"The rules are different here and people come down here thinking they can do anything."

You know you're living in a weird state when there's a Festivus pole made out of beer cans displayed in the Capitol, a man offers to trade a live alligator for a 12-pack of beer, and a homeowners association has to create a no-swimming-as-a-mermaid rule.

Florida is the kind of state where lawmakers found it necessary to pass a law that bans using food stamps in strip bars. It's a state where dogs are trained to sniff out giant African land snails. It's where three Miami-area mayors were arrested on separate corruption charges in a single month and an officer got in trouble for giving Miami Heat star LeBron James a police escort to a Justin Timberlake/Jay Z concert.

It was, once again, a weird year in Florida.

Read more at the AP.