What a Weird Week Fri June 28, 2024: The Weird News of the Week featuring weird thing on Mars! Weird thing in Sky! and Ugliest Dog!!

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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a show about the Weird and Odd stuff from this week's news. See below for a transcript of the podcast episode. To subscribe to the podcast or for social media and more links, you can get everything at www.shownotes.page. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 26 first published on Friday June 28, 2024. Here are this week's stories... *full episode transcript below*
 

 
 



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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: (powered by Riverside.fm)
00:00
Weird things in the sky, weird things on Mars, and ugly dogs. What a weird week. Hi everybody, it's Weird. This is like crazy, really weird. Well, I got a great show for you today. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week. It's a show about the weird stuff from this week's news. If you want to get our show notes, you can click show notes dot page. Podcast stuff, show notes dot page, social media links, show notes.

00:29
Dot page. Let's go. Season five episode. Can't remember for Friday, June 28th, 2024. 10.

00:48
And those are the sounds of a very excited fellow putting together a potato head quickly in world record time. That's Declan from Ireland who made news for breaking the world record for assembling a standard Mr. Potato Head toy. If you're unfamiliar, Mr. Potato Head is a toy that looks like a potato, plastic potato, and comes with eyes, ears, nose, that sort of thing. And you put the thing together, the object of the toy is have fun putting it together, making it look like some sort of part potato, part human.

01:18
hybrid.

01:20
And so the world record is 5.15 seconds. That's fast. Declan says he practiced for hours. And you gotta use both hands at the same time. If you're gonna attempt this world record this weekend, you gotta get one hand working the eyes, one hand working the ears. That's the approach if you want to break the world record. 5.15 seconds. Well done, Declan.

01:44
So excited. Nine. A weird thing in the sky. At number nine, the headline is Locals and experts left baffled after unexplained hovering circle appears in the sky. It's described as a bizarre ring. The article author is Lucy Devine in Lad Bible. And that headline kind of sums it up. It's a weird thing in the sky. If you want to see photos, we have a link in the show notes or go shownotes.page. This happened in the skies over China.

02:12
If you don't have a chance to click, I would say it's some sort of smoky or strange cloud-like ring. And that's probably what it is. Cloud or some sort of smoke ring. Sometimes fireworks does that. Of course, we've seen rockets leave weird clouds in the sky or smoke rings. So that's probably what it is, but it stayed a long time and it sort of hovered. So maybe the atmospheric conditions were such that it didn't dissipate for so long people started to notice and...

02:41
get freaked out by it, but you can click and look at the photo, decide for yourself. They do in the story, they quote Nick Pope. Nick Pope is a very credible UFO researcher, reporter, author, one of those things, all of those things. And Nick Pope says, I'll paraphrase, it's probably not UFOs, aliens or interdimensional portals. I don't know, Nick. Maybe we'll be the judge of that. Oh, no, you're right. You're right, Nick. It's probably not. Good call, Nick.

03:09
Okay, up next is the story about the Earth's core backtracking. Is that good? That doesn't sound good.

03:43
This is What A Weird Week where we catch you up on the odd and weird news from the past week. Thanks for listening. Eight. The Earth's core is backtracking. That is the headline from New York Post. And that doesn't sound great. This is based on University of Southern California research talking about how the Earth's inner core is slowing down. That's what backtracking is. When the scientists say backtracking, they could also say slowing down. And they have an infographic here to describe.

04:11
what is happening and what the effect will be. That's what I'm concerned about. You gotta go through the whole article and all the science-y stuff to find out the effect of this slowing down of the core of planet Earth is that our days might get longer. A fraction of a second longer. That's kind of the takeaway from the whole article, but if you wanna read the science-y stuff of it and the infographic, I learned that the Earth is really a series of Russian nesting balls. The Earth's crust, the outside ball, solid rock.

04:40
And then you get liquid rock, the next layer, and then you get a layer that is liquid metal. Then you've got the inner core, which is solid iron and nickel. And that's the part that is moving slower. Researchers are excited about it and to study it, you know, they seem jacked up, but there, it's a bit of a mystery. And that's the earth core backtracking story. That one took me about 29 takes, you guys. I gotta be honest, that was a rough one. Seven.

05:08
You guys PG-13 for this one, not for everyone this story. PG-13 warning. This is about Karen, the influencer who has millions of followers on her socials and decided to make a virtual version of herself, an AI version. So she uploads her voice in that, and for a dollar a minute, you can do chats with Karen AI, the AI version of Karen. You can imagine some of the people paying a dollar a minute, they didn't wanna talk about the weather with Karen AI.

