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 2 first published on Friday Jan 10 2025...
Dave and Chris' Guinness World Record for most behind-the-back basketball passes in one minute (70 passes)
@recordbreakerrush David Rush reclaims the Guinness World Records title for the most behind the back basketball passes in one minute with Chris Stumph. #fyp #worldrecord #basketball ♬ Powerful songs like action movie music - Tansa
Chinese Man Breaks Guinness World Records by throwing cards like a super villain.
Hot Dog Banishment.
A bananas mystery.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jan/06/mystery-of-bananas-left-on-nottinghamshire-road
Hockey Team sets Guinness Record for Teddy Bears.
Hockey Team sets Guinness Record for Teddy Bears.
Italian Mayor places ban on getting sick.
The best juice for weight loss #newstudy
Great News! Coffee continues to be good for you. Mostly in the morning.
Valentine's chocolate might get a price hike.
YouTube stream
Is this a weird alien sculpture? idk you guys, I don't see it.
Study confirms your our secret: that we only stare at ourselves while in a Zoom call or Teams meeting. Also, there's a boom in cosmetic procedures that might be linked to this phenomenon.
Transcript below...
Spotify Stream...
YouTube stream
Transcript...
00:00
throwing cards and basketballs. That's not weird. Hi everybody, it's Weird. This is like Crazy Boom Hill. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week. It's a show about all the weird stuff that happened in the news this week and you can get links to the stories or videos and you can get our podcast stuff, everything at shownotes.page, shownotes.page.
00:29
Oh and Happy New Year! Season 6, Episode 1 first published on Friday, January 10, 2025. Number 10 is David record breaker Rush and his buddy Chris who broke the Guinness World Record for most behind the back basketball passes in a minute. Think about passing the basketball behind your back and how many could you do in a minute? Well the record is 70. 70 passes. More than one pass a second.
00:59
Chris Thompson, we have broken the Guinness World Records title for most behind-the-back passes in women. So that's a bit of the video. We'll link to it in the show notes, but I mean, it sounds like he's in some sort of echo chamber there. David record-breaker Rush begins 2025 with another world record. He's a guy who cannot stop making world records. He has the world record for the most world records, most concurrent world records, David Rush. But now he can't stop himself, you guys, and maybe 2025 is the year we...
01:28
plan some sort of intervention and we say, David, stop balancing that lawnmower for a moment. We have to have this discussion. You need to relax. Number nine. Number nine is a pretty interesting world record. A Chinese man who threw playing cards and use those playing cards to slice 41 cucumbers and light 29 matches in one minute. So I know you can do the math, but more than one thing a second, cucumbers and matches and he's whipping those cards.
01:57
It's world record fast, you guys. Usually, I like it when it's a world record that seems attainable. You know, this is just a deck of cards, common playing cards. But he is whipping those things and slicing cucumbers, and they seem like weapons. All of a sudden, things get real when you whip a playing card and it slices something in two.
02:24
So we'll link to that video it is a bunch of cucumbers hanging up on a like a they're all on this bar That's how you practice you guys go hang up some cucumbers open up the closet door Take all the coats down and hang up some cucumbers and then he's just whipping these cards He does like an overhand like a baseball throw of these playing cards and he's slicing Cucumbers with the jack of clubs the ace of hearts, you know cards
03:07
Counting down the weird things that happened in the news this week, this is what a weird week. Number eight. All right, this one I'm gonna try to handle this delicately, file this one under weird food news. And this made headlines all over the place. In North Korea now, it would appear that the hot dog is banned. It is illegal to eat a hot dog or prepare hot dogs. According to reports, it's because hot dogs are considered Western food and...
03:36
North Korea, I'm not a fan of the Western world. So that's the situation, I guess. Hot dogs, according to reports, banned when they banned things. You know what happens? Smugglers. There's going to be hot dog smugglers, I guess. Right. As soon as I read the headline that hot dogs were banned, all I wanted was to eat some hot dogs. And we'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our first sponsor of 2025.
04:00
Oscar Meyer Wieners use promo code weird in the checkout for a 99% discount. I'm just kidding. That is all satire You guys like we would ever have a sponsor Okay back to the main story the banning of the hot dogs Anyway, I'm not sure if that is something where perhaps some hot dog Ambassadors could pay a visit and try to negotiate maybe ban the footlong
04:27
But the traditional size, the normal size wieners, maybe you keep those. If you're like me, you guys, this could be, I'm not really smart political stuff there. I don't understand how the world works, but I'm starting to pay attention now because hot dogs. All right, up next, a story that's bananas and mysterious. Mysterious bananas.
