From buddy Mon Aug  7 13:27:27 1995
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 14:03:20
Subject: OFF THE WIRE & POLICE BLOTTER


News We Just Couldn't Pass Up

A homesick cat walked the entire length of the French Riviera -- about
125 miles -- in nine months to return to Nice after its owner moved to
Marseille.

A Taiwan police officer tried to rob a bank with a toy gun.  He was
captured after he left clothes marked with his name near the scene of
the crime.

Increasing numbers of Chinese consumers are being blinded and injured
by shards from exploding beer bottles, with 6,000 such cases reported
in 1994.

A London electrician became a lottery multimillionaire by using serial
numbers on cranes at a foundry where he has worked for almost 50 years.

A 100-year-old Ugandan witch doctor married a 12-year-old girl after an
affair that lasted for months, a newspaper reported.

Chinese doctors have reattached a man's foot after it was torn off and
lost in a cement mixer for three hours.

Villagers in a remote corner of Bulgaria have put out vampire alerts
after a third sheep disappeared from the same place at about the same
time for the third year running.

An inmate who escaped from a West Virginia prison using rope made out
of minty-fresh dental floss was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
"Sounds good to me," he told the judge.

Philadelphia police arrested a 19-year-old when he showed up for his
court hearing on auto-theft charges in another stolen vehicle.

A Finnish teenager swatted his way to a world mosquito-killing record,
finishing off 21 of the winged blood-suckers in five minutes at a
contest in artic Lapland.

Thousands flocked again this year to the Finnish national wife-carrying
championships, where the prize for the fastest man to haul his wife
through an obstacle course is the wife's weight in lemonade.

Compiled by Ivan Weiss.  From _The Seattle Times_, Saturday, July 15,
1995.  Reprinted without permission.

POLICE BLOTTER

Renton Police

300 block, Williams Avenue South -- A man managed to enter the voice-
messaging system of the Renton License Agency and change the outgoing
message to "Yeah, this is Renton Licenses Department.  We don't want
your damn business, so don't call back."  A phone-company official said
it was unclear how the man had changed the message.  Police found no
suspects.  (July 26)