What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the odd and weird stories in the news this week.
See https://www.shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.
See https://www.shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.
Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a lighthearted look at the odd, interesting, and weird stories in the news. See below for a transcript of the podcast episode. To subscribe, or for social media and more links, you can get everything at www.shownotes.page. These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 5 first published on Friday Jan 31, 2025...
100 meter dash on Lego bricks
Chinese Corgi police dog gets pee-shamed on Socials
^^^ peed at work^^^
High Dudes/ Hot Air Balloon/ Slack line world record
42 Museums in 24 Hours record. *not quality visits*
Idaho Man covers head in shaving cream, world reacts.
Robots vs Humans Half Marathon this Spring will no doubt start robot apocalypse *citation needed*
Electronic Tongue makes headlines, takes licks.
Parental Favoritism: A Complex Issue of Birth Order, Gender, and Personality
Ranking Groundhog Weather Prediction Accuracy.
Transcript below...
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Transcript...
00:00
10 weird things that happened this week and one retraction from me. A retraction you guys. Oh good. Look forward to that. Hi everybody it's weird. This is like crazy new year. Weird. Really weird. Big foot peaked out of my trash. Well I got a great joke for you today. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is what a weird week. A humorous light-hearted look at some of the weird news that happened this past week. The odd things. The interesting things.
00:30
If you want the stories in more detail or if you'd like to get in touch or find out more about our podcast, you can go to show notes dot page. That's where the show notes are. And that's where all of the things are. Show notes dot page. Here we go. It's season six, episode five. First published on whatever today is. Number 10. It's the 30th. It's January 31st. Number 10 is a story that came out last week was Lego Brick Day.
00:58
On the calendar and also in the headlines was a lady named Gabrielle who set the new land speed record for running across doing a hundred meter dash across Lego bricks while not wearing any footwear. So barefoot, hundred meter dash across Lego bricks and the world record is 24 seconds and change. Under 25 seconds. Congratulations Gabrielle. Superhero. That is a superpower.
01:28
This is the run, this is what it sounded like, we'll link to this video in the show notes.
01:38
I don't know what drove you forward, Gabrielle, but well done. That looked, by the end there, that looked pretty painful. Number nine is the police dog, the corgi dog from China, which got almost fired, I'm going to say. I don't think I'm exaggerating. Had his year-end bonus reduced because, and here's the thing, you know, they just had the Lunar New Year.
02:03
And so I don't know what time of year, if you have to do this at your job, but it's the worst time of year when you sit down with the boss and you do that review, and the boss goes over the list of things you were supposed to try to do, and how'd you make out, you know, all that. Well, this dog, they had the dog's bonus sitting right there in front of the dog and then took it away. Said, no, you did not earn this. The dog had a pretty good year at the start. One of the things this quirky dog got to level four
02:33
their level four police dog assessment training. That sounds pretty good, right? And then later on the dog went on to sleep on the job, fall asleep and also pee at work, which if you pee, I mean, any of us, if you pee on the floor at work, you're probably gonna get, you're certainly not gonna get a bonus for that. This was all posted by the Public Security Bureau. They have a social media account called
03:02
Well, basically it's named after the corgi police dog. Anyway, I'll link to all that if you want to check it out. So my, I don't have a dog. My question is, does the corgi take down a lot of hardened criminals? Is that something where it just melts your heart probably? You're running out of the bank with a sack full of money and that corgi is there between you and the getaway vehicle and that corgi melts your heart and you turn yourself in. Maybe that's it.
03:30
Number eight is a world record. Do not attempt this. Well, I mean, no, you better not try this one. A couple of German daredevils are up. There's two hot air balloons. They're tied together with a slack line and they're really high. They're not only meters off the ground. They're like 8,000 feet off the ground or something. And the daredevils do the slack line. They walk from one hot air
03:59
tied together 8202 feet in the air. That's not eating a lot of deviled eggs, that is a whole other level of world record. Anyway, well done to the German daredevils. I would say their names, but I would get them wrong, even though I practiced. So I'll link to the whole story if you click the show notes or go to show notes that page. But since we brought up deviled eggs, I don't know, did you bring it up? Was it me? I can't remember anyway.
