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.
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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
episode. To Subscribe/ get in touch/ other/ see www.shownotes.page.
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These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 4 first published Jan 23, 2026.
Thanks for rating and reviewing along with subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 4 first published Jan 23, 2026.
10 Giant Sri Lanka purple star sapphire that is claimed to be the largest of its kind in the world (Sri Lanka unveils a rare purple star sapphire claimed to be the biggest of its kind). Discovered in 2023, the gem has been certified by two laboratories and its owners are ready to sell it for a hundreds of millions!
See it https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTtwhQIgbKw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
and read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Pure_Land
9 Something else to be frightened of? Hurray!! A man in Sydney was bitten by a blue-ringed octopus he mistook for a shell, causing him to become paralyzed and unable to breathe ('I was almost killed by deadly creature after picking up shell on the beach' - The Mirror US). He's OK now, thanks to medical care and also his ex-wife, Courtney, which is a twist we didn't see coming.
8 Delicious Soup Candy!
7 Ski Bunny Hangs Out Around Parking Lot
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/01/15/rabbit-Copper-Mountain-Colorado/2731768501544/
pin link https://pin.it/2E3YBZoY7
6 Cow Uses Broom, World Reacts.
5 What's the deal with that App so People Can Check if you Died ?
4 Will You Be Staying in the Moon Room?
https://nationalpost.com/news/california-company-plans-moon-hotel-accepting-1m-deposits-for-rooms
3 A man has been arrested for allegedly selling the same two cars on Facebook Marketplace, then stealing them back for re-sale (Man sold cars on Facebook Marketplace only steal them from the new owners hours later, police say | The Independent).
2 Serial Guinness World Record-breaker David Rush led a team of 12 tech workers to set a new record at a trade show in Salt Lake City. The group successfully kept 25 balloons in the air for one full minute to claim the title (Watch: 12 tech workers keep 25 balloons in the air for one minute - UPI.com).
A University of Southern California study found that older adults who received the Zostavax shingles vaccine showed blood markers of slower biological aging, including less inflammation and healthier DNA patterns. However, the study was observational, cannot prove causation, and its findings may not apply to the newer Shingrix vaccine (Shingles Vaccine Linked To Slower Biological Aging).
1 A University of Alaska Fairbanks student was arrested for eating parts of an MFA student's AI-generated art installation in an apparent protest. The student was charged with criminal mischief for damaging at least 57 of the 160 images in the exhibit (Art Student Arrested for Eating AI-Generated Art in Protest).
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00:00
Soup candy. Not super candy. Soup candy. What a weird week. Hi everybody, it's Weird. This is like Crazy Boom Heeling. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you today. was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week. It's a show where we go back through the news of the week and we pick out some fun stories. We do a top 10 countdown of
00:26
Weird news stories and you can get all our show notes at the website show notes dot page. This show dropping on Friday, January 23rd, 2026. Number 10 number 10 is the enormous sapphire that was in the news worth up to a whopping $400 million. It's a rare purple star sapphire was unveiled today in Sri Lanka. The owners say it's the largest of its kind.
00:51
It was found in a gem pit in a remote town known as the city of gems. So a couple of things that is from CBS Chicago. They say it's ready to be sold to the highest bidder. It's still privately owned right now and we don't have an update on an auction or anything like that. The other thing I learned from this is if you're ever doing some traveling and you see a place on the map called the city of gems, it's worth a little diversion into the city of gems to see what it's all about.
01:20
If you see a sign that says Gem Pit this way, go to there because there could be gems. Not just city of gems, maybe gem town, Gemsburg, New Geminnton. Go to the gem places. They seem to have their name because there are gems there. If you want to see what the thing looks like, I'll link to the video and some photos, but if you don't have a chance to click, it's about as a little bit smaller than a baseball, a purple polished gem.
