, a Philadelphia mom who wanted to make her son's high school prom memorable. Instead, she spent $25,000 creating a Dubai-themed prom night, including 3 tons of sand and a camel (for pre-prom photos). The lucky senior took not one but three dates to the dance, who along with him wore designer clothes and accessories. Shuler also sprang for a rented Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Range Rover. [Daily Mail, 6-5-2017]

Bright Ideas

-- Japan's Samurai Age store, which (naturally) offers novelty samurai apparel, is featuring a new line of samurai armor outfits for cats and dogs. The body armor is sized for small pets, but custom orders for larger sizes are possible, and can include a helmet and mask. (Samurai enthusiasts can also order armor for liquor bottles and dolls.) [United Press International, 6-7-2017]

-- Suspicions were aroused in New Hope, Alabama, when veteran mail carrier Susanna Burhans, 47, was seen throwing food at a dog along her route. On June 1, she was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after the dog's owner found a nail-filled meatball near his house, and a subsequent X-ray revealed nails in its stomach. The USPS has put the mail carrier on non-duty status. [Reuters, 6-2-2017]

-- Thailand's Scorpion Queen, who holds the Guinness World Record for holding a scorpion in her mouth (3 minutes and 28 seconds), shocked onlookers in June as she let scorpions crawl all over her body and in and out of her mouth as part of a show in Pattaya, a city on the Gulf of Thailand. Kanchana Kaetkaew also holds the record for co-habiting with 5,000 scorpions in a 12-meter-square glass enclosure for 33 days. [Daily Mail, 6-3-2017]

Wait, What?

The Zoological Wildlife Conservation Center in Rainier, Oregon, is offering sleepovers in its sloth sanctuary. The visit includes a tent with a cot and satellite TV (in case the animals are being too sloth-like). Visitors, who pay $600 (double occupancy) for the 12-hour experience, are asked to whisper so as not to stress out the sloths. [CNN Money, 3/11/2017]

Great Art!

French performance artist Abraham Poincheval managed to hatch nine chicken eggs in April by incubating them himself for three weeks inside a glass vivarium at Paris' Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum. Poincheval's past projects have included sitting inside a block of stone for a week and living in a hollowed-out bear sculpture for two weeks. [Reuters, 4-21-2017]

Least Competent Criminal

Baggy blue jeans were the ill-fated getaway vehicle for 15 quart-size bottles of Pennzoil motor oil and 30 DVDs of "Treasure Hunt" in a badly planned theft in Lakeland, Florida, in June. William Jason Hall, 38, stuffed the loot into his pants inside a 7-Eleven store without realizing that a detective in an unmarked police car outside was watching him. Because it was his third arrest on petty theft, he was charged with a felony. [WFLA, 6-6-2017]

Weird News is forever, but this is my last "News of the Weird" column, as I am now exhausted after almost 30 years in the racket. In this final edition, I remember a few of my favorites. My deep thanks to Andrews McMeel Syndication and to readers, who started me up and kept me going. Y'all take care of yourselves. -- Chuck Shepherd

-- (1995) Chesapeake, Virginia, inmate Robert Lee Brock filed a $5 million lawsuit against Robert Lee Brock -- accusing himself of violating his religious beliefs and his civil rights by getting himself drunk enough that he could not avoid various criminal behaviors. He wrote: "I want to pay myself five million dollars (for this breach of rights), but ask the state to pay it in my behalf since I can't work and am a ward of the state." In April, the lawsuit was dismissed. [Austin American-Statesman-AP, 4-8-95]

-- (2002) The Lane brothers of New York, Mr. Winner Lane, 44, and Mr. Loser Lane, 41 (their actual birth names), were profiled in a July Newsday report -- made more interesting by the fact that Loser is successful (a police detective in the South Bronx) and Winner is not (a history of petty crimes). A sister said she believes her parents selected "Winner" because their late father was a big baseball fan and "Loser" just to complete the pairing. [Newsday, 7-22-02]

-- (1996) A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for Lamar, Missouri, on Joyce Lehr's lawsuit against the county for injuries suffered in a 1993 fall in the icy, unplowed parking lot of the local high school. The Carthage Press reported that Lehr claimed damage to nearly everything in her body. According to her petition: "All the bones, organs, muscles, tendons, tissues, nerves, veins, arteries, ligaments ... discs, cartilages, and the joints of her body were fractured, broken, ruptured, punctured, compressed, dislocated, separated, bruised, contused, narrowed, abrased, lacerated, burned, cut, torn, wrenched, swollen, strained, sprained, inflamed, and infected." [Carthage Press, 1-9-96]