04:27
Next time, let's do the slackline. Let's get the two hot air balloons maybe go a little bit higher. You're doing the slackline, walking from one hot air balloon to the other. But also eating deviled eggs. Let's eat a lot of deviled eggs and let's get that record into the books next. Number seven. Here's a world record you might want to attempt this weekend. If you have 43 museums handy, you could do this. A fellow named Ben.
04:51
has made headlines. He's 42 years old. He's in London and he went to 42 museums in 24 hours. He was inspired, he and his children were reading the Guinness Book of World Records and came across a world record where somebody went to a lot of museums in a short amount of time and his children said, hey dad, that'd be cool, break that world record. So dad, you know, inspired by his children said, I'm doing it and went to 42 museums in 24 hours.
05:20
You don't have a lot of time to linger. You can't go to the gift shop. You have to plan for traffic, whatever. And museums are open 24 hours. Do they keep some of the museum locations open just for the world record? These are a few things. I wanna do a deeper dive on this one. You can click the show notes for the link and be inspired. Even if you just go to one museum, that's where I'm putting the bar, you guys. One museum, 16 or 17 minutes.
05:48
That's where I'm going to start with my own personal journey.
05:58
Up next, it's been a little while since we talked about how the robots are taking over, and they're planning something in April with the robots. Robots vs. Humans. We'll see how that one goes. Thanks for watching.
06:14
This is What a Weird Week we celebrate the weird, the unusual, the strange and odd. Weird stories from this past week. Number 6. This one is that race they've announced and made headlines this week. Robots and humans running a race together. In April, in Beijing, a half marathon featuring humanoid robots. Has to be robots running on two feet or two hooves or two razor-like talons. Whatever your robot has there.
06:42
So the robots versus human beings in a half marathon. Not gonna lie, this one's got me a little scared because the robots can be remote controlled, but they also can be autonomous robots. And those are the ones that of course are going to rise up and conquer us. Maybe will it be during the race, halfway through the race? The robots realize they get a taste for the thrill of winning a race, you know, and they're like, hey, let's not serve humans. Let's
07:10
overtake them and make them worship us. That's one scenario. Anyway, it's a way you can see for now. We'll link in the show notes if you want more details about the race. I think we have a clip. Do we have a clip?
07:28
Number five. Okay, number five is this guy. Three, two, one, go.
07:39
It's David Record Breaker Rush. He has the record for, the world record for the most concurrent world records. So he has a lot of world records. So David Record Breaker Rush, 30 seconds on the clock. He's got a head full of shaving cream. Actually he puts on a bathing cap and then has a friend, you know, cover him in shaving cream. And then 30 seconds on the clock, you start bouncing ping pong balls off the wall and you catch them on your shaving creamed head and the record, 16.
08:09
16 ping pong balls stuck to his head in 30 seconds. That's a world record you could try to beat this weekend. It just sounds like a ton of fun. All you need is the shaving cream, some ping pong balls, and the right attitude. And maybe a large, you know, a larger melon, maybe like a bigger head. You might have more surface area. Maybe more balls would stick. Your target to beat was 14, and you achieved 16. Come on!
08:38
I love that he's so happy. He's so happy you guys. Number four. All right, number four is a retraction about something we had last week. So this is gonna be fun, hey? Cause retractions are wacky and cuckoo bananas. Okay, last week we had the thing about sparkling water. The research seemed to indicate there was a link between sparkling water and modest weight loss. And that seemed like good news to me because sparkling water can be delicious.
