The collapse of the economy in 2008 might have reached the far corners of Earth, but evidently not to Planet Calypso, the make-believe asteroid containing make-believe real estate in the multiplayer online game Entropia Universe

Lead Story Librarian Graham Barker, 45, of Perth, Australia, casually revealed to a reporter in October that his hobby of 26 years—harvesting his own navel lint daily, just before he showers— has now won acclaim in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Surreal Estate: Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani’s 27-story private residence (37,000 square feet, 600 employees serving a family of five), reported to cost about $1 billion.

About 20 percent of Japan’s adult video market is now “elder porn” with each production featuring one or more studly seniors and Shigeo Tokuda, 76, is among the most popular.

Belt-Tightening Greeks: In October, Greece’s largest health insurance provider announced, in a letter to a diabetes foundation, that it would no longer pay for the special footwear that diabetics need for reducing pain but suggested it would pay instead for amputation, which is less expensive.

New York City artist Sally Davies offered in October the latest evidence of how unattractive today’s fast foods are to bacteria and maggots. Davies bought a McDonald’s Happy Meal in April, has photographed it daily, and has noted periodically the lack even of the slightest sign of decomposition.

David Winkelman, 48, was arrested in Davenport, Iowa, in September on a misdemeanor warrant, still sporting “The Tattoo.” In late 2000, Winkelman, reacting to a radio “contest,” had his forehead inked with the logo of radio station KORB, “93 Rock,” because he had heard on-air personalities “offer” $100,000 to anyone who would do it.

More Creative Alternate-Site Surgery: Doctors from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington announced in September that they could just as well handle certain brain surgeries by access not in the traditional way through the top of the skull but by drilling holes in the nose and, more recently, the eye socket. (Since classic brain surgery requires that the top of the skull be temporarily removed, the breakthroughs mean fewer complications.)

Notorious killer Jon Venables, convicted in 1993 at age 11 of the torture-murder of a 2-year-old Merseyside boy, was held until age 18 and then released on conditions and with a new identity to protect him from harassment.

U.S. and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan have reported feelings of revulsion at the number and ostentatiousness of local Pashtun men who publicly flaunt the 9-15 year-old boys that they’ve acquired as lovers. The boys dress (and use makeup) like girls, dance, hold the men’s hands, and show off in front of others their age.