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.
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 along with subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 10 first published March 6th, 2026.
Thanks for rating and reviewing along with subscribing!
These are the shownotes for Season 7, Ep 10 first published March 6th, 2026.
10 New York Governor Kathy Hochul intervened after the state's DMV revoked a grandfather's vanity license plate reading "PB4WEGO," which stands for "pee before we go." The governor publicly supported the message and had the plate reinstated after the DMV had deemed it inappropriate. (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/02/26/license-plate-PB4WEGO-Gov-Kathy-Hochul/3131772123934/)
9 An Ottawa man was captured on video being chased by two aggressive turkeys, forcing him to escape the birds by jumping into a stranger's car.
8 Callers to Washington's Department of Licensing hotline who selected the Spanish language option were instead met with an AI voice speaking English in a heavy Spanish accent. The agency has apologized.
7 Scientists in China have created tomatoes that produce a distinct popcorn-like aroma. (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/scientists-create-tomatoes-that-smell-like-popcorn-using-gene-editing-3324624/).
6 A woman with a prior conviction for stowing away on a flight to Paris has allegedly done it again?! (https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/26/us/stowaway-flies-again)
5 Formula 1 car-sized KitKat unveiled. (https://lbbonline.com/news/KitKat-Life-Sized-Chocolate-Formula-1)
4 A man in Manchester, UK, became trapped inside a classic red phone box when the door locked behind him (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/man-rescued-by-firefighters-after-getting-stuck-in-phone-box-trying-to-order-kebab-3329298/).
3 A new survey of 2,000 coffee drinkers found that nearly half go to bed earlier just to ensure they have enough time for their morning coffee ritual. (https://talkerresearch.com/good-coffee-good-day-most-say-it-drives-success-and-productivity/)
HM Meat Shower Anniversary
On March 3, 1876, the Kentucky Meat Shower happened. A Mystery meat (*or meat
substitute*) fell from the sky. How? Why? What-the-hey? All good
questions. It's still a mystery.
- The Event: For several minutes around noon on March 3, 1876, pieces of what appeared to be fresh meat rained down over a 100-by-50-yard area near the home of Allen Crouch.
- The "Meat": The chunks were typically small, about 2 square inches, but some were larger. Witnesses who were brave enough to taste it said it seemed to be venison or mutton.
- Scientific Analysis: Samples were sent to scientists for analysis. While one early report suggested it was a type of cyanobacteria called Nostoc, further microscopic examination confirmed it was animal tissue.
- The Leading Theory: *PG 13 for GROSSNESS* The most widely accepted explanation is also the most graphic: a flock of vultures (or "buzzards") flying overhead simultaneously regurgitated their recent meal. Vultures often vomit as a defense mechanism or to lighten their load for a quick takeoff.
- The Mystery Continues:
While the vulture theory is the most plausible, the exact cause has
never been definitively proven. A preserved sample of the meat is
believed to still exist at Transylvania University, but its age has made
modern DNA analysis inconclusive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower).
Weird stuff falls from the sky sometimes. Here's some more:
- Fish & Frogs: They're pretty sure this happens because of waterspouts or tornadoes over water ... fish and frogs can get sucked up into the atmosphere and dropped miles away.
- "Blood" Rain: A town in Spain once woke up to a grisly red rain. The terrifying sight wasn't blood, but was later identified as a high concentration of red-colored algae that had been swept up into the clouds.
- The Kentucky Meat Shower: In 1876, chunks of what appeared to be meat fell over a field in Kentucky. The source of this mysterious meat shower is still debated today.
- Baby Spiders: Residents in Australia and Brazil have experienced "spider rain," where thousands of baby spiders seem to fall from the sky. This happens during a migration event called "ballooning," where spiders use their silk to ride the wind.
- Golf Balls: In 1969, dozens of golf balls mysteriously rained down on Punta Gorda, Florida. It's believed a waterspout passed over a golf course pond and scooped them up.
- Money: It truly rained money in Kuwait City in 2015 when millions of banknotes fluttered down from the sky for several minutes.
