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!
See https://www.shownotes.page or "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.
See https://www.shownotes.page or "What a Weird Week" where you get podcasts.
Stream the episode...
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
episode. To Subscribe/ get in touch/ other/ see www.shownotes.page.
Thanks for rating and reviewing and also subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 49 first published Fri Nov 28, 2025.
Thanks for rating and reviewing and also subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 6, Ep 49 first published Fri Nov 28, 2025.
Would YOU do what this Michigan Guy Did? (Because he's a millionaire now.)
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/21/lotto-Michigan-Lottery-rejected-ticket-jackpot/3401763758672/
World Record Big Hair
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/20/Guinness-World-Records-largest-afro-female/1711763655802/
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/20/Guinness-World-Records-largest-afro-female/1711763655802/
World's Oldest Bus Driver inspires. Exact change please.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/Wichita-Falls-Texas-Guinness-World-Records-oldest-bus-driver/6521764003571/
Robot Takeover Looms. #WalkBot
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/AgiBot-A2-Guinness-World-Records-robot-walk/3681764010764/
Social Media Detox Aint bad for ya *citation **Please Like us on Facebook #Irony
https://studyfinds.org/social-media-detox-leads-to-more-phone-time/
Masterpiece found under workbench, sells for $$$!!!
SNES Shoes: The Game is afoot!
https://www.lowyat.net/2025/374532/air-snes-nike-super-nintendo/
https://www.lowyat.net/2025/374532/air-snes-nike-super-nintendo/
Secret Code Sculpture Seemingly Drives People Bonkers
https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/science/info-to-decipher-secret-message-in-kryptos-sculpture-at-cia-headquarters-sells-for-close-to/article_dcd8d2c7-a176-5f49-8e79-f32e059dcfe3.html
https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/science/info-to-decipher-secret-message-in-kryptos-sculpture-at-cia-headquarters-sells-for-close-to/article_dcd8d2c7-a176-5f49-8e79-f32e059dcfe3.html
Elvis judge
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-elvis-wig-judge-matthew-thornhill-ac85ac95a5dd942ea87f688fda75b758
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-elvis-wig-judge-matthew-thornhill-ac85ac95a5dd942ea87f688fda75b758
Chip Maker Sells Chips, World Reacts.
https://news.yahoo.com/news/tech/general/articles/semiconductor-giant-sk-hynix-now-060742132.html
https://news.yahoo.com/news/tech/general/articles/semiconductor-giant-sk-hynix-now-060742132.html
Transcript below.
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YouTube stream
Transcription
00:00
Robots, Elvis and Big Hair. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. This Weird. This is like crazy. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, got a great joke for you. name is so wonderful. Weird. Hi friends. I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week, a show where we go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories or the fun ones, the interesting stories. You can get everything we talk about if you click show notes dot page. That's where we put the show notes.
00:29
and all the stuff about our podcast, go to show notes dot page to our friends in the United States of America. Happy Thanksgiving. If you're celebrating Thanksgiving, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend. Number 10 is a lotto ticket win. I hardly ever do these stories, but this one is interesting. Would you do what this Michigan guy did? Because now he's a millionaire. He went into the gas station and he noticed on the counter there was a scratch ticket there that somebody didn't want.
00:58
It hadn't been put away. Somebody decided not to buy it and it's sitting there beside the cash register. And this fellow decided that was the one he wanted to buy. I would never do that. I would be like, did somebody touch that? Well, that's no, that's probably unlucky and full of germs. would never buy a discarded scratch off ticket that somebody else didn't want. But this fellow in Michigan did scratched it and millionaire.
01:25
Number nine is world record breaking big hair. According to the Guinness Book of World Records in the news this week, a lady named Jessica from New York has an afro hairstyle that is the biggest in the world, six foot two and something in circumference. So the distance around Jessica's hair is six feet and two inches in some. That's the biggest afro hairstyle in the world.
01:51
You got to figure that took some dedication. Congratulations, Jessica. At some point, you can't just throw on a hat and leave the house. You're running late for an appointment or whatever, but you've got world record hair going on. That would be a custom made hat situation. You probably don't have a lot of options. You've got to take care of your hair every day. And it's paid off, Jessica, world record. I hope you get some free hair products out of this, some sort of endorsement deal and maybe some free hats.
02:20
There's giant foam cowboy hats. There might be one big enough for the biggest hair in the world. don't know. Number eight is inspiring to me. And I feel like if you don't take inspiration from this story, perhaps you're a psychopath, but I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist. So that's not an official diagnosis. Number eight is about Ray Hager, who made headlines. He's officially now in the Guinness book of world records as the world's oldest bus driver. He's 95 years old.
