truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

The category of stories of people keeping deceased relatives' bodies around, based either on fear of losing the relationships or a psychotic belief that the deceased will regenerate (or sometimes, to conceal the death so that government checks keep coming), has been retired. But that was before this: A funeral parlor in London told The Sun in September that it was finally time to bury Annie Lamas, who died 10 years ago but whose body has been kept in the parlor's cold storage unit by her two adult daughters, who visit almost weekly to chat with her and touch her up. Elder daughter Josephine, 59, was said to make sure mom's lipstick is fresh (on a body that has wasted to the point of leathery skin stretched over bones) and place fresh padding on mom's stomach cavity.

Just when Internet newspaper sites appear to be gaining ground as replacements for printed editions, a 70-year-old woman identified only as Maggie told the Edmonton (Alberta) Sun in September that her paper edition of the Sun is a crucial part of her daily diet, literally. She eats it, in strips, and has, she said, for the past seven years because it tastes good. "I can't explain it," she said, and it was only when she recently experienced a blockage of her esophagus, and doctors found a ball of paper, that she revealed her obsession. Doctors cited by the Sun said that except for the blockage danger, newspaper eating is not unhealthful.

Congregants of Rev. Tom Ambrose, of St. Mary and St. Michael Church in Trumpington, England, met in September to complain of several things about their vicar, most notably that he delivered the Christmas sermon last year (and several since then) using Microsoft PowerPoint.

The makers of Veet Hair Removal Cream sponsored a survey this year for people to vote on which celebrity female has the sexiest walk and, to lend the promotion some respectability, hired Cambridge University professor Richard Weber to explain a strut's sexiness via measurable physical characteristics. Weber eventually quit the project, according to a September report in London's Guardian, in part because Veet named Jessica Alba the winner when the results he saw called Angelina Jolie the winner. Weber used such calculations as waist-to-hip and thigh-to-calf ratios to explain Jolie's apparent success: Jolie's "slightly larger waist may give her the torso strength with which to produce a better angular swing and bounce to the hips than

The makers of Veet Hair Removal Cream sponsored a survey this year for people to vote on which celebrity female has the sexiest walk and, to lend the promotion some respectability, hired Cambridge University professor Richard Weber to explain a strut's sexiness via measurable physical characteristics. Weber eventually quit the project, according to a September report in London's Guardian, in part because Veet named Jessica Alba No. 1 when the results he saw showed Angelina Jolie the winner. Weber used such calculations as waist-to-hip and thigh-to-calf ratios to explain Jolie's apparent success: Jolie's "slightly larger waist may give her the torso strength with which to produce a better angular swing and bounce to the hips than (smaller) stars such as Eva Longoria (and Alba)."

News of the Weird reported in February that Estrella Benavides had been sued by the city of San Mateo, Calif., for refusing to clean off the words that she had written in big lettering all over the outside of her house, even though she said those messages had been dictated by God. In August, she similarly wrote all over a second home she owns, in Belmont, Calif. (For those readers seeking the word of God: "Help worse crime ever; evil + out of mind: from Bush to neighbors using witchcraft + technology against people not belong to their religious group.")