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." (
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.
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.
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.")
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.
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).
Brent Bader, allegedly firing at the family dog, instead hit his wife once in the head, killing her (Twin Peaks, Calif., February).
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).
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).
