n 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.”

n 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.

The continuing crisis

n Wild Things: 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.

n 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.

Fine Points of the Law

What Year Is This? 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.”)

Oops!

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 Stone’s bond was revoked, of course, and he was returned to lockup.)

“Sorry, honey. I was aiming at the dog”

n 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).

n 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).

News of the

self-indulgent

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).

Bright ideas

Alicia Bouchard, 41, was arrested in Jackson County, Fla., in August, accused of hatching a plot with her husband to impregnate a 12-year-old girl for the purpose of producing a baby that would eventually earn an additional welfare check.

Different from us

Travis Keen, 28, was arrested in Ouachita Parish, La., in August and charged with indecent exposure while driving around the parking lot at a Walmart. According to the police report, Keen explained that, based on experience, “when he comes to Walmart, he gets aroused.”

Redneck chronicles

n Lon Groves, 40, was arrested in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after a brief standoff with police in July following an incident in which he allegedly held a handgun to the head of his wife in an argument over which of their granddaughters was the wife’s favorite.

Recurring themes

Anecdotes have surfaced over the years about an alleged sexual fetish of purposely pumping air into the rectum, and the Snopes.com “urban legends” website accepts that at least one instance has been reliably reported (in 1993 in Thailand, although that involved not self-gratification but a prank that got out of hand, resulting in the death of the victim). In July 2010, in Hull County, England, electrician Gareth Durrant, 26, was the victim of a prank that mirrored the 1993 case except that a quick-acting colleague removed the air hose, which had been inserted by co-workers as Durrant lounged on a break. Durrant said his body felt like it was inflating. In August 2011, as his lawsuit went to Hull Crown Court (as he has been unable to work ever since), he said that he still suffers headaches and stomach pains.