01:47
I guess it's just going to be that. It's not going to be like when you think of a giant diamond, you always think, well, they're going to make it into jewelry. I'd like to see it made into one ring, just giant Sapphire on one ring. That would be hilarious and heavy. You'd have to wear it on your strong, on your dominant hand. nine is something else to be scared of. So hooray. I saw the headline this week from the mirror, the mirror US.
02:17
Headline is, I was almost killed by a deadly creature after picking up a shell on the beach. Well, it wasn't a shell. It was somebody on a beach in Sydney, Australia, and they picked up what they thought was a shell. It turned out to be a blue-ringed octopus, which is venomous. And the article says poisonous, but I think they meant venomous. Apparently, apparently, apparently, apparently, apparently, I've never been on.
02:44
I've television before. I don't watch the news. Apparently there's no antidote for the venom from this octopus. The fellow described it as pulsating incredibly blue and that's a sign the octopus is angry. Not happy that you picked it up. It bit the fellow and about 20 minutes later he had no feeling in his thumb. That's where he got bit and then no feeling in his lips. Then the article gets even more interesting. He contacted his ex-wife.
03:14
for help, his ex-wife Courtney. It's a great read, this article. Courtney got him to the hospital. I don't mean to make light of it, the fellow pulled through, but it was scary. He's grateful to be alive. So if you want to read the article, I will link to it in the show notes or click show notes dot page. eight is delicious soup candy. Mmm, mmm, nope. This is hard candy.
03:41
put out by the folks at Progresso or General Mills. So I'm not sure if they have Progresso soups where you're at, but normally it would be a can of soup you would get from this company. And now they have hard candy that tastes like their delicious soup. It's, I would argue, a publicity stunt, but I can't even argue with it because it worked last time they did it. It got a lot of attention. It's getting a lot of attention this time around. Hard candy.
04:10
That tastes like soup. Limited time only. Some of the flavors include chicken noodle, course, tomato basil, and pot roast. Delicious beef pot roast candy. I don't know if you have children or a situation where somebody takes your candy maybe at work, but this sounds like a delightful plan. Put some of the pot roast soup in the candy dish at work or your secret candy stash and see if the kids steal that.
04:40
How do you like the pot roast candy? They're not marketing it as revenge candy, but this seems like revenge candy to me. Number seven. Number seven is the cute bunny that was in the headlines this week. I'm glad we have at least one cute bunny story. This is in Colorado where a bunny at a ski place. People were noticing this bunny and authorities were called because this bunny kept trying to get into people's cars.
05:07
I don't know if this is a cute bunny or a carjacking bunny. Hold on a second. Was it somebody in a suit? No, it was a real bunny. Okay. Real bunny and for some reason wanted to go home with people. Just a friendly bunny, they think. The bunny was so friendly, they thought it was a pet at first. But apparently it was just a ski bunny. Hey, a ski bunny. Number six.
05:33
Number six is the cow, the pet cow in Austria, which is making headlines because it's never happened before with a cow documented anyway. This cow has learned how to take a broom and scratch itself or brush itself like a back scratcher, a cow back scratcher sort of situation. The broom looks like a push broom, maybe a bit smaller, like a brush on the end of a broomstick. And the cow is able to take this broom has figured out I can
06:02
Take this broom in my mouth, manipulate the broom in such a way and then scratch my back. The experts say it's never been documented before where a bovine would use a tool. At first, it seems just silly, right? But biologists are paying attention. What does it mean? What else can we train cows to do? Probably start a podcast. That one pretty low bar. Anyway, to be continued.
06:31
If you want to see the cow, we will link to a photo in the show notes, or you can just close your eyes and imagine a cow. That's what the cow looks like. Number five is that app. It was gaining momentum last week and still around this week. So I guess we got to talk about it. I don't always like the morbid things, but I guess people find this funny too. In China, the app, Are You Dead? continues to be in the headlines.
