What a Weird Week Scotty Horsman

See www.shownotes.page for all the podcast stuff. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 22 first published on Friday May 31st, 2024.

(BEGIN EPISODE TRANSCRIPT)

❿

We've got a follow up to a story we had earlier on this show where the town in Japan installed a giant black screen to stop people from taking pictures of Mount Fuji. It just got to be too much. And these pictures, some of them got famous on social media. So everybody wanted to get this certain angle of a picture of Mount Fuji where it looks like Mount Fuji is on top of a gas station or something like that. So they installed this giant black screen, eight feet tall, 66 feet long. The next day holes were in the black screen, holes the size of camera lenses. People were, you know, poking holes and still getting the special shot. But the town is still pleased. It's cut down and over tourism quite a bit. The giant black screen with the holes in it. That's your update.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-29/holes-found-in-screen-used-to-stop-people-taking-mt-fuji-photos/103906396 ❾

This one got picked up by a lot of national news orgs. I mean, you got a built in soundbite, you got video role that you can play. The Michigan man who went to Zoom court. So he had a Zoom call court and he was driving while appearing in Zoom court. And it was about his suspended license case. The fellow named Corey, the judge, Judge Simpson, was astonished. According to headlines. Let's put in a soundbite right here. "Mr. Harris, are you driving? Just give me one second. I'm parking right now. OK. So maybe I don't understand something. This is a driver license suspended. That is correct, your honor. And he was just driving. I don't even know why he would do that. So defendant's bond is revoked in this matter."

So, of course, you're not supposed to be on Zoom while driving. That's dangerous. But I could understand in a way, in a sense, I mean, if you want to prove to the judge that you shouldn't have a suspended license and you can Zoom call while driving, the defense rests, your honor. Anyway, the judge didn't think of it that way and ordered the fellow quarry to return to jail, revoked his bond and he was ordered to return to jail. ❽

Just about every headline took advantage of the fact this truck was in the news, the truck carrying strawberries overturned and caused a traffic jam. Strawberry jam. A strawberry traffic jam. Most every headline had some kind of variation on that. This is about the big rig carrying 40,000 pounds of strawberries which overturned on a freeway in San Jose. And traffic was backed up for some hours as the strawberry spill was cleaned up. A couple of other notes about this, no major injuries reported and strawberry jam is delicious.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/truck-carrying-40k-pounds-strawberries-overturns-creating-sticky-traffic-jam ❼

A fellow in India has made headlines for breaking his own Guinness World Record by typing the alphabet very quickly with his nose. He's owned this record before and he keeps besting his own record. The current record, if you would like to beat this, 25 seconds and change To type out the alphabet, you have to do a letter, a space, and the next letter and move on down the line in 25.66 seconds. It would appear as though we posted a link, some photos and stuff. I don't think, I think you just need tenacity, practice. I don't think you need any sort of special nose training or a particular type of nose structure. I think you mostly just need practice and tenacity and this record could be yours. But 25.66 seconds is going to be hard to beat. Standard QWERTY keyboard, by the way. Next, we have some wild chickens causing chaos. They made headlines and also the dog airline.

via @GWR Thank you for listening to this show. It's what a weird week where we count down the weird news of the week.

(CHARACTER LIMIT)

for full shownotes PLEASE SEE https://www.scottyandtony.com/2024/05/four-thumbs-up-for-what-weird-week.html


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What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. 

shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.

Show Notes by Scotty

What a Weird Week May 24th 2024: Killer Bee Beer and Delicious Chocolate Lawsuit

posted by Scotty on May 24, 2024 to PODCAST

What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. 

shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.




See www.shownotes.page for all the podcast stuff. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 20 first published on Friday May 24th, 2024.

