What a Weird Week gets you caught up on the odd, interesting,
strange, fun, and weird news that happened this week. Ten stories in 15
minutes!
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Hi friends, I'm Scott and this is What a Weird Week, a look at the
odd, interesting, strange, fun and weird stories that made news this
week. See bottom of shownotes page for a transcript of the podcast
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These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 37 first published Fri Sept 5, 2025
Thanks for rating and reviewing and also subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 37 first published Fri Sept 5, 2025
Robots Can Now Play Badminton: world rejoices.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics/scientists-taught-an-ai-powered-robot-dog-how-to-play-badminton-against-humans-and-its-actually-really-good
https://www.livescience.com/technology/robotics/scientists-taught-an-ai-powered-robot-dog-how-to-play-badminton-against-humans-and-its-actually-really-good
This week in terrible cell phone news: hemorrhoids edition.
https://studyfinds.org/smartphone-toilet-hemorrhoid-risk/
https://studyfinds.org/smartphone-toilet-hemorrhoid-risk/
We second-guess everything? Wait... Do we??
study here https://studyfinds.org/average-american-second-guesses-nearly-half-daily-decisions/
study here https://studyfinds.org/average-american-second-guesses-nearly-half-daily-decisions/
These guys and their cornhole world domination
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/09/03/Guinness-World-Records-longest-cornhole-shot-slingshot/2561756911188/
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/09/03/Guinness-World-Records-longest-cornhole-shot-slingshot/2561756911188/
This genius parrot knows its way around some tiny bins.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/09/02/Guinness-World-Records-parrot-colors/6741756835361/
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/09/02/Guinness-World-Records-parrot-colors/6741756835361/
Meet Doogie the Croc King of the World
Never caught on film before: Golden Shark!
Here's our Golden Shark Song:
Famous Sports Figure's (much younger) girlfriend applies to trademark the term "Gold Digger". World reacts.
https://www.fox19.com/2025/08/28/bill-belichicks-girlfriend-jordon-hudson-24-files-trademark-application-term-gold-digger
https://www.fox19.com/2025/08/28/bill-belichicks-girlfriend-jordon-hudson-24-files-trademark-application-term-gold-digger
Wait, Eating Meat Might NOT be bad for you?
https://studyfinds.org/animal-protein-linked-to-lower-cancer-death-risk/
https://studyfinds.org/animal-protein-linked-to-lower-cancer-death-risk/
Heroic Lady Runs Across Lego Bricks in her Bare Feet. (Very Fast.)
Some parts of the world get a Lunar Eclipse/ Blood Moon on Sunday, Sept 7th, 2025
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/blood-moon-rise-during-total-035435373.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/blood-moon-rise-during-total-035435373.html
Transcript below.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
00:00
Robots take over another sport and we've got a genius parrot on the program. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Bigfoot eat out of my trash. Well, got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I'm Scott and this program is What a Weird Week. It's a show where if you're new here, what we do is we count down ten of the weird or odd interesting stories from the news this week and we do it all in about 15 minutes.
00:28
You can get everything we talk about at show notes dot page. This is episode something. Today's date is something. Let's just go. Number 10 is the badminton playing robot. was in the headlines that scientific community and the robot research community excited because they have created a robot that can win at badminton. They're excited, I imagine, because they can take that robot on the pro circuit now and win a lot of money playing professional badminton. There's a lot of money in it.
00:58
Or maybe it's the other, the real reason. They're excited because the robot can be deployed to areas where there's been a natural disaster, where, you know, people need help, but it might be dangerous for rescuers, human rescuers to go in. They can send in the badminton robot not to play badminton, but to do other things. I guess once you develop a robot that can win at badminton, it has a robust skill set to help people. Also, I hear it's quite competitive. I think we have a clip.