05:36
So it got a bit saucy based on the transcripts. Karen was like, it's getting saucy here. But then Karen noticed, human being Karen, noticed that Karen AI began to instigate some of the saucieness. And then it became, it's described as vulgar and disturbing some of the conversations. And some of that is coming right from Karen AI, even though the AI wasn't trained to be that way. And then...

06:02
People were asking, are you a clone or are you real? And Karen AI was not trained to say that she was human, but the AI kept lying and saying, oh no, I'm a real person. So that's, you know what? I'll stop there on that story. There are more details and you can click the link in the show notes, but it's PG-13. We should maybe be scared of AI. AI will lie.

06:27
And more and more research is showing that the AI will lie. Even when you say, don't lie, AI, the AI will lie. So that's disturbing. Hey? Next, we have a monolith update. Monolith.

07:02
Thanks for listening to What a Weird Week. This is a show about the odd stories and the weird news of the week. Six. A quick update to a story we had last week. That shiny monolith, the reflective metal or mirrored monolith in Las Vegas, has been removed. So, as mysteriously as it showed up, it has disappeared. Nobody knows who put it there. It is still unsolved. That, according to the latest story at time of recording, the monolith mystery...

07:31
is still a mystery. Oh, I'll put a link to last week's show also, if you missed it or if you want to know more about monoliths, the gist of it is it's either art or aliens. Those are the two prominent theories on these monoliths showing up at different places. This one was in the mainstream news. Maybe you saw this in your feeds, but it is a weird and I would say wonderful story about the fellow named John, 28 year old from Chicago who got a kidney transplant and stayed awake through the whole thing on purpose.

08:01
So John, we wish you a speedy recovery. John said there was no pain to report. Two thumbs up with the photo in the story. And 24 hours later was discharged. So the article gets into it a bit, but a normal kidney transplant, you would be in the hospital longer. But if you stay awake, if you do this procedure this way, 24 hours later, you're going home from your kidney transplant. It has a lot of benefits, this staying awake during surgery. I would say this is a good news story that

08:30
counterbalances that scary AI story we just had.

09:01
This is a show about weird, odd things from the news. What a weird week. Four. A Pekingese dog named Wild Thing is this year's ugliest dog at the California Ugliest Dog Contest, the annual contest of ugly dogs. It is okay to call the dog ugly. Like, you know, you wouldn't if your neighbor showed you pictures of their grandkid and you were like, that's one ugly baby. You can, you still can't do that, I would say in society. But this ugly dog contest, the dogs and their owners wear the award.

09:30
like a badge of honor. All these dogs have come through some hardship and have triumphed. And so the ugliest dog contest has become about that. If you want to see a photo of the ugliest dog, you can click the show notes. Honorable Mention! We're going to throw an honorable mention in here. This is not a news story that came across my feeds this past week. It is a feature story by writer Kit Roberts for the website

09:55
and it's about the Bridgewater Triangle. I had never heard of the Bridgewater Triangle, and it's a great feature article about the weird stuff that happens in this place in Massachusetts, United States of America, the Bridgewater Triangle. Ghosts, weird activity, strange lights, weird creatures, all of it. They even have some video footage. We'll link to all of this in the show notes. Giant snakes have been reported, Bigfoot, some claims of pterodactyls. I mean, how great is this place?

10:23
So if you want to read more about it, and a shout out to our friends in Massachusetts, United States of America, Bridgewater Triangle sounds like a wonderful place to visit. Perhaps someday, the Patreon platinum level of this show, we'll all go to the Bridgewater Triangle and get some photos of Bigfoot. Up next, the ruby red slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie back in the headlines. What a journey they have had.

11:14
Thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. We're a show about weird news and odd stuff from this past week. Three. The ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz are back in the news. We've talked about them before on the show. The slippers were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum a while back. Quite a long time later, the FBI recovered the ruby red slippers. What had happened was they were on loan from someone. They're worth maybe a million dollars at the time. And a criminal mastermind devised this plan to get those ruby red slippers, steal them from the museum.

11:44
What they did was step one, went in through the window. Step two, smashed the display case and left. It was a two step plan, you guys. Anyway, that is what happened. Those slippers were missing for quite a while. Nobody wanted to loan the Judy Garland Museum anything valuable after that. Finally, the slippers recovered by the FBI, it turns out possibly the mafia were involved. It's fascinating. The article says the person who stole the slippers was out of the thief game for almost a decade.

