Here is the annual review of wierd stuff that happened in 2004 (from Reuters) to prove once again that truth is stranger than fiction...
* A vibrating sex toy chucked into a rubbish bin at an Australian airport sparked a security alert that only ended when an embarrassed passenger came forward to claim what was identified as "an adult novelty device."
* A fervent evangelist who leapt into the lions' den at Taipei zoo and shouted "Jesus will save you" was lucky to escape with just a bite in the right leg when he tried to convert the king of beasts to Christianity.
* Nine out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline were greeted by a busy signal (maybe this is their idea of population control?)
Germany was popular this year:
* German police arrested a flasher who stumbled over his dropped trousers during an aborted attempt to flee.
* A cost-cutting German theater was berated for using just four dwarves instead of seven in their Snow White show.
* A survey revealed that most German men wear the wrong size condoms. Germans said they find smelly co-workers to be the most annoying aspect of their jobs.
* UK nursing home staff were so proud of a 105-year-old woman who had smoked since the age of 15 that they cremated her with a packet of her favorite cigarettes in the coffin.
* A British train conductor stamped and carefully returned the ticket of a slumbering passenger without realizing the man was dead.
* A South African radio reporter went a little more live than he anticipated when he was mugged on air for his cellphone while transmitting from a squatter settlement.
* A Norwegian court acquitted a man accused of raping a sleeping woman after he said he was also asleep at the time.
* All three wives of a 67-year-old Iranian man took overdoses in an unsuccessful triple suicide bid after the youngest wife sparked jealousy by buying an expensive pair of boots.
* A Malaysian man shot his wife dead after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit behind their house. (see my blog entry for the actual article)
* A Spaniard tried to have his wife charged with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him on five consecutive nights.
* Two Italians with the nicknames 'Bull Shark' and 'Nurse Shark' donned bubble-helmet immersion suits to get married in a shark tank.
* A Mexican man killed his lover in a drunken, drugged fight and then cooked the man's body in tomato and onion sauce and ate it over three days (see article below in my blog)
* And a Zambian man hanged himself in shame after his wife rushed into their house to investigate a noise and found him having sex with a chicken. The chicken was slaughtered afterwards. Moral of the Story: Don't buy KFC in Zambia.