04:53
Thanks for checking out what a weird week go show notes dot page You can get all our podcast stuff and everything we talk about in more detail all the weird news of the week Number seven this one is the mysterious bananas of Nottinghamshire Nottingham sheer Nottingham Sure the United Kingdom so in this place in the United Kingdom for over one year now Residents have been baffled by every month a plate of bananas peeled bananas 15 to 20 peeled bananas
05:22
are placed on a street corner. It made headlines because recently someone put a sign and said, please no more bananas. Sometimes I'm paraphrasing but it was basically like enough with the bananas. And so people started paying more and more attention to the mysterious bananas. The theories are that perhaps it's to feed animals or perhaps it's a part of a religious ritual that somebody is observing. But that's kind of it right now. If you want to see photos, there are some. Or you could just imagine a.
05:52
plate of bananas you guys saved you a click. Number six. We want to say congratulations to the American Hockey League Hershey Bears, Pennsylvania. They set a new world record for their teddy bear toss game. I guess first things first, maybe where you're at ice hockey or around here we would just say hockey. The teddy bear toss game, how it works is and most every major hockey team now does this one night.
06:16
They will have a charity night where you bring a plush animal or a teddy bear for charity. And then when your team scores, you give those plush things the ol' heave-ho onto the ice. Well, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the American Hockey League Hershey Bears collected over 100,000 teddy bears and plush animals on their teddy bear toss night. I know a lot of times I'll say, you don't have to click the video. It's just imagine in your head teddy bears flying, but it's a great video.
06:45
We'll link to it in the show notes or click show notes dot page. Scarbosa shoots and scores! Bring on the sweet Cuddly Mayhem! Mike Scarbosa makes the fair fly! It's Teddy Bear toss, Bedlam and Hershey! My only thing is the announcers seem pretty subdued about the whole thing, you know? Try to, next time guys, try to get some excitement going. Just kidding. Well done.
07:14
Hershey Bears, Hershey, Pennsylvania, American Hockey League, a world record teddy bear toss, over 100,000 teddy bears. Next is the story, the healthcare story. I mean, it's so simple, you guys. This Italian mayor who fixed healthcare solved it.
07:38
This is what a weird week. We recap all the weird news that happened this week. Get everything we talk about and the show notes. If you go to shownotes.page. Number five. The mayor who solved healthcare by making it illegal to get sick. The mayor of an Italian village, which I wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly, but Mayor Antonio of this Italian village said, I'm banning getting sick. That's it. It's against the law, so quit getting sick.
08:07
Do not contract any serious illnesses where you would need emergency medical attention. Don't do any dangerous activities that could lead to serious injuries. Instead, rest. Now this mayor gets my vote for the rest thing. The mayor, hey, it's the law. I've got to put my feet up. So the mayor was, this was tongue in cheek. The mayor was trying to shine a light on the fact that access to healthcare not great in this little village of.
08:34
1200 residents a lot of seniors in the village and the hospital quite a far drive the health care crunch So the mayor was trying to you know draw attention to the issues Maybe get some funding and made headlines. So I guess that part worked I'm not for not that weird for our weird news show But it's a little bit weird and it's good news and it's the best juice to have if you want to lose weight First I got to say consult your physician consult your dietitian and perhaps
09:03
consult your produce manager, because I don't know where to find elderberries, but it's elderberry juice, you guys. Elderberry juice seems to, according to a small study of 18 overweight people, some of them drinking the juice, some of them drinking the placebo juice. Anyway, it would seem that elderberry juice is linked to lower blood sugar levels, changing your metabolism, helping you to burn more fat. It kicks in in about a week also. The thing is, it's juice, you know.
09:33
You might be reluctant to try certain things, chemicals, that sort of thing, or some mysterious substance that fell to earth from the sky. This is juice, which seems a little bit more comfortable or in my comfort zone, drinking juice, if I could only find some elderberry juice somewhere. Maybe I'll lose weight just going from grocery store to grocery store. Maybe that's it. Next is the coffee study that everybody was talking about this week.
10:03
the latest on how good coffee can be for you next.
10:15
Thanks for listening to What A Weird Week. We catch you up on all the weird news that happened this week. Get everything we talk about on our show notes page, show notes dot page. Number three. The coffee study that everybody was talking about this week, and we've had coffee studies on this program before. It would appear as though coffee is good for you. This one was about when you drink your coffee. According to a large study, 40,000 American adults over almost 10 years of study,
10:44
Drinking coffee, some people drank in the morning, some people drank through the day, some people drank coffee at night, and they crunched the numbers. It would seem that drinking coffee in the morning, that's the way to go. I mean, thank heavens, what if the research was like, oh, midnight, you have to drink coffee at midnight or it's no good? How many of us would do that? Here's how the study shook down. Drinking coffee in the morning led to a 16% lower risk of death from all causes.
