truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

The Weirdo-American Community: Authorities in Valentine, Neb., have been on the lookout since November for the vandal who has approached several storefronts at night and, apparently with Vaseline smeared over his nude body, pressed himself against windows and doors. A radio station called the person "the buttcheek bandit" (although some speculate there may also be a copycat). Asked Valentine police chief Ben McBride, "Who in their right mind would do something like that?"

Alexander Smith, 46, was arrested in Wake Forest, N.C., in November after a serial dumping spree alongside rural roads, starting about a block from his own home. He had allegedly pushed off his truck, at different stops, a washing machine, then a dryer, then two stoves, and finally a freezer. He was charged with felony littering.

The New Torture: When three men stole drugs from a dealer in Edwardsville, Ill., the dealer and a partner allegedly snatched one of the men and roughed him up, seeking payment for the drugs. In November, police arrested the alleged dealers after the roughed-up victim reported that he had been held down, paddled, had some hair shaved off, and then deliberately burned on the neck and shoulders by having freshly baked cookies taken straight from an oven and held against his skin.

In November, accused armed robber Steven McDermott, 49, was finally captured after leading California Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase in a commandeered taxicab, causing two minor collisions before McDermott fled on foot. When McDermott was finally cornered, officers said, he reached toward his waistband, leading one officer to shoot him, though the object McDermott was reaching for turned out not to be the gun used in the robbery but a sex toy, tethered to his belt loop.

In Sydney, Australia, a man was charged with beating a neighbor to death because the neighbor was watering his lawn in violation of the city's water restrictions (October).

In Monticello, N.Y., Steven King, 40, was indicted in October as a result of a traffic stop, for allegedly doing nearly every single thing wrong: intoxicated, driving in oncoming-traffic lanes, with an open beer container, not wearing a seat belt, driving an uninsured car, with expired safety inspection sticker, with license plates belonging to another car, and with his 2-year-old daughter-passenger neither in a car seat nor belted in.