09:08
and I need weight loss in my life. Well, this week, same publication kind of circles back to that and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, hang on. Not so fast, you guys. That's me paraphrasing, I'm not a scientist. So that's kind of the takeaway is not so fast, you guys, about weight loss and sparkling water. A little bit deeper dive on that is that it wasn't a new study. It was old data.
09:35
that researchers were applying a new hypothesis to. A hypothesis, you guys? Am I right with the hypothesis? So there's not a lot of confidence that this is going to go anywhere. And there's our retraction. How'd we do? How was that? Give us a, I'll tell you what. If we did a great job on our retraction, how about a five-star review on iTunes? If we did terrible at our retraction, let us know.
10:03
with a 5-star review on iTunes. Hey, it's science.
10:23
3. Electronic Tongue Which has made headlines this week. Perhaps you thought the Electronic Tongue was something they used at the ice cream factory to test the viscosity of ice cream. Or maybe they use it at the post office when an envelope becomes unsealed, they bring in the electric tongue. Or maybe you thought it was a cat grooming device. Or maybe you thought the Electronic Tongue was something else. The Electronic Tongue was developed by Penn State researchers
10:52
to test food. It will, they think, save people's lives or stop people from getting sick from spoiled food and that. One proof of concept was the electronic tongue could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. The electronic tongue will cut down on food fraud, according to the article. And I was like, food fraud? What is that? The article talks about how the electronic tongue can tell when milk has been watered down.
11:21
as an example. So you can imagine it's the early stages, but perhaps for food allergy purposes, bring in the electronic tongue, let's make sure there's no, you know, whatever allergen in there. Things like that. The electronic tongue, you guys, not just a funny name. 2. Do parents have a favorite kid? Well, maybe. Before we get into it, let me say the dynamic.
11:49
between a parent and a kid is so complicated. Being in a family is so complicated and it might not be happy, fun emotions for you. And I am sorry if that is your situation. And this is just a small study. According to a professor quoted in the story, small study, the findings are almost trivial. So what they did, here's how they got to the determination that maybe parents do favor a kid, have a favorite kid or whatever. They looked at a bunch of studies. They did a meta-analysis of a bunch of
12:19
older studies. When they crunch the data, it would seem to indicate that in some scenarios, parents favor certain children. Again, being a parent, it ain't easy. Being a kid, that ain't easy. Being a sibling, not easy. But then they go down the list of factors. Why a parent might favor one kid over another and so many things out of our control. And then at the very bottom, the sociology professor is like, oh, it's a small study and the findings are almost trivial. So
12:48
How about this? If this is just a fun story where you can, the next time you're together with your family and siblings having a laugh, you can say, hey, you've always been mom's favorite. If that's a fun thing for you, let's go with that. But if it's evoking some not happy emotions for you, let's just back away from this one. Number one. Okay, number one is about Groundhogs, hopefully not as emotionally draining as our last story. Hey, you guys. So our show goes out around the world via webcast.
13:18
And perhaps where you are, it's not a tradition for groundhogs to be taken out of their groundhog home to whisper in the ear of a human being what the weather will be like for the next six weeks. But that is something we do around here and we are coming into Groundhog Day Weekend 2025. They have ranked North America's most accurate groundhogs. I have read studies where it seemed to indicate, and I hope you're sitting down.
13:45
that perhaps groundhogs are not that great at predicting the weather. Or speaking English into a human being's ear. Also, there haven't been as many studies on that. But long story short, Staten Island Chuck, the groundhog from Staten Island, United States of America, North America, planet Earth. Staten Island Chuck is the most accurate of all the groundhogs. Or in some cases, it's not a groundhog, it's a prairie dog or a tortoise in one situation.
14:14
Staten Island Chuck, 85% of the time, correctly predicts what's going to happen with spring, early spring or late spring. Way to go, Chuck! To put it in perspective, maybe you're going to watch the Groundhog Day movie this weekend. Punxsutawney Phil is like 35% accurate. He's the Groundhog featured in the film Groundhog Day. 35% accurate, but still famous. 100% famous, 35% accuracy.