06:57
So are you dead is an app whereby it's like a buck or something equivalent in China, buck 10 maybe. And you press a green button every day if you're alive. And then anyone who signed up for your feed knows you're not dead. And I don't want to make light of it. I'm pretty sure it's a gimmick and they named it so that it would get attention. And then people thought it was funny, ironically funny perhaps, but it
07:25
Probably could help people right people who live alone. You're worried about a loved one No, no, wait a second if I'm worried about a loved one. I'm not gonna send them the link put this on your phone It's called. Are you dead? No, that's I got to rethink this I was trying to see a bright side to this but you know what if you hated sending text messages heaven forbid you had to call somebody or answer your phone maybe pressing one big green circle and
07:55
easier than texting. four is will you be staying in the moon room? We linked to an article from the national post here in Canada about a 22 year old Canadian fellow. He's behind plans to make a moon hotel. A moon hotel. Aren't we living in crazy times? That was a rhetorical question, but thank you for screaming back at your audio device. This fellow, Skyler,
08:21
wants to have a moon hotel. And now it's in the headlines because you can put down a deposit for a stay at the moon hotel, which I keep calling it the moon hotel, hotel Luna. I don't know what exactly the name is going to be, but cost $1 million American for a deposit. get your deposit back once you stay on the moon. Six years, maybe six years from now. I think the marketing team, whoever is in charge of
08:49
promotions for this hotel eventually, you're going to be able to sell moon pies. You're going to have moon buggies. Probably there's a lot of things you can build on once I get this thing going. three is from Kansas City, United States of America, where a man has been arrested for allegedly selling the same couple of cars on Facebook marketplace. And the business model was sell the car.
09:15
And then often within 24 hours, allegedly often within 24 hours, go steal the car back and sell it to someone else. According to the article, the fellow faces 14 felony charges. If you want to read the article, we link to the independent write up. They say also that this fellow allegedly tried to sell the same car to the same person a couple of times. So that's something not, not to do. If you were aspiring to, you know, maybe
09:45
Try this yourself. Don't sell the stolen car to the same person twice. Number two is David Record Breaker Rush, who is now sometimes described in the articles as a serial Guinness World Record breaker. David Record Breaker Rush, first of all, often shines a light on STEM education when he does his world records. So that's nice. He has the world record for having the most world records, most concurrent world records, and sometimes they are tremendous beats, dangerous or
10:15
Difficult. This one, I'm not judging because I have phoned in a show or two myself on this program. according to the article, he led a team of 12 tech workers to keep 25 balloons in the air for a minute. 12 tech workers, 25 balloons, keep them in the air for one minute. And that's a world record. I feel like this is a record you could beat. Do you know 12 tech workers?
10:44
Perhaps you or someone you know has contact information for 12 tech workers. Do you have access to perhaps 26 balloons? Well, I think you've got everything you need to break this world record. And I'm sorry, David Record Breaker Rush, don't mean to take away from your achievement, but little friendly competition. Honorable Mention. Mention. This week, honorable mention, just flat out good news.
11:12
I'm not going to sugar coat. Wait, do you you don't sugar coat? Good news. I'm going to, you're getting nothing but the sugar coating. The university of Southern California study has made headlines this week. They were looking into older adults who got a shingles vaccine, a certain shingles drug. And it would seem as though there is some reverse aging going on. No slower biological aging. Some other benefits too. They need to do more research and stuff.
11:40
but there seems to be some sort of correlation between this shingles vaccine and slower biological aging. I don't want to get too like out there, but imagine if they could give you this drug and it gave you more time. It just gave you more time. You just started to now your birthday was every 18 months instead of every year. Hey, that maybe could be a movie plot. Number one.
12:06
Number one is from the university of Alaska Fairbanks where it's making headlines. A student had an art exhibit, an art installation, and it was AI generated art. This artist was trying to make some sort of statement with AI art. And when you see the photos, it looks like a whole bunch of little pictures on the wall. And so another student, I guess was trying to make another statement about AI art.