(BEGIN  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT)  

 

❿ The fire breathing street performer who had a brawl with a mariachi band in Mexico City, a turf war and breathed fire on them. There's security camera footage of this. It happened on a busy street. It's believed they were fighting over turf location. You know, who gets to perform on the hot corner to do the street performances and get all the best tips. So the fire breather breathes fire on some of the mariachi band. Some of them have their clothes catch fire. This is all in the security cam footage. Some reports have it that the mariachi started it and the fire breather is the only one, according to the report, the only one who sought medical treatment. He said he was attacked first and that's when he started breathing fire on his foes. Nobody got arrested in this one, kind of amazing. We'll link to the security camera footage in today's show notes. Viewer discretion. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-street-fire-breather-mariachis-video-b2549364.html

Video is age-restricted so you have to watch on YouTube, so go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be60gx8naL0

Show Notes by Scotty

What a Weird Week May 24th 2024: Killer Bee Beer and Delicious Chocolate Lawsuit

posted by Scotty on May 24, 2024 to PODCAST

What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. 

shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.




See www.shownotes.page for all the podcast stuff. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 20 first published on Friday May 24th, 2024.

(BEGIN  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT)  

 

❿ The fire breathing street performer who had a brawl with a mariachi band in Mexico City, a turf war and breathed fire on them. There's security camera footage of this. It happened on a busy street. It's believed they were fighting over turf location. You know, who gets to perform on the hot corner to do the street performances and get all the best tips. So the fire breather breathes fire on some of the mariachi band. Some of them have their clothes catch fire. This is all in the security cam footage. Some reports have it that the mariachi started it and the fire breather is the only one, according to the report, the only one who sought medical treatment. He said he was attacked first and that's when he started breathing fire on his foes. Nobody got arrested in this one, kind of amazing. We'll link to the security camera footage in today's show notes. Viewer discretion. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-street-fire-breather-mariachis-video-b2549364.html

Video is age-restricted so you have to watch on YouTube, so go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be60gx8naL0




❾ Cards on the table, you guys. I don't know too much about too much. I don't know art. I don't know politics. I don't know Australia. And I'm sorry, Australia. I do know Santa's sleigh is pulled by six white boomers. That must count for something. Anyway, the National Gallery in Australia has this exhibit. That's a bit controversial. It's portraits of people. It's meant to be a little bit different, I think. It's a bit unusual. A different take on portraits. These paintings. The portrait, they have a billionaire, Gina Rinehart. (Character limit) for more see https://www.scottyandtony.com/2024/05/what-weird-week-may

What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts. These are the shownotes for Season 5, Ep 20 first published on Friday May 17th, 2024.(BEGIN  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT) ❿ Older Family Film continues to terrify grownups... https://studyfinds.org/adults-scared-of-et/Study: "1 in 8 adults still find the movie 'E.T. ' scary."Another interesting stat from the study... "Men are twice as likely to find E.T. scary compared to women."Also, "37% of people believe aliens are living among us, 41% say nope. ❾ AI is lying to us https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240510111440.htmAn
article in Science Daily gets into the details... even some AI systems
that were trained to be helpful and honest are telling lies in order to
get a certain outcome... like a simple AI that plays poker and was
programmed to to be honest... it bluffed in order to win at poker... the
article gets into more examples... I'm not a fan of these panicky AI
articles but if we can't trust AI because sometimes it lies to us...
who's gonna want to use AI for anything important? Like, "Hey, AI, do I
look fat in these pants? What's that? I look like a catalog model? Well
thanks." #PackOfLies! ❽ Kids Eating Sugar: New Research is Great News for some Kids https://studyfinds.org/where-kids-get-their-sugar/A
study about kids eating sugar and obesity seems to indicate that it's
not so important how much sugar you eat, it's more important where the
sugar comes from/ what food...Kids who eat sugar from sweetened
snack foods are more likely to become obese... but sugar from fruit
seems to cause less of a weight gain problem...Also less likely to lead to obesity: dairy products (unsweetened).Parents are advised to give their children fruit and milk instead of sweetened milk and other products with added sugar.It's
been a long time since my kids were little, but didn't we always kinda
know -  try to get your kids to have fruit instead of cookies? Now we
have some recent research to justify it. ❼ Giant Hummingbirds make headlines https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240513150528.htmThe
giant hummingbird world has been rocked by this discovery... The Giant
Hummingbird of western South America is actually two species... they
look identical and science thought they were one kind of giant
hummingbird but, nope. Really... this scientific discovery makes our
weird news recap show because... did you know we had giant hummingbirds?I
did not. I was picturing hummingbirds the size of penguins! In fact,
the giant hummingbird is just, bird-sized... weighing in at a whopping
24 grams... and measuring about 9 inches long... big for a hummingbird,
but about the same length as a robin... ❻ Boozing it up gets revolutionized! https://studyfinds.org/alcohol-blocking-gel-intoxication/Researchers
have made this gel that you swallow and it coats your stomach, then it
prevents you from absorbing booze... it has the capabilities to make you
un-drunk.They're still testing it so hang in there, but it helped mice avoid liver damage and other alcohol- related bad things.Imagine the potential for this drug if it can sober you up!? To be continued. ❺ Thumbtacks World Record: I don't get the point. Hahahahahaha HiiiiYoooooooo!!!!! David Record-Breaker Rush sets a world record by sticking 243 thumbtacks into a bulletin board in one minuteicymi, Dave wants to break every world record in the history of the universe and currently has 168.He uses these record attempts to shine a light on STEM education.  See https://youtu.be/kskebMYX5Ss?feature=shared ❹ Boat Owner fights City Hall with passive aggression, art. (Character Limit!)