For a deeper dive into these strange events and more, check out the full original article! (https://www.thefactsite.com/weirdest-things-that-fell-from-sky/)
HM According to new research, backseat driving is the most irritating passenger habit for American drivers. We can only tolerate annoying passenger behavior for an average of thirteen minutes. (https://talkerresearch.com/study-confirms-backseat-driving-drives-people-crazy/)
2 *trigger warning! bird peril!* The Seagull and the Footballer (https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/turkish-footballer-hailed-hero-saving-180222008.html)
1 After 6000 years it turns out they are not extinct?!
(https://www.newscientist.com/article/2518082-two-marsupials-believed-extinct-for-6000-years-found-alive/)
(https://www.newscientist.com/article/2518082-two-marsupials-believed-extinct-for-6000-years-found-alive/)
Transcript below.
Spotify Stream...
YouTube stream
TRANSCRIPT!
00:00
10 not serious but weird stories from this week's news. What a weird week. Hi everybody. Weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great job. It was so wonderful. Okay, let's jump right into our top 10 countdown of the weird and odd and fun interesting stories from the news. If you want to get the pictures and the videos or learn more about our podcast, you can go to our show notes page at show notes dot
00:29
page. 10 is how the governor of New York, United States of America has stepped in to save the P before we go license plate. A fellow on Long Island in New York, a Grampy, had the license plate, the letter P, the letter B, the number four, and then we go, P before we go. And that was found to be in violation of the DMV rules against vanity plates being
00:55
derogatory, contemptuous, degrading, disrespectful or inflammatory. I imagine sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not easy to make that decision. But somebody at the DMV made the decision that the license plate was no good, degrading or disrespectful or one of those things. So the fellow on Long Island started an awareness raising campaign about his pee before we go license plate. The governor actually in speaking with the fellow from Long Island said, we'll get that plate back for you. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but everybody should be reminded to pee before you go.
01:25
So it was a helpful license plate. Oh, I want to go back on uh one thing. So I said that Grampy with the license plate started an awareness raising campaign. And technically, I think that's what was going on. But part of that was to run for governor. So running for governor of New York and Grampy's platform was P before you go. Seth Bykovsky of Long Island says it is a simple plea for his grandchildren before they hit the road. But the DMV says it's.
01:54
objectionable. The good news for Seth. This is Governor Kathy Hockel. How are you today? Governor, what a pleasure. How are you? Good. I read about your plight in the news that the DMV took away your hilarious license plate. I loved it. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Well, I'm going to get it back for you. That coverage from CBS six Albany. We'll link to that in the show notes. Number nine. Number nine is this fellow.
02:24
So I see a couple of turkeys. I didn't think too much of it. said, Hey, what's up turkeys? Then they started coming at me. I was just minding my business, walking down the sidewalk. They started approaching me and like, I was just like, okay, I don't, I don't want none of that. Whatever this is. don't want it. one point you turn around and kick some snow at them. Yeah. Because at this point they were like, they were starting to like get up, like they were getting, they were giving me the business. Then some lady in her car just yelled like, Hey, come on, hop in. so you, and you didn't, you didn't hesitate jumping in.
02:52
No, I was just like, you know what, like she's some random lady in the car. I look like the Unabomber. So like she's the one who's reaching out here. And honestly, I just want to get away from these jerkeys. That's some of the coverage from CBC News Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, planet Earth. And that is Mike, who walking home from work was attacked by a couple of turkeys. You don't see that every day in Canada. I'll tell you that Mike had to flee to safety and a kind stranger said hop in my car.
03:21
It's safe. I'll link to that video in the show notes. Click show notes dot page. We do have a few turkeys here in East Coast Canada, like it's a growing wild turkey population, but usually you don't encounter them on the sidewalk. So I went online to learn a bit more because maybe you're like me, you don't have too many wild turkeys. It's only a matter of time until they begin taking over our residential neighborhoods. If they could come for the capital of Canada, Ottawa, I feel like it's only a matter of time. We've got to be ready all over.
03:51
All over the globe, the internet says use dominant body language, stand your ground, even move aggressively towards turkeys. Some wild animals you don't know. You move aggressively towards a moose. That moose is going to move aggressively towards you. But the internet says stand your ground or move aggressively. Keep the turkey in front of you. Don't turn your back on a turkey. Make yourself look larger by raising your hands above your head.
04:18
There's a few other things I'll link to this in the show notes as well. If you click show notes dot page number eight, number eight was kind of a famous one this past week. Got picked up a lot in the news as a kicker and it got picked up on the late night shows. So, you know, when you call a hotline and you get the machine or the AI and it says, if you'd like to hear English press one, Spanish press two, or where I live, it's more French press two. Well, callers to the Washington Department of Licensing hotline.
