Though Budapest is still faintly quivering with Brangelina fever, Hollywood's new favorite cut-rate European location destination is already making plans to roll out the carpet for another world-famous A-list American movie star celebrity: Bruce Willis! The star of "Die Hard" (1988), "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" (1990), "Die Hard With a Vengeance" (1995) and "Live Free or Die Hard" (2007) will arrive in town in January to film the forthcoming "A Good Day to Die Hard." But if you see him around town he may look like he's actually having a bad day. Here's why:

An increasingly number of people - including mothers of newborn children - are being treated in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County suffering from syphilis and scabies simultaneously. But experts cautioned against panic, pointing out that both szifilisz and rüh are pretty common in places where poor people live crammed together in tiny places having unsafe sex and then don't bother to even take a frigging shower afterwards, and so a few of them having both isn't really such a big deal, especially if they stay the fuck away from the rest of us. [index.hu]

No doubt keen to enjoy some of the positive international press that surrounded a design content in which Icelandic electricity pylons were made to look like graceful giants (left), Hungarian electricity provider Mavir Zrt recently unveiled a electric transmission tower built in the form of a massive, insane death clown (right). [orientpress.com]

A graduate of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics has invented a children's bicycle built in part using rolls of cardboard. Balázs Váci's cheap, environment-friendly "U5 bicycle" can be used by children aged five to 14 years, and can be adjusted in size as its little owner grows. It would be sold in pieces and have to be assembled at home, and the child could color and decorate the cardboard rolls as they please. The "U5" apparently wowed the audience at the recent "Bridge of Sciences" (Tudományok Hídja) event in Budapest, and we're also convinced it could be profitably manufactured in Hungary, especially if you consider how hard it will be for anyone to even file a personal injury lawsuit when their kid leaves it out in the rain and then breaks their head. [hg.hu]

Hungarian shoplifters are especially keen for goose liver, perfume and expensive cheeses and chocolates, a recent survey of local hypermarket retailers found. Also popular: coffee and sausages. According to a representative of French-owned Auchan Magyarország Kft, hunger is not the main motivation for Hungarian shoplifters, since they tend to target alcoholic drinks, tobacco products and chewing gum. Well then. [divany.hu]

In a clear sign of we're not exactly sure what, a family with two small children has moved into a house in Tényő that was the scene of an epic murder-suicide last year in which the previous owner killed his wife and two daughters with an axe before decapitating himself with a chainsaw.

A man suffered serious burns on a large area of his thigh at a Baja hospital on Wednesday when a device being used to remove moles from his skin began smoking and then burst into flames. Police are investigating the incident to determine who is responsible for the incident. [index.hu]

Over on Caboodle.hu today we see that there is a shiny new international ticket terminal at Keleti station that promises to make train travel in Hungary more convenient and spiffy. Which is just super, even if you're not comparing it to the ongoing horrors taking place in the metro tubes a few dozen meters beneath.

The ghost of Michael Jackson was recently photographed by a woman in Miskolc. Zsuzsa Galkó Kőházy (left, with pic), who identifies herself as a "ghost photographer," said the singer's face appeared in the corner of a painting of the Virgin Mary. Kőházy said many people recognized the ghost as Michael Jackson, who appears to be dancing in the painting. [borsonline.hu]

In today's Fraud Friday special we've already had a case of someone nailed for passing themselves off as someone they aren't and a case of someone nailed for embezzling from a seemingly wholesome institution. And now we have a case of someone nailed for trying to pass themselves off as someone else apparently with the aim of convincing others to embezzle on his behalf! This third and most spectacular scam involves a man named János Gergely, who is accused of impersonating Péter Szaló (right), who is currently state secretary of the national development and economy ministry.

An employee of the Károli Gáspár Calvinist University has confessed to taking Ft 157 million worth of grants from the university over eight years, Budapest Police announced on Wednesday. The university filed a report after suspicion arose that one person had collected grants on behalf of 45 students. A subsequent investigation revealed that an employee had forged documents to have the grants transferred to his own account without the students' knowledge during 2003-11. [HATC]

Police yesterday arrested a dental technician in Velence who has worked for 25 years as a dentist without qualifications. The technician ran a dental clinic in his multi-floor villa. The suspect, who is also a construction entrepreneur, told police that working as a dentist was his hobby. The state medical authority conducted a check after local residents informed police. [HATC]

A 25-year-old man who shot three security guards at a Tesco in Budapest last summer may receive a life sentence for attempted murder. According to the charges unveiled at the first hearing in the case on Wednesday, the trouble started when security guards noticed that he had stolen a Túró Rudi bar, and they took him to a questioning room. The man then pulled out an (illegal) handgun and began shooting, hitting one guard in the stomach, another in his upper arm, and grazing the palm of the third. Unlike (get ready for a weird coincidence) the last story we had of a 25-year-old man making headlines by stealing a Túró Rudi, this one didn't seem very contrite, denying to the court that he had meant to kill the guards. However, he didn't even try to deny that Hungary's favorite curd cheese snack is simply irresistible! [index.hu]

While over on Politics.hu they're debating the substantive merits of the "I don't like the system" rally and movement currently making waves in Hungary, we'll focus on the far more important question of whether the accompanying (and widely-shared) music video rocks or sucks.