-- (2002) From time to time "News of the Weird" reported on the fluctuating value of the late Italian artist Piero Manzoni's personal feces, which he canned in 1961, 30 grams at a time in 90 tins, as art objects (though, over the years, 45 have reportedly exploded). Their price to collectors has varied (low of about $28,000 for a tin in 1998 to a high of $75,000 in 1993). In June 2002, the Tate Gallery in London excitedly announced it had purchased tin number 004 for about $38,000. (The price of 30 grams of gold in 2002 was a little over $300.) [Sydney Morning Herald, 7-1-02]

-- (1994) The New York Daily News reported in April on a cellblock fight between murderers Colin Ferguson and Joel Rifkin at the Nassau County jail. Reportedly, Ferguson (convicted of six race-related murders on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993) was using a telephone and told Rifkin (a serial killer serving 203 years for nine murders) to be quiet. According to the Daily News source, Ferguson told Rifkin, "I wiped out six devils (white people), and you only killed women." Rifkin allegedly responded, "Yeah, but I had more victims." Ferguson then allegedly ended the brief incident by punching Rifkin in the mouth. [Syracuse Herald-Journal-New York Daily News-AP, 4-11-94]

-- (1999) At Last! A Job That Actually Requires Geometry! Commissioners in Florida's Seminole County and Manatee County passed ordinances regulating public nudity by requiring women to cover at least 25 percent of the area of their breasts and at least 33 percent of the buttocks, with detailed instructions as to the points from which each coverage must be measured. (Refresher for law enforcement: The lateral area of a cone is pi (times) r (times) s where r=radius and s=slant height; for the surface area of a sphere, it's pi (times) r (squared), and, alas, for a flat surface, it's length times width.) [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4-4-1999]

-- (1998) On the day before Good Friday, reported the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Ernesto A. Moshe Montgomery consecrated the Shrine of the Weeping Shirley MacLaine in a room in the Beta Israel Temple in Los Angeles. Inspired by an image he said he had while riding in the actress's private jet, Montgomery said a subsequent large photograph of him with MacLaine was "observed shedding tears," which had inspired prayers and testimony of miraculous healings. [Los Angeles Times, 4-10-98]

-- (2001) A child pornography investigation in Minneapolis turned up 1,000 suspect images on the office computer of a 58-year-old University of Minnesota classics professor -- named Richard Pervo. [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2-13-01]

-- (1993) In May, Elk River, Minnesota, landlord Todd Plaisted reported that his tenant Kenneth Lane had fled the area, abandoning his rented farmhouse and leaving behind at least 400 tons of used carpeting, at least 10,000 plastic windows from Northwest Airlines planes, and rooms full of sofas, mattresses and washing machines, among other things. Lane told townspeople he ran a "recycling" company, but there was no evidence of sales. A deputy sheriff driving by the farmhouse the year before saw Lane burying carpeting with a tractor and said Lane merely muttered, "I don't know what to say. You got me. I can't even make up an excuse." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-17-93]

-- (1990) An FBI investigation into interstate trafficking by diaper fetishists resulted in the arrests of five men belonging to an organization called the Diaper Pail Foundation, which has a letterhead and publishes a newsletter and information exchange for members. A Madison, Wisconsin, man, arrested in April for possession of child pornography, was found inside a van taking pictures of a child relieving himself. The man had offered service to the child's parents as a toilet trainer. [source unavailable, but "Diaper Pail Foundation" is searchable]

-- (1992) The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the local "Silent Meeting Club," consisting of several people who gather at various spots around town and make it a point not to speak to each other. Founder John Hudak said his inspiration was his observation that people often feel obligated to talk when they really have nothing to say, such as at parties, and wondered how nice it would be "to have a group of people where you wouldn't have to talk." [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-2-92]

-- (1991) In May, Maxcy Dean Filer, 60, of Compton, California, finally passed the California Bar exam. He graduated from law school in 1966, but had failed the exam in each of his previous 47 tries. [International Herald Tribune, 6-1-91]

-- (2004) The New York Times reported in February on a Washington, D.C., man whose love of music led him, in the 1960s, to meticulously hand-make and hand-paint facsimile record album covers of his fantasized music, complete with imagined lyric sheets and liner notes (with some of the "albums" even shrink-wrapped), and, even more incredibly, to hand-make cardboard facsimiles of actual grooved discs to put inside them. "Mingering Mike," whom a reporter and two hobbyists tracked down (but who declined to be identified in print), also made real music, on tapes, using his and friends' voices to simulate instruments. His 38 imagined "albums" were discovered at a flea market after Mike defaulted on storage-locker fees, and the hobbyists who found them said they were so exactingly done that a major museum would soon feature them. [New York Times, 2-2-04]