02:48
Ray from Wichita Falls, Texas has been driving city bus for 27 years. 27 years is a good run. And when you do the math, this is the inspirational part to me. He was pushing 70 when he started with the city bus driving job. It's been at it for 27 years, but he began when he was pushing 70. This just makes me want to write a list of things to try once I'm pushing 70. I'm going to take the list out and what do I got here? What?
03:17
Learn how to play Fortnite, become a professional gamer. All right. I'm almost 70. Time to get at it. See what I mean? Inspirational. If you want to read Ray's story, we'll put a link in the show notes. seven is a story about how the robot uprising is imminent. And perhaps we've been distracted by AI and we forgot that the robots will soon be our overlords. This is about the world record robot that walked for it's a world record distance, 66 miles.
03:47
A robot in China. The robot named A2 walked 66 miles in 24 hours. That's a world record. This tells me once the A2 model decides to take over, there is no escape. It can walk 24 hours straight. It can do 66 miles in 24 hours. It has the system where they can swap out for fresh batteries before the other batteries die. So it could just keep walking and walking. So if it's chasing you,
04:16
even if it's at a walking pace, it's just never going to stop coming for you. I get winded just going to the mailbox. This robot's got me first. I'll be the first one to go. six. Number six is the experiment where it wasn't a huge study. It's interesting. So almost 300 young adults signed up for the study where they would not go on social media for a week, which to some can seem like an eternity. One week of social media.
04:44
Not easy for everybody. I'm not even being sarcastic. What happened with this small test group, 295 people, their mental health improved staying off social media, but also they use their phones a little bit more. Increased phone use, but also better mental health outcomes. That's kind of the two key takeaways I got from this story, but I'll link to the whole thing if you want to read it. Maybe it's for you, maybe it's for somebody you know who enjoys the social media and in the spirit of this one, how about don't like and subscribe.
05:14
to our show this week, just this week though. Number five. I love these stories very much because it gives me hope one day, perhaps I will be rich. The headline from the Daily Mail is dusty painting found in a garage sells for nearly 700,000 pounds after being identified as a 500 year old Renaissance masterpiece. And that's kind of it. You know, it was found in a garage, a dusty painting under a workbench. Somebody bought it without knowing for sure what it was worth.
05:43
And time passes and now it's sold at auction for a lot of money. Every time we do a story like this, I go to my Salvation Army or the thrift store in town and I start looking for cheap things that secretly I know will be worth millions. Look at that old painting. That's going to make me a fortune. Don't let on. Don't let anyone in this store know that I just found a million dollar painting. Anyway, so far it hasn't panned out, but it is always fun to dream.
06:12
Number four is the gaming system in the shoe that made headlines. So a Singapore designer to pay tribute to Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the 35th anniversary, the designer put Nintendo games into a sneaker or perhaps you call it a runner or a tennis shoe. It's a Nike Air sneaker that you can wear on your feet as per use, but then also you can take that sneaker off.
06:39
plug it into your TV and play some Nintendo games. I'm not exactly sure why. I guess maybe it's art. I think it's art, but I don't understand art. I'm not very smart about that stuff. I would have thought that Crocs would have been first out the gate with, you know, they do so many collabs. Why wasn't Crocs doing something like this? And then my other thought is that if Nike and Nintendo don't come together with some sort of slogan, like the game is a foot,
07:07
I mean, that one just writes itself. three is about secrets and art and the CIA and a million dollars. The sculpture in front of the CIA headquarters, the central intelligence agency in the United States. So in front of their headquarters, they have a sculpture. The sculpture is called cryptos and it has all these secret messages in there. You have to decode the sculpture to figure out what it says.
07:32
And people, it was dedicated in 1990. People had figured out some of the secret codes on this cryptos sculpture in front of the CIA, but there's one that's really been a stickler and it's driving people bonkers. What is the secret message for years and years and years? People have been contacting the artist, asking for clues, making inquiries to the point where the artist would charge you $50. If you sent a note to the artist, he'd be like, I'll answer your question for 50 bucks.
08:02
They've auctioned off an opportunity to meet with the artist. The artist will give you the clues needed to solve the code and crack the case of the mysterious uh hidden code in the crypto sculpture. The highest bidder was close to a million dollars. And I don't think we're going to find out what the secret message is. The article doesn't get into it too much, but I believe the person who, the winning bidder, they guard that close to their hearts.
08:29
I love the idea of, I say all the time, I don't understand art, but I love the idea of designing art that bothers people so much, drives people bonkers to the point where they're willing to pay you a million dollars so that you help them understand your art. That almost seems like a business model. Hey, if you want to see the sculpture or read the whole thing, can click the show notes. We'll put a link in there. Encrypted. Number two is the judge in Missouri.