See www.shownotes.page⁠ for all the podcast stuff and full transcript.


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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/weirdweek/message

What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the weird news of the week.  https://www. shownotes.page or search "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts. (BEGIN  EPISODE TRANSCRIPT) Cuddling cows and backwards tornadoes. What a
weird week. Hi friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week where we
catch you up on all the weird things that happened in the news the past
week. You can get show notes and a transcript and all that jazz... go to
show notes dot page. Here we go. Season five episode can't remember for
Friday, May the 10th. Mother's Day weekend, you guys.  *see www.shownotes.page! This is actually Season 5, Episode 19 first published on Friday May 10th, 2024 ... ❿ Look, we've all been through some sort of pandemic situation,
right? And then you hear about this bird flu in the news. It's not fun.
It's not funny, but it is weird. As a matter of fact, it's stressful and
all you want to do is cuddle a cow when you hear about the bird flu
outbreak. And in a sad irony.Our lead story this week from Sky News
is how bird flu, as it infects cows, is cutting into the lucrative cow
cuddling market. People pay money and cuddle cows. I didn't know that,
but they call it, Sky News calls it a US craze. Our friends in the
United States of America, is it a craze? A cow cuddling craze? And now,
you know, instead of getting therapeutic comfort from cows, officials
are urging farmers to limit outside visitors.So you're stressed
about the headline and then you can't even cuddle the cow and you get
more stressed and it is a vicious circle. I'm sorry you guys, this one
is not a light story. I try to keep it light but let's keep it down to
one bird flu story per week. How about that? https://news.sky.com/story/bird-flu-outbreak-could-threaten-us-cow-cuddling-craze-13128725 ❾ Headline from Smithsonian Mag. Rare tornado spinning the wrong
direction forms over Oklahoma. Another serious story. But weird. First
of all, I didn't know see where I live.We get one tornado every 10
years, maybe. I don't know, estimating. So I don't know from tornadoes.
Maybe The Wizard of Oz. There, that's... That is the only primer I've
had on tornadoes. The Wizard of Oz. And apparently, that movie isn't
factual. I never even thought about tornadoes spinning one direction all
the time. Of course they spin one direction all the time. Well, no.
They recorded in Oklahoma this anti-cyclonic tornado spinning the wrong
way.unusual tornado action in Oklahoma. The National Weather Service
describes it in the article, for a while was nearly stationary. That
also would be freaky. I feel like even if you lived in tornado alley and
you saw a tornado spinning the wrong way, standing still, that's pretty
freaky. Side note, should we change the name of this show to, what a
freaky week? Or just freaky week, it has a ring to it. Let me just
double check, freakyweek.org. Oh wait, no, don't, don't click that.God
bless you folks in Oklahoma. They say this particular tornado episode
did property damage, but no injuries were reported. I'll put a link in
the show notes, ways you can help folks impacted by tornadoes. Hang on,
next, not as serious a story. Well, it involves a serious amount of
money, I guess. $14,000, that's a serious amount. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-tornado-spinning-the-wrong-direction-forms-over-oklahoma-180984298/To offer support in the aftermath of tornadoes see https://www.redcross.org/about-us/our-work/disaster-relief/tornado-relief/midwest-tornadoes.html ❽ So this one is not quite as serious as the first two stories we had
this week, but it involves a serious amount of money. And I'm curious to
know if you like this one or maybe this story disturbs you. The
headline from ABC7, Man snags $14,000 Cartier earrings for $14 after
website price glitch.(Character Limit!)

