Oh man, I don't know if this answers your #2, but it reminded me of sometime last year, we were in the car listening to the radio, and heard about how an incarcerated murderer/rapist was actually on the run because he'd escaped out his air vent, using the whole bed-sheets routine and everything.

Of course, my first thought was of slimy liver-eating mutants, even though our particular mutant kind of got sucked up an escalator shaft. Hee.