08:56
who would wear an Elvis Presley wig in his courtroom and play Elvis Presley music. According to the article, he has agreed to cut his judgeship short. And I don't even know if judgeship is the right thing or how to say that, but Judge Matthew had a disciplinary hearing and was accused of dressing like Elvis or at least wearing the Elvis hair. Also accused of offering people options on how they would be sworn in, including, do you want me to play some Elvis music? Something I'm paraphrasing.
09:26
To me, all that seems to provide levity in the courtroom, but I guess if you were facing some serious charges, perhaps your life was in the balance and there's the judge wearing an Elvis wig, that might be disconcerting. And I'm not sure if I'm reading it right, but I think I've got it right. The article says after a six month unpaid suspension, the judge would continue being a judge for 18 more months and then would resign.
09:54
The article doesn't get into whether the judge agreed to not wear the hair, but I assume one would assume that is part of the deal. Number one is the South Korean semiconductor company who manufacture high bandwidth memory semiconductors chips, right? Well now coming out with actual chips, you can eat a chip maker is making chips. You can eat that. You can get a bag of chips from the
10:23
semiconductor company. And that's kind of the whole story. I mean, you can get into why or, you know, it's cutesy and it's, I think it's pretty fantastic that the chip maker is now another kind of chip maker. think whoever came up with that idea and then they followed through on it, that's pretty funny. And now the balls in your court Doritos, when will you start making semiconductors? Hey?
10:51
Thank you very much for listening to What a Weird Week. We're back next Friday with 10 more weird stories. I appreciate when you like, subscribe, click the stars and all that. And to our friends celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States of America, Happy Thanksgiving. We'll catch you next Friday with more interesting stories from the news on What a Weird Week. If you listen this far into the show, we have a bonus song now inspired by a few days ago, it was National Cake Day.
11:21
And we wrote a song about a giant cake ball that was made on top of a hill and rolled down the hill causing some cake panic.
11:38
Cake ball was evil and when it stopped
11:44
Cakeball Carnage Giant Cakeball 800 pounds Terrifying people all over town Ball of cake Brings terror in its way Giant Cakeball
12:13
flattened the mayor and his best friend Bill. So evil. Evil Cakeball Cakeball Cakeball So evil. So delicious. Cakeball Song Continues...
Robots, Elvis and Big Hair. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. This Weird. This is like crazy. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, got a great joke for you. name is so wonderful. Weird. Hi friends. I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week, a show where we go back through the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories or the fun ones, the interesting stories. You can get everything we talk about if you click show notes dot page. That's where we put the show notes.
00:29
and all the stuff about our podcast, go to show notes dot page to our friends in the United States of America. Happy Thanksgiving. If you're celebrating Thanksgiving, have a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend. Number 10 is a lotto ticket win. I hardly ever do these stories, but this one is interesting. Would you do what this Michigan guy did? Because now he's a millionaire. He went into the gas station and he noticed on the counter there was a scratch ticket there that somebody didn't want.
00:58
It hadn't been put away. Somebody decided not to buy it and it's sitting there beside the cash register. And this fellow decided that was the one he wanted to buy. I would never do that. I would be like, did somebody touch that? Well, that's no, that's probably unlucky and full of germs. would never buy a discarded scratch off ticket that somebody else didn't want. But this fellow in Michigan did scratched it and millionaire.
01:25
Number nine is world record breaking big hair. According to the Guinness Book of World Records in the news this week, a lady named Jessica from New York has an afro hairstyle that is the biggest in the world, six foot two and something in circumference. So the distance around Jessica's hair is six feet and two inches in some. That's the biggest afro hairstyle in the world.
01:51
You got to figure that took some dedication. Congratulations, Jessica. At some point, you can't just throw on a hat and leave the house. You're running late for an appointment or whatever, but you've got world record hair going on. That would be a custom made hat situation. You probably don't have a lot of options. You've got to take care of your hair every day. And it's paid off, Jessica, world record. I hope you get some free hair products out of this, some sort of endorsement deal and maybe some free hats.
02:20
There's giant foam cowboy hats. There might be one big enough for the biggest hair in the world. don't know. Number eight is inspiring to me. And I feel like if you don't take inspiration from this story, perhaps you're a psychopath, but I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist. So that's not an official diagnosis. Number eight is about Ray Hager, who made headlines. He's officially now in the Guinness book of world records as the world's oldest bus driver. He's 95 years old.