04:48
When they press the button for Spanish, they didn't get Spanish. They got someone speaking English with a Spanish accent. And somehow that made it all the way through to, you know, being an option when you call the hotline, some sort of AI mix up. Last July, her husband called them and followed the AI generated prompts. He clicked Spanish and he was like, you have got to hear what just happened when I clicked Spanish. Here's what they heard.
05:16
Thank you for calling the Department of Licensing Customer Support Center. English with a Spanish accent. Last week she discovered no one had fixed it. So she posted again. It's now half in Spanish and half in English. This time her video went viral and the agency got the message. That's a bit of the coverage from KGW 8 News. Link in the show notes. Number seven. Number seven is the gene editing technology that scientists in China
05:45
have used to create tomatoes that smell like popcorn. The article gets into what they did to the genes of the tomato to make it smell of delicious popcorn. The article doesn't get into why take tomatoes and change them. I think it's because they could. I'm jumping to a couple of conclusions because there's not a lot of detail in the article, but I think it's that they could, they could do the gene editing on the tomatoes.
06:15
I would hazard a guess that tomatoes are an easy one to work with as far as gene editing. But what am I a gene editor? No. And then the same for why popcorn aroma. I think it's possible that the gene editing to get a popcorn aroma is just faster than, you know, a more complicated like potpourri. That would have been more complicated. That would have taken more gene editing. I think my thing is what if you don't like tomatoes anyway and you don't like popcorn?
06:45
You're just, they just took something you didn't like and made it into something else you didn't like. I'm sure nacho cheese is on the way. Nacho cheese flavor, tomatoes on the way soon. Fingers crossed. Number six. Number six is the lady Svetlana, who we talked about on this program before, a lady with a prior conviction for stowing away on a flight to Paris has allegedly done it again. Got past some staff in Newark, got on a flight to Milan.
07:13
discovered mid-flight, no ticket, detained once the plane landed by Italian police or law enforcement, and now there's an FBI investigation. Svetlana, how, if this is true, you know, innocent until proven guilty, but how? I'll tell you what, if this is true, it would seem like Svetlana has figured it out. Security camera video shows the moment a woman allegedly sneaked onto a plane without a ticket. A spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration.
07:41
told CNN that she first bypassed an airport employee and skipped stations where her ID and boarding pass would have been checked. She blended herself in with what appeared to be a family traveling together and followed them onto the jet bridge. That's a bit of the coverage from CNN. link to that. Number five is the giant Formula One car. Well, no, it's a normal size Formula One car, but it is made of chocolate. So normal size car, if it were a car.
08:10
enormous if it's a chocolate bar. This is all about getting attention for KitKat and Formula One, their partnership. The chocolate KitKat car is 350 kilograms. So double that and a little bit more, 700 and some pounds of delicious chocolate. They say the car is the equivalent of almost 17,000 KitKats. No wait, two finger KitKats. So I guess that would be what Halloween size, fun size KitKats. 17,000 fun size KitKats?
08:40
Where I live most KitKats come in two finger, if that's Halloween, four finger normal bar or the KitKat Chunky, which I believe is kind of semi chocolate famous. Our Canadian KitKat Chunky bars are a delicious sought after commodity. One of our national treasures. Number four is the man in Manchester, United Kingdom who had to be rescued from a phone box or phone booth. Around here I would
09:08
say phone booth, I think they're semi interchangeable. Phone box. It's, if you don't have a chance to click the article, it is a classic red phone box that you would imagine in the United Kingdom. That's what we're talking about. First, let me say, if you've never navigated a phone booth, many people haven't. You're kind of going away. Maybe you've never had the pleasure. The doors can be tricky anyway. On a traditional phone booth, the way the door folds open, you slide in, you can forget how to open the thing.
09:39
That's not what is going on here. This fellow, first of all, he goes in the phone box. The article says the door locked behind him. There's no phone in there. I mean, they're not in use anymore. But you'll often see a phone booth or a red phone box in a neighborhood. So the door snaps shut and locks behind him. The fellow is not even alone. He's with friends. The friends can't get the door open.
