Offbeat

Victim of theft steals his truck back

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. “”mdash; When Joe Francis’ truck was
stolen, he didn’t get mad.

He just stole it back.

Francis was upset when the truck vanished from outside his work
Monday ““ he didn’t have insurance to replace it.

Francis was on his way to Brookings, Ore., to buy a new car
Tuesday when he spotted the purloined truck headed the other way.
He swung around and followed.

“It was pretty lucky on my part and pretty stupid on his
part for driving the truck around here,” Francis said.

He trailed the truck until the driver parked at a home and went
inside.

Francis, armed with a can of pepper spray, slipped into the
truck and drove it away.

“I knew the key gets stuck in the ignition, so I figured
it would be in there. That’s probably why it got stolen in
the first place,” Francis said.

Francis quickly called the California Highway Patrol and
officers showed up to arrest a Folsom State Prison parolee.

Officer forgets murder evidence in sock
drawer

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. “”mdash; An officer accused of wrongful
arrest testified that he forgot he had an audiotape in his sock
drawer that could have cleared two murder suspects.

Broward County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Thomas
“Bill” Murray said Tuesday that the tape of informants
implicating two other men was in his drawer for eight months before
the state Department of Law Enforcement asked for it.

“I completely forgot about it,” Murray said.
“I didn’t do it intentionally.”

Stephen Rosati and Peter Roussonicolos spent 16 months in jail
for the 1986 murder of Joseph Viscido Jr. before they were cleared
in 1992.

They claim that Murray and two other officers forced witnesses
to identify the wrong men and hid or ignored the evidence that
cleared them.

Their lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Both men named on the tape were eventually charged. James Traina
was convicted of killing Viscido, and Kerry Carbonell committed
suicide before his trial on murder charges.

Man with chopsticks sets M&M eating
record

OAKLAND, Calif. “”mdash; Three minutes after Jim Hager started
eating M&Ms with a pair of chopsticks, he was headed for the
Guinness Book of World Records.

The 47-year-old Oakland resident gobbled 115 M&Ms in 3
minutes Sunday, breaking a previous record of 112 Smarties consumed
by Kathryn Ratcliffe of England in December 2002.

The new record won’t become official until event
organizers send documentation to the Guinness association,
including a videotape, photographs and written declarations from
witnesses, but it seems likely he’ll have his place in the
list.

For his efforts, he received 25 pounds of M&Ms courtesy of a
local candy store that sponsored the event.

“His kids were very happy,” said store owner Wendy
Winter.

She said the association gave very specific guidelines:
Contestants had to use wooden chopsticks, the M&Ms had to be of
the standard variety and they had to be carried to the mouth
““ one at a time ““ in the chopsticks.

Mountain lion tries to breach computer firm

OMAHA, Neb. “”mdash; Robin Reynoso had an unusual visitor stop by
her office this week: a mountain lion.

Reynoso, a computer firm customer service manager, peered out
her window Wednesday to spy the hairy beast, just blocks from one
of Omaha’s busiest intersections.

“He ran by my window and pawed it, then he turned around
and attacked it,” Reynoso said. She said she didn’t
realize it was a mountain lion until one of her coworkers screamed
out what it was.

“I’m glad it didn’t break through the
glass,” she said. “It was cool. Not too many people get
to see them that close.”

The window, about two feet from her desk, now has claw scratches
marking a rare visit to eastern Nebraska by the mountain lion.

The male animal weighed about 80 pounds and probably was born
last year, said Lee Simmons, director of Omaha’s Henry Doorly
Zoo.

“This was a wild cat and it wasn’t anything that
somebody had as a pet,” said Simmons, who added the animal
was extremely aggressive.

The animal later was captured at a park deep inside city limits
after being shot by a zoo official with a tranquilizer dart. The
animal was in good condition.

Prize pigs pampered for swine competition

ROME, Ga. “”mdash; The sound of clippers whirring and the scent
of baby oil filled the air backstage, as prize pigs were primped
and pampered for their big moment in front of the judges.

Lucy’s preferred beauty treatment was a good ol’
mayonnaise rubdown.

“It helps keep their coat shiny, but you can only put it
on the black parts,” said 13-year-old Lydia Brown, who
entered her pig in the annual swine competition at the Coosa Valley
Fair. “The dirt won’t show up as much.”

Lydia and her 15-year-old sister Naomi, came from Dade County to
enter Lucy in the junior swine competition and open swine
competition, which started Tuesday and continues through
Sunday.

Catrina Stager, a Pepperell High freshman, stuck to baby oil to
keep her pig’s coat shiny.

“I start about an hour before the show, shaving and
brushing her,” she said.

The fair’s livestock director, Paul Smith, said the
competitions are fun for the whole family, but he’s noticed a
decline in participation among young people over his 50 years
working with the show.

University bar serves scented oxygen

LINCOLN, Neb. ““ University students going to a bar may not
seem unusual.

It is when the bar is serving up bottles of oxygen, not
beer.

An oxygen bar, where the only intoxicant is purified air, was
the attraction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln student union
Wednesday.

“I’m not wasted,” UNL student Tim Randall, 23,
said after inhaling 97-percent pure oxygen for about five minutes.
“I’m more relaxed.”

Students lined up for the chance to sit at one of three stools
and inhale the oxygen scented with one of 12 aromas, including
lavender, vanilla and strawberry.

“It smelled like incense,” Randall said.

As an added option, students could also put on earphones that
played a monotone sound meant to block outside distractions. A pair
of sunglasses fitted with tiny lights that blink during the oxygen
intake was another option.

The sounds and lights are designed to help with relaxation, said
Broderick Thompson, an employee of TjohnE, the Grand Rapids, Mich.,
company that was running the bar.

“What you want to do is close your eyes and relax your
head,” Thompson told the throng of students waiting for their
turn.

Police dog sniffs out cash at train station

LONDON ““ A real pound pooch, trained by police to sniff
out banknotes, helped authorities confiscate more than $39,000 in
cash Thursday from a man at a London train station.

The dog, one of 25 trained by British police to detect the scent
of ink in bank notes, singled out a man carrying the 23,900 in
British pounds at the Euston train station, authorities said.

The man ““ whose identity has not been released ““
allegedly could not explain why he had the money. He was released,
but the cash was confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The effort was part of Operation Payback, a four-year program
between police and Customs officials designed to attack the
proceeds of crime by impounding illegal cash and assets.

Since the Proceeds of Crime Act took effect in December, police
have confiscated more than $60.1 million.

Married couple promoted together in Iraq

TIKRIT, Iraq ““ In a ceremony held before one of Saddam
Hussein’s palaces, a husband and wife in the U.S. Army were
jointly promoted Thursday to the rank of captain.

Brandon and Jamie Holden, of Baton Rouge, La., and Amarillo,
Texas, respectively, graduated from West Point together in 2000,
then served jointly in Korea before being deployed to Iraq with the
4th Infantry Division. The two captains have been married three
years.

Although the Holdens serve in the same division, they see each
other only about once a week.

“It’s an honor for me to do this here,” Maj.
Gen. Raymond Odierno said, while standing before the palace
overlooking the Tigris River running through Hussein’s
hometown. “There’s no better place to do this than
Tikrit, Iraq.”

Reports from Daily Bruin wire services.