02:48
Ray from Wichita Falls, Texas has been driving city bus for 27 years. 27 years is a good run. And when you do the math, this is the inspirational part to me. He was pushing 70 when he started with the city bus driving job. It's been at it for 27 years, but he began when he was pushing 70. This just makes me want to write a list of things to try once I'm pushing 70. I'm going to take the list out and what do I got here? What?
03:17
Learn how to play Fortnite, become a professional gamer. All right. I'm almost 70. Time to get at it. See what I mean? Inspirational. If you want to read Ray's story, we'll put a link in the show notes. seven is a story about how the robot uprising is imminent. And perhaps we've been distracted by AI and we forgot that the robots will soon be our overlords. This is about the world record robot that walked for it's a world record distance, 66 miles.
03:47
A robot in China. The robot named A2 walked 66 miles in 24 hours. That's a world record. This tells me once the A2 model decides to take over, there is no escape. It can walk 24 hours straight. It can do 66 miles in 24 hours. It has the system where they can swap out for fresh batteries before the other batteries die. So it could just keep walking and walking. So if it's chasing you,
04:16
even if it's at a walking pace, it's just never going to stop coming for you. I get winded just going to the mailbox. This robot's got me first. I'll be the first one to go. six. Number six is the experiment where it wasn't a huge study. It's interesting. So almost 300 young adults signed up for the study where they would not go on social media for a week, which to some can seem like an eternity. One week of social media.
04:44
Not easy for everybody. I'm not even being sarcastic. What happened with this small test group, 295 people, their mental health improved staying off social media, but also they use their phones a little bit more. Increased phone use, but also better mental health outcomes. That's kind of the two key takeaways I got from this story, but I'll link to the whole thing if you want to read it. Maybe it's for you, maybe it's for somebody you know who enjoys the social media and in the spirit of this one, how about don't like and subscribe.
05:14
to our show this week, just this week though. Number five. I love these stories very much because it gives me hope one day, perhaps I will be rich. The headline from the Daily Mail is dusty painting found in a garage sells for nearly 700,000 pounds after being identified as a 500 year old Renaissance masterpiece. And that's kind of it. You know, it was found in a garage, a dusty painting under a workbench. Somebody bought it without knowing for sure what it was worth.
05:43
And time passes and now it's sold at auction for a lot of money. Every time we do a story like this, I go to my Salvation Army or the thrift store in town and I start looking for cheap things that secretly I know will be worth millions. Look at that old painting. That's going to make me a fortune. Don't let on. Don't let anyone in this store know that I just found a million dollar painting. Anyway, so far it hasn't panned out, but it is always fun to dream.
06:12
Number four is the gaming system in the shoe that made headlines. So a Singapore designer to pay tribute to Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the 35th anniversary, the designer put Nintendo games into a sneaker or perhaps you call it a runner or a tennis shoe. It's a Nike Air sneaker that you can wear on your feet as per use, but then also you can take that sneaker off.
06:39
plug it into your TV and play some Nintendo games. I'm not exactly sure why. I guess maybe it's art. I think it's art, but I don't understand art. I'm not very smart about that stuff. I would have thought that Crocs would have been first out the gate with, you know, they do so many collabs. Why wasn't Crocs doing something like this? And then my other thought is that if Nike and Nintendo don't come together with some sort of slogan, like the game is a foot,
07:07
I mean, that one just writes itself. three is about secrets and art and the CIA and a million dollars. The sculpture in front of the CIA headquarters, the central intelligence agency in the United States. So in front of their headquarters, they have a sculpture. The sculpture is called cryptos and it has all these secret messages in there. You have to decode the sculpture to figure out what it says.
07:32
And people, it was dedicated in 1990. People had figured out some of the secret codes on this cryptos sculpture in front of the CIA, but there's one that's really been a stickler and it's driving people bonkers. What is the secret message for years and years and years? People have been contacting the artist, asking for clues, making inquiries to the point where the artist would charge you $50. If you sent a note to the artist, he'd be like, I'll answer your question for 50 bucks.
08:02
They've auctioned off an opportunity to meet with the artist. The artist will give you the clues needed to solve the code and crack the case of the mysterious uh hidden code in the crypto sculpture. The highest bidder was close to a million dollars. And I don't think we're going to find out what the secret message is. The article doesn't get into it too much, but I believe the person who, the winning bidder, they guard that close to their hearts.
08:29
I love the idea of, I say all the time, I don't understand art, but I love the idea of designing art that bothers people so much, drives people bonkers to the point where they're willing to pay you a million dollars so that you help them understand your art. That almost seems like a business model. Hey, if you want to see the sculpture or read the whole thing, can click the show notes. We'll put a link in there. Encrypted. Number two is the judge in Missouri.