Now that the brouhaha over the Brad Pitt Budapest zombie illegal weapon seizure story seems to have died down a bit, we can turn our attention to other, potentially more serious stories. like how Brad and Angelina Jolie's kids are making do during their second extended stay in Hungary.

In one of the finest bits of countryside mayhem we've gotten wind of since the funeral marred by muddy, bloody, rolling diapered corpse back in July, a 17-year-old girl has been "punished" by the 43-year-old wife of her lover, her 24-year-old daughter and their 25-year-old friend with a thrashing and a haircut. The daughter of the girl's 40-year-old lover had found her on a social networking website and lured her to a meeting in Kápolnásnyék, Fejér County (pop: 3,324) by posing as a photographer. After forcing the girl to get into a car with them, the three other women started beating her, snatched jewelry they thought she had received from her lover and cut off her hair.

In other sad news involving Hungary's creaky, state-driven cultural industry, the twelve "Actors of the Nation" apparently got a nasty surprise this month when they failed to receive the Ft 500,000 (€1,680) monthly allowance that comes with the title. Several actors confirmed to tabloid Blikk that the money had not arrived to their accounts this month, adding that they had not received any explanation. The title is always held by twelve actors or actresses who receive the money from the state monthly until their death. The wife of invalid actor Gyula Szabó (left, looking sad) was told by the National Theater that the account had been frozen, and the money may not arrive again this year.

It seems that it's not only insufferably arrogant and inexplicitly affluent cosmopolitan Hungarians who want to expend more taxpayer money on the production of Hungarian movies evoking the heaviness of human existence. Earlier this week French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand was quoted as saying that he was "aware that film-making in Hungary is in dire straits" and that "I shall spare no effort or energy" to make sure that the "visual style" of Hungarian directors continues to be unleashed on cinema-goers around the continent. Mitterrand, who is the nephew of the late French President of the same name, is pictured at left, looking sad. Sad! [galamus.hu]

How's this for karma. A well-known Hungarian businessman named József Stadler recently had an oil painting stolen from him valued at Ft 8 million (€26,900) that was among the items he had improperly reclaimed Value-Added Tax on and been sent to jail over. Or perhaps we should say "divine retribution," as the oversized canvas (pictured behind Stadler at left) was of the "The Last Supper," and had originally decorated the dining hall of a convent in Milan. [index.hu]

As spotted by regular tipster B.M. on Andrássy út in District VI. All we can say is, thank heavens it wasn't a turbó-szolárium.

OMG OMG OMG: DANCING MATT IS IN BUDAPEST AND IS SHOOTING A VIDEO THIS AFTERNOON AT FISHERMAN'S BASTION!!! Shooting of the video will begin promptly at 4:00 p.m., but according to Index, it is important to understand that anyone who wants to dance with Dancing Matt should get there early. The portal also advises readers that Dancing Matt will not dance with anyone wearing copyrighted costumes or T-shirts displaying logos and furthermore has let it be known that Dancing Matt doesn't like to dance with people dressed up as Super Mario or Sarah Palin. So is everybody clear on the groundrules for dancing with Dancing Matt? Good. Now would someone please tell us who the fuck Dancing Matt is?

In a rare show of cross-partisan agreement in the always-fraught area of culture, Hungary's ruling Fidesz party and the small liberal opposition LMP (Lehet Más a Politika, "Politics Can be Different") are putting forth similar plans to tax audio-visual materials not so much to their linking.

A young man from Sümeg, Zsolt Dömötör, is the world's new champion balloon folder, having won a competition in the United States involving 330 experts in balloon folding and twisting from 23 countries. His winning creation was a mosquito for which he used several balloons. Dömötör, whose website is here, said he had been involved in balloon art for the last decade and a half, and qualified for the competition after submitting photos of his work online. Last year, he finished third at the same competition with a hedgehog. Congratulations, Zsolt! [sumeg.hu]

A piece of a monument erected as a symbol of the fight against racism was stolen last week in Budapest's Millenáris park (District II). A bicycle-shaped part of the so-called "Rolling Monument" - which commemorates Roma victims of a series of racist-motivated murders in 2008-09 - was removed from its pedestal but then abandoned nearby, apparently when the thief realized the thing was too heavy to carry, or maybe because they only belatedly realized it wasn't a bicycle.