The alleged shoplifting was reported at 6:23 p.m. at Kohl's, 2501 W. Broadway.

Police were given a description of the suspect by store personnel after he fled the store.

A short time later, a Monona officer saw a male matching the suspect's description getting on a bus at the corner of Bridge Road and Broadway.

The officer contacted the suspect on the bus, and discovered the stolen shoes hidden in his pants.

A Madison woman at a meeting of a local book club got a little more than she bargained for by taking a python out of its terrarium last week, when the python bit her on the face and wouldn't let go.

Annie, a 17-year-old ball python about 4 feet long, attached herself to the right cheek of the 31-year-old woman and wouldn't disengage until the python's owner came home and was able to get the snake off the woman's face.

"She just wanted to hold her," said Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain in a news release. "She apparently had prior experience handling snakes and had no reason to believe she was putting herself in danger."

The ball python is a smaller species of python and is a fairly common snake to have as a house pet, nomally docile and prone to eating small mammals such as rats or mice.

The snake is also known as the royal python, a serpent that Egyptian Queen Cleopatra supposedly wore on her wrist. (It's not poisonous, so this asp couldn't have been responsible for the queen's demise.)

The woman belongs to a book club that was meeting around 7 p.m. at a member's house on Jan. 19 on the city's north side.

Once Annie was removed from the woman's face, the python went back into the terrarium and the woman went to get the puncture wounds looked at.

"It was sort of a happy ending," DeSpain said. "The women ended up with no scars and no lasting emotional trauma."

It's bad enough for a Minnesota Vikings fan in Madison to sit through a terrible season. Throw in getting your custom-made Vikings mailbox swiped.

Then have a replacement plain old metal mailbox that you painted purple intercepted as well, and a bad season just got worse.

Madison police said the football-flavored thievery happened in the 900 block of Troy Drive on the city's north side.

The lady of the house, a 56-year-old Vikings fan, told police the family is not shy about pledging allegiance to Viking purple and gold and not Packer green and gold.

"They displayed their allegiance to the Minnesota Vikings in the heart of Packer Nation," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain in a news release. "Their mailbox had been in the shape of a Vikings' helmet, talked about in the past tense because someone swiped the prized $600 plastic receptacle at the end of December."

Enter the standard, non-Viking mailbox.

"The owner was undeterred, buying a $25 plain mailbox to replace the helmet, painting the new box purple," DeSpain said.

The Viking fan was sacked when the new box was intercepted on Jan. 7.

"It already was not a great year since the Vikings went 3-13," DeSpain said. "The team mailed it in and now a Madison fan has no Viking mailbox to get mail in."

We've seen plenty of weird crime mugshots and heard plenty of bizarre stories. But when it comes to criminal names, this one is ... a mouthful.

Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, 30, was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana and a violation of probation in Madison, Wisc.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was born Jeffrey Drew Wilschke, according to court records unearthed by the Capital Times. He legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zoopittybop-Bop-Bop in October.

According to Zopittybop-Bop-Bop's apparent Facebook account, when he's not in trouble with the law he enjoys activities including "eating," "standing," walking," "thinking," and "diamond." He's also single... so there's that, ladies.

Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was apprehended by authorities after neighbors complained of "excessive drinking and drug use" around a local park, the Madison police report says.

Police say that when they took Zopittybop-Bop-Bop into custody, they found him in possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a knife.

On his way to the prison, Zopittybop-Bop-Bop allegedly told cops that he would eventually "get even with them."

Kids and parents tracking Santa's flight around the globe on Christmas Eve could be in for a big treat in Madison.

We have it under good authority that the big guy himself could be making a specially recorded stop in Madison, as his journey is tracked second by second by the U.S. military's air defense command center in Colorado.

The annual NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Tracks Santa event is done courtesy of Google Earth and Google Maps websites, and can be found here.

A major part of the fun in tracking Mr. Claus is seeing the cities selected by NORAD, following Santa's touchdowns in those select locales.

"He may very well be stopping by in Madison," said a Google spokeswoman when contacted by madison.com. "That is, of course, if the little boys and girls have been good in Madison this year."

