The Big World Events You Missed in 2011

From caffeinated meat to the Frozen Dead Guys festival

(NEWSER) - As the weirdness of 2012 begins, it's time to take a look back at the bizarre year behind us. Some of the year's oddest stories:

• In Florida, an 8-foot-tall Lego man washed up on a beach —apparently the work of a Dutch artist, not the Lego company.
• The US Army created one of the year's weirdest foods: A beef jerky stick with as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.
• Want to buy the rights to one of the country's strangest festivals? Nederland, Colo., is trying to sell off its annual Frozen Dead Guys festival.

Did the world really need a Miley Cyrus sex doll?

(NEWSER) - Hollywood has given us many, many reasons to be glad 2011 is over—including the nearly two dozen “WTF?!” moments rounded up by the Huffington Post :

• Chris Brown shatters a window in a rage after Good Morning America.
• Rebecca Black releases “Friday.” It goes on to rack up the most YouTube views of the year.
• Jim Carrey posts a creepy video love note to Emma Stone.

Hey, not everybody can be interesting: Seth Abramovitch

(NEWSER) - Needless to say, Gawker isn’t all that impressed with Barbara Walters’ annual list of the year’s 10 most fascinating people . The good news is, that didn’t stop blogger Seth Abramovitch from offering up his own list, of the year’s 10 least fascinating people, in response:

• Piers Morgan: “The turnip-headed reality star turned CNN seat-filler loves Twitter wars and speaking over his guests almost as much as no one gives a s*** about him.”
• Brett Ratner: Despite getting himself in the middle of an Oscars-related controversy this year, he “remains the least interesting filmmaker of his generation” and you probably can’t think of a single interesting scene in a movie he’s made.

Will 'Pitchfork' keep Adele from taking the crown?

(NEWSER) - It’s the end of the year, which means a glut of music sites releasing “Best Of” lists. Indie-loving Pitchfork picks the top 100 tracks of the year; here are the top 10, which include some mainstream surprises:

1. M83, “Midnight City”
2. Bon Iver, “Holocene”
3. EMA, “California”
4. Nicki Minaj, “Super Bass”
5. Real Estate, “It’s Real”
6. Destroyer, “Kaputt”
7. Beyoncé, “Countdown"
8. Cass McCombs, “County Line”
9. Azealia Banks, “212”
10. DJ Khaled, “I’m On One” (Feat. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne)

Let's just say it's a pragmatic choice

(NEWSER) - Merriam-Webster’s word of the year—pragmatic—may not be exciting, but at least it’s slightly less depressing than last year’s word, austerity. The editors chose the word because it was looked up so often on its online dictionary, particularly before August’s debt ceiling vote and during the congressional supercommittee’s meetings. For those who didn't get around to looking it up, the adjective means practical and logical, the AP notes. Some may have expected “occupy” to win, but it was not searched for as often; it may, however, still end up as the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year More»