Strange News

Touch-screen devices have opened up video gaming to a whole new demographic: cats. Cat-food company Friskies has already made a few tablet games designed specifically for cats to play. One features virtual fish swimming around, taunting kitties to paw at the iPad screen. If you don't believe it, go to YouTube.

Tim Kelleher's Jack Russell terrier — named Jack — scarfs down anything he can get his paws on. Last week, his vet discovered the dog had scarfed down a bagel and, somewhere along the line, more than a hundred pennies. The vet operated and removed the pennies.

A 62-year-old man had been on sick leave from work due to stress for the past few months — which is why his employer was surprised to see him wrestling a shark on an Australian beach in a video that went viral. The charity he worked for fired him. In his defense, the man said a doctor had advised him to take a vacation.

Mr. Stubbs (his tail was bitten off years ago) was taken in by the Phoenix Herpetological Society. There, The Arizona Republic reports, an orthopedic care specialist realized a silicone tail could be designed for him. Now, Mr. Stubbs sports a $6,000 prosthetic.

Myron Robinson managed to score a year of free Netflix videos and online streaming by tweeting a photo of his new Netflix tattoo. The company tweeted back, "No way! Free year for you!"

An Indiana woman wanted to honor her late husband with a headstone shaped like a couch, and featuring Indianapolis Colts and NASCAR logos. St. Joseph's Catholic Church said the headstone is completely inappropriate — so the widow sued.

The iron will no longer be passing go or stopping at Park Place. The company ran a "save your token" campaign, and only 8 percent of respondents fought for the iron. The winner? That little Scottie dog, which might prefer the old iron to the token replacing it: a cat.

Over the past year, small, elfin creatures started springing up all around Oakland, Calif., on the base of utility poles. The local utility had vowed to remove them but now says the paintings can stay.

When President Obama addressed the country on New Year's Eve in the middle of negotiations over the "fiscal cliff," he warned Republicans that any government spending cuts would have to be accompanied by tax increases. If they thought otherwise, the president said, "then they've got another thing coming." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase was originally "to have another think coming."

A scientist in Thailand raises mosquito colonies so she can study a new malaria drug. The insects are quite spoiled — they'll eat only live human blood. So she feeds them "breakfast" each day from her right arm.