This week's top ten of weird includes the youngest author in the world and the disappearing giant spoon.
If you're new to this weirdness, Every Friday we do a Weird-News-of-the-Week Top 10 audio podcast with a full show notes blog and a YouTube video (@weirdweekpod).
video will appear here. maybe go look for eggs then come back?
Here
are the show notes for Fri Apr 7 2023 / Season 4 Episode 28 ...
❿Headline: How Young is the world's youngest published author?
Notes:
- Child publishes book; all unpublished authors who are older than 4 are failures...
- A boy from United Arab Emirates who's 4 years and 218 days old has published a book called "The Elephant Saeed and the Bear" and that is super young to become a published author.
- book is about kindness and an elephant... and a polar bear.
- to be an official Guinness record you have to sell at least a thousand copies, which this book has done.
- Just to recap, those of us 5 years old or older, have failed in this specific literary endeavor.
❾Headline: How old is the World's Oldest Surfer?
Notes:
- 89 years old... that's how old.
- an 89 year old Japanese man who seems very chill is the oldest surfer in the world.
- think of your birthday... now imagine this: the world's oldest surfer was born in 1933... he'll be turning 90 in September!
❽Headline: Lady Doing this while Hula Hooping sets a world record!
Notes:
- it's roller skating backwards.
- a 54 year old lady in Las Vegas set the Guinness record for longest time backwards roller skating while hula hooping.
- she did it for 33 minutes and 1 second.
- the lady, Veronica Harris, was inspired to combine two things that she loves with the hooping and the skating.
- maybe that's our angle you guys... let's all combine two things WE love and do them for a record amount of time!!
- suggestions include eating pizza while watching TV, eating candy while watching TV, drinking coffee while editing a podcast... idk.
Link/media: (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2023/03/30/Guinness-World-Records-hula-hoop-skating-backwards/7021680189096/)
❼Headline: Giant Spoon Theft Shakes Community! *Update!
Notes:
- see what I did there? "Shakes".
- this happened at the Dairy Queen in Phoenix... somebody stole their giant red spoon.
- spoon is 15 feet tall.
- Was this a prank? Or maybe a giant needed it? Maybe a collector with other giant silverware couldn't resist?
- the DQ started a "Where's our Spoon" social media campaign...
- replacement value of that giant spoon is around $7000.
- a few days after that story broke, a guy playing Pokemon Go spotted the giant spoon in a middle school baseball field a couple miles away from the DQ.
- They strapped the giant spoon to the top of a police cruiser and I assume sent it to the CIA in Langley to have it dusted for giant fingerprints* (citation needed)
Link/media: (https://apnews.com/article/dairy-queen-spoon-stolen-phoenix-arizona-fd9b4b1d041c0fe09547629ad0d07ebe)
and, they found it you guys (https://apnews.com/article/dairy-queen-red-spoon-arizona-stolen-found-01bc472d5442eb82a9f7851bb2e0223b)
❻Headline: What, actually, was that rock that they threw in a drawer* ? (*drawer citation needed)
Notes:
- (via Natural History Museum article from late last week)
- Background: a pretty crystal that was cataloged by the Natural History Museum in 1883 might not be the insignificant rock they thought it was for these past hundred and some years...
- the stone was found in India... almost a perfect sphere... about 6 inches across.
- then, a hundred and thirty something years after that rock was filed away (or whatever they do with pretty rocks), somebody from the museum saw the same thing at a mineral show in France.
- turns out it's not just a pretty rock, it's a dinosaur egg.
❺Headline: Carl Noodle Junior, you are on notice Sir!
Notes:
- the company that puts out Cup Noodles brand ramen has introduced delicious breakfast noodles...
- the breakfast noodles taste like egg, sausage and maple syrup pancakes...
- a whole breakfast!
- is it a coincidence that this happened after I have been trying to get my "Pancake Slurry" business off the ground? Or is it corporate espionage?
- btw, still seeking investors for my "cup-o-cakes" pancake slurry business... imagine it! Delicious pancakes and butter and syrup all diced up in a takeaway cup... we're gonna be millionaires!!!!
Link/media: (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/29/cup-noodles-breakfast-flavor-tastes-like-pancakes-eggs-and-sausage.html)
❹Headline: the Latest on Pablo Escobar’s hippos...
Notes:
- the gov of Colombia are going to spend millions to remove a bunch of hippos which were brought there by Pablo Escobar (you know, the late drug kingpin.)
- he brought in 4 hippos from Africa in the 1980s.
- those hippos don't have any natural predators in Colombia.
- Pablo Escobar was fatally shot by the police in 1993 and then the Pablo Ranch was abandoned... the animals were just let loose.
- the hippos have made babies like crazy and now there are around 130 inhabiting the area.
- they are bad for the ecosystem and dangerous animals for humans.
- also... they're always hungry... they're hungry hungry hippos you guys.
❸Headline: Little Girl Commits Credit Card Fraud Amazingly*
Notes:
- This is just one of those cute stories about how little children can lead to your financial ruin...
- happened in Massachusetts.
- mom lets her 5 year-old girl play with the cell phone to pass the time in the car...
- kid racks up close to 4 grand in lil motorbikes and cowgirl boots on Amazon.
- mom thought that little Lila was playing games, not committing credit card theft...
- kid bought five lil kid pink dirt bikes, five kid-sized blue dirt bikes, 10 pairs cowgirl boots and a lil kid battery-powered Jeep.
- those targeted ads get you every time.
Link/media: (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2023/04/04/5-year-old-Amazon-dirt-bikes-cowgirl-boots-Jeep/5421680625288/)
❷Headline: Big Wig makes Big Wig!
Notes:
- someone in Australia has made the biggest (actually widest) wig in the world
- the biggest wig in the world is more than 8 feet across.
- the base is a bike helmet (in case you're wondering how to get started on your own giant wig project).
- congratulations to Dani Reynolds... it looks like the person in the photo is being eaten by a giant wig monster... fantastic!
Link/media: (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2023/03/31/australia-Guinness-World-Records-widest-wig/4011680285935/)
❶Headline: How Big is the biggest mustache in the world?
Notes:
- a guy in South Carolina has the biggest mustache in the world... it's 2 feet and 1 inch wide.
- actual record is "longest mustache on a living person" which makes me question why they had to word it that way... are there dead people with giant mustaches? Maybe someone grew a three footer but the strain of it killed him?? idk you guys.
- mustache description: very long and skinny... it doesn't hang down like droopy dawg... pretty sure he has some kind of product in it to keep it in place...
- at some point when you break a record like this, you're in... that is your life now... you have to be careful not to get it caught in elevator doors or bump people with your mustache on public transit... you have to be spoon-fed everything* (OK maybe not but good luck bobbing for apples). This record at first seems like a frivolous world record but it takes as much comittment as some of the feats of strength world records that you hear about!!
If you scrolled this far, you know what's up... you're my favorite! Here's the Stream...