For full shownotes see ⁠https://www. ⁠⁠shownotes.page⁠


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(Begin episode transcript) Hi Friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week where we catch you up on the weird news of the week. For transcript/ shownotes/ podcast stuff see www.shownotes.page! Here's Season 5, Episode 18 first published on Friday May 3rd 2024 ... ❿ From Sky News. Headline is, 13 year old boy finds holy grail of Legos... that was lost at sea.

The story is about a shipping container filled with Legos, which was lost at sea in 1997. And this young fellow in Cornwall, UK has been going to the beach to find Legos. And the holy grail of the Legos is the octopus. And after two years of searching... The 13 year old has found an octopus. Quite rare, quite a find. There's a whole project, someone named Tracy Williams has started up the Lego Lost at Sea Project. And for years now they've been finding Lego pieces that were lost at sea.

The last plastic octopus was found 18 years ago. They're excited. Some more pieces are turning up because of the winter, the type of winter they had at the seashore in Cornwall. Interesting hobby. I really feel like this is a wholesome pastime, finding those rare Lego pieces. Well done. LEGO Archaeologists!

https://news.sky.com/story/boy-13-finds-holy-grail-lego-octopus-piece-from-sea-spillage-in-1997-13123805 ... ❾ Milan, Italy To ban ice cream. That was the headline from Sky News earlier this week. Milan, Italy has had enough and ice cream is outlawed. You will go to ice cream jail and you will, which I imagine is very hot, and you will sit there and think about what you've donen, Ice cream lovers. In fact, if you read the article, it's first of all, they're talking about gelato, not ice cream, which I believe they're different things, aren't they? I'm not all that cultured. And it's not exactly a ban. It's places that sell ice cream or gelato and other fast food like pizza and late night foods. They have to shut her down after midnight because tourists and revelers. Tourists and people who eat food are too darn loud for the good folks of Milan, Italy. So that's why they're looking at a partial band of delicious gelato and pizza.

https://news.sky.com/story/milan-poised-to-ban-ice-cream-pizza-and-more-after-midnight-after-new-proposed-law-13121064 ... ❽ From the Associated Press, the headline... To fend off tourists, a town in Japan is building a big screen to block the view of Mount Fuji. Headline says it all. The town has had enough of tourists taking photos and being a nuisance. And so to stop people from pausing in a certain place in town and taking an iconic photo of Mount Fuji. They're putting a giant wall screen. They're blocking the view for folks. And it all started, you guessed it, you guys, with social media. There was a trend, somebody got a photo of Mount Fuji in the background. And it looked like Mount Fuji was sitting on top of a convenience store. And that's hilarious. I can't blame you, social media. That is hilarious. But it became too much. So now the screens are growing up. There will be no viewing Mount Fuji from this place. Move along tourists. That's me paraphrasing.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-fuji-tourists-screen-9ac5d8f02062ff3c1e573870a6787f16 ... ❼ Chicago's rat hole back in the news. This one has a happy ending. I'll tell you right now.