The Santa tracking begins at 1 a.m. (central time) on Christmas Eve  and continues to 4 a.m. on Christmas Day.

Google couldn't say exactly when Santa Claus will be heading to Madison, since that's between Santa and the reindeer. Rudolph can be fickle, so any arrival and departure estimate is, well, up in the air.

NORAD Tracks Santa started in 1955 by accident. An ad for Sears in a Colorado Springs, Colo. newspaper gave an incorrect phone number for kids to call Santa Claus, with the calls going into the air defense command center, located inside Cheyenne Mountain at Peterson Air Force Base just south of the city.

A colonel on duty that night told his staff to give the callers the current location for Santa Claus, and a tradition was born.

While NORAD Tracks Santa is predominantly done via computer today, the facility still gets thousands of emails and phone calls asking where Santa is at that moment.

Weather forecasters at local TV stations also get in on the action, showing where Santa is in the Christmas Eve night sky.

Santa tracking fans can also do so by smart phone using this, or through Facebook or Twitter.

Madison police didn't have to work too hard to track down this pair of unlucky thieves.

Authorities said two Madison men, ages 29 and 28, stole DVDs and computer games from a Target store Tuesday afternoon. As they drove away they discussed their plans to sell the stolen goods.

But they didn't realize that one of them had accidentally pocket-dialed 911, allowing a dispatcher to listen in on nearly an hour of conversation. The two spoke in detail about what they had stolen and where they might sell it, and they also described their getaway vehicle.

Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the pair decided to sell their goods at a video store. When they pulled into the store's parking lot, officers surrounded their vehicle with guns drawn.

Someone is playing an elaborate prank on a 29-year-old East Side man, who said he has had chicken-themed items strewn on his porch and roof monthly for the past year. There have been chicken bones, chicken feet and Popeyes chicken containers.

“In August, I had a printer thrown on my roof, a fan, a bunch of Bob Marley postcards in my mailbox — just really weird stuff. A vacuum cleaner left on top of my shed. Strange,” said the Drexel Avenue man, who said he wanted to remain anonymous to avoid further victimization.

Trying to get to the bottom of the situation, the man set up a security camera and on Halloween night caught the perpetrator on camera dressed as a giant chicken and dropping off Popeyes items.

A Lodi man found out Sunday that you can draw attention to yourself and eventually get arrested if you dress up as a cowboy with a plastic penis topping your hat — and have a partial gun in a holster.

Ronald McFarlane, 57, was arrested by Madison police on a tentative charge of disorderly conduct while armed after a concerned citizen called police, having seen him display a weapon to some teens in the 2700 block of East Washington Avenue at about 6:45 p.m. Sunday.

According to a police news release, the incident started on a Madison Metro bus.

Madison police are expecting a much tamer Freakfest on Saturday than the violence-riddled Halloween celebrations of years past, but they are still having a COW.

The Cell on Wheels — a mobile tower and electronic radio transceiver on a truck about the size of a semi that will be parked in the Buckeye Lot at 214 W. Gorham St. — will enhance cellphone coverage for social and public safety purposes as thousands of costumed revelers descend on the State Street area, said Central District Capt. Carl Gloede.

Rich Beadles, the city's technical services manager, said Sprint contracted to have the mobile cellphone tower at Freakfest at no cost to the city.

Beadles said one cell tower at the Library Mall end of State Street serves the area encompassing Freakfest.

What a great idea — if only I had thought of it: take a trip to Madison, Wis.; stay in a cozy bed- and-breakfast; get around by bike; test out burgers, brats, cheese curds and microbrews; and look for some booze to bring back home.

Two weeks ago, I left my travel plans up to a reader vote that just as easily could have had me staying at a chain motel in Nashville and touring city parks by public bus. But Madison and food and drink and bikes won, and I spent last weekend reveling in a cyclist-friendly city of 230,000 with a restaurant and bar scene that punches well above its demographic weight.

Read Set Kugel's entire post about Madison at: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/my-trip-to-madison-bikes-b...