Here's the scoop: Young travelers, usually male, show up, take one look at those long, beautiful breaks and, before you can say "Don't forget your rash guard," they're in the water, paddling to catch the wave of their dreams.

Now, here's where things turn sour. As anybody who has ever surfed knows, paddling is a lot of work. Then there's the timing -- it has to be perfect or you'll miss the wave. And then there's the wave itself; it may peter out, or it may be the wave everybody's looking for. If it's the one, it's guaranteed that a lot of people are going to want to ride it.

But the unlucky visitor who drops in on a wave and cuts off a local is headed for trouble. Grant Walton, a Sydney surfer, told the BBC what happened to a foreigner who made this very mistake. "They beat him pretty badly," he said. "It was brutal stuff. The bloke got smashed."

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The child's classmates, incensed by their friend's death and the lack of speed bumps in the area, banded together with kids from other area schools and went on a "drunken rampage," according to a Reuters report.

The children, some as young as 5, looted shops, drank the contents of a beer wagon and set fire to the matatu that killed their peer. A schoolteacher told Reuters, "They just ran out of the classroom like crazy demons ... We managed to hold back some of the little ones, but the others, they went hitting people -- pah! -- and hitting cars -- pah!"

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The woman, angry with her ex-spouse for divorcing her, went to the country next door, Oman, where she hired a magician to conjure up a nasty spell for her former beloved and his sibling.

Apparently, the spell worked. At least psychologically. The man and his sister soon came down with a number of undiagnosed illnesses, which they attributed to the ex-wife's black magic. Believing they were possessed by demons, they sought retribution in court -- and won. The ex-wife was promptly whisked off to jail.

Recently, however, she was granted an appeal from a court in Sharjah, which informed the Gulf News that the "physical and psychological ailments" of the man and his sibling had no correlation with the ex-wife's visit to the magician.

The newspaper also said that it is common for Arab women to visit magicians in times of need -- as in "I need that Mercedes" or "I need you to come down with a rare and unsightly skin disease." Hey, maybe they've got something there.

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According to a Reuters report, the towns plan to burn giant, 10-foot-high artichokes at their twin power stations to convert the thorny vegetables to electricity.

Ten-foot-high artichokes? Yup. Spanish farmers, with a little financial help from European Union subsidies and the towns' electricity generator, have been raising genetically modified "monster vegetables" with 23-foot-long roots. These larger-than-life artichokes may be unfit for human consumption, but once burned, they will provide the power to supply Villabilla de Burgos' and Alcala de Gurrea's 60,000 residents with electricity.

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According to a BBC report, a group of New Delhi muggers have taken up an ingenious new weapon -- snakes. Yes, snakes.

The scheme works like this: A criminal approaches an unsuspecting citizen and places a python around her neck. The python begins to squeeze, and voil` -- the victim gives up her money in return for breath and life.

In another popular ruse, a man is approached by a "snake charmer" who threatens him with a hissing asp: Give up the jewelry or risk a poisonous snake bite. Guess which wins.

Many of these robberies have occurred in the light of day, prompting Delhi police to warn the public to "stay clear of snake charmers and people carrying serpents."

Aye, aye.

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The report did not say if the "priservatifs" flew out of the machine like so many Mars bars, or if they languished inside the dispenser like stale trail mix. No matter, though -- the offending prophylactics are all gone now.

After concerned parents notified the Vatican, Roman Catholic officials demanded that the dispenser be taken down, saying that it "took all the sense out of a Catholic education, took responsibility away from students and teachers alike, and legitimized behavior which was not acceptable."

Ah, yes -- but what about l'amour?

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"I live there and I have no objection to the name," Golant Council Chairman Alistair Barr told the London Times recently.

According to a Reuters report, the street's name became an issue when Golant decided to draw up a map for the town's visitors. Apparently, some people felt that Cowshit Lane would leave a dark stain on their village's sunny image. They suggested renaming the road Cowslip Lane, but in the end, Golant's residents decided to stick with the original.

Resident and former Council Chairman Douglas Cooper told the Times, "I only wish I lived there, because I could put it on my headed notepaper."

