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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a show about the weird 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 25 first published on Friday June 21, 2024. Here are this week's stories... *full episode transcript below*
❿ McDonald's AI Gets Fired https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c722gne7qngo
*artist re-imagining of butter incident (may have involved more butter)
❾ Another Mysterious Monolith Found in Nevada Desert https://people.com/new-mysterious-monolith-found-nevada-desert-8665454
❽ Manchester engineers design record-breaking jumping robot https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/manchester-engineers-unlock-design-for-record-breaking-robot-that-could-jump-twice-the-height-of-big-ben/
❼ Kevin the Tall Dog https://news.sky.com/story/great-dane-named-worlds-tallest-dog-but-is-terrified-of-familys-vacuum-13152314
❻ Should we throw the liars in jail? Followup: who would run our governments? https://studyfinds.org/wales-first-country-to-criminalize-politicians-who-lie/
❺ Amazing Record-Breaking Lucky Clover https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2024/06/20/japan-Guinness-World-Records-63-leaf-clover/6371718899172/
❹ David Record Breaker Rush may have a prob you guys, he's re-breaking his records now?? https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2024/06/19/Guinness-World-Records-David-Rush-fist-bumping/8151718809394/ and https://youtu.be/zkiM3-ITV6c?
❸ Four dollar vase turns out to be priceless #thriftingWin https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/maryland-thrift-store-mayan-vase-b2565567.html
❷ Pope to priests: "Don't put people to sleep with long sermons!" (paraphrase) https://news.yahoo.com/news/pope-urges-priests-not-bore-153434476.html
🍅 Honorable Mention: Engulfed in the Netflix Zone https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/netflix-house
@juststopoil 🚨 BREAKING: Just Stop Oil Spray Stonehenge Orange 🔥 2 people took action the day before Summer Solstice, demanding the incoming government sign up to a legally binding treaty to phase out fossil fuels by 2030. 🧯 Help us take megalithic action — chuffed.org/project/just-stop-oil-2024
♬ original sound - Just Stop Oil
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
00:00
Kevin the very tall dog, a mysterious monolith, and a robot that can jump over the tower of Big Ben. What a weird week!
00:10
This is like crazy, really weird. Well, I got a great show for you today. What's so wonderful? Weird stuff. Hi friends. I'm Scott and this is what a weird week. If you're new to the program, we do 10 of the weird news stories from this past week. Let's jump into it. By the way, if you want show notes or podcast stuff or anything else, you can go to show notes dot page, show notes dot page. This is season five.
00:38
Episode 25 first published Friday, June 21st, 2024. 10. McDonald's restaurants in the news for getting rid of AI. They were trying an experiment at some locations where you would pull up to the drive-through and place your order and AI would process your order. Well, they are ending that automated order taking and their partnership with IBM on that. There were some problems. And when you're a big company like McDonald's and you're having technology problems.
01:06
Well, those problems, if they're hilarious, are going to end up on social media. And that's what happened. It seems like there were some TikToks on that where maybe people were trying to fool the AI, perhaps. But there were other times where it just seemed like an honest to goodness. All I want is a hot fudge sundae. I've had a hard day and I just want that delicious hot fudge sundae. And the AI was like, well, we've got butter. Please pull up and get your butter. So AI not working out.
01:34
in that scenario for McDonald's at the drive-thru. This is one of those, you know, they say AI is coming for all our jobs and the robots will be starting the uprising any moment. But this is one situation where the AI is out and the human beings are back in. We need a robot to clean the milkshake machine though, eh? That's not a job. It's not fun, that job. Some kind of shake-o-matic 5000 robot that just rolls in and
02:02
keeps the milkshakes flowing. Hot take on shakes. Nine. Another weird monolith was in the news this past week. This one was found in the Nevada desert. It's a reflective mirror, metal or mirror. And it looks very similar to other monoliths that have been discovered. The theory is if you're, if you haven't heard, you're like, what other monoliths? Well, I'll catch you up. Other places, there were also monoliths discovered. And the theory is art installments.
02:32
or some form of alien technology that looks very much like an art installment. And I guess that's kind of the whole story. If you want to see photos, you can click the show notes or go to show notes that page. If it is art, I've gone on record before. I don't understand art. So I don't understand why monoliths. First of all, it's an interesting shape. Don't get me wrong, but how did they settle on monoliths and then how did they get organized? If this is art,
03:02
Did one person think, hey, a monolith would be cool? That's some cool art and then other people stole that idea? Or is there a cabal of monolith artists? There are still some unanswered questions here.
