Computer hardware engineer Toshio Yamamoto, 49, this year celebrates 15 years' work tasting and cataloguing all the Japanese ramen (instant noodles) he can get his hands on (including the full ingredients list, texture, flavor, price and "star" rating for each), for the massive 4,300-ramen database on his Web site, expanded recently with "hundreds" of video reviews and with re-reviews of many previously appearing products (in case the taste had changed, he told journalist Lisa Katayama, writing in April on the popular blog Boing Boing). Yamamoto said he had always eaten ramen for breakfast seven days a week, but cut back recently to five. "I feared that, if I continued at (the seven-day) pace, I would get bored."
In January the California Historical Resources Commission formally claimed, on behalf of the state, about 100 items of property on the surface of the moon having been left behind during the 1969 Apollo 11 landing (since California companies were instrumental in that mission and since only the moon surface itself is off limits to ownership claims under international law). Among the items declared are tools, a flag, bags of food and bags of human waste left by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Louis Woodcock, 23, testified at his Toronto trial in March that he was not involved in the 2005 shooting of a woman, despite being seen on surveillance video approaching the woman and holding his hand inside his jacket until gunshots rang out. He said he often kept his hand inside his jacket to keep from sucking his thumb, which is a habit he picked up in childhood and which did not go over well on the street. (The jury, apparently not seeing him as the thumb-sucking type, convicted him of manslaughter.)
In February, Jesse McCabe, 29, was spared jail time (probation and community service only) for his conviction in connection with a missing $18,000 in bank deposits he was to have made for his employer in New Port Richey, Fla. Police discovered 13 deposits, from a six-week period, in McCabe's home, but all the money was recovered, and McCabe persuaded the judge that he just hadn't been able to make it to the bank yet.
Former baseball star Lenny "Nails" Dykstra recently started accepting clients for his investment advice service, charging $999 a year, according to a March Wall Street Journal report. (Dykstra filed for bankruptcy in July 2009 to stave off more than 20 lawsuits against him for entrepreneurial ventures gone bad, and in November, the bankruptcy judge denied him the right to reorganize his debts, converting his case to a chapter 7 liquidation.)
In March, Monica Conyers, pleading insufficient funds, was granted a court-appointed lawyer to appeal her bribery conviction stemming from her work as a city councilwoman in Detroit. Conyers is the wife of John Conyers, the Michigan congressman who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. (Mrs. Conyers arrived in court on the day of her sentencing clutching what reporters said appeared to be a Louis Vuitton handbag that sells for $1,000.)