10:06
The article says you need a special key to get that door open, the red phone box in the United Kingdom. Eventually firefighters rescued the fellow. After about an hour of being trapped, that would freak me out a bit. Number three. A new study of 2000 coffee drinkers found that nearly half go to bed early to ensure you have enough time for your morning coffee the next day. So you're going to bed early and the reason is you're already looking forward to the next day's coffee.
10:35
This survey funded by a coffee company in advance of daylight saving. Our episode is dropping on daylight saving weekend, 2026. So one of the other things they found was almost a hundred percent of us make our own coffee in the morning. 93 % of us make our own coffee in the morning, which I'm kind of surprised by that. mean, I do that, I guess, but when you go by the coffee place in the morning, the drive-through it's lined up like crazy.
11:03
Somebody's not making their own coffee. Honorable Mention. Mention. Mention. This week for an honorable mention, I wanted to look back at something that happened in history, weird history, which I know there are many shows and podcasts that cover weird history. That's not really what we do. Usually we're all about, you know, what's happening right now. What's in the news, the weird or interesting news items. But the Kentucky meat shower doesn't get enough coverage. Oh, there I said it.
11:31
All of the weird history podcasts and stuff, it gets a little coverage, but it's a super weird thing that happened that everyone should know about. Personal opinion. In 1876, on March 3rd, 1876, the Kentucky meat shower happened. A mystery meat or meat substitute perhaps fell from the sky and people weren't as freaked out as I thought they would be. People kind of took it as, look at that, it's raining meat.
11:59
That's my summation of the article we linked to, but and some of it is gross. Some of the theories kind of gross. Where did the meat come from? It's there are theories about why it rained meat this week in 1876 in Kentucky, but nothing conclusive. Also, if you click, we do have a list of other prominent items that have fallen from the sky. Fish, frogs, baby spiders, golf balls and money. So that's your honorable mention. You can click the show notes for more.
12:28
or go to show notes dot page. Another honorable mention honorable mention. This honorable mention is about the research that came out concerning backseat drivers. In case you don't know what a backseat driver is, our show goes out over the worldwide super highway of internet and perhaps where you are. Backseat driver isn't as common a term. I'm not sure. But backseat driving is when you're in a vehicle, but you're not the driver. But you tell the driver how to drive.
12:58
A study of 2000 drivers found that we do not like it when people are backseat driving. That's not earth shattering. You could have predicted that. But this study got into specifically how long can we take it? 13 minutes, it turns out. We could take about 13 minutes of the backseat driving and then that's it. two, will put a trigger warning if you click the link because you might find the footage disturbing. It ends happy.
13:27
but it's that seagull that was hit with a soccer ball or football. So at the football match or here we would call it soccer, someone kicks the ball, an athlete kicks the ball very hard and a seagull happens to be flying over or changes course and gets hit by the soccer ball or football and falls from the sky and it looks like the seagull, well the seagull is unresponsive. One of the players at the football match starts doing what looks like seagull CPR.
13:57
chest compressions and it doesn't look good for a while and then suddenly the seagull comes back to life and is saved. So it has a happy ending, but it's harrowing to watch. I love stories like this. I would categorize this as good news. This is about the two animals they thought were extinct. And by they, mean, you know, the scientific community thought these animals were extinct for thousands of years, for 6,000 years, perhaps.
14:26
These animals haven't been seen. It was believed they were extinct and they've been rediscovered. Scientists worked with indigenous communities in New Guinea and they have rediscovered the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider. Gliders are those things that jump from the trees and glide. You know what? It was probably right there in the name you didn't need me to describe. The pygmy long-fingered possum
14:55
Well, they have long fingers. It's also right in the name. One thing you may not garnish from the names of the beasts, they are cute. They will sell a lot of t-shirts with these animals on them or coffee mugs. So I predict a wonderful windfall for the scientific community and the animal conservation community selling t-shirts with pygmy long fingered possums and selling mugs with ring-tailed gliders on
15:23
So I'll link to those photos and the whole article if you click show notes dot page. One more thing. It's kind of fascinating to think this. They have fossils of these animals. They thought that's all they were ever going to have again was fossils. And then the pygmy long fingered possums and the ring-tailed gliders were like, hold my beer or other other comical phrase. And that's a wrap on this week's What a Weird Week.
15:50
where we look at the fun or the interesting or weird news of the week, never the serious news. There's a lot of that, I know. Thank you for checking out the program. We'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things from the news on What a Weird Week.