03:43
This is what a weird leak it's all about the weird news, baby, baby, fellow babies. Eight. This one is either a cool story or I got click baited. I think I got click baited pretty bad on this one. The headline was about a jumping robot. Engineers design record breaking jumping robot that can jump twice as high as the tower of Big Ben. So I'm picturing this robot jumping like, wow, they made a robot, is the robot taking a running start? Oh.
04:11
And now he's jumping over the tower of Big Ben. But no, on paper, they've designed a robot that can do that. So the headline is Manchester engineers, Manchester, UK design, record breaking, jumping robot, University of Manchester. They've crunched the numbers, they've done the math. So now on paper, they have a robot capable of jumping 200 meters, 600 feet, something like that, around twice the height of the tower of Big Ben. When this gets made.
04:40
and performs that jump, it will shatter the current jumping robot record of 33 meters. 60 feet, something like that, between 60 and 70 feet. So that will be amazing. So I click this thing and I'm like, wow, a little bit terrified to see this crazy jumping robot. I'm ready to tremble in fear at this jumping robot. But it was just how they figured out a workable design. And now, probably they're going to need like $19 trillion in funding before they get this robot jumping. I don't know.
05:08
They do say the robot will perhaps be able to save people. You know, you can imagine a scenario where someone's trapped on top of the tower of Big Ben, right? Maybe there's fire all around the base of the tower. No human can get in there, but bring in the jumping robot. That's just one scenario. I think that robot would be a hero. A jumping hero.
05:30
Last week after we published our episode, Kevin the dog made news. Kevin is the world's tallest dog. So we want to send a shout out to Kevin, a gentle giant who is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Kevin the Great Dane stands three feet, two inches tall, tallest dog in the world. Got his name from Kevin in the Home Alone movies. Anyway, Kevin the Great Dane. Well done. Way to be tall. Who's a good boy?
06:00
Okay next, in Wales they are looking, oh my gosh you guys, this one for real, they're looking at a law that would change everything. Revolutionize our world, I think.
06:34
Welcome back or welcome to or thank you for listening to What a Weird Week, the program where we count down the weird news of the week. Six. In Wales, they are looking at a law that would change everything, you guys. Total game changer. They're looking at making it against the law for a politician to lie. Like, against the law. Go to jail or whatever for breaking this law. That's what they're looking at. Wales, United Kingdom, stepping up, owning the problem here.
07:04
According to the story, it would be a criminal offense for a politician or somebody running for election to mislead or deceive people in the course of basically politicking, I guess is how I would say it. If you can argue that it was just my opinion, I wasn't lying, that was just my opinion. That's one of the things. If you could say it was just your opinion, that you didn't mean to lie, just expressing your opinion, then you'd be alright. Or if you retract and apologize for lying within a two-week window,
07:33
That would also make things okay. Right now, just proposals, and I don't understand politics in Wales. I don't even understand politics in my own country of Canada. This would have to be voted on though, passed and then become law. So it's got a bit of a ways to go. If this gets passed, I don't know if politicians would stop lying. I'm not sure that's what would happen. What I think maybe would happen is we're gonna need bigger courthouses and more court stenographers.
08:03
It's going to be a job to have in the future, I think. Court stenographer, if they start charging politicians for lying. Hot take? Five. We have a world record clover in the news. You know how hard it is to find a four leaf clover. They're supposed to be rare, lucky, maybe also promote virility. No, wait, I don't think. No, that's not one. Never mind that one. The virility thing. Anyway, a fellow in Japan has grown a sixty three leaf clover.
08:33
Which based on my calculations, that would be insanely lucky, right? This fellow, he knows his pollination. He knows what he's doing when it comes to plants. He started way back in 2012, cross pollinating clover, and he noticed, Hey, this one has more leaves. And then the next one, even more leaves. And he was like, what's the world record? That's what I'm going for. And he broke the world record for the most leaf clover. He did it. Congratulations, Yoshiharu. Yoshiharu? Yo-
09:03
Practice Yoshi, but I'm not going to get your name right. Congratulations, all the same. Guinness World Record. If you want to see a photo, click the thing. We have the link in the show notes or shownotes.page. And I have to say, if you're the person from the Guinness World Records who had to label every leaf, they had to put a number, a little tiny sticker on every leaf. One, two, three, all the way up to 63. That's also quite a feat. Guinness World Record Clover Leaf Counter.