11:12
There are some other health benefits in there too. If you want to do a deep dive, click the show notes at shownotes.page. We are on our way to the number one story and also an honorable mention. We've got chocolate and aliens coming up next.
11:34
Remember the weird news that happened this week? This is what a weird week. Number two. Terrible, terrible chocolate news. You guys, confection companies may pass higher cocoa costs onto consumers for Valentine's Day. They're coming for our Valentine's chocolate, you guys. There's been rain and then drought and a drop in production. And so cocoa production costing more means our chocolate will cost more come Valentine's Day.
11:59
If you want to read the whole thing, we'll link to the article, but they talk about like at Halloween to keep costs down. Halloween treats were smaller, the milk chocolate things were smaller, and then they also tried to push things that weren't milk chocolate, such as the Cinnamon Kit-Kat. I- What? When? What? They didn't have that around here where I'm at at Halloween. There would have been riots in the streets, I'm pretty sure. I mean, no offense, Cinnamon fans. It's just two worlds colliding there. It doesn't seem-
12:29
natural, honorable mention. This one you guys, if you do have a moment to click the link and look at the photo, a strange alien, this is the headline, strange alien like clay head dating back thousands of years has been retrieved from an excavation in Kuwait, stumping archeologists about how it came to be. They described it in the article as a small finely crafted clay head featuring an elongated skull, slanting eyes and a flat nose.
12:58
I'm like, well, that's definitely sounds alien to me. When you click the photo, you guys, it could be anything. It looks a bit like a jelly bean with a hole in it. Like it could be anything. And they're like, they're for aliens. So have a look if you have a moment, click the thing, and let us know in the comments, is it an alien? Some sort of alien rock. Number one. Okay, our number one story this week, a study out from our friends at Study Finds.
13:24
seems to indicate that we all stare at ourselves during video calls more than we stare at the people who are speaking on our video call. And that may be linked to a cosmetic surgery boom. We spend more time staring at ourselves when we're in these Zoom calls or whatever. We don't look at the person speaking, and I'm guilty as charged. I'm always like, what is going on with my nose? You know, I'm fascinated by myself. But anyway, we turn on the filters on these programs,
13:54
We start to enjoy how we look filtered. And now they say there is an increase in cosmetic procedures. And perhaps they're looking into whether it is linked to the fact that we're constantly staring at ourselves. That's a good spot to end. Thanks for listening to What a Weird Week. You can get all the stories we talk about in more detail, get our show notes and everything, the podcast stuff. If you go to shownotes.page, our show notes page is shownotes.page.
14:23
Thank you to Funhaus Radio, they run us on the weekends, they're part of the weekend programming at Funhaus Radio. Ask your smart speaker to play Funhaus Radio. Catch you next weekend with more weird stuff on What a Weird Week.
throwing cards and basketballs. That's not weird. Hi everybody, it's Weird. This is like Crazy Boom Hill. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week. It's a show about all the weird stuff that happened in the news this week and you can get links to the stories or videos and you can get our podcast stuff, everything at shownotes.page, shownotes.page.
00:29
Oh and Happy New Year! Season 6, Episode 1 first published on Friday, January 10, 2025. Number 10 is David record breaker Rush and his buddy Chris who broke the Guinness World Record for most behind the back basketball passes in a minute. Think about passing the basketball behind your back and how many could you do in a minute? Well the record is 70. 70 passes. More than one pass a second.
00:59
Chris Thompson, we have broken the Guinness World Records title for most behind-the-back passes in women. So that's a bit of the video. We'll link to it in the show notes, but I mean, it sounds like he's in some sort of echo chamber there. David record-breaker Rush begins 2025 with another world record. He's a guy who cannot stop making world records. He has the world record for the most world records, most concurrent world records, David Rush. But now he can't stop himself, you guys, and maybe 2025 is the year we...
01:28
plan some sort of intervention and we say, David, stop balancing that lawnmower for a moment. We have to have this discussion. You need to relax. Number nine. Number nine is a pretty interesting world record. A Chinese man who threw playing cards and use those playing cards to slice 41 cucumbers and light 29 matches in one minute. So I know you can do the math, but more than one thing a second, cucumbers and matches and he's whipping those cards.
01:57
It's world record fast, you guys. Usually, I like it when it's a world record that seems attainable. You know, this is just a deck of cards, common playing cards. But he is whipping those things and slicing cucumbers, and they seem like weapons. All of a sudden, things get real when you whip a playing card and it slices something in two.
