​It's a week worth of bite-size Orange County news and what it all taught us.

FEB. 4: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange reveals on its website that it is accepting from parishoners new names for Crystal Cathedral through Feb. 20. Bishop Tod Brown's only requirement is that the new moniker be "Christological," but Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano later learns His Todness already decided that "transfiguration" will be included in the winning title. What We Learned: Let he who has not sinned in a bankruptcy acquired glass house cast the first stone.
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​It's the week that wuz and what we learned from it all . . .

JAN. 28: Under a bright blue sky and appreciating warm temperatures despite occasional gusty winds, more than 1,000 line Bolsa Avenue in Little Saigon for the Tet Parade celebrating the Lunar New Year. Based on the number of South Vietnamese flags waving, it's as if the long dead Asian nation has been resurrected, if only for a day. What we learned: Absolutely the wrong place to break out our new Ho Chi Minh tee.
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Perez

​A random collection of this week's randomness randomly tagged with random observations of what we learned from it.

JAN. 21: Orange County's Democratic establishment is thrown into a tizzy as Julio Perez, formerly of the Orange County Labor Federation, handily gets more votes than his 69th Assembly District primary opponents: former vanilla Anaheim mayor/current County Clerk-Reporter Tom Daly and cell phone train abuser and Santa Ana City Councilwoman Michele Martinez. What we learned: Democrats instead of Republicans will be feasting on their own for a change.
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Recent highlights in Orange County news from various media outlets or blogs:

​TheLiberalOC discusses the long reach of its bombshell story on state Assembly candidate Michele Martinez's controversial train conversation related to a California Indian tribe and campaign support.

OCPoliticsBlog calls District Attorney Tony Rackauckas' decision to label accused serial killer Itzcoatl Ocampo "a monster" during last week's press conference "pathetic" given Ocampo's service as a Marine in Iraq.

Greg Hardesty, a veteran reporter at The Orange County Register, features the 6-foot-4 and 300-pound Lloyd James Middaugh, a 42-year-old murder victim and registered sex offender in the Ocampo affair.
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R.I.P., John

​Here is the week that was and what we learned from it . . .

JAN. 13: John Berry is stabbed to death behind a Carl's Jr. in Anaheim and, thanks to a passersby, police quickly capture not only the alleged murderer of the 64-year-old homeless man but the accused serial killer of three other homeless men who have been fatally stabbed since Dec. 20. Former Marine Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, of Yorba Linda, could face the death penalty. What we learned: Accused mass killer Scott Dekraai wasn't the only former Marine-turned-monster lurking around these parts.
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​Jan. 6: We obtain a screenshot of Jeremy Popoff's Facebook page, on which he claims he hasn't avoided calls from the Weekly, that we committed journalistic malpractice by "twisting [his] words" and that our man Brandon Ferguson should masturbate rather than try to ask him questions. Can't argue with that last one, but what's odd is the Lit guitarist and owner of the Slidebar--which had a possible inadvertent role in the Kelly Thomas killing--says just the opposite in a voice-mail message to us. Except the past about Brandon needing to masturbate.
What We Learned: Sum 41's guitarist doesn't waffle like that.
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​For our recent look back at 2011 via Navel Gazing posts, we added what it was we learned from the news items.

Shall we see how long we can keep the string going in 2012?

Glad you agree. Feel free to add your own items and what you think we learned from them in the comments. Until then . . . 
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​The body count is piling up in Orange County this last month of 2011, with some slayings so awful they made the following compilation of the 11 most ucked fup murder scenes of the year.

Please note that this will also be my last list of 2011 that includes the Salon Meritage massacre. As much as I wanted to avoid it here, the final list after the jump just didn't seem right leaving off that tragedy.
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​There was a lot to hate about 2011 as a whole.

And, there are still nine days left for December to make a case for changing my mind about which was the worst month in Orange County this year.

But, from my perch on this ivory tower I call "couch," I'm ready to proclaim October 2011 as the nastiest month of all . . . this year. My reason? Actually, I have eight of them . . .
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​UPDATE, NOV. 30, 9:47 A.M.: The "teen" who apparently tried to kill himself by lighting coals inside his gray Infiniti in a Ladera Ranch neighborhood Monday evening has been identified as a 27-year-old Cerritos man who was reported to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies as missing, depressed and possibly suicidal earlier that day. The Orange County Register, which breaks the news, won't identify the man by name as his case is considered a suicide attempt.
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