09:33
Alright, up next a familiar name to this show if you've tuned in before, David Recordbreaker Rush. But I feel like now, personal opinion you guys, I think we need to stage an intervention.
10:12
Thank you for listening. This is What a Weird Week, a show about weird stuff from the news. For OK, we've talked about David Rush before. David Record Breaker Rush is the guy trying to break the world record for having the most Guinness World Records, the most concurrent records. So every week is in the news breaking another record. He always shines a light on STEM education, so I think that's great. But now I think one of us has to stage an intervention because this week he's in the news for breaking his own record.
10:42
He already had it, but then he went ahead and beat it anyway. That doesn't even count towards the most world records. You already had the world record for fist bumps, David Rush. Why are you breaking your own record? Anyway, fist bumps in 30 seconds. Imagine how many, what kind of a number are you in your imagination? How many fist bumps are you doing? A dozen? Oh, 30. Of course he can get 30 in. One fist bump a second.
11:10
So David Rush's record when he first said it got in the Guinness Book, it was on the show America's Got Talent, he fist bumped Howie Mandel 380 times in 30 seconds. That's pretty wild. So, boom, got the world record moving on. But no, he's in the news because he went on the Dr. Mike YouTube and he broke that record again. He fist bumped Dr. Mike 397 times, almost 400 times in 30 seconds. Pretty impressive, but again...
11:39
Already had the record David Rush. You didn't have to go and beat that record. Beat your own record. Eyes on the prize. Stay focused. End of lecture. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Three. I love stories like this one. The headline from the independent in the UK, thrift store shopper bought an oldish vase for $3.99 turned out to be a priceless 2000 year old Mayan artifact. Stories like this.
12:06
Every time they pop up, I just feel like we can all relate. We all hope against hope. You know, you go to a yard sale, you go to a garage sale, you're at the thrift store and something catches your eye. I have terrible taste. If something catches my eye, I know deep down it's garbage, right? But that little voice inside my head is always like, oh no, you've got a great eye.
12:28
That's probably worth millions. And everybody in this store is just walking by the salt shaker that looks like a miniature Paul Bunyan. Anyway, the voice in my internal dialogue there, but sometimes that really happens. And I love it when it does, because it gives us all hope. A lady named Anna was thrift shopping in Washington, DC. She bought something for four bucks a few years ago. Now the story's in the news this past week because of what happens next.
12:58
She thought this thing was just a copy, just a cheap imitation. So for like five years, something like that, this vase is just at her house. And then she went to a museum and the museum had similar things. Basically, Anna saw the vase at the museum and thought, wait a second, that's my vase. My vase is exactly like that. So she did some leg work. When she got back to Washington, DC, the vase turned out to be priceless.
13:27
The story, this is where I always like it to be like, and then they gave her $32 million. The article doesn't get into money, if any money changed hands. It does say the vase was given back to the good people of Mexico. I guess my only thing, I like that story a lot, happy ending, but how did that vase get into a thrift store in Washington, DC anyway? That's a mystery, I'd like to know that.
13:54
Alright hang on, we're going to break one of our only rules on the podcast, which is never talk about religion. And we're gonna do it next, because it's kind of funny.
14:31
You're listening to what a weird week, a show about the weird news of the week. You can get show notes and stuff. If you go show notes dot page two, I usually don't talk about religion. You guys, I mean, I've got my views. You've got your views. Let's just not talk about them. It's fine. And I held off on this one. The story came out last week. Maybe I was a bit nervous, but let's go. Let's get into it. It involves the Pope. Pope Francis has made headlines because he advised priests to keep their homilies short.
15:00
So basically no long sermons, no longer than eight minutes is the quote from the article. I don't know if you attend a regular church service, but I'm not sure how your minister would fit in there, your priest, your spiritual leader. Some would be able to do that, no problem. Eight minutes, cut it off. Some, that would be more difficult. The Pope referred to people falling asleep. You don't want people to fall asleep in church. It's true, that's kind of a bad look. At my church.