14:41
Okay, we'll stop there. Thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. If you want to get our show notes or find out other ways to listen to the program, if you want to get in touch, if you want to find links to maybe leave a review. Hey, you guys, maybe. All of that if you go to our show notes page, which is show notes dot page. Show notes dot page. Catch you next week with more weird stuff, odd stuff, strange stuff, interesting stuff on What a Weird Week.
10 weird things that happened this week and one retraction from me. A retraction you guys. Oh good. Look forward to that. Hi everybody it's weird. This is like crazy new year. Weird. Really weird. Big foot peaked out of my trash. Well I got a great joke for you today. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is what a weird week. A humorous light-hearted look at some of the weird news that happened this past week. The odd things. The interesting things.
00:30
If you want the stories in more detail or if you'd like to get in touch or find out more about our podcast, you can go to show notes dot page. That's where the show notes are. And that's where all of the things are. Show notes dot page. Here we go. It's season six, episode five. First published on whatever today is. Number 10. It's the 30th. It's January 31st. Number 10 is a story that came out last week was Lego Brick Day.
00:58
On the calendar and also in the headlines was a lady named Gabrielle who set the new land speed record for running across doing a hundred meter dash across Lego bricks while not wearing any footwear. So barefoot, hundred meter dash across Lego bricks and the world record is 24 seconds and change. Under 25 seconds. Congratulations Gabrielle. Superhero. That is a superpower.
01:28
This is the run, this is what it sounded like, we'll link to this video in the show notes.
01:38
I don't know what drove you forward, Gabrielle, but well done. That looked, by the end there, that looked pretty painful. Number nine is the police dog, the corgi dog from China, which got almost fired, I'm going to say. I don't think I'm exaggerating. Had his year-end bonus reduced because, and here's the thing, you know, they just had the Lunar New Year.
02:03
And so I don't know what time of year, if you have to do this at your job, but it's the worst time of year when you sit down with the boss and you do that review, and the boss goes over the list of things you were supposed to try to do, and how'd you make out, you know, all that. Well, this dog, they had the dog's bonus sitting right there in front of the dog and then took it away. Said, no, you did not earn this. The dog had a pretty good year at the start. One of the things this quirky dog got to level four
02:33
their level four police dog assessment training. That sounds pretty good, right? And then later on the dog went on to sleep on the job, fall asleep and also pee at work, which if you pee, I mean, any of us, if you pee on the floor at work, you're probably gonna get, you're certainly not gonna get a bonus for that. This was all posted by the Public Security Bureau. They have a social media account called
03:02
Well, basically it's named after the corgi police dog. Anyway, I'll link to all that if you want to check it out. So my, I don't have a dog. My question is, does the corgi take down a lot of hardened criminals? Is that something where it just melts your heart probably? You're running out of the bank with a sack full of money and that corgi is there between you and the getaway vehicle and that corgi melts your heart and you turn yourself in. Maybe that's it.
03:30
Number eight is a world record. Do not attempt this. Well, I mean, no, you better not try this one. A couple of German daredevils are up. There's two hot air balloons. They're tied together with a slack line and they're really high. They're not only meters off the ground. They're like 8,000 feet off the ground or something. And the daredevils do the slack line. They walk from one hot air
03:59
tied together 8202 feet in the air. That's not eating a lot of deviled eggs, that is a whole other level of world record. Anyway, well done to the German daredevils. I would say their names, but I would get them wrong, even though I practiced. So I'll link to the whole story if you click the show notes or go to show notes that page. But since we brought up deviled eggs, I don't know, did you bring it up? Was it me? I can't remember anyway.