12:34
And that student ate the first student's art installation. 57 of the 160 pictures that were up, this person tore off the wall and ate. And to me, that seems like performance art. But I'm not smart about art. I don't get any of it. But we've heard stories before, like the duct tape banana, you know, one artist puts up a duct tape banana, another artist comes along and eats it. Both ruled as art.
13:05
In this case, though, the student who ate the art was charged with criminal mischief. Not art was not charged with doing art. So on one hand, hilarious. On the other hand, if you're the artist who took all the time or I don't know if a number of people put those pictures on the wall or whatever, you go to all that trouble and then somebody eats your art. But on a third hand, you're getting a lot of attention for your art. I'm glad I'm not a judge on this case.
13:33
Because how do you know what is art? I mean, you kind of know. You can't just go around eating anything and call it performance art. You couldn't go eat the Mona Lisa. That would be bad. Also, you should not eat your colleagues lunch out of the staff room refrigerator and leave a note that says, I'm an artist. I guess maybe, you know what? It's not that hard, actually. It's not that difficult. I think the judge is going to be OK on this.
13:59
And that is that. I thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. We do weird news and fun news, not the serious news which has been unfolding these days. If you want to our show notes, we put everything at shownotes.page. And we'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things, fun things from the news on What a Weird Week.
Soup candy. Not super candy. Soup candy. What a weird week. Hi everybody, it's Weird. This is like Crazy Boom Heeling. Weird. Really weird. Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you today. was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Friends, I'm Scott. This is What a Weird Week. It's a show where we go back through the news of the week and we pick out some fun stories. We do a top 10 countdown of
00:26
Weird news stories and you can get all our show notes at the website show notes dot page. This show dropping on Friday, January 23rd, 2026. Number 10 number 10 is the enormous sapphire that was in the news worth up to a whopping $400 million. It's a rare purple star sapphire was unveiled today in Sri Lanka. The owners say it's the largest of its kind.
00:51
It was found in a gem pit in a remote town known as the city of gems. So a couple of things that is from CBS Chicago. They say it's ready to be sold to the highest bidder. It's still privately owned right now and we don't have an update on an auction or anything like that. The other thing I learned from this is if you're ever doing some traveling and you see a place on the map called the city of gems, it's worth a little diversion into the city of gems to see what it's all about.
01:20
If you see a sign that says Gem Pit this way, go to there because there could be gems. Not just city of gems, maybe gem town, Gemsburg, New Geminnton. Go to the gem places. They seem to have their name because there are gems there. If you want to see what the thing looks like, I'll link to the video and some photos, but if you don't have a chance to click, it's about as a little bit smaller than a baseball, a purple polished gem.
01:47
I guess it's just going to be that. It's not going to be like when you think of a giant diamond, you always think, well, they're going to make it into jewelry. I'd like to see it made into one ring, just giant Sapphire on one ring. That would be hilarious and heavy. You'd have to wear it on your strong, on your dominant hand. nine is something else to be scared of. So hooray. I saw the headline this week from the mirror, the mirror US.
02:17
Headline is, I was almost killed by a deadly creature after picking up a shell on the beach. Well, it wasn't a shell. It was somebody on a beach in Sydney, Australia, and they picked up what they thought was a shell. It turned out to be a blue-ringed octopus, which is venomous. And the article says poisonous, but I think they meant venomous. Apparently, apparently, apparently, apparently, apparently, I've never been on.
02:44
I've television before. I don't watch the news. Apparently there's no antidote for the venom from this octopus. The fellow described it as pulsating incredibly blue and that's a sign the octopus is angry. Not happy that you picked it up. It bit the fellow and about 20 minutes later he had no feeling in his thumb. That's where he got bit and then no feeling in his lips. Then the article gets even more interesting. He contacted his ex-wife.
03:14
for help, his ex-wife Courtney. It's a great read, this article. Courtney got him to the hospital. I don't mean to make light of it, the fellow pulled through, but it was scary. He's grateful to be alive. So if you want to read the article, I will link to it in the show notes or click show notes dot page. eight is delicious soup candy. Mmm, mmm, nope. This is hard candy.