15:26
The pews are not very comfortable. If you manage to fall asleep in one of those pews, there were some extenuating factors. Maybe you stayed up late the night before, but also maybe the sermon's running a little long. One of the, that's one of the signs.
15:42
Honorable Mention! Today's honorable mention is the Netflix Zones, or I don't know what to call them. They're coming to a couple of places in the United States. They're going to Pennsylvania. They're going to Texas, Dallas, Texas. It's not like a theme park, but I don't quite understand. I can't quite wrap my head around it. It's to me, you know, Netflix is this thing where I press button, I watch thing. But now Netflix is going to be a whole night out experience. You'll be able to
16:12
go out and shop in places inspired by Bridgerton or Stranger Things or Squid Game. So you'll go out and shop in a squid game land? I didn't make it all the way through that show, but my understanding is it's rather violent isn't it? So you could go out get a bite to eat, do some shopping, immerse yourself in the world of your favorite Netflix show. At first I was like it seems like a publicity stunt or something but...
16:39
Maybe Netflix has a whole other side to their business now where they're getting into retail and dining. They talk about in the article about, yeah, you'll have a chance to do the Glass Bridge Challenge from Squid Game. What even is that? I didn't watch! Will I lose the Glass Bridge Challenge because I didn't watch the show and I just wanted a slice of pizza? Anyway, honorable mention, Netflix will put a link in the show notes if you want to find out more.
17:08
Hang on, our number one story is next.
17:34
This is What A Weird Week, we count down the 10 Weirdest News Stories Of The Week. One. This one made headlines all over the world because it involves Stonehenge, which is famous all over the world. It is, if nothing more, it is certainly an impressive array of rocks, but to many it is more. And during the switchover from spring to summer, people visit Stonehenge like ringing a bell. For a number of different reasons. Some of them spiritual, some of them, you know...
18:04
more touristy and Stonehenge was in the news because climate protesters spray painted Stonehenge orange the other day. This is the group, the Just Stop Oil group, who also throw different food items like delicious pudding or soup at masterpieces in museums. It's all about saving the planet. Let's save the planet through carefully calculated acts of vandalism. I don't think that's actually their slogan.
18:34
It's a little bit of the video. They video all the stuff they do and people are trying to stop them from spraying. I guess it's more like orange dust that sticks to the rock. The intention was it would wash off in the next rain. They want to draw attention to climate change and they get attention by doing things like this. And I don't want to take sides. My uncle Leon was like, that's bonkers. How are they going to save the planet by painting rocks orange? That is one side of it.
19:03
The other side of it is, what if they do save the planet? The BBC has said there was no permanent damage. So it looks like Stonehenge is going to be okay, you guys. That's it. Thanks for listening to What a Weird Week. You can get our podcast, you can get our show notes, you can get other stuff too. If you go to shownotes.page, shownotes.page.
19:28
And thank you to Fun House Radio. The crew over there have us as part of the weekend programming. Ask your smart speaker to play Fun House Radio. We also have a button. If you go to show notes dot page, you can click the Fun House Radio button. Next week, we'll have 10 more weird things from the news. What a weird week.
Kevin the very tall dog, a mysterious monolith, and a robot that can jump over the tower of Big Ben. What a weird week!
00:10
This is like crazy, really weird. Well, I got a great show for you today. What's so wonderful? Weird stuff. Hi friends. I'm Scott and this is what a weird week. If you're new to the program, we do 10 of the weird news stories from this past week. Let's jump into it. By the way, if you want show notes or podcast stuff or anything else, you can go to show notes dot page, show notes dot page. This is season five.
00:38
Episode 25 first published Friday, June 21st, 2024. 10. McDonald's restaurants in the news for getting rid of AI. They were trying an experiment at some locations where you would pull up to the drive-through and place your order and AI would process your order. Well, they are ending that automated order taking and their partnership with IBM on that. There were some problems. And when you're a big company like McDonald's and you're having technology problems.
01:06
Well, those problems, if they're hilarious, are going to end up on social media. And that's what happened. It seems like there were some TikToks on that where maybe people were trying to fool the AI, perhaps. But there were other times where it just seemed like an honest to goodness. All I want is a hot fudge sundae. I've had a hard day and I just want that delicious hot fudge sundae. And the AI was like, well, we've got butter. Please pull up and get your butter. So AI not working out.
