The Odd Truth, Feb. 18, 2004

The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.

CLEVELAND - Attala Abboushi couldn't believe his eyes when he opened his store and saw legs dangling from the kitchen ceiling.

"I thought I was dreaming for a second," Abboushi said.

Police say a would-be burglar got stuck trying to bypass the small grocery's alarm system by breaking in through the vents over a kitchen stove.

After discovering the man shouting for help Sunday, Abboushi called police and firefighters, who cut the vent apart to free the man. The suspect told police he was stuck for four or five hours.

He was taken to St. Vincent Charity Hospital to be treated for cuts and bruises. He was later taken to the city jail.

The man was expected to be charged with breaking and entering, Sgt. Donna Bell said Tuesday. Police suspect he may have entered through roofs on several burglaries.

Bowling Ball Dropped 800 Feet Into Desert

SALT LAKE CITY - Bowling is taking on a whole new meaning for some amateur astronomers. Last Friday they tossed a bowling ball out of an airplane over the Utah desert. No danger of a gutter ball here. But there's more to their airborne tenpins than strikes and spares. Patrick Wiggins says the idea was to simulate meteorite craters. They used a 14-pound, red-swirl bowling ball, which was dropped from a rented Cessna at more than 800 feet. Wiggins says they're not done with the bowling bombing yet. They're going to try varying heights and different objects. Next time they may try some iron slag or rocks, which are more like meteorites than a bowling ball.

Move Over Pork, Way Over

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Rats are the other white meat - at least for some people in northwest Cambodia. Fear of catching bird flu has prompted some Cambodians to give up eating chicken. The newspaper, Light of Cambodia, reports fresh rat is fetching a premium at local markets. Villagers catch the rodents in nearby rice fields and sell them for up 35 cents each. One vendor reports selling 130 pounds of rat meat a day. Apparently booze helps. The paper reports the rat meat is often eaten as a snack while drinking.

Stolen Monkey Returned To Zoo Unharmed

BUDAPEST, Hungary - A 10-month-old monkey was returned unharmed to the Budapest Zoo a few hours after it was stolen from the zoo's palm house, officials said Wednesday.

"The monkey was in a box delivered by a taxi driver to the zoo's night watchmen," said zoo spokeswoman Zsuzsa Fodor.

The driver told zoo officials that an unidentified woman flagged down his taxi on the street Tuesday night and, without revealing its contents, paid him to take the cardboard box to the zoo.

The monkey, which weighs around 2 pounds, had been allowed to roam free with other small animals inside the palm house.

Fodor said the monkey - born in captivity and considered friendly with humans - did not seem to have been harmed while it was outside the zoo. It is a marmoset, a small monkey native to Latin America.

"Probably the biggest inconvenience for the monkey is that it will be kept in quarantine for three weeks, until we're sure the animal is fine," she said.

Another marmoset was taken from the palm house a few years ago, but security guards caught the culprits while still inside the zoo. Fodor said the zoo was considering increasing security.

Slaughterville Guts 'Veggieville' Offer

OKLAHOMA CITY - A truckload of veggie burgers wasn't enough to get a small Oklahoma town to change its name to Veggieville.

Members of Slaughterville's town council amicably heard presentations by members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals before voting against the suggestion Tuesday night.

PETA officials contend the current name conjures up images of violence against animals.

"It was almost as if it was a comedy hour," said Ravi Chand, PETA's campaign coordinator, who is also a corporal in the U.S. Marines and an Iraq War veteran.

"They didn't applaud at my speech, but they did applaud the fact that I was a U.S. Marine."

More than a dozen people at the standing room only meeting offered opinions on why the town should keep its name, said Chand, of Sacramento, Calif.

Residents of the town of 3,600 point out that the town was named after a grocery store run by James Slaughter in the early part of the 20th century.

PETA had promised $20,000 in veggie burgers to the local school district if it agreed to a name change.

Before the meeting PETA gave away veggie burgers but residents of Slaughterville gave away hot dogs and held up signs that said, "Beef, it's what's for dinner."

Lobster's Chilly Lullaby

SYDNEY, Australia - Plunging live lobsters into pots of boiling water to kill them will become a thing of the past in Australia if animal welfare activists get their way.

The nation's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is calling for lobsters to be lulled to sleep in a refrigerator or freezer and then killed by splitting or driving a spike through them.

"If you chuck a live crustacean into a boiling pot of water, they feel that and you are killing them cruelly," RSPCA President Hugh Wirth said Wednesday. "While there are still traditionalists, I think this will get rid of the last resistance. I am sure now we will get an uptake of the proper methodology."

Wirth was speaking in the southern island state of Tasmania at the launch of new guidelines on killing crustacea.

Jill Mure, whose family has run seafood restaurants in Tasmania for almost 30 years, said she had long subscribed to the practice of chilling lobsters in the freezer.

"I just believe they go very nicely to sleep," she said. "I think the method of tossing them in the pot is long gone."

Lawyer Denies Jailhouse Romp

SEATTLE - Did she or didn't she? A Seattle lawyer is now denying she had a jailhouse tryst with a murder defendant. Last year Theresa Ann Olson admitted to engaging in sex acts with Sebastian Burns. A King County Jail sergeant reported seeing Olson and Burns in what was described as sexual contact. Olson, who was a public defender, admitted to the allegations in exchange for a one-year legal suspension. But the state Supreme Court tossed out the deal. Now, Olson is categorically denying she did anything improper with her ex-client. A hearing on the alleged jailhouse romp is expected next fall.