01:32
That was the badminton playing robot after it lost a match. Number nine is terrible cell phone news. Hemorrhoids edition. The recent study that's been published that shows a link between smartphone use in the bathroom and a higher risk of developing hemorrhoids. I'm sorry if you did not know that and you're hearing this and you're like, no thanks Scott. didn't want any more hemorrhoid news this week. So I'm sorry about that, but.
02:01
It might help some people. have to spread the word about this and why how it all shakes down. You can probably put two and two together on this, but I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to do a deep dive or maybe this is information you've got to get to somebody. You can find that link if you click show notes dot page number eight. Number eight is the study about how often we second guess ourselves and it's a lot and we're exhausted from all of the second guessing. This was a study.
02:31
that was done in the United States of America, you friends in the United States. But I would say this is got to be similar for all of us. One of the big ones is grocery shopping, deciding what to buy grocery shopping. Now times are tough all over, so grocery shopping is extra hard these days. But when you're trying to decide, do I buy the bag of carrots or how much are the watermelon, we take a long time to decide and we keep second guessing ourselves. We make about 50 decisions a day. A lot of times.
02:59
Second-guessing our decisions. So by the end of the day, we're exhausted. Our decision-making battery is depleted. That's why it's so great. It's like bliss when someone else decides what we're having for supper. Have you ever done the thing? It's payday. You're gonna go to the drive-through and you pass by the first drive-through place because you're like, I'm not sure. And then the second place you're like, I don't know if I feel like that. And then the third place, the fourth place, and by the fifth place, you're like, this is crazy. And you do a U-turn and go home and eat soup.
03:28
That's this. think that's this. We're exhausted. It's hard to decide stuff and we keep second guessing ourselves. I'm going to put a link to the survey and I'm going to put a link to something like, I don't know, I can't vouch for this and I'm not smart, so don't take my advice, but I'll put a link to an article on how to stop second guessing yourself in five easy steps. Do you want to try it? Proceed with caution, but I'll put the link click show notes dot page. Number seven. Number seven is these guys.
03:56
and their cornhole world record. uh
04:02
They're so excited. Who wouldn't be? Guinness World Record for those fellows. And we put the video in the show notes. They have a slingshot. One of those ones where, you know, it's a major hefty duty slingshot and they get the bean bag and way at the other end of the stadium, this football field is the cornhole. I don't know. I don't play cornhole, whatever you call it. The cornhole hole. And they slingshot that thing 151 feet and they get it in the hole. Guinness World Record. Very exciting.
04:31
Inspiring. Maybe you want to try to break that world record this weekend. Please wear safety goggles and stretch, stretch beforehand. Number six. Number six is the genius parrot in China who now has a Guinness world record for identifying colors. This parrot, what they did was they started the timer and the parrot had 10 little balls, all different colors. And the parrot had to pick up like the yellow ball, put it in a little yellow bin and it did 10 colors in 33 and a half seconds. And that's a world record. That's a genius parrot.
05:01
You know what? That parrot is so good with colors. They should give that parrot a job picking out coordinating wardrobes for people. I never match the kids. I leave the house and the kids are like, no dad, Navy on Navy. No, I need that parrot in my life. Number five is the world record holder for the most pairs of Crocs. fellow named Doogie in Connecticut is the Croc King. He has 3,800 pairs of Crocs now. And at first you're like, well, that's kind of wacky.
05:29
but listen to his backstory. It's a hobby he does for fun, but it began as something much deeper. Part of the foster care system that people don't realize is there's a lot of things that kids don't get taught or that are missed along the way, and some of them are smaller, simpler things. In my case, I didn't learn how to tie my shoes. Doogie grew up in the Connecticut foster care system, and as more time went by, the longer he went without learning what many are taught at an early age. uh
05:56
I was too embarrassed to ask the adults around me for help. So that's a bit from the WTNH News 8 report on Doogie, the croc king and his backstory. If you want to see that video, we'll put the link in the show notes. Click show notes dot page. four is the rare thing that has never been captured on film until now. And we do link to the photos in the show notes. The rare golden shark that was fished off the
06:25
coast of Costa Rica, which that sounds redundant when I say that out loud, the Costa Rica coast. guess that's how you say it. A golden nurse shark. It's golden. It looks like a giant goldfish, a six and a half foot goldfish, a menacing, evil goldfish because you know, sharks tend to look fierce. I'm not saying I'm not passing judgment on this golden shark. Anyway, that's kind of the whole story. It's never been captured on film before a golden or very bright orange shark.
