Muoi Van Nguyen, 31, was arrested in Spokane Valley, Wash., in November, charged with breaking a window with a hammer at a state liquor store and grabbing a bottle of wine valued at $9. Earlier, Van Nguyen had tried unsuccessfully to break the window with a rock, but decided he needed a hammer to do the job and went to a nearby store, where he purchased one for $11. [MSNBC-KHQ-TV (Spokane), 11-10-08]

In 1983, convicted South Carolina murderer Michael Godwin, then 22, succeeded in getting an appeals court to reduce his death-by-electric-chair sentence to one of life in prison at the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. Six years later, in March 1989, while sitting naked on a metal toilet and attempting to fix earphones that were connected to a television set, Godwin bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

In August, the indecent-exposure conviction of a Houston urologist was upheld on appeal despite the doctor's insistence that he is so "small" (2.8 inches) that it would have been impossible for his sex organ to be seen by anyone, even if he had tried to expose himself. [Houston Chronicle, 8-19-08]

Legendary banjo player Eddie Adcock, age 70 and suffering hand tremors that failed to respond to medication, volunteered for a revolutionary neurosurgery in August in which he finger-picked tunes while his brain was exposed, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center surgeons tried to locate the defective area. In "deep brain stimulation," doctors find a poorly responding site and use electrodes to arouse it properly. As Adcock, conscious but pain-free, picked out melodies, doctors probed until suddenly Adcock's playing became disjointed, and electrodes were assigned to that spot. By October, according to an ABC News report, Adcock, with a button-activated chest pacemaker wired to his head, was back on stage, as quick-fingered as ever. [ABC News, 10-3-08; The Bluegrass Blog, 9-9-08]

Complaints were lodged with the Swedish government in June against the state-run retail pharmacy Apoteket, alleging illegal sex discrimination, in that its stores stock sexual aids that benefit women (e.g., vibrators) but none that particularly benefit men. Said one complainer, "(A) woman with a dildo is seen as liberated, strong and independent, whereas a man with a blow-up plastic vagina is viewed as disgusting and perverted." The government's Equal Opportunities Ombudsman rejected the complaints. [The Times (London), 8-12-08]

Labels: weird news