02:24
So we'll link to that video it is a bunch of cucumbers hanging up on a like a they're all on this bar That's how you practice you guys go hang up some cucumbers open up the closet door Take all the coats down and hang up some cucumbers and then he's just whipping these cards He does like an overhand like a baseball throw of these playing cards and he's slicing Cucumbers with the jack of clubs the ace of hearts, you know cards
03:07
Counting down the weird things that happened in the news this week, this is what a weird week. Number eight. All right, this one I'm gonna try to handle this delicately, file this one under weird food news. And this made headlines all over the place. In North Korea now, it would appear that the hot dog is banned. It is illegal to eat a hot dog or prepare hot dogs. According to reports, it's because hot dogs are considered Western food and...
03:36
North Korea, I'm not a fan of the Western world. So that's the situation, I guess. Hot dogs, according to reports, banned when they banned things. You know what happens? Smugglers. There's going to be hot dog smugglers, I guess. Right. As soon as I read the headline that hot dogs were banned, all I wanted was to eat some hot dogs. And we'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our first sponsor of 2025.
04:00
Oscar Meyer Wieners use promo code weird in the checkout for a 99% discount. I'm just kidding. That is all satire You guys like we would ever have a sponsor Okay back to the main story the banning of the hot dogs Anyway, I'm not sure if that is something where perhaps some hot dog Ambassadors could pay a visit and try to negotiate maybe ban the footlong
04:27
But the traditional size, the normal size wieners, maybe you keep those. If you're like me, you guys, this could be, I'm not really smart political stuff there. I don't understand how the world works, but I'm starting to pay attention now because hot dogs. All right, up next, a story that's bananas and mysterious. Mysterious bananas.
04:53
Thanks for checking out what a weird week go show notes dot page You can get all our podcast stuff and everything we talk about in more detail all the weird news of the week Number seven this one is the mysterious bananas of Nottinghamshire Nottingham sheer Nottingham Sure the United Kingdom so in this place in the United Kingdom for over one year now Residents have been baffled by every month a plate of bananas peeled bananas 15 to 20 peeled bananas
05:22
are placed on a street corner. It made headlines because recently someone put a sign and said, please no more bananas. Sometimes I'm paraphrasing but it was basically like enough with the bananas. And so people started paying more and more attention to the mysterious bananas. The theories are that perhaps it's to feed animals or perhaps it's a part of a religious ritual that somebody is observing. But that's kind of it right now. If you want to see photos, there are some. Or you could just imagine a.
05:52
plate of bananas you guys saved you a click. Number six. We want to say congratulations to the American Hockey League Hershey Bears, Pennsylvania. They set a new world record for their teddy bear toss game. I guess first things first, maybe where you're at ice hockey or around here we would just say hockey. The teddy bear toss game, how it works is and most every major hockey team now does this one night.
06:16
They will have a charity night where you bring a plush animal or a teddy bear for charity. And then when your team scores, you give those plush things the ol' heave-ho onto the ice. Well, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the American Hockey League Hershey Bears collected over 100,000 teddy bears and plush animals on their teddy bear toss night. I know a lot of times I'll say, you don't have to click the video. It's just imagine in your head teddy bears flying, but it's a great video.
06:45
We'll link to it in the show notes or click show notes dot page. Scarbosa shoots and scores! Bring on the sweet Cuddly Mayhem! Mike Scarbosa makes the fair fly! It's Teddy Bear toss, Bedlam and Hershey! My only thing is the announcers seem pretty subdued about the whole thing, you know? Try to, next time guys, try to get some excitement going. Just kidding. Well done.
07:14
Hershey Bears, Hershey, Pennsylvania, American Hockey League, a world record teddy bear toss, over 100,000 teddy bears. Next is the story, the healthcare story. I mean, it's so simple, you guys. This Italian mayor who fixed healthcare solved it.
07:38
This is what a weird week. We recap all the weird news that happened this week. Get everything we talk about and the show notes. If you go to shownotes.page. Number five. The mayor who solved healthcare by making it illegal to get sick. The mayor of an Italian village, which I wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly, but Mayor Antonio of this Italian village said, I'm banning getting sick. That's it. It's against the law, so quit getting sick.
08:07
Do not contract any serious illnesses where you would need emergency medical attention. Don't do any dangerous activities that could lead to serious injuries. Instead, rest. Now this mayor gets my vote for the rest thing. The mayor, hey, it's the law. I've got to put my feet up. So the mayor was, this was tongue in cheek. The mayor was trying to shine a light on the fact that access to healthcare not great in this little village of.