10 not serious but weird stories from this week's news. What a weird week. Hi everybody. Weird. This is like crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great job. It was so wonderful. Okay, let's jump right into our top 10 countdown of the weird and odd and fun interesting stories from the news. If you want to get the pictures and the videos or learn more about our podcast, you can go to our show notes page at show notes dot
00:29
page. 10 is how the governor of New York, United States of America has stepped in to save the P before we go license plate. A fellow on Long Island in New York, a Grampy, had the license plate, the letter P, the letter B, the number four, and then we go, P before we go. And that was found to be in violation of the DMV rules against vanity plates being
00:55
derogatory, contemptuous, degrading, disrespectful or inflammatory. I imagine sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not easy to make that decision. But somebody at the DMV made the decision that the license plate was no good, degrading or disrespectful or one of those things. So the fellow on Long Island started an awareness raising campaign about his pee before we go license plate. The governor actually in speaking with the fellow from Long Island said, we'll get that plate back for you. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but everybody should be reminded to pee before you go.
01:25
So it was a helpful license plate. Oh, I want to go back on uh one thing. So I said that Grampy with the license plate started an awareness raising campaign. And technically, I think that's what was going on. But part of that was to run for governor. So running for governor of New York and Grampy's platform was P before you go. Seth Bykovsky of Long Island says it is a simple plea for his grandchildren before they hit the road. But the DMV says it's.
01:54
objectionable. The good news for Seth. This is Governor Kathy Hockel. How are you today? Governor, what a pleasure. How are you? Good. I read about your plight in the news that the DMV took away your hilarious license plate. I loved it. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Well, I'm going to get it back for you. That coverage from CBS six Albany. We'll link to that in the show notes. Number nine. Number nine is this fellow.
02:24
So I see a couple of turkeys. I didn't think too much of it. said, Hey, what's up turkeys? Then they started coming at me. I was just minding my business, walking down the sidewalk. They started approaching me and like, I was just like, okay, I don't, I don't want none of that. Whatever this is. don't want it. one point you turn around and kick some snow at them. Yeah. Because at this point they were like, they were starting to like get up, like they were getting, they were giving me the business. Then some lady in her car just yelled like, Hey, come on, hop in. so you, and you didn't, you didn't hesitate jumping in.
02:52
No, I was just like, you know what, like she's some random lady in the car. I look like the Unabomber. So like she's the one who's reaching out here. And honestly, I just want to get away from these jerkeys. That's some of the coverage from CBC News Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, planet Earth. And that is Mike, who walking home from work was attacked by a couple of turkeys. You don't see that every day in Canada. I'll tell you that Mike had to flee to safety and a kind stranger said hop in my car.
03:21
It's safe. I'll link to that video in the show notes. Click show notes dot page. We do have a few turkeys here in East Coast Canada, like it's a growing wild turkey population, but usually you don't encounter them on the sidewalk. So I went online to learn a bit more because maybe you're like me, you don't have too many wild turkeys. It's only a matter of time until they begin taking over our residential neighborhoods. If they could come for the capital of Canada, Ottawa, I feel like it's only a matter of time. We've got to be ready all over.
03:51
All over the globe, the internet says use dominant body language, stand your ground, even move aggressively towards turkeys. Some wild animals you don't know. You move aggressively towards a moose. That moose is going to move aggressively towards you. But the internet says stand your ground or move aggressively. Keep the turkey in front of you. Don't turn your back on a turkey. Make yourself look larger by raising your hands above your head.
04:18
There's a few other things I'll link to this in the show notes as well. If you click show notes dot page number eight, number eight was kind of a famous one this past week. Got picked up a lot in the news as a kicker and it got picked up on the late night shows. So, you know, when you call a hotline and you get the machine or the AI and it says, if you'd like to hear English press one, Spanish press two, or where I live, it's more French press two. Well, callers to the Washington Department of Licensing hotline.
04:48
When they press the button for Spanish, they didn't get Spanish. They got someone speaking English with a Spanish accent. And somehow that made it all the way through to, you know, being an option when you call the hotline, some sort of AI mix up. Last July, her husband called them and followed the AI generated prompts. He clicked Spanish and he was like, you have got to hear what just happened when I clicked Spanish. Here's what they heard.