06:54
The experts say it's the result of some rare condition. So if you want to see that, click the show notes, show notes dot page, or just imagine a very large goldfish.
07:09
Little Midas the shark was swimming around Thinking his thoughts that were kind of profound He wished he wasn't little, he wished he was old He wished he was a fish that was made out of gold When all of a sudden a genie appeared He said, Midas the shark, this is gonna get weird I'm gonna grant your golden wish Wish, wish Now you're a golden fish Fish! Golden!
07:38
He's made of solid gold Golden Shark! uh
08:03
Number three. We've got back to back gold stories. That hardly ever happens. We had the golden shark and now a story about gold digging, gold diggers. No, not that. It's about trademarks, really. Jordan Hudson is embracing the criticism.
08:16
The girlfriend of Bill Belichick appears to be poking fun at her nearly 50 year age gap with the former NFL coach. Jordan's company has filed a trademark application for the name Gold Digger. that reporting from E news, kind of an odd one, not one you see every day. Amusing story. A lot of people cracking some jokes online about that. If you don't follow football and I do not follow football, the NFL so much. the takeaway is just a famous sports figure who is rich, famous.
08:45
and about 50 years older than his girlfriend, is in a situation where his girlfriend has now applied to trademark the term gold digger. Age is just a number. Don't at me. I'm not. Love is love and age is a number. Or do you think I'm being too wishy washy on that? I don't want to offend anyone. Ain't none of my business if they love each other, whatever's going on there. But maybe it's gross. Is it gross? What's going on? No, it's... Could it be love? What is love?
09:14
You know what? I'm going to back away from that. But if you have a different opinion on that whole scenario, feel free to reach out. You can get all our contact stuff if you go to show notes dot page number two, two, highly controversial one, I think probably going to make some people angry. Please don't at me. Or if you want to at me and you have no one else to vent to, you know what? Go ahead and at me. This is the study about eating meat and I don't want to weigh in on how you feel about eating me.
09:42
This is just the numbers, the study, it freaked out, I think, the researchers. I'm reading between the lines, but they did not expect this. A study of nearly 16,000 US adults found no link between eating meat and a higher death risk from cancer, heart disease, or any cause. So fairly large study, and it finds no link.
10:06
It finds that eating meat is not bad for you, which the researchers did not expect that because previous studies showed the opposite results. Now everything's chaos. The entire research community chaos. I think I imagine it's chaos. No doubt they're going to look into this study and more research is needed, but it was a bit of an eyebrow razor. No health risks associated with eating meat. Please note I am not a scientist. I
10:34
don't even own a lab coat. if you would like to read the whole study before you become enraged or elated, I would encourage you to do that. And we put the link in the show notes or click show notes dot page. Honorable mention. Honorable mention. This one's a study about when, what time of day you eat breakfast, like how early you eat breakfast and how long you live. Or I'm calling it, sorry brunch, you're out. A study of 3000 people over the age of 20.
11:01
The earlier, essentially the earlier you eat breakfast, the longer you tend to live. According to the research in this study, every time you put off eating breakfast till later, it impacts how long you will live or there is a correlation. The people who ate breakfast early had more longevity. That's kind of it. I mean, I'm paraphrasing and getting hungry. All I want now is breakfast, delicious mini wheats, not sponsored, but delicious mini wheats with chocolate milk. So
11:31
I'll stop there, but we'll put the link to the study in the show notes. Number one, our top story this week. Number one is this lady who ran across Legos, Lego bricks on purpose in her bare feet.