If you missed it, we talked about the rat hole and was all over the news (character limit!)

for whole list see https://www.scottyandtony.com/2024/05/what-weird-week-ten-weird-things-that.html


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(Begin episode transcript) Hi Friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week: Ten Weird Things from this Week's News. For transcript/ shownotes/ podcast stuff see www.shownotes.page! Here's Season 5, Episode 17 first published on Friday April 26th 2024... Nine Nines Revisited!! In this episode we check in on 9 former stories to see how they're holding up... ❿ Dog story (From Jan 12th)

A couple of scary dogs caused $350,000 damage at a car dealership in Houston.

And there's video.

The dogs have been arrested and are being detained at an animal shelter.

They scratched the paint and tore bumpers off cars. They went HAM on these automobiles. But why?

They think cats were hiding under the cars and the dogs got all fired up and took it out on the poor vehicles.

https://abc13.com/dogs-tear-apart-cars-g-motors-cypress-tx-barc-houston-stray-canines/14262071/



*UPDATE: Those dogs have yet to sign any deals for Influencer Boxing or as Junkyard Spokescanines, or any number of possibilities... Snickers Bar for Dogs? "We're not ourselves when we're hungry."

*Does it hold up? This story holds as a weird one. Also, it keeps happening! It happened again last month in Florida. https://nypost.com/2024/03/30/us-news/dogs-cause-3000-in-damage-to-car-trying-to-get-to-cat/

❾ A New Approach to stop floods... get bent! (From Jan 19th)

This is an article out of the UK from Sky News about how some rivers have gotten "canalised" over the years ("canalised" = "straightened out like a canal").

Now they're gonna try to bend those rivers again and if the researchers are right, when we bend it like Beckham our rivers might be less likely to flood. Or... you're able to control where it happens, maybe is more accurate... It's about slowing the water flow just like a bendy road slows down traffic. (Looking at you, Lombard St. San Francisco.)

https://news.sky.com/story/could-making-rivers-bendy-again-help-prevent-flooding-13047000



*UPDATE: Other than a report on how costly flood prep is, there has been little followup on this.

*Does it hold up? Yes. Yes it does. Flooding remains a problem to be solved. Or we can all live in an ark.

❽ Chinese marathoner disqualified for chain smoking through the entire race... (From Jan 26th)

- the fellow's name is Uncle Chen... he is 52... he finished the race in 3hrs and 33mins! (winner's time was 2:06:46).

- this was at the Xiamen Marathon... tens of thousands of runners take part in this...

- official ruling was disqualification smoking on the track.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12979881/chinese-marathon-runner-uncle-chen-smoking-brother-disqualified.html



*UPDATE: Weeks after that report, Uncle Chen was banned from competing at the same marathon for two years.

*Does it hold up? 10/10 it holds up! In a world where people run marathons dressed like bananas, etc., Uncle Chen continues to get be talked about in running circles. This article from Run Society goes deep into the sport psychology of Uncle Chen... https://www.runsociety.com/races/chain-smoking-marathoner/

❼ Super Swiftie breaks world record... (From Feb 2nd) This is a fellow in Pakistan... 20 year old fellow... who was able to break the record for the most Taylor Swift songs identified from their lyrics in one minute. The world record is now 34 Taylor Swift songs. Maybe you want to try to break that record this weekend. So it's quite straightforward. You have to listen to the lyrics, identify the songs. No peeking... wear a blindfold. It looks like it takes intense concentration.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2024/1/worlds-number-one-swiftie-breaks-record-for-naming-taylor-swift-songs-763982

*UPDATE: A month ago Bilal posted a video on YouTube unboxing his plaque/certificate.

*Does it hold up? 10/10 it holds up. That record will be tough to beat!

❻ (CHARACTER LIMIT!)

for full show notes see https://www.scottyandtony.com/2024/04/what-weird-week-special-episode-nine.html

or just remember WWW.Sho