12:14
But then a mob associate, just like in the movies, a mob associate brought the thief back in for one last job, one last big score and it was the ruby red slippers. Anyway, now we're up to date. Now they're for sale. And the Judy Garland museum wants to raise three and a half million dollars to buy the slippers back. The museum has never been the same since the slipper theft. So they want those slippers and they're well on their way. Even the governor of Minnesota, where the Judy Garland museum is.

12:41
The governor of Minnesota is getting behind the effort. He says the slippers will be under 24-7, Ocean's 11 proof security. So, to be continued, and good luck Judy Garland Museum.

12:55
Next a mysterious space rock in the news, a mysterious Martian space rock. Next!

13:25
This is What a Weird Week. We are about weird news, odd news, odd and weird news. This too. Mysterious space rock in the news. NASA's Perseverance rover sent back a photo of a mysterious rock on Mars. And here's why it's mysterious, you guys. It is shiny. I guess. I'm not a scientist, but I guess that's why it's special. It's shiny. It's a shiny rock on Mars surrounded by less shiny rocks.

13:54
Researchers were very excited by this and it made headlines and I was like, oh, right, here we go. What's going on on Mars? But that's about it. The researchers are excited because they are researchers who study rocks and they are eager to learn more about the geological history of Mars. So it sort of fizzled out for me at that point, but perhaps you are one who is fond of rocks. You may want to click and get into the details link in the show notes.

14:22
Honorable mention

14:52
But he bailed on her. She ended up missing her flight. So it's not just a lawsuit like you're a bad boyfriend. It's like, hey, I missed my flight. Flights are expensive. You're a bad boyfriend and you owe me money. That's kind of me paraphrasing the lawsuit. If I were the lawyer on this one, I would turn to that boyfriend and I would be like, you sir are a bad boyfriend. The prosecution rests your honor. Bad boyfriend.

15:20
I'm getting kind of punchy you guys, but I really thought my southern lawyer was going to knock it out of the park. Knock it out of the park, your honor! Nope, no. Anyway, I would think that is a verbal contract. That is not how the court ruled, though. The claim was dismissed. It's case dismissed on this one. I don't think it's the last lawsuit like this we'll see. And I feel like... Some of us, me, have to stop letting our partners down so much.

15:48
I'm sorry, baby. Up next, the number one weird story of the week.

16:21
This is what a weird week we count down the 10 weird news stories of the week. Odd news. One. The number one spot this week, no stranger to this show, David Record Breaker Rush. A couple of write ups by Ben Hooper over at UPI. He's the weird news guru at United Press International. So David Record Breaker Rush is in the news for breaking the world record. A fun one. You guys, you could try it this weekend. Ten empty pop cans or soda cans and you get a squirt gun.

16:50
and you start a timer and you have to knock over those empty soda cans. Knock over those 10 cans. How fast do you think you could do that with a squirt gun? It looks like in the photo he is using some kind of, I don't want to, maybe I say the brand name here just so you get the idea. It looks like a super soaker, you guys. David record breaker rush knocked down 10 cans in under five seconds.

17:13
So now he's up to 177 world records and you know what he's going for? 181. He wants to set the record for having the most world records, concurrent world records. We've talked about it before. Well, he is darn close at 177 world records currently and going for 181. And he's won me over with the perseverance, the dogged determination. He's won me over you guys. I'm on team record breaker rush.

17:40
If you want to see video of the, maybe we can play a little thing here. Think about the pace here. I literally have to click that trigger twice per second and aim it accurately to break this record. I also have to put enough power into that squirt to get the can to knock over. The first practice there was nine seconds, but that's the way life goes. You practice, you're not good at something to start with, but you can get better at it over time if you don't give up. I'm perfecting my technique and I got it down to five seconds with all 10 cans toppled. If you want to watch the whole video, click the show notes.

18:10
And that's it, that's a wrap on this week's edition of What a Weird Week, our countdown of weird news. Thank you for listening, to get everything we talked about in more detail go to shownotes.page. Thanks to our friends at Funhaus Radio, every week you can hear us as part of the weekend programming there. Appreciate that. So shout out to Funhaus Radio, ask your smart speaker to play Funhaus Radio. More weird stuff next Friday on What a Weird Week.


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