08:34
1200 residents a lot of seniors in the village and the hospital quite a far drive the health care crunch So the mayor was trying to you know draw attention to the issues Maybe get some funding and made headlines. So I guess that part worked I'm not for not that weird for our weird news show But it's a little bit weird and it's good news and it's the best juice to have if you want to lose weight First I got to say consult your physician consult your dietitian and perhaps
09:03
consult your produce manager, because I don't know where to find elderberries, but it's elderberry juice, you guys. Elderberry juice seems to, according to a small study of 18 overweight people, some of them drinking the juice, some of them drinking the placebo juice. Anyway, it would seem that elderberry juice is linked to lower blood sugar levels, changing your metabolism, helping you to burn more fat. It kicks in in about a week also. The thing is, it's juice, you know.
09:33
You might be reluctant to try certain things, chemicals, that sort of thing, or some mysterious substance that fell to earth from the sky. This is juice, which seems a little bit more comfortable or in my comfort zone, drinking juice, if I could only find some elderberry juice somewhere. Maybe I'll lose weight just going from grocery store to grocery store. Maybe that's it. Next is the coffee study that everybody was talking about this week.
10:03
the latest on how good coffee can be for you next.
10:15
Thanks for listening to What A Weird Week. We catch you up on all the weird news that happened this week. Get everything we talk about on our show notes page, show notes dot page. Number three. The coffee study that everybody was talking about this week, and we've had coffee studies on this program before. It would appear as though coffee is good for you. This one was about when you drink your coffee. According to a large study, 40,000 American adults over almost 10 years of study,
10:44
Drinking coffee, some people drank in the morning, some people drank through the day, some people drank coffee at night, and they crunched the numbers. It would seem that drinking coffee in the morning, that's the way to go. I mean, thank heavens, what if the research was like, oh, midnight, you have to drink coffee at midnight or it's no good? How many of us would do that? Here's how the study shook down. Drinking coffee in the morning led to a 16% lower risk of death from all causes.
11:12
There are some other health benefits in there too. If you want to do a deep dive, click the show notes at shownotes.page. We are on our way to the number one story and also an honorable mention. We've got chocolate and aliens coming up next.
11:34
Remember the weird news that happened this week? This is what a weird week. Number two. Terrible, terrible chocolate news. You guys, confection companies may pass higher cocoa costs onto consumers for Valentine's Day. They're coming for our Valentine's chocolate, you guys. There's been rain and then drought and a drop in production. And so cocoa production costing more means our chocolate will cost more come Valentine's Day.
11:59
If you want to read the whole thing, we'll link to the article, but they talk about like at Halloween to keep costs down. Halloween treats were smaller, the milk chocolate things were smaller, and then they also tried to push things that weren't milk chocolate, such as the Cinnamon Kit-Kat. I- What? When? What? They didn't have that around here where I'm at at Halloween. There would have been riots in the streets, I'm pretty sure. I mean, no offense, Cinnamon fans. It's just two worlds colliding there. It doesn't seem-
12:29
natural, honorable mention. This one you guys, if you do have a moment to click the link and look at the photo, a strange alien, this is the headline, strange alien like clay head dating back thousands of years has been retrieved from an excavation in Kuwait, stumping archeologists about how it came to be. They described it in the article as a small finely crafted clay head featuring an elongated skull, slanting eyes and a flat nose.
12:58
I'm like, well, that's definitely sounds alien to me. When you click the photo, you guys, it could be anything. It looks a bit like a jelly bean with a hole in it. Like it could be anything. And they're like, they're for aliens. So have a look if you have a moment, click the thing, and let us know in the comments, is it an alien? Some sort of alien rock. Number one. Okay, our number one story this week, a study out from our friends at Study Finds.
13:24
seems to indicate that we all stare at ourselves during video calls more than we stare at the people who are speaking on our video call. And that may be linked to a cosmetic surgery boom. We spend more time staring at ourselves when we're in these Zoom calls or whatever. We don't look at the person speaking, and I'm guilty as charged. I'm always like, what is going on with my nose? You know, I'm fascinated by myself. But anyway, we turn on the filters on these programs,
13:54
We start to enjoy how we look filtered. And now they say there is an increase in cosmetic procedures. And perhaps they're looking into whether it is linked to the fact that we're constantly staring at ourselves. That's a good spot to end. Thanks for listening to What a Weird Week. You can get all the stories we talk about in more detail, get our show notes and everything, the podcast stuff. If you go to shownotes.page, our show notes page is shownotes.page.
14:23
Thank you to Funhaus Radio, they run us on the weekends, they're part of the weekend programming at Funhaus Radio. Ask your smart speaker to play Funhaus Radio. Catch you next weekend with more weird stuff on What a Weird Week.