-- (1999) From a May police report in The Messenger (Madisonville, Kentucky), concerning two trucks being driven strangely on a rural road: A man would drive one truck 100 yards, stop, walk back to a second truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the first truck, stop, walk back to the first truck, drive it 100 yards beyond the second truck, and so on. According to police, the man's brother was passed out drunk in one of the trucks, so the man was driving both trucks home (though the success of such a scheme is better imagined if the driving brother has a high blood-alcohol reading, too -- which was the case). [The Messenger, 5-7-99]

Three weeks ago, News of the Weird touted the "genderless," extraterrestrial-appearing Hollywood makeup artist known as Vinny Ohh, but then Marcela Iglesias announced (following a leaked TV clip) that she had formed an agency for would-be celebrities who had radically transformed their bodies (and that Vinny is now a client). Iglesias' Plastics of Hollywood has human "Ken" dolls (Rodrigo Alves and Justin Jedlica), the Argentine "elf" Luis Padron, a Jessica Rabbit look-alike (Pixee Fox), and seven others who, Iglesias figures, have collectively spent almost $3 million on surgery and procedures (some of which are ongoing). (Padron, 25, seems the most ambitious, having endured, among other procedures, painful, "medically unapproved" treatments to change his eye color.) [Daily Mail (London), 5-26-2017; 5-3-2017]

-- Richard Patterson, 65, is the most recent defendant to choose, as a trial strategy, to show the jury his penis. A Broward County, Florida, court was trying him in the choking death of his girlfriend. (Patterson called the death accidental, as it occurred during oral sex, and there was conflicting medical opinion on whether that could have proved fatal.) Patterson's lawyer said his standby position was to show a mold of the penis, but insisted that a live demonstration would be more effective. (Update: The judge disallowed the showing, but in May the jury found Patterson not guilty anyway.) [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 5-30-2017]

-- In rare cases, a mother has given birth for the principal purpose of "harvesting" a baby's cells, ultimately to benefit another family member with a condition or illness that the cells would aid. However, Keri Young of Oklahoma gave birth in April for a different purpose. After learning while pregnant that her baby would not long survive after birth (because of anencephaly), she nonetheless carried it to term -- just to harvest organs for unspecified people who might need them (though the grieving Keri and husband Royce admit that some might judge their motive harshly). [Houston Chronicle, 4-19-2017]

-- In some parts of traditional Japanese society, it remains not uncommon for someone to feel the need to "rent" "friends." For example, relatives at a funeral bear grief better if they realize the many "friends" the deceased had. Or, a working man or woman may rent a sweetheart just to help deflect parental pressure to marry. In northern China, in April, a man was arrested for renting "family" and "friends" to populate his side of the aisle at his wedding. Apparently, there were conflicts plaguing each family, and police were investigating, but the groom surely worsened the plan by not coaching the actors on his personal details, thus making interfamily small-talk especially awkward. [BBC News, 5-1-2017]

-- Our Litigious Society: (1) David Waugaman, 57, fell off a barstool last year and needed surgery, and of course he is suing the tavern at Ziggy's Hotel in Youngwood, Pennsylvania, for continuing to serve him before he fell. Wrote Waugaman, "You're not supposed to feed people so much booze." (2) Robert Bratton filed a lawsuit recently in Columbia, Missouri, against the Hershey chocolate company because there was too much empty space in his grocery-store box of Reese's Pieces, which he thought was "deceptive" (even though the correct number of Pieces was printed on the label). In May, federal judge Nanette Laughrey ruled that Bratton's case could continue for the jury to decide. [PennLive, 5-15-2017] [KCUR Radio (Kansas City), 5-17-2017]

-- Latest From Offended Classes: (1) Some minority students' organizations, commenting on the planned extensive renovation of the University of Michigan's student union building, recommended ditching the current interior's elegant wood paneling -- because it gives off an "imposing, masculine" feeling that makes them seem "marginalized." A spokesperson for the students, attempting to soothe the controversy, said the marginalization was more based on the building's "quiet nature." (2) In Australia, Chanel's just-introduced luxury wood-and-resin boomerang (selling for the equivalent of about $1,415) came under fire from aboriginal groups for "cultural appropriation." (Hermes had issued its own luxury boomerang in 2013.) [The College Fix, 5-15-2017] [Sydney Morning Herald, 5-15-2017]

-- For not the first time in News of the Weird's experience, a man shot himself but had the bullet pass through him and hit a bystander (except this time it was fatal to the bystander). Victor Sibson, 21, was charged in Anchorage, Alaska, in May with killing his girlfriend even though he had aimed at his own head. Investigators were persuaded that it was a genuine attempt, though he survived, but in critical condition. [KTUU-TV (Anchorage), 5-22-2017]