01:34
in that scenario for McDonald's at the drive-thru. This is one of those, you know, they say AI is coming for all our jobs and the robots will be starting the uprising any moment. But this is one situation where the AI is out and the human beings are back in. We need a robot to clean the milkshake machine though, eh? That's not a job. It's not fun, that job. Some kind of shake-o-matic 5000 robot that just rolls in and
02:02
keeps the milkshakes flowing. Hot take on shakes. Nine. Another weird monolith was in the news this past week. This one was found in the Nevada desert. It's a reflective mirror, metal or mirror. And it looks very similar to other monoliths that have been discovered. The theory is if you're, if you haven't heard, you're like, what other monoliths? Well, I'll catch you up. Other places, there were also monoliths discovered. And the theory is art installments.
02:32
or some form of alien technology that looks very much like an art installment. And I guess that's kind of the whole story. If you want to see photos, you can click the show notes or go to show notes that page. If it is art, I've gone on record before. I don't understand art. So I don't understand why monoliths. First of all, it's an interesting shape. Don't get me wrong, but how did they settle on monoliths and then how did they get organized? If this is art,
03:02
Did one person think, hey, a monolith would be cool? That's some cool art and then other people stole that idea? Or is there a cabal of monolith artists? There are still some unanswered questions here.
03:43
This is what a weird leak it's all about the weird news, baby, baby, fellow babies. Eight. This one is either a cool story or I got click baited. I think I got click baited pretty bad on this one. The headline was about a jumping robot. Engineers design record breaking jumping robot that can jump twice as high as the tower of Big Ben. So I'm picturing this robot jumping like, wow, they made a robot, is the robot taking a running start? Oh.
04:11
And now he's jumping over the tower of Big Ben. But no, on paper, they've designed a robot that can do that. So the headline is Manchester engineers, Manchester, UK design, record breaking, jumping robot, University of Manchester. They've crunched the numbers, they've done the math. So now on paper, they have a robot capable of jumping 200 meters, 600 feet, something like that, around twice the height of the tower of Big Ben. When this gets made.
04:40
and performs that jump, it will shatter the current jumping robot record of 33 meters. 60 feet, something like that, between 60 and 70 feet. So that will be amazing. So I click this thing and I'm like, wow, a little bit terrified to see this crazy jumping robot. I'm ready to tremble in fear at this jumping robot. But it was just how they figured out a workable design. And now, probably they're going to need like $19 trillion in funding before they get this robot jumping. I don't know.
05:08
They do say the robot will perhaps be able to save people. You know, you can imagine a scenario where someone's trapped on top of the tower of Big Ben, right? Maybe there's fire all around the base of the tower. No human can get in there, but bring in the jumping robot. That's just one scenario. I think that robot would be a hero. A jumping hero.
05:30
Last week after we published our episode, Kevin the dog made news. Kevin is the world's tallest dog. So we want to send a shout out to Kevin, a gentle giant who is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Kevin the Great Dane stands three feet, two inches tall, tallest dog in the world. Got his name from Kevin in the Home Alone movies. Anyway, Kevin the Great Dane. Well done. Way to be tall. Who's a good boy?
06:00
Okay next, in Wales they are looking, oh my gosh you guys, this one for real, they're looking at a law that would change everything. Revolutionize our world, I think.
06:34
Welcome back or welcome to or thank you for listening to What a Weird Week, the program where we count down the weird news of the week. Six. In Wales, they are looking at a law that would change everything, you guys. Total game changer. They're looking at making it against the law for a politician to lie. Like, against the law. Go to jail or whatever for breaking this law. That's what they're looking at. Wales, United Kingdom, stepping up, owning the problem here.
07:04
According to the story, it would be a criminal offense for a politician or somebody running for election to mislead or deceive people in the course of basically politicking, I guess is how I would say it. If you can argue that it was just my opinion, I wasn't lying, that was just my opinion. That's one of the things. If you could say it was just your opinion, that you didn't mean to lie, just expressing your opinion, then you'd be alright. Or if you retract and apologize for lying within a two-week window,
07:33
That would also make things okay. Right now, just proposals, and I don't understand politics in Wales. I don't even understand politics in my own country of Canada. This would have to be voted on though, passed and then become law. So it's got a bit of a ways to go. If this gets passed, I don't know if politicians would stop lying. I'm not sure that's what would happen. What I think maybe would happen is we're gonna need bigger courthouses and more court stenographers.