That's the spirit! Maybe he'd like to move to San Francisco to live on Uranus.

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Audiences saw it all. In Japan, sumo wrestlers are the gods of sport, the recipients of reverence and respect. The sight of the once-mythical wrestler in the raw was, apparently, quite a shock.

It was a shock for Asanokiri, too. According to the report, his face went beet red when a sumo elder, who was sitting ringside, spotted the wrestler's exposed penis and called for him to forfeit the match. (Sumo rules dictate that wrestlers' privates must always be covered.)

So how did this happen? Sumo wrestlers' loincloths are carefully secured by 23- to 26-foot-long "mawashi" belts, which get wrapped tightly around the wrestlers' super-sized bodies so that they never come loose.

But come loose it did, giving Japan its first sumo flashing in 83 years, an official from the Japan Sumo Association informed Reuters.

Asanokiri is now in the uncomfortable position of explaining himself. He told local papers, "I tied my mawashi the way I always do, but today it just came loose."

Double knots, Asanokiri, double knots.

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Everything was fine until a couple of bad eggs began acting
up. According to a Reuters report, several of the plaza's
chickens, mostly roosters, developed a bad attitude and
began to take out their aggression on toddlers.

After what the news service called "a flurry of attacks on
neighborhood children," a particularly incensed rooster
jumped an 18-month-old boy without provocation, and the
battle between chickens and parents took off.

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The line appeared on a plaque featuring William Wordsworth's Sept. 3, 1802,
sonnet, "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge," and it took five months
before anybody noticed that it didn't make a lick of sense.

Or perhaps many realized the line didn't make sense, but chalked it up to
their ignorance of poetry. It took 830,000 rides for someone to recognize
that the 12th and 13th lines had been blended and butchered.

The plaque should have read:

"The river that glideth at his own sweet will:/Dear God! The very houses
seem asleep."

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The hostel offers A$1 meals (U.S. 59 cents), rooms for the night and
showers. But word of the shelter, which does not require identification,
spread fast among backpackers bent on stretching their vacation dollars as
far as possible. According to the report, it has even appeared in the "Cheap
Eats" sections of several travel guides.

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The cause of the fire is unknown, but workers nearby told
Reuters that once the fire started, whiskey barrels could be
heard exploding like gunshots. Within minutes, the
seven-story wooden building went up in flames, taking 17,000
barrels of Kentucky's favorite hooch with it. The oaken
barrels contained young (and very volatile) bourbon that had
been aging for three years, as well as high-priced bourbon that had been aging for 15 years.

In addition to destroying the warehouse, the burning booze
surged into the town's water supply, forcing schools,
businesses and the water plant to shut down. It never made
it into residents' tap water, but it did flow into the
Kentucky River. Though officials said they
found no dead river creatures, a few drunken-catfish jokes
made the rounds.

City worker Debbie Steele told the Associated Press, "I just
tell them we're having happy hour at the river later. Just
bring their own bucket."

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That's because the dead man's son-in-law had dressed him in a suit, tie and baseball cap to cover his face before smuggling him onto the bus, according to a Reuters report.

Why? Perhaps it was the stress of his 77-year-old father-in-law's death. Whatever the reason, the dutiful son-in-law, after rising in his Glasgow, Scotland, hotel room to find his father-in-law gone to the big rugby match in the sky, decided to take him back home to England without alerting authorities.

So he dressed him in his best, managed to haul him onto the bus without attracting attention and sat beside him for the ride home.

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Sounds like a no-brainer, but
negotiations aren't moving all that
swiftly. By Friday, the strike was
beginning to have real effects on French
citizens and tourists alike.

With no drivers to deliver crisp francs
to hungry automatic teller machines,
customers itching for a kilo of
strawberries at the local market were
finding their plans spoiled when their
ATMs ran out of money.

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"Ogopogo" is the creature's name, and it is rumored to live in Okanagan Lake, in southern British Columbia. For decades, residents of the area have reported sightings of the giant water monster; the area's original Native American inhabitants, according to a Reuters report, called it N'Ha-a-itk, or "The Lake Demon."