11:47
The most painful obstacles, the palm trees and window frames. But Gabrielle Wall couldn't be stopped. The challenge vanquished. Oh, like a dream. It's like running on clouds. 24.75 seconds. You did it, ma'am. I did it. Good stuff, coach. Good stuff, manager. That report from One News TV New Zealand, Gabrielle Wall, who trained for a couple of months going everywhere in her bare feet to toughen up her feet.
12:16
ran across Lego pieces, 100 meter dash, 24.75 seconds world record. Really impressive because we all can kind of imagine what that must have felt like when you hear that world record. You're like, you get that visceral reaction. Way to go, Gabrielle. And that's the program this week. Thanks for checking out our show. We're back again next Friday with 10 more weird stories from the news. You can get all the show notes that we talked about today if you go to show notes dot page.
12:42
Also, I'm gonna put a link and a big hello to you friends in Asia, parts of Europe and Africa who get the total lunar eclipse, the blood moon lunar eclipse. If you're hearing this before Sunday, September 7th, 2025, some parts of the world getting that neat lunar eclipse. I'll put a link in the show notes with more details not happening here in Canada or for our friends in the United States of America, but many people getting the blood moon total lunar eclipse this weekend.
Robots take over another sport and we've got a genius parrot on the program. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. It's weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Bigfoot eat out of my trash. Well, got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I'm Scott and this program is What a Weird Week. It's a show where if you're new here, what we do is we count down ten of the weird or odd interesting stories from the news this week and we do it all in about 15 minutes.
00:28
You can get everything we talk about at show notes dot page. This is episode something. Today's date is something. Let's just go. Number 10 is the badminton playing robot. was in the headlines that scientific community and the robot research community excited because they have created a robot that can win at badminton. They're excited, I imagine, because they can take that robot on the pro circuit now and win a lot of money playing professional badminton. There's a lot of money in it.
00:58
Or maybe it's the other, the real reason. They're excited because the robot can be deployed to areas where there's been a natural disaster, where, you know, people need help, but it might be dangerous for rescuers, human rescuers to go in. They can send in the badminton robot not to play badminton, but to do other things. I guess once you develop a robot that can win at badminton, it has a robust skill set to help people. Also, I hear it's quite competitive. I think we have a clip.
01:32
That was the badminton playing robot after it lost a match. Number nine is terrible cell phone news. Hemorrhoids edition. The recent study that's been published that shows a link between smartphone use in the bathroom and a higher risk of developing hemorrhoids. I'm sorry if you did not know that and you're hearing this and you're like, no thanks Scott. didn't want any more hemorrhoid news this week. So I'm sorry about that, but.
02:01
It might help some people. have to spread the word about this and why how it all shakes down. You can probably put two and two together on this, but I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to do a deep dive or maybe this is information you've got to get to somebody. You can find that link if you click show notes dot page number eight. Number eight is the study about how often we second guess ourselves and it's a lot and we're exhausted from all of the second guessing. This was a study.
02:31
that was done in the United States of America, you friends in the United States. But I would say this is got to be similar for all of us. One of the big ones is grocery shopping, deciding what to buy grocery shopping. Now times are tough all over, so grocery shopping is extra hard these days. But when you're trying to decide, do I buy the bag of carrots or how much are the watermelon, we take a long time to decide and we keep second guessing ourselves. We make about 50 decisions a day. A lot of times.
02:59
Second-guessing our decisions. So by the end of the day, we're exhausted. Our decision-making battery is depleted. That's why it's so great. It's like bliss when someone else decides what we're having for supper. Have you ever done the thing? It's payday. You're gonna go to the drive-through and you pass by the first drive-through place because you're like, I'm not sure. And then the second place you're like, I don't know if I feel like that. And then the third place, the fourth place, and by the fifth place, you're like, this is crazy. And you do a U-turn and go home and eat soup.
