truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

An apartment building in Sioux Falls, S.D., was wiped out on Feb. 21 when a resident tried to thaw frozen pipes with a blow torch.

More of the Armed and Clumsy (accidentally shot themselves recently): A man, 20, showing off to friends after miscounting bullets, fatally shot himself in the head (Dallas, Tex., January). A man who said he didn't feel safe walking his dog unless he had his gun with him, wounded himself on a walk (Palm Bay, Fla., February). A convenience-store robber, 25, shot himself in the genitals when stuffing the gun into his waistband (Kokomo, Ind., January). A man, 26, checking on a disturbance near his apartment, shot himself in the buttocks (Scottsdale, Ariz., December).

There is usually a well-stocked Red Cross tent when the January "corralejas" (amateur bullfights) take place in towns in the Colombian countryside, reported the New York Times in January. "This year was calm, no deaths yet," said a newscaster in Sincelejo. Hundreds of wannabe matadors jump into makeshift rings, some sponsored by local merchants but others merely inebriated or sober and foolish, some gaudily dressed, some in bunches (with one group even picknicking). Wrote the Times, "A stream of men arrived" in the Red Cross tent, "intestines peeking out of a belly, bone protruding from a fractured shin, blood spurting from a gash in the buttocks." Said a local, "This is about the ecstasy of escaping death."

It is apparently becoming more difficult to recruit competent suicide bombers in Afghanistan because twice in a two-day period in January, clumsy bombers accidentally blew themselves up before they ever had the chance to take their targets out. One fell down a flight of stairs while on his way to an attack in the town of Khost, and the other's bomb accidentally exploded as he was getting dressed for an assignment in the town of Lashkar Gah (although the latter bomber did take three colleagues with him).

Earnest residents continue to accidentally destroy their homes: A house in Galveston, Texas, had the roof blown off on Jan. 21 when the resident set out six bug foggers but neglected to turn off the gas stove's pilot light;

Turning Their Lives Over to Sat-Nav: Satellite-navigation is undoubtedly a boon to drivers, but reports are accumulating of incidents in which drivers turned over too much discretion to the technology. For example, in January in Bedford Hills, N.Y., a visiting Silicon Valley computer technician absent-mindedly obeyed his car's global positioning system and wound up, stalled, on railroad tracks, where a passing Metro-North train smashed into it (after the man had exited).