08:56
who would wear an Elvis Presley wig in his courtroom and play Elvis Presley music. According to the article, he has agreed to cut his judgeship short. And I don't even know if judgeship is the right thing or how to say that, but Judge Matthew had a disciplinary hearing and was accused of dressing like Elvis or at least wearing the Elvis hair. Also accused of offering people options on how they would be sworn in, including, do you want me to play some Elvis music? Something I'm paraphrasing.
09:26
To me, all that seems to provide levity in the courtroom, but I guess if you were facing some serious charges, perhaps your life was in the balance and there's the judge wearing an Elvis wig, that might be disconcerting. And I'm not sure if I'm reading it right, but I think I've got it right. The article says after a six month unpaid suspension, the judge would continue being a judge for 18 more months and then would resign.
09:54
The article doesn't get into whether the judge agreed to not wear the hair, but I assume one would assume that is part of the deal. Number one is the South Korean semiconductor company who manufacture high bandwidth memory semiconductors chips, right? Well now coming out with actual chips, you can eat a chip maker is making chips. You can eat that. You can get a bag of chips from the
10:23
semiconductor company. And that's kind of the whole story. I mean, you can get into why or, you know, it's cutesy and it's, I think it's pretty fantastic that the chip maker is now another kind of chip maker. think whoever came up with that idea and then they followed through on it, that's pretty funny. And now the balls in your court Doritos, when will you start making semiconductors? Hey?
10:51
Thank you very much for listening to What a Weird Week. We're back next Friday with 10 more weird stories. I appreciate when you like, subscribe, click the stars and all that. And to our friends celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States of America, Happy Thanksgiving. We'll catch you next Friday with more interesting stories from the news on What a Weird Week. If you listen this far into the show, we have a bonus song now inspired by a few days ago, it was National Cake Day.
11:21
And we wrote a song about a giant cake ball that was made on top of a hill and rolled down the hill causing some cake panic.
11:38
Cake ball was evil and when it stopped
11:44
Cakeball Carnage Giant Cakeball 800 pounds Terrifying people all over town Ball of cake Brings terror in its way Giant Cakeball
12:13
flattened the mayor and his best friend Bill. So evil. Evil Cakeball Cakeball Cakeball So evil. So delicious. Cakeball Song Continues...
Would YOU do what this Michigan Guy Did? (Because he's a millionaire now.)
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/21/lotto-Michigan-Lottery-rejected-ticket-jackpot/3401763758672/
World Record Big Hair
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/20/Guinness-World-Records-largest-afro-female/1711763655802/
World's Oldest Bus Driver inspires. Exact change please.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/Wichita-Falls-Texas-Guinness-World-Records-oldest-bus-driver/6521764003571/
Robot Takeover Looms. #WalkBot
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/AgiBot-A2-Guinness-World-Records-robot-walk/3681764010764/
Social Media Detox Aint bad for ya *citation **Please Like us on Facebook #Irony
https://studyfinds.org/social-media-detox-leads-to-more-phone-time/
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/21/lotto-Michigan-Lottery-rejected-ticket-jackpot/3401763758672/
World Record Big Hair
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/20/Guinness-World-Records-largest-afro-female/1711763655802/
World's Oldest Bus Driver inspires. Exact change please.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/Wichita-Falls-Texas-Guinness-World-Records-oldest-bus-driver/6521764003571/
Robot Takeover Looms. #WalkBot
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/11/24/AgiBot-A2-Guinness-World-Records-robot-walk/3681764010764/
Social Media Detox Aint bad for ya *citation **Please Like us on Facebook #Irony
https://studyfinds.org/social-media-detox-leads-to-more-phone-time/
Masterpiece found under workbench, sells for $$$!!!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15320595/Dusty-painting-garage-sells-nearly-700-000-identified-500-year-old-Renaissance-masterpiece.html
SNES Shoes: The Game is afoot!
https://www.lowyat.net/2025/374532/air-snes-nike-super-nintendo/
Secret Code Sculpture Seemingly Drives People Bonkers
https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/science/info-to-decipher-secret-message-in-kryptos-sculpture-at-cia-headquarters-sells-for-close-to/article_dcd8d2c7-a176-5f49-8e79-f32e059dcfe3.html
Elvis judge
https://apnews.com/article/missouri-elvis-wig-judge-matthew-thornhill-ac85ac95a5dd942ea87f688fda75b758
Chip Maker Sells Chips, World Reacts.
https://news.yahoo.com/news/tech/general/articles/semiconductor-giant-sk-hynix-now-060742132.html