03:41
put out by the folks at Progresso or General Mills. So I'm not sure if they have Progresso soups where you're at, but normally it would be a can of soup you would get from this company. And now they have hard candy that tastes like their delicious soup. It's, I would argue, a publicity stunt, but I can't even argue with it because it worked last time they did it. It got a lot of attention. It's getting a lot of attention this time around. Hard candy.
04:10
That tastes like soup. Limited time only. Some of the flavors include chicken noodle, course, tomato basil, and pot roast. Delicious beef pot roast candy. I don't know if you have children or a situation where somebody takes your candy maybe at work, but this sounds like a delightful plan. Put some of the pot roast soup in the candy dish at work or your secret candy stash and see if the kids steal that.
04:40
How do you like the pot roast candy? They're not marketing it as revenge candy, but this seems like revenge candy to me. Number seven. Number seven is the cute bunny that was in the headlines this week. I'm glad we have at least one cute bunny story. This is in Colorado where a bunny at a ski place. People were noticing this bunny and authorities were called because this bunny kept trying to get into people's cars.
05:07
I don't know if this is a cute bunny or a carjacking bunny. Hold on a second. Was it somebody in a suit? No, it was a real bunny. Okay. Real bunny and for some reason wanted to go home with people. Just a friendly bunny, they think. The bunny was so friendly, they thought it was a pet at first. But apparently it was just a ski bunny. Hey, a ski bunny. Number six.
05:33
Number six is the cow, the pet cow in Austria, which is making headlines because it's never happened before with a cow documented anyway. This cow has learned how to take a broom and scratch itself or brush itself like a back scratcher, a cow back scratcher sort of situation. The broom looks like a push broom, maybe a bit smaller, like a brush on the end of a broomstick. And the cow is able to take this broom has figured out I can
06:02
Take this broom in my mouth, manipulate the broom in such a way and then scratch my back. The experts say it's never been documented before where a bovine would use a tool. At first, it seems just silly, right? But biologists are paying attention. What does it mean? What else can we train cows to do? Probably start a podcast. That one pretty low bar. Anyway, to be continued.
06:31
If you want to see the cow, we will link to a photo in the show notes, or you can just close your eyes and imagine a cow. That's what the cow looks like. Number five is that app. It was gaining momentum last week and still around this week. So I guess we got to talk about it. I don't always like the morbid things, but I guess people find this funny too. In China, the app, Are You Dead? continues to be in the headlines.
06:57
So are you dead is an app whereby it's like a buck or something equivalent in China, buck 10 maybe. And you press a green button every day if you're alive. And then anyone who signed up for your feed knows you're not dead. And I don't want to make light of it. I'm pretty sure it's a gimmick and they named it so that it would get attention. And then people thought it was funny, ironically funny perhaps, but it
07:25
Probably could help people right people who live alone. You're worried about a loved one No, no, wait a second if I'm worried about a loved one. I'm not gonna send them the link put this on your phone It's called. Are you dead? No, that's I got to rethink this I was trying to see a bright side to this but you know what if you hated sending text messages heaven forbid you had to call somebody or answer your phone maybe pressing one big green circle and
07:55
easier than texting. four is will you be staying in the moon room? We linked to an article from the national post here in Canada about a 22 year old Canadian fellow. He's behind plans to make a moon hotel. A moon hotel. Aren't we living in crazy times? That was a rhetorical question, but thank you for screaming back at your audio device. This fellow, Skyler,
08:21
wants to have a moon hotel. And now it's in the headlines because you can put down a deposit for a stay at the moon hotel, which I keep calling it the moon hotel, hotel Luna. I don't know what exactly the name is going to be, but cost $1 million American for a deposit. get your deposit back once you stay on the moon. Six years, maybe six years from now. I think the marketing team, whoever is in charge of
08:49
promotions for this hotel eventually, you're going to be able to sell moon pies. You're going to have moon buggies. Probably there's a lot of things you can build on once I get this thing going. three is from Kansas City, United States of America, where a man has been arrested for allegedly selling the same couple of cars on Facebook marketplace. And the business model was sell the car.