05:16
Thank you for calling the Department of Licensing Customer Support Center. English with a Spanish accent. Last week she discovered no one had fixed it. So she posted again. It's now half in Spanish and half in English. This time her video went viral and the agency got the message. That's a bit of the coverage from KGW 8 News. Link in the show notes. Number seven. Number seven is the gene editing technology that scientists in China
05:45
have used to create tomatoes that smell like popcorn. The article gets into what they did to the genes of the tomato to make it smell of delicious popcorn. The article doesn't get into why take tomatoes and change them. I think it's because they could. I'm jumping to a couple of conclusions because there's not a lot of detail in the article, but I think it's that they could, they could do the gene editing on the tomatoes.
06:15
I would hazard a guess that tomatoes are an easy one to work with as far as gene editing. But what am I a gene editor? No. And then the same for why popcorn aroma. I think it's possible that the gene editing to get a popcorn aroma is just faster than, you know, a more complicated like potpourri. That would have been more complicated. That would have taken more gene editing. I think my thing is what if you don't like tomatoes anyway and you don't like popcorn?
06:45
You're just, they just took something you didn't like and made it into something else you didn't like. I'm sure nacho cheese is on the way. Nacho cheese flavor, tomatoes on the way soon. Fingers crossed. Number six. Number six is the lady Svetlana, who we talked about on this program before, a lady with a prior conviction for stowing away on a flight to Paris has allegedly done it again. Got past some staff in Newark, got on a flight to Milan.
07:13
discovered mid-flight, no ticket, detained once the plane landed by Italian police or law enforcement, and now there's an FBI investigation. Svetlana, how, if this is true, you know, innocent until proven guilty, but how? I'll tell you what, if this is true, it would seem like Svetlana has figured it out. Security camera video shows the moment a woman allegedly sneaked onto a plane without a ticket. A spokesperson for the Transportation Security Administration.
07:41
told CNN that she first bypassed an airport employee and skipped stations where her ID and boarding pass would have been checked. She blended herself in with what appeared to be a family traveling together and followed them onto the jet bridge. That's a bit of the coverage from CNN. link to that. Number five is the giant Formula One car. Well, no, it's a normal size Formula One car, but it is made of chocolate. So normal size car, if it were a car.
08:10
enormous if it's a chocolate bar. This is all about getting attention for KitKat and Formula One, their partnership. The chocolate KitKat car is 350 kilograms. So double that and a little bit more, 700 and some pounds of delicious chocolate. They say the car is the equivalent of almost 17,000 KitKats. No wait, two finger KitKats. So I guess that would be what Halloween size, fun size KitKats. 17,000 fun size KitKats?
08:40
Where I live most KitKats come in two finger, if that's Halloween, four finger normal bar or the KitKat Chunky, which I believe is kind of semi chocolate famous. Our Canadian KitKat Chunky bars are a delicious sought after commodity. One of our national treasures. Number four is the man in Manchester, United Kingdom who had to be rescued from a phone box or phone booth. Around here I would
09:08
say phone booth, I think they're semi interchangeable. Phone box. It's, if you don't have a chance to click the article, it is a classic red phone box that you would imagine in the United Kingdom. That's what we're talking about. First, let me say, if you've never navigated a phone booth, many people haven't. You're kind of going away. Maybe you've never had the pleasure. The doors can be tricky anyway. On a traditional phone booth, the way the door folds open, you slide in, you can forget how to open the thing.
09:39
That's not what is going on here. This fellow, first of all, he goes in the phone box. The article says the door locked behind him. There's no phone in there. I mean, they're not in use anymore. But you'll often see a phone booth or a red phone box in a neighborhood. So the door snaps shut and locks behind him. The fellow is not even alone. He's with friends. The friends can't get the door open.
10:06
The article says you need a special key to get that door open, the red phone box in the United Kingdom. Eventually firefighters rescued the fellow. After about an hour of being trapped, that would freak me out a bit. Number three. A new study of 2000 coffee drinkers found that nearly half go to bed early to ensure you have enough time for your morning coffee the next day. So you're going to bed early and the reason is you're already looking forward to the next day's coffee.
10:35
This survey funded by a coffee company in advance of daylight saving. Our episode is dropping on daylight saving weekend, 2026. So one of the other things they found was almost a hundred percent of us make our own coffee in the morning. 93 % of us make our own coffee in the morning, which I'm kind of surprised by that. mean, I do that, I guess, but when you go by the coffee place in the morning, the drive-through it's lined up like crazy.