08:03
It's going to be a job to have in the future, I think. Court stenographer, if they start charging politicians for lying. Hot take? Five. We have a world record clover in the news. You know how hard it is to find a four leaf clover. They're supposed to be rare, lucky, maybe also promote virility. No, wait, I don't think. No, that's not one. Never mind that one. The virility thing. Anyway, a fellow in Japan has grown a sixty three leaf clover.
08:33
Which based on my calculations, that would be insanely lucky, right? This fellow, he knows his pollination. He knows what he's doing when it comes to plants. He started way back in 2012, cross pollinating clover, and he noticed, Hey, this one has more leaves. And then the next one, even more leaves. And he was like, what's the world record? That's what I'm going for. And he broke the world record for the most leaf clover. He did it. Congratulations, Yoshiharu. Yoshiharu? Yo-
09:03
Practice Yoshi, but I'm not going to get your name right. Congratulations, all the same. Guinness World Record. If you want to see a photo, click the thing. We have the link in the show notes or shownotes.page. And I have to say, if you're the person from the Guinness World Records who had to label every leaf, they had to put a number, a little tiny sticker on every leaf. One, two, three, all the way up to 63. That's also quite a feat. Guinness World Record Clover Leaf Counter.
09:33
Alright, up next a familiar name to this show if you've tuned in before, David Recordbreaker Rush. But I feel like now, personal opinion you guys, I think we need to stage an intervention.
10:12
Thank you for listening. This is What a Weird Week, a show about weird stuff from the news. For OK, we've talked about David Rush before. David Record Breaker Rush is the guy trying to break the world record for having the most Guinness World Records, the most concurrent records. So every week is in the news breaking another record. He always shines a light on STEM education, so I think that's great. But now I think one of us has to stage an intervention because this week he's in the news for breaking his own record.
10:42
He already had it, but then he went ahead and beat it anyway. That doesn't even count towards the most world records. You already had the world record for fist bumps, David Rush. Why are you breaking your own record? Anyway, fist bumps in 30 seconds. Imagine how many, what kind of a number are you in your imagination? How many fist bumps are you doing? A dozen? Oh, 30. Of course he can get 30 in. One fist bump a second.
11:10
So David Rush's record when he first said it got in the Guinness Book, it was on the show America's Got Talent, he fist bumped Howie Mandel 380 times in 30 seconds. That's pretty wild. So, boom, got the world record moving on. But no, he's in the news because he went on the Dr. Mike YouTube and he broke that record again. He fist bumped Dr. Mike 397 times, almost 400 times in 30 seconds. Pretty impressive, but again...
11:39
Already had the record David Rush. You didn't have to go and beat that record. Beat your own record. Eyes on the prize. Stay focused. End of lecture. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Three. I love stories like this one. The headline from the independent in the UK, thrift store shopper bought an oldish vase for $3.99 turned out to be a priceless 2000 year old Mayan artifact. Stories like this.
12:06
Every time they pop up, I just feel like we can all relate. We all hope against hope. You know, you go to a yard sale, you go to a garage sale, you're at the thrift store and something catches your eye. I have terrible taste. If something catches my eye, I know deep down it's garbage, right? But that little voice inside my head is always like, oh no, you've got a great eye.
12:28
That's probably worth millions. And everybody in this store is just walking by the salt shaker that looks like a miniature Paul Bunyan. Anyway, the voice in my internal dialogue there, but sometimes that really happens. And I love it when it does, because it gives us all hope. A lady named Anna was thrift shopping in Washington, DC. She bought something for four bucks a few years ago. Now the story's in the news this past week because of what happens next.
12:58
She thought this thing was just a copy, just a cheap imitation. So for like five years, something like that, this vase is just at her house. And then she went to a museum and the museum had similar things. Basically, Anna saw the vase at the museum and thought, wait a second, that's my vase. My vase is exactly like that. So she did some leg work. When she got back to Washington, DC, the vase turned out to be priceless.
13:27
The story, this is where I always like it to be like, and then they gave her $32 million. The article doesn't get into money, if any money changed hands. It does say the vase was given back to the good people of Mexico. I guess my only thing, I like that story a lot, happy ending, but how did that vase get into a thrift store in Washington, DC anyway? That's a mystery, I'd like to know that.