09:15
And then often within 24 hours, allegedly often within 24 hours, go steal the car back and sell it to someone else. According to the article, the fellow faces 14 felony charges. If you want to read the article, we link to the independent write up. They say also that this fellow allegedly tried to sell the same car to the same person a couple of times. So that's something not, not to do. If you were aspiring to, you know, maybe
09:45
Try this yourself. Don't sell the stolen car to the same person twice. Number two is David Record Breaker Rush, who is now sometimes described in the articles as a serial Guinness World Record breaker. David Record Breaker Rush, first of all, often shines a light on STEM education when he does his world records. So that's nice. He has the world record for having the most world records, most concurrent world records, and sometimes they are tremendous beats, dangerous or
10:15
Difficult. This one, I'm not judging because I have phoned in a show or two myself on this program. according to the article, he led a team of 12 tech workers to keep 25 balloons in the air for a minute. 12 tech workers, 25 balloons, keep them in the air for one minute. And that's a world record. I feel like this is a record you could beat. Do you know 12 tech workers?
10:44
Perhaps you or someone you know has contact information for 12 tech workers. Do you have access to perhaps 26 balloons? Well, I think you've got everything you need to break this world record. And I'm sorry, David Record Breaker Rush, don't mean to take away from your achievement, but little friendly competition. Honorable Mention. Mention. This week, honorable mention, just flat out good news.
11:12
I'm not going to sugar coat. Wait, do you you don't sugar coat? Good news. I'm going to, you're getting nothing but the sugar coating. The university of Southern California study has made headlines this week. They were looking into older adults who got a shingles vaccine, a certain shingles drug. And it would seem as though there is some reverse aging going on. No slower biological aging. Some other benefits too. They need to do more research and stuff.
11:40
but there seems to be some sort of correlation between this shingles vaccine and slower biological aging. I don't want to get too like out there, but imagine if they could give you this drug and it gave you more time. It just gave you more time. You just started to now your birthday was every 18 months instead of every year. Hey, that maybe could be a movie plot. Number one.
12:06
Number one is from the university of Alaska Fairbanks where it's making headlines. A student had an art exhibit, an art installation, and it was AI generated art. This artist was trying to make some sort of statement with AI art. And when you see the photos, it looks like a whole bunch of little pictures on the wall. And so another student, I guess was trying to make another statement about AI art.
12:34
And that student ate the first student's art installation. 57 of the 160 pictures that were up, this person tore off the wall and ate. And to me, that seems like performance art. But I'm not smart about art. I don't get any of it. But we've heard stories before, like the duct tape banana, you know, one artist puts up a duct tape banana, another artist comes along and eats it. Both ruled as art.
13:05
In this case, though, the student who ate the art was charged with criminal mischief. Not art was not charged with doing art. So on one hand, hilarious. On the other hand, if you're the artist who took all the time or I don't know if a number of people put those pictures on the wall or whatever, you go to all that trouble and then somebody eats your art. But on a third hand, you're getting a lot of attention for your art. I'm glad I'm not a judge on this case.
13:33
Because how do you know what is art? I mean, you kind of know. You can't just go around eating anything and call it performance art. You couldn't go eat the Mona Lisa. That would be bad. Also, you should not eat your colleagues lunch out of the staff room refrigerator and leave a note that says, I'm an artist. I guess maybe, you know what? It's not that hard, actually. It's not that difficult. I think the judge is going to be OK on this.
13:59
And that is that. I thank you for listening to What a Weird Week. We do weird news and fun news, not the serious news which has been unfolding these days. If you want to our show notes, we put everything at shownotes.page. And we'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things, fun things from the news on What a Weird Week.
Scotty and Tony Radio Show Contact Links at NEWCOUNTRY969.CA/SCOTTYANDTONY.