[-1] A man surrenders to police after climbing the partially submerged roller coaster in Seaside Heights and planting an American flag on it. Springsteen gets two verses and a bridge out of it.

[-4] Fifty-six tires are slashed in one night in West Philly. And then Tire Santa returns to the North Pole, an off-the-grid squat at 50th and Kingsessing that sometimes does house shows, for a long winter’s nap.

[-2] Camden City Council approves a plan to lay off the city’s police force, replacing it with a county-run force. All legal disputes will be settled in Campbell’s Thunderdome. 

[0] The state Superior Court rules that home sellers are not required to divulge whether any murders or suicides occurred there. “Unless, of course, there’s a ghost infestation, but, c’mon, that usually turns up in the home inspection.”

[0] Penn professor Guthrie Ramsey denounc-es Ferko String Band’s “Minstrel Days” Mummers performance, saying, “Ignorance is no reason to allow them to do those kinds of things.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” rebuts Albert Glitterpants of the Shunk Street Glitterpantses. 

[+3] Pro wrestler The Iron Sheik challenges Gov. Corbett to get “in the ring” if he wants to be “the big time jabroni.” Corbett is confident he can thwart the Camel Clutch by poisoning the Sheik’s drinking water slowly with industrial chemicals and profiting from it.

[0] Buzz Bissinger quits his radio show on 1210 WPHT, calling talk radio “trivial” and saying, “This is not how I should be spending my life.” His bosses were understanding about the whole thing, having fired him five minutes earlier.

[+1] Penn researchers study six men living in a fake spaceship to simulate a mission to Mars. “To give the experiment a real kick, we chose participants from the general population and with no prior consent,” says scientist. “So far, there’s been a lot of yelling and banging on the one-way glass. But we have high hopes for Subject 2, as he has shown an interest in the pistol.”

This week’s total: -3  |  Last week’s total: -11