04:27
Next time, let's do the slackline. Let's get the two hot air balloons maybe go a little bit higher. You're doing the slackline, walking from one hot air balloon to the other. But also eating deviled eggs. Let's eat a lot of deviled eggs and let's get that record into the books next. Number seven. Here's a world record you might want to attempt this weekend. If you have 43 museums handy, you could do this. A fellow named Ben.
04:51
has made headlines. He's 42 years old. He's in London and he went to 42 museums in 24 hours. He was inspired, he and his children were reading the Guinness Book of World Records and came across a world record where somebody went to a lot of museums in a short amount of time and his children said, hey dad, that'd be cool, break that world record. So dad, you know, inspired by his children said, I'm doing it and went to 42 museums in 24 hours.
05:20
You don't have a lot of time to linger. You can't go to the gift shop. You have to plan for traffic, whatever. And museums are open 24 hours. Do they keep some of the museum locations open just for the world record? These are a few things. I wanna do a deeper dive on this one. You can click the show notes for the link and be inspired. Even if you just go to one museum, that's where I'm putting the bar, you guys. One museum, 16 or 17 minutes.
05:48
That's where I'm going to start with my own personal journey.
05:58
Up next, it's been a little while since we talked about how the robots are taking over, and they're planning something in April with the robots. Robots vs. Humans. We'll see how that one goes. Thanks for watching.
06:14
This is What a Weird Week we celebrate the weird, the unusual, the strange and odd. Weird stories from this past week. Number 6. This one is that race they've announced and made headlines this week. Robots and humans running a race together. In April, in Beijing, a half marathon featuring humanoid robots. Has to be robots running on two feet or two hooves or two razor-like talons. Whatever your robot has there.
06:42
So the robots versus human beings in a half marathon. Not gonna lie, this one's got me a little scared because the robots can be remote controlled, but they also can be autonomous robots. And those are the ones that of course are going to rise up and conquer us. Maybe will it be during the race, halfway through the race? The robots realize they get a taste for the thrill of winning a race, you know, and they're like, hey, let's not serve humans. Let's
07:10
overtake them and make them worship us. That's one scenario. Anyway, it's a way you can see for now. We'll link in the show notes if you want more details about the race. I think we have a clip. Do we have a clip?
07:28
Number five. Okay, number five is this guy. Three, two, one, go.
07:39
It's David Record Breaker Rush. He has the record for, the world record for the most concurrent world records. So he has a lot of world records. So David Record Breaker Rush, 30 seconds on the clock. He's got a head full of shaving cream. Actually he puts on a bathing cap and then has a friend, you know, cover him in shaving cream. And then 30 seconds on the clock, you start bouncing ping pong balls off the wall and you catch them on your shaving creamed head and the record, 16.
08:09
16 ping pong balls stuck to his head in 30 seconds. That's a world record you could try to beat this weekend. It just sounds like a ton of fun. All you need is the shaving cream, some ping pong balls, and the right attitude. And maybe a large, you know, a larger melon, maybe like a bigger head. You might have more surface area. Maybe more balls would stick. Your target to beat was 14, and you achieved 16. Come on!
08:38
I love that he's so happy. He's so happy you guys. Number four. All right, number four is a retraction about something we had last week. So this is gonna be fun, hey? Cause retractions are wacky and cuckoo bananas. Okay, last week we had the thing about sparkling water. The research seemed to indicate there was a link between sparkling water and modest weight loss. And that seemed like good news to me because sparkling water can be delicious.
09:08
and I need weight loss in my life. Well, this week, same publication kind of circles back to that and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, hang on. Not so fast, you guys. That's me paraphrasing, I'm not a scientist. So that's kind of the takeaway is not so fast, you guys, about weight loss and sparkling water. A little bit deeper dive on that is that it wasn't a new study. It was old data.
09:35
that researchers were applying a new hypothesis to. A hypothesis, you guys? Am I right with the hypothesis? So there's not a lot of confidence that this is going to go anywhere. And there's our retraction. How'd we do? How was that? Give us a, I'll tell you what. If we did a great job on our retraction, how about a five-star review on iTunes? If we did terrible at our retraction, let us know.
