– Is that not what it’s used for? Seriously, what’s the point of owning a flamethrower if you can’t use it to clear the driveway?

Fargo, ND – Local resident Todd Fox has been detained for “reckless endangerment” and “illegal use of high-powered fire-breathing weaponry” for attacking snow with his flamethrower.

Okay, I know this story is from last year (and definitely not this week, per the title and overall theme of this post), but the WTF is strong here.

– Bad timing, dude: If you’re going to escape from jail, best not to do it during a polar vortex. Of course, you could always turn yourself in to stay warm:

Robert Vick seriously picked the wrong week to escape from jail.

Vick, 42, broke out of a minimum security prison in Lexington, Kentucky, only to find himself on the lam with only prison-issued khaki pants, a shirt and a jacket in the middle of a Polar Vortex. With nowhere to take shelter, Vick quickly froze in the record-breaking cold in Lexington, where temperatures dropped to 20 below zero with the wind chill.

Hypothermic and out of options, he walked into a motel Monday and asked the clerk if he could use the phone to call the cops. He told police he wanted to turn himself in to escape the freezing air, and told them where to find him.

– It’s all in the marketing: How can you take ratty clothes and sell them online for $300+? By calling them post-apocalyptic, of course! (h/t thegoddamazon).

– It’s got electrolytes? Are you worried about radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant? Some people think you can protect yourself naturally by eating foods high in carotene! Others might tell you to get the f*** away from the radiation, but if you can’t, you can still grab a beet!

– Scary enough in Latin: Penis captivus. Do you really want to know?

– Two heads are better than one: Meet the guy with two penises. Or don’t. It’s up to you.

Photo credit: By Arne Groh [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons.

– This week’s headline requiring no additional commentary: Florida man tries to buy 12-pack of beer with baby alligator.

– Wait, here’s another one: Naked man on snowmobile terrorizes Swedish lake community.

– The balance on his mortgage vastly exceeded the number of fucks he gave: A Bulgarian man was about to lose his house to foreclosure. Since the bank’s lien only covered the house, not the land, he decided to deliver the house to them—in pieces.

– Also giving no fucks (so to speak): In England, a man was arrested for driving while naked and while, uh, otherwise occupied. His lawyer gets props for his willingness to seriously push that fine line between “explanation” and “excuse”:

DRIVING ON a busy 100kmh [60 mph for us Yankees -CP] road normally requires two hands on the steering wheel.

But Neal Marshall was caught masturbating, and totally naked, while driving along the M56 motorway, in Chester, England, the Chester Chronicle reported.

Marshall’s solicitor [that’s English for “lawyer” -CP] Adrian Evans told Chester Magistrates Court today (AEDT) that his 49-year-old client got “carried away” when engaged in a “messaging conversation”.

“This does not excuse his actions but it goes a way to explain why he was seen doing it,” said Mr Evans.

“He bitterly regrets his actions. He never intended to be seen by a member of the public.”

– Different from a “food baby”: This week I learned that a “stone baby” is an actual thing (h/t Jason).

– You heard it here: “Remote-controlled cyborg sperm.”

– This week in neologisms: From io9, I learned the word “hankle.”

– As long as they’re not atheist cats: A colony of feral cats in Brooklyn keeps moving into an outdoor nativity scene, presumably drawn by the warmth of the lights. They also reportedly push baby Jesus out of the way, confirming what we knew about cats all along.

– Caveat emptor: Hoping to get his kid a sweet Xmas gift, a man paid $750 for an XBox One….photograph:

[Peter] Clatworthy, 19, of Bilbrough, UK, who intended to give the XBox One to his four-year-old son for Christmas, admits he was conned, because the listing clearly stated it was a photo of an XBox One Day One edition console. However, he decided to buy it since the item was listed in eBay’s video games and consoles category.

“It said ‘photo’ and I was in two minds, but I looked at the description and the fact it was in the right category made me think it was genuine,” he told the Nottingham Post. “I looked at the seller’s feedback and there was nothing negative. I bought it there and then because I thought it was a good deal. It’s obvious now I’ve been conned out of my money.”

Although eBay has promised to take action against the seller because misleading listings are not allowed, it may not help him because the Xbox One is reportedly sold out in the UK, SWNS reported.

Oops.

– Holiday stress? A 38 year-old man in China, reportedly fed up after 5 hours of shopping with his girlfriend, responded to her refusal to stop shopping by jumping off a mall balcony and falling seven stories to his death. The statement of the mall representative seems to place quite a premium on holiday stress:

A spokesman for the shopping center says no one below was injured in December 7 incident, and that the man died instantly upon impact.

“This is a tragic incident, but this time of year can be very stressful for many people,” the spokesman said.

– This barely counts as news anymore: Police arrested an 18 year-old for allegedly stealing part of Paul Walker’s car while the tow truck was at a stop light, after he posted a picture of his bounty on Instagram.

At least this tendency to advertise such escapades on social media might free up police resources to work on matters other than petty theft……like robbery:

Just before robbing a burger joint, two unnamed teenage girls thought it would be oh so cool to pose for a quick selfie — dressed head to toe in their bad-to-the-bone burglary get-up … all while holding a nearly 12-inch knife.

You can probably guess what happened next (Hint: the answer begins with “a” and ends with “rrest.”)

– The Inevitable Headline: Ever since I vowed to never learn anything about the “flesh-eating drug” known as krokodil, I have dreaded the day that those words would appear in the same headline as the word “genitals.” That day has arrived.

– When a prank goes very, very, very wrong: They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but I feel bad for even thinking of humor in this. It might be better described as irony but it’s been almost 20 years since I dropped English as my major so I could be wrong. Here’s how the story began: a 19 year-old woman was driving with a group of people, all also 19, on the New York Thruway after a day at the beach. A backseat passenger decided it would be funny (or something) to pull the string on the driver’s bikini top. As the driver tried to get her top back on, the car veered off the highway, collided with a guard rail, and flipped. The prankster died in the crash, and several passengers were injured. An appellate court in Brooklyn found last week that the driver was not civilly liable in a lawsuit filed by another passenger, because the removal of her top was “a sudden and unforeseen emergency not of her own making.”

– Time for a new calendaring system: The town of Wallsburg, Utah did not hold an election on November 5. Because they forgot. Again. Via Kevin at Lowering the Bar:

Wallburg’s city recorder, described by the Salt Lake Tribune as “the employee responsible for oversight of elections,” not only failed to oversee this year’s elections, he or she forgot to have any. The recorder failed to announce the filing period or make any other arrangements for municipal elections on November 5, when everybody else in Utah has them. By the time anyone noticed, it was too late. The mayor and councilmembers will have to be appointed (by who, the report didn’t say) and will serve for two years until the next elections roll around in 2015.

Remember when I said “again”? Oh yes:

Everyone should be familiar with that procedure, at least, because it’s what they had to do in 2011 after the last municipal elections. Which Wallsburg also forgot to hold. An acting mayor and councilmembers were appointed at that time, and those were the seats that were supposed to have been filled this time around.

As Kevin notes, they might consider appointing some new people, or else this could start to look fishy. There may also be an opening for a city recorder soon.

– Here’s a very creepy headline, which I will copy here but not discuss further because seriously, WTF: Sydney Leathers will be selling her excess labia to the highest bidder.