11:03
Somebody's not making their own coffee. Honorable Mention. Mention. Mention. This week for an honorable mention, I wanted to look back at something that happened in history, weird history, which I know there are many shows and podcasts that cover weird history. That's not really what we do. Usually we're all about, you know, what's happening right now. What's in the news, the weird or interesting news items. But the Kentucky meat shower doesn't get enough coverage. Oh, there I said it.
11:31
All of the weird history podcasts and stuff, it gets a little coverage, but it's a super weird thing that happened that everyone should know about. Personal opinion. In 1876, on March 3rd, 1876, the Kentucky meat shower happened. A mystery meat or meat substitute perhaps fell from the sky and people weren't as freaked out as I thought they would be. People kind of took it as, look at that, it's raining meat.
11:59
That's my summation of the article we linked to, but and some of it is gross. Some of the theories kind of gross. Where did the meat come from? It's there are theories about why it rained meat this week in 1876 in Kentucky, but nothing conclusive. Also, if you click, we do have a list of other prominent items that have fallen from the sky. Fish, frogs, baby spiders, golf balls and money. So that's your honorable mention. You can click the show notes for more.
12:28
or go to show notes dot page. Another honorable mention honorable mention. This honorable mention is about the research that came out concerning backseat drivers. In case you don't know what a backseat driver is, our show goes out over the worldwide super highway of internet and perhaps where you are. Backseat driver isn't as common a term. I'm not sure. But backseat driving is when you're in a vehicle, but you're not the driver. But you tell the driver how to drive.
12:58
A study of 2000 drivers found that we do not like it when people are backseat driving. That's not earth shattering. You could have predicted that. But this study got into specifically how long can we take it? 13 minutes, it turns out. We could take about 13 minutes of the backseat driving and then that's it. two, will put a trigger warning if you click the link because you might find the footage disturbing. It ends happy.
13:27
but it's that seagull that was hit with a soccer ball or football. So at the football match or here we would call it soccer, someone kicks the ball, an athlete kicks the ball very hard and a seagull happens to be flying over or changes course and gets hit by the soccer ball or football and falls from the sky and it looks like the seagull, well the seagull is unresponsive. One of the players at the football match starts doing what looks like seagull CPR.
13:57
chest compressions and it doesn't look good for a while and then suddenly the seagull comes back to life and is saved. So it has a happy ending, but it's harrowing to watch. I love stories like this. I would categorize this as good news. This is about the two animals they thought were extinct. And by they, mean, you know, the scientific community thought these animals were extinct for thousands of years, for 6,000 years, perhaps.
14:26
These animals haven't been seen. It was believed they were extinct and they've been rediscovered. Scientists worked with indigenous communities in New Guinea and they have rediscovered the pygmy long-fingered possum and the ring-tailed glider. Gliders are those things that jump from the trees and glide. You know what? It was probably right there in the name you didn't need me to describe. The pygmy long-fingered possum
14:55
Well, they have long fingers. It's also right in the name. One thing you may not garnish from the names of the beasts, they are cute. They will sell a lot of t-shirts with these animals on them or coffee mugs. So I predict a wonderful windfall for the scientific community and the animal conservation community selling t-shirts with pygmy long fingered possums and selling mugs with ring-tailed gliders on
15:23
So I'll link to those photos and the whole article if you click show notes dot page. One more thing. It's kind of fascinating to think this. They have fossils of these animals. They thought that's all they were ever going to have again was fossils. And then the pygmy long fingered possums and the ring-tailed gliders were like, hold my beer or other other comical phrase. And that's a wrap on this week's What a Weird Week.
15:50
where we look at the fun or the interesting or weird news of the week, never the serious news. There's a lot of that, I know. Thank you for checking out the program. We'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things from the news on What a Weird Week.