Unfortunately, nobody has been able to prove that the mythical lake dweller exists. Okanagan Lake is 97 miles long and 1,800 feet deep, providing Ogopogo with plenty of places to hide. Several years ago, Japanese researchers attempted to locate the beast using radar, but their funding ran out before they could spot a ridged back, red eyes or spiked tail.

Now, however, everybody has a chance to prove there really is an Ogopogo. The Penticton Chamber of Commerce has put a Can$2 million (about U.S.$1.3 million) price on the monster's head. Anyone who can come up with scientific proof that the monster exists -- and is not just an oversized sturgeon -- will take home the money.

"There has to be something out there," said Chamber of Commerce manager John Singleton to the Canadian Press. "There's too many people who have seen something."

Sound familiar?

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Unfortunately, camels also are susceptible to a whole list of calamities: flash floods, bites from poisonous vipers, even collisions with cars. Consequently, the Iranian government has decided to extend insurance coverage to the long-lashed beasts of burden.

According to a Reuters report, insurance will be available to cover camels in the country's southwest province of Khuzestan, home to approximately 7,000 of the humped mammals. The cost of premiums will be divided between camel owners and the government, with higher premiums and payouts for older camels that are not as spry as they used to be.

So what can a camel be covered for? In addition to the usual suspects, they're also protected against earthquakes and thunder.

Thunder?

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According to a Reuters report, the airport authorities had no idea how the man got onto the runway. One minute all systems were go, and the next minute there he was, a real-life Mr. Magoo. Officials surmised that the man, who was out for a drive, took a wrong turn. They just can't figure out how he drove through a normally locked gate, passed an airplane hangar and turned onto an airline runway undetected.

The man got quite a shock when he saw a Fokker 50 plane hurtling toward him at 125 miles an hour. The plane's pilot was also surprised. When he saw the elderly man in his car, frozen on the runway ahead of him, he accelerated and took off early, clearing the vehicle by just 10 feet.

Scandinavian Airlines System spokeswoman Siv Meisingseth said, "This was a very serious incident."

And another reason to fear old age.

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Motorists share the roads with not only trucks, buses and bicycles, but pedestrians, cows and camels too. And traffic fatalities are consequently high. That's why the government has built the country's first superhighway.

The six-lane, concrete speedway links Bombay, India's largest city, with the city of Pune. It winds over bridges, along mountain passes and through tunnels, and features more than 20 lanes for carts and about 30 pedestrian underpasses and bridges. Motorists will be able to make the trek from Bombay to Pune in just two hours, compared to the previous four.

In the next 20 years, India plans to build 7,500 more miles of expressway, making its roadways safer, transportation more efficient and India, well, perhaps a little less like India.

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Tortillas, in case you've been deprived of the experience, have been around since pre-Columbian days and are the staple of the Mexican diet. The pancake-shaped bread is made out of corn and sometimes wheat (and, in California, often spinach and wheat or tomato and wheat). When they're fresh off the grill, they're especially tasty.

Oaxaca's celebratory tortilla was of the traditional corn variety, though of course its size was anything but ordinary. When finished, it measured a whopping 14-and-a-half-feet in diameter. The city's notaries carefully recorded its size before it was topped with 70 pounds of cheese, 70 pounds of beef, 45 pounds of beans and 5 gallons of salsa.

Delicioso!

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Sounds innocent enough, but Japanese cult leader Hogen Fukunaga also told his followers that they could die if they did not have the soles of their feet inspected, according to the Associated Press. Of course, this foot inspection did not come free -- some believers paid Fukunaga up to U.S.$935,000 in order to ensure their health.

There's nothing like getting ripped off to make you come to your senses. Four years ago, some of Fukunaga's followers began to defect, and 1,000 of them eventually filed lawsuits. Fukuoka District Court Judge Motoaki Kimura recently proclaimed the cult legally responsible for defrauding its followers, and ordered it to pay U.S.$2.12 million to 27 former members.

Judge Kimura explained to the Kyodo News Agency that the cult "significantly deviated from the range of what is permissible in the name of religious training."

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