-- More Animals With Affordable Health Care: In April, the annual report of the Association of British Insurers on its members' policies for pet owners noted that among the claims paid were those for a bearded dragon with an abscess, an anorexic Burmese python, a cocker spaniel that swallowed a turkey baster, a cockatoo with respiratory problems, and even a "lethargic" house cat (which nonetheless cost the equivalent of $470 to treat). [BBC News, 4-17-2017]

-- Legal "Experts" Everywhere! American "sovereigns" litter courtrooms with their self-indulgent misreadings of history and the Constitution (misreadings that, coincidentally, happen to favor them with free passes on arrests and tax-paying), but now, the U.K.'s Exeter Crown Court has experienced Mark Angell, 41, who said in May that he simply could not step into the courtroom dock to state a plea concerning possession of cannabis because he would thus be "submitting" to "maritime law," which he could not legally do on dry land. Judge: "Don't talk nonsense. Get in the dock." Angell was ordered to trial. Before leaving, he gave the judge a bill for his detention: the equivalent of $2.5 million. [DevonLive (Exeter), 5-19-2017]

-- More Third-World Religion: In March, Zimbabwean pastor Paul Sanyangore of Victory World International Ministries was captured on video during a sermon telephoning God. Clutching a phone to his ear, he yelled, "Hello, is this heaven? I have a woman here, what do you have to say about her?" (Her two children, one epileptic, the other asthmatic, are then confusingly described by "heaven" as being "changed," and Paul ended the call to resounding cheers from the congregation.) [AfricaNews (Lyon, France), 5-23-2017]

-- More of the World's Third-Oldest Crime (Smuggling): (1) In the latest awesome drug-mule haul of gold (into South Korea, where it fetches higher prices than in neighboring countries), 51 people were arrested in May for bringing in, over a two-year period, a cumulative two tons, worth $99 million, by hiding it in body parts befitting their biological sex. (2) Customs officials in Abdali, Kuwait, apprehended a pigeon in May with 178 ketamine pills inside a fabric pocket attached to its back. [Daily Mail (London), 5-24-2017] [BBC News, 5-25-2017]

Almost an Epidemic: Men suffering compulsive public masturbation recently: (1) In the midst of evening rush hour in the New York-New Jersey Lincoln Tunnel, Ismael Esquilin, 48, stopped his minivan and engaged (May 11). (2) In downtown Portland, Oregon, Terry Andreassen was arrested engaging "vigorously" because he "hates Portland" (and was charged with "felony" public indecency (May 3). (3) In Dunbar, West Virginia, Tristan Tucker, 27, allegedly broke into a relative's home and stole security camera recordings of him engaging (April 23). (4) Vix Bodziak, 70, allegedly engaged at a McDonald's in Springfield, Massachusetts (April 20). (Bonus: Police found a paper-stuffed tube sock bulging underneath his pant leg.) [New York, 5-12-2017] [KATU-TV (Portland), 5-12-2017] [WCHS-TV (Charleston), 5-16-2017] [The Republican (Springfield), 4-22-2017]

Arrested Recently and Awaiting Trial for Murder: Boe Wayne Adams (Wichita, Kansas, May); Jason Vann Wayne Godfrey (Sanford, North Carolina, August); Earl Wayne Humphries (Dallas, May); Michael Wayne Pennington Jr. (Tazewell, Virginia, May). Convicted of Murder: Anthony Wayne Davis (Elyria, Ohio, January); Jerry Wayne Merritt (Columbus, Georgia, February). Pleaded No Contest to Murder: Nathan Wayne Scheiern (Glendale, California, April). Murder Conviction Appeal Denied: Derrick Wayne Murray (Birmingham, Alabama, April). Convicted Murderer Seeking New Plea Deal: Robert Wayne Lonardo (Benton, Maine, May). Murderers No Longer With Us: Billy Wayne Cope (Rock Hill, South Carolina, February, died in prison); Marcel Wayne Williams (Varner, Arkansas, April, executed). Adams: [KWCH-TV (Wichita), 5-3-2017] Godfrey: [WRAL-TV (Raleigh), 8-15-2016] Humphries: [Dallas Observer, 5-10-2017] Pennington: [Bluefield Daily Telegraph, 5-10-2017] Davis: [The Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria), 1-21-2017] Merritt: [Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus), 2-8-2017] Scheiern: [Los Angeles Daily News, 4-28-2017] Murray: [AL.com, 4-28-2017] Lonardo: [Portland Press Herald, 5-9-2017] Cope: [The State (Columbia, S.C.), 2-9-2017] Williams: [CNN, 4-25-2017]