03:28
That's this. think that's this. We're exhausted. It's hard to decide stuff and we keep second guessing ourselves. I'm going to put a link to the survey and I'm going to put a link to something like, I don't know, I can't vouch for this and I'm not smart, so don't take my advice, but I'll put a link to an article on how to stop second guessing yourself in five easy steps. Do you want to try it? Proceed with caution, but I'll put the link click show notes dot page. Number seven. Number seven is these guys.
03:56
and their cornhole world record. uh
04:02
They're so excited. Who wouldn't be? Guinness World Record for those fellows. And we put the video in the show notes. They have a slingshot. One of those ones where, you know, it's a major hefty duty slingshot and they get the bean bag and way at the other end of the stadium, this football field is the cornhole. I don't know. I don't play cornhole, whatever you call it. The cornhole hole. And they slingshot that thing 151 feet and they get it in the hole. Guinness World Record. Very exciting.
04:31
Inspiring. Maybe you want to try to break that world record this weekend. Please wear safety goggles and stretch, stretch beforehand. Number six. Number six is the genius parrot in China who now has a Guinness world record for identifying colors. This parrot, what they did was they started the timer and the parrot had 10 little balls, all different colors. And the parrot had to pick up like the yellow ball, put it in a little yellow bin and it did 10 colors in 33 and a half seconds. And that's a world record. That's a genius parrot.
05:01
You know what? That parrot is so good with colors. They should give that parrot a job picking out coordinating wardrobes for people. I never match the kids. I leave the house and the kids are like, no dad, Navy on Navy. No, I need that parrot in my life. Number five is the world record holder for the most pairs of Crocs. fellow named Doogie in Connecticut is the Croc King. He has 3,800 pairs of Crocs now. And at first you're like, well, that's kind of wacky.
05:29
but listen to his backstory. It's a hobby he does for fun, but it began as something much deeper. Part of the foster care system that people don't realize is there's a lot of things that kids don't get taught or that are missed along the way, and some of them are smaller, simpler things. In my case, I didn't learn how to tie my shoes. Doogie grew up in the Connecticut foster care system, and as more time went by, the longer he went without learning what many are taught at an early age. uh
05:56
I was too embarrassed to ask the adults around me for help. So that's a bit from the WTNH News 8 report on Doogie, the croc king and his backstory. If you want to see that video, we'll put the link in the show notes. Click show notes dot page. four is the rare thing that has never been captured on film until now. And we do link to the photos in the show notes. The rare golden shark that was fished off the
06:25
coast of Costa Rica, which that sounds redundant when I say that out loud, the Costa Rica coast. guess that's how you say it. A golden nurse shark. It's golden. It looks like a giant goldfish, a six and a half foot goldfish, a menacing, evil goldfish because you know, sharks tend to look fierce. I'm not saying I'm not passing judgment on this golden shark. Anyway, that's kind of the whole story. It's never been captured on film before a golden or very bright orange shark.
06:54
The experts say it's the result of some rare condition. So if you want to see that, click the show notes, show notes dot page, or just imagine a very large goldfish.
07:09
Little Midas the shark was swimming around Thinking his thoughts that were kind of profound He wished he wasn't little, he wished he was old He wished he was a fish that was made out of gold When all of a sudden a genie appeared He said, Midas the shark, this is gonna get weird I'm gonna grant your golden wish Wish, wish Now you're a golden fish Fish! Golden!
07:38
He's made of solid gold Golden Shark! uh
08:03
Number three. We've got back to back gold stories. That hardly ever happens. We had the golden shark and now a story about gold digging, gold diggers. No, not that. It's about trademarks, really. Jordan Hudson is embracing the criticism.