10 New York Governor Kathy Hochul intervened after the state's DMV revoked a grandfather's vanity license plate reading "PB4WEGO," which stands for "pee before we go." The governor publicly supported the message and had the plate reinstated after the DMV had deemed it inappropriate. (https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/02/26/license-plate-PB4WEGO-Gov-Kathy-Hochul/3131772123934/)
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEEQ4u9yzlY&t=76s
9 An Ottawa man was captured on video being chased by two aggressive turkeys, forcing him to escape the birds by jumping into a stranger's car.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/02/25/canada-Ottawa-turkeys-chase-man/7251772035813/)
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jNMJMexek
Turkey Tips https://www.mass.gov/info-details/prevent-conflicts-with-turkeys
8 Callers to Washington's Department of Licensing hotline who selected the Spanish language option were instead met with an AI voice speaking English in a heavy Spanish accent. (https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2026/02/this-is-actually-crazy-callers-to-washington-hotline-shocked-when-pressing-2-for-spanish.html).
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Japsg9PZD7Y&t=92s
7 Scientists in China have created tomatoes that produce a distinct popcorn-like aroma. (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/scientists-create-tomatoes-that-smell-like-popcorn-using-gene-editing-3324624/).
6 A woman with a prior conviction for stowing away on a flight to Paris has allegedly done it again?! (https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/26/us/stowaway-flies-again)
5 Fun, Formula 1-sized KitKat (https://lbbonline.com/news/KitKat-Life-Sized-Chocolate-Formula-1)
4 A man in Manchester, UK, became trapped inside a classic red phone box when the door locked behind him (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/man-rescued-by-firefighters-after-getting-stuck-in-phone-box-trying-to-order-kebab-3329298/).
3 A new survey of 2,000 coffee drinkers found that nearly half go to bed earlier just to ensure they have enough time for their morning coffee ritual. (https://talkerresearch.com/good-coffee-good-day-most-say-it-drives-success-and-productivity/)
HM Meat Shower Anniversary
On March 3, 1876, the Kentucky Meat Shower happened. A Mystery meat (*or meat substitute*) fell from the sky. How? Why? What-the-hey? All good questions. It's still a mystery. (https://www.thefactsite.com/weirdest-things-that-fell-from-sky/)
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEEQ4u9yzlY&t=76s
9 An Ottawa man was captured on video being chased by two aggressive turkeys, forcing him to escape the birds by jumping into a stranger's car.
(https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/02/25/canada-Ottawa-turkeys-chase-man/7251772035813/)
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jNMJMexek
Turkey Tips https://www.mass.gov/info-details/prevent-conflicts-with-turkeys
8 Callers to Washington's Department of Licensing hotline who selected the Spanish language option were instead met with an AI voice speaking English in a heavy Spanish accent. (https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2026/02/this-is-actually-crazy-callers-to-washington-hotline-shocked-when-pressing-2-for-spanish.html).
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Japsg9PZD7Y&t=92s
7 Scientists in China have created tomatoes that produce a distinct popcorn-like aroma. (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/scientists-create-tomatoes-that-smell-like-popcorn-using-gene-editing-3324624/).
6 A woman with a prior conviction for stowing away on a flight to Paris has allegedly done it again?! (https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/26/us/stowaway-flies-again)
5 Fun, Formula 1-sized KitKat (https://lbbonline.com/news/KitKat-Life-Sized-Chocolate-Formula-1)
4 A man in Manchester, UK, became trapped inside a classic red phone box when the door locked behind him (https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/man-rescued-by-firefighters-after-getting-stuck-in-phone-box-trying-to-order-kebab-3329298/).
3 A new survey of 2,000 coffee drinkers found that nearly half go to bed earlier just to ensure they have enough time for their morning coffee ritual. (https://talkerresearch.com/good-coffee-good-day-most-say-it-drives-success-and-productivity/)
HM Meat Shower Anniversary
On March 3, 1876, the Kentucky Meat Shower happened. A Mystery meat (*or meat substitute*) fell from the sky. How? Why? What-the-hey? All good questions. It's still a mystery. (https://www.thefactsite.com/weirdest-things-that-fell-from-sky/)
HM Study of 2,000 drivers found that we can only tolerate annoying passenger behavior for an average of thirteen minutes. (https://talkerresearch.com/study-confirms-backseat-driving-drives-people-crazy/)
2 The Seagull and the Footballer (https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/turkish-footballer-hailed-hero-saving-180222008.html)
1 After 6000 years it turns out they are not extinct?!
(https://www.newscientist.com/article/2518082-two-marsupials-believed-extinct-for-6000-years-found-alive/)
Scotty and Tony Radio Show Contact Links at NEWCOUNTRY969.CA/SCOTTYANDTONY.