13:54
Alright hang on, we're going to break one of our only rules on the podcast, which is never talk about religion. And we're gonna do it next, because it's kind of funny.
14:31
You're listening to what a weird week, a show about the weird news of the week. You can get show notes and stuff. If you go show notes dot page two, I usually don't talk about religion. You guys, I mean, I've got my views. You've got your views. Let's just not talk about them. It's fine. And I held off on this one. The story came out last week. Maybe I was a bit nervous, but let's go. Let's get into it. It involves the Pope. Pope Francis has made headlines because he advised priests to keep their homilies short.
15:00
So basically no long sermons, no longer than eight minutes is the quote from the article. I don't know if you attend a regular church service, but I'm not sure how your minister would fit in there, your priest, your spiritual leader. Some would be able to do that, no problem. Eight minutes, cut it off. Some, that would be more difficult. The Pope referred to people falling asleep. You don't want people to fall asleep in church. It's true, that's kind of a bad look. At my church.
15:26
The pews are not very comfortable. If you manage to fall asleep in one of those pews, there were some extenuating factors. Maybe you stayed up late the night before, but also maybe the sermon's running a little long. One of the, that's one of the signs.
15:42
Honorable Mention! Today's honorable mention is the Netflix Zones, or I don't know what to call them. They're coming to a couple of places in the United States. They're going to Pennsylvania. They're going to Texas, Dallas, Texas. It's not like a theme park, but I don't quite understand. I can't quite wrap my head around it. It's to me, you know, Netflix is this thing where I press button, I watch thing. But now Netflix is going to be a whole night out experience. You'll be able to
16:12
go out and shop in places inspired by Bridgerton or Stranger Things or Squid Game. So you'll go out and shop in a squid game land? I didn't make it all the way through that show, but my understanding is it's rather violent isn't it? So you could go out get a bite to eat, do some shopping, immerse yourself in the world of your favorite Netflix show. At first I was like it seems like a publicity stunt or something but...
16:39
Maybe Netflix has a whole other side to their business now where they're getting into retail and dining. They talk about in the article about, yeah, you'll have a chance to do the Glass Bridge Challenge from Squid Game. What even is that? I didn't watch! Will I lose the Glass Bridge Challenge because I didn't watch the show and I just wanted a slice of pizza? Anyway, honorable mention, Netflix will put a link in the show notes if you want to find out more.
17:08
Hang on, our number one story is next.
17:34
This is What A Weird Week, we count down the 10 Weirdest News Stories Of The Week. One. This one made headlines all over the world because it involves Stonehenge, which is famous all over the world. It is, if nothing more, it is certainly an impressive array of rocks, but to many it is more. And during the switchover from spring to summer, people visit Stonehenge like ringing a bell. For a number of different reasons. Some of them spiritual, some of them, you know...
18:04
more touristy and Stonehenge was in the news because climate protesters spray painted Stonehenge orange the other day. This is the group, the Just Stop Oil group, who also throw different food items like delicious pudding or soup at masterpieces in museums. It's all about saving the planet. Let's save the planet through carefully calculated acts of vandalism. I don't think that's actually their slogan.
18:34
It's a little bit of the video. They video all the stuff they do and people are trying to stop them from spraying. I guess it's more like orange dust that sticks to the rock. The intention was it would wash off in the next rain. They want to draw attention to climate change and they get attention by doing things like this. And I don't want to take sides. My uncle Leon was like, that's bonkers. How are they going to save the planet by painting rocks orange? That is one side of it.
19:03
The other side of it is, what if they do save the planet? The BBC has said there was no permanent damage. So it looks like Stonehenge is going to be okay, you guys. That's it. Thanks for listening to What a Weird Week. You can get our podcast, you can get our show notes, you can get other stuff too. If you go to shownotes.page, shownotes.page.
19:28
And thank you to Fun House Radio. The crew over there have us as part of the weekend programming. Ask your smart speaker to play Fun House Radio. We also have a button. If you go to show notes dot page, you can click the Fun House Radio button. Next week, we'll have 10 more weird things from the news. What a weird week.
And that is it for this week. To subscribe to the podcast or for social media and more links, you can get everything at https://www.shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.
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