08:16
The girlfriend of Bill Belichick appears to be poking fun at her nearly 50 year age gap with the former NFL coach. Jordan's company has filed a trademark application for the name Gold Digger. that reporting from E news, kind of an odd one, not one you see every day. Amusing story. A lot of people cracking some jokes online about that. If you don't follow football and I do not follow football, the NFL so much. the takeaway is just a famous sports figure who is rich, famous.
08:45
and about 50 years older than his girlfriend, is in a situation where his girlfriend has now applied to trademark the term gold digger. Age is just a number. Don't at me. I'm not. Love is love and age is a number. Or do you think I'm being too wishy washy on that? I don't want to offend anyone. Ain't none of my business if they love each other, whatever's going on there. But maybe it's gross. Is it gross? What's going on? No, it's... Could it be love? What is love?
09:14
You know what? I'm going to back away from that. But if you have a different opinion on that whole scenario, feel free to reach out. You can get all our contact stuff if you go to show notes dot page number two, two, highly controversial one, I think probably going to make some people angry. Please don't at me. Or if you want to at me and you have no one else to vent to, you know what? Go ahead and at me. This is the study about eating meat and I don't want to weigh in on how you feel about eating me.
09:42
This is just the numbers, the study, it freaked out, I think, the researchers. I'm reading between the lines, but they did not expect this. A study of nearly 16,000 US adults found no link between eating meat and a higher death risk from cancer, heart disease, or any cause. So fairly large study, and it finds no link.
10:06
It finds that eating meat is not bad for you, which the researchers did not expect that because previous studies showed the opposite results. Now everything's chaos. The entire research community chaos. I think I imagine it's chaos. No doubt they're going to look into this study and more research is needed, but it was a bit of an eyebrow razor. No health risks associated with eating meat. Please note I am not a scientist. I
10:34
don't even own a lab coat. if you would like to read the whole study before you become enraged or elated, I would encourage you to do that. And we put the link in the show notes or click show notes dot page. Honorable mention. Honorable mention. This one's a study about when, what time of day you eat breakfast, like how early you eat breakfast and how long you live. Or I'm calling it, sorry brunch, you're out. A study of 3000 people over the age of 20.
11:01
The earlier, essentially the earlier you eat breakfast, the longer you tend to live. According to the research in this study, every time you put off eating breakfast till later, it impacts how long you will live or there is a correlation. The people who ate breakfast early had more longevity. That's kind of it. I mean, I'm paraphrasing and getting hungry. All I want now is breakfast, delicious mini wheats, not sponsored, but delicious mini wheats with chocolate milk. So
11:31
I'll stop there, but we'll put the link to the study in the show notes. Number one, our top story this week. Number one is this lady who ran across Legos, Lego bricks on purpose in her bare feet.
11:47
The most painful obstacles, the palm trees and window frames. But Gabrielle Wall couldn't be stopped. The challenge vanquished. Oh, like a dream. It's like running on clouds. 24.75 seconds. You did it, ma'am. I did it. Good stuff, coach. Good stuff, manager. That report from One News TV New Zealand, Gabrielle Wall, who trained for a couple of months going everywhere in her bare feet to toughen up her feet.
12:16
ran across Lego pieces, 100 meter dash, 24.75 seconds world record. Really impressive because we all can kind of imagine what that must have felt like when you hear that world record. You're like, you get that visceral reaction. Way to go, Gabrielle. And that's the program this week. Thanks for checking out our show. We're back again next Friday with 10 more weird stories from the news. You can get all the show notes that we talked about today if you go to show notes dot page.
12:42
Also, I'm gonna put a link and a big hello to you friends in Asia, parts of Europe and Africa who get the total lunar eclipse, the blood moon lunar eclipse. If you're hearing this before Sunday, September 7th, 2025, some parts of the world getting that neat lunar eclipse. I'll put a link in the show notes with more details not happening here in Canada or for our friends in the United States of America, but many people getting the blood moon total lunar eclipse this weekend.