10:03
with a 5-star review on iTunes. Hey, it's science.
10:23
3. Electronic Tongue Which has made headlines this week. Perhaps you thought the Electronic Tongue was something they used at the ice cream factory to test the viscosity of ice cream. Or maybe they use it at the post office when an envelope becomes unsealed, they bring in the electric tongue. Or maybe you thought it was a cat grooming device. Or maybe you thought the Electronic Tongue was something else. The Electronic Tongue was developed by Penn State researchers
10:52
to test food. It will, they think, save people's lives or stop people from getting sick from spoiled food and that. One proof of concept was the electronic tongue could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. The electronic tongue will cut down on food fraud, according to the article. And I was like, food fraud? What is that? The article talks about how the electronic tongue can tell when milk has been watered down.
11:21
as an example. So you can imagine it's the early stages, but perhaps for food allergy purposes, bring in the electronic tongue, let's make sure there's no, you know, whatever allergen in there. Things like that. The electronic tongue, you guys, not just a funny name. 2. Do parents have a favorite kid? Well, maybe. Before we get into it, let me say the dynamic.
11:49
between a parent and a kid is so complicated. Being in a family is so complicated and it might not be happy, fun emotions for you. And I am sorry if that is your situation. And this is just a small study. According to a professor quoted in the story, small study, the findings are almost trivial. So what they did, here's how they got to the determination that maybe parents do favor a kid, have a favorite kid or whatever. They looked at a bunch of studies. They did a meta-analysis of a bunch of
12:19
older studies. When they crunch the data, it would seem to indicate that in some scenarios, parents favor certain children. Again, being a parent, it ain't easy. Being a kid, that ain't easy. Being a sibling, not easy. But then they go down the list of factors. Why a parent might favor one kid over another and so many things out of our control. And then at the very bottom, the sociology professor is like, oh, it's a small study and the findings are almost trivial. So
12:48
How about this? If this is just a fun story where you can, the next time you're together with your family and siblings having a laugh, you can say, hey, you've always been mom's favorite. If that's a fun thing for you, let's go with that. But if it's evoking some not happy emotions for you, let's just back away from this one. Number one. Okay, number one is about Groundhogs, hopefully not as emotionally draining as our last story. Hey, you guys. So our show goes out around the world via webcast.
13:18
And perhaps where you are, it's not a tradition for groundhogs to be taken out of their groundhog home to whisper in the ear of a human being what the weather will be like for the next six weeks. But that is something we do around here and we are coming into Groundhog Day Weekend 2025. They have ranked North America's most accurate groundhogs. I have read studies where it seemed to indicate, and I hope you're sitting down.
13:45
that perhaps groundhogs are not that great at predicting the weather. Or speaking English into a human being's ear. Also, there haven't been as many studies on that. But long story short, Staten Island Chuck, the groundhog from Staten Island, United States of America, North America, planet Earth. Staten Island Chuck is the most accurate of all the groundhogs. Or in some cases, it's not a groundhog, it's a prairie dog or a tortoise in one situation.
14:14
Staten Island Chuck, 85% of the time, correctly predicts what's going to happen with spring, early spring or late spring. Way to go, Chuck! To put it in perspective, maybe you're going to watch the Groundhog Day movie this weekend. Punxsutawney Phil is like 35% accurate. He's the Groundhog featured in the film Groundhog Day. 35% accurate, but still famous. 100% famous, 35% accuracy.
14:41
Okay, we'll stop there. Thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. If you want to get our show notes or find out other ways to listen to the program, if you want to get in touch, if you want to find links to maybe leave a review. Hey, you guys, maybe. All of that if you go to our show notes page, which is show notes dot page. Show notes dot page. Catch you next week with more weird stuff, odd stuff, strange stuff, interesting stuff on What a Weird Week.
