Hi friends, I'm Scott and here is your weird news update featuring some of the odd, and fun things from the news. This is What a Weird Week.
Show notes page is shownotes.page. Stream and Subscribe HERE.
8 Which preschooler should you trust to not steal a cut of the profits in your money-laundering scheme? TL;DR The blinky preschooler. https://studyfinds.com/preschoolers-who-blink-more-often-show-stronger-self-control-study-finds/
7 We're mentally tapped-out, how do we take back the night? https://talkerresearch.com/mental-load-at-max-capacity-for-over-half-of-americans/
TRANSCRIPT for Season 7, Episode 39, published on 25 Sept 2026:
Intro How to tell which preschooler you can trust with the last slice of cheesecake. And an enormous Slim Jim attains world domination. Hi everybody, it's Weird! This is like crazy being here. Weeeird! Really weird. Damn. Bigfoot peaked out of my trash. Well, I got a great joke for you today with some wonderful Weeeird stuff! Hi friends, I am Scott and this is your Weird News Roundup. We call it What a Weird Week. We go back through the news of the week and we get you the weird stories and the fun ones, the interesting stories. If you would like our show notes, the show notes page is shownotes.page. All the stuff about our podcast, all the photos, links to the stories, everything is there. shownotes.page. Broadcasting from our mobile news unit this week. A little bit different.
Number 10: $30 Gertrude Abercrombie Painting Number 10. Number 10 is the $30 painting expected to get a quarter million dollars at auction. I love stories like this. It turned out it was lost artwork by the Chicago surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie. The buyer saw that it said Abercrombie 51 on the painting. An art historian authenticated it. It's a painting of seashells. Reportedly, it was given to a doctor in 1952 as payment for a medical procedure. That family kept it for around 75 years and then it went to this estate sale. The painting is supposed to go on auction October 1st. We'll find out then for sure how much profit. It's probably going to make profit for the person who paid $30 for it. We just don't know how much yet. It could get a quarter million. Not bad for a $30 investment. I love stories like this because it fills me with hope that maybe one day I also will find a cheap painting or some sort of art and it'll turn out to be worth a million dollars. Hit the thrift store this weekend. Good luck.
Number 9: 429-Foot Slim Jim World Record Number 9. Number 9 is the enormous Slim Jim, which snapped a world record. A Slim Jim measuring 429 feet and something in Nebraska broke the Guinness World Record for the longest meat snack. The Slim Jim was unveiled September the 9th and has officially obtained world domination as a very long meat snack. I will link to the video. It's kind of cool how they did this world record attempt. The Slim Jim was wrapped around a spool like a delicious undersea cable or something. I don't know. My first image is an undersea cable unspooling, but it's also delicious meat snack. They went along down the road unspooling the Slim Jim onto a table until kablammy, almost 430 feet, 429 and 5 inches or something. So that's the world record. And just for a comparison, I always have to visualize something. So it would stretch to about the top of the Great Pyramid of Giza, about the same height. It's also taller. It would stretch past the top of the Tower of Big Ben, not quite as tall as the Washington Monument and taller than the Bell Alliant Tower in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, planet Earth. Just in case that's a reference for you.
Number 8: Blinking Preschoolers Study Number 8. Which preschooler can you trust to not steal a cut of the profits in your money laundering scheme? I'm going to tell you the blinky preschooler is the one you can trust to not steal your money. Assuming you are hiring preschoolers to run your money laundering scheme. This was a small study in Japan of 113 preschoolers between the ages of three and six. Researchers noticed the kids who blinked more often doing certain tasks that they had set up for the study. If they blinked more often, they showed signs of better mental flexibility and execution function and that frequent blinking was also associated with stronger activity in the region of the brain involved in self-control. So that's how I got my headline of assuming they were running your money laundering scheme. Who could fight the temptation to skim off the top? Well, the blinky preschooler would probably be your best bet. So just as a recap, in case you fell asleep during that long-winded scenario whereby somehow preschoolers are running a money laundering scheme, the more blinky the preschooler in this study, the more likely they had better mental flexibility and better self-control. So researchers someday, if this pans out, they'll be able to track development of preschoolers by looking at their blink rate, maybe, and also I'd be tempted. I know I'm not smart and all that, but I'd be tempted to, you know, causation correlation. Maybe have preschoolers blink sometimes. Just sit them down and get them to blink and see what that does. What am I, a researcher? No, I'm a money launderer.
Number 7: Mentally Maxed Out Survey This one is another survey, a survey of 2000 people in the United States of America, planet Earth, about how we're all mentally maxed out. We're at peak mental capacity. We can't take on any more decisions or any more processing. That's kind of my takeaway and it's not everybody. It was a majority of people surveyed though that had that answer. This is not a weird story or a fun story, but it's good to know you're not alone. If you've ever stood in front of the fridge looking in there at the end of a typical busy day and you're looking and then you start to realize no food decision is forthcoming and then you decide to have Frosted Flakes for the third time that day, I mean, we've all been there. You're not alone. You're mentally maxed out according to the survey. The internet does have a lot of tips on how to alleviate that. One of them, I do like this one. Reduce evening decision making. No tough decisions at night. Plan ahead what you're going to eat. Decide before evening time who you're going to marry. That kind of stuff. That seems straightforward.
Number 6: "All Hopped Up" Energy Drink This is the energy drink that looks like beer, tastes like beer, ain't no beer in there. This portion of the program not sponsored. The name is all hopped up. The energy drink. It tastes like beer, no alcohol. Instead, it has caffeine and B12 in it. So please consult your physician, your dietician, your spiritual leader before consuming anything ever. I don't know too much about this stuff, but you can kind of imagine how this was invented. People were like, energy drinks, they're popular. Near beer, non-alcoholic beer is popular. What if? I mean, it worked for chocolate and peanut butter, right? One of the greatest combinations of all times. So why not try? I like it. They're taking big swings. Energy drinks that taste like beer. But I can't figure out who this is for. Like, who's drinking the energy non-beer? Is it the non-alcohol beer fan? There's quite a bit of caffeine in this beer, non-beer, energy beer. Energy non-beer. That's what I'm going with. Imagine you're sitting around the campfire, your friends are chugging back whatever, and you're sipping away at one, your one non-alcoholic energy drink that tastes like delicious beer. Please enjoy responsibly. So maybe this is for the enthusiast who enjoys energy drinks. I got thinking about that too. I don't know when you drink your energy drinks. You pull that out, people think it's a beer, first thing in the morning before a busy day or something. So I don't know who this product is for.
Number 5: 6-Year-Old Rubik's Cube World Record Number five. Number five is the little girl who broke the world record, Rubik's cubing. I talked about it with my buddy Tony yesterday on the radio. Tony, do you have your Rubik's cube? I forgot to ask you. Just grab your Rubik's cube for me real quick. I don't know if you saw this in the headlines, but a little gaffer, six years old in China, just set the world record, the women's Rubik's cube world record. You got your cube there. All right. And it's random, right? I mean, you didn't set this up ahead of time. No, I've never been able to solve it. So I want you to begin solving it. Go. So you're sorry. Pick it up. Okay. Now look at it. And then you're not. Stop. I'm so disappointed in you. Put it down. Try it again. I didn't even get to turn it. Okay. Pick it up. Yeah. Solve it. No. Switch it the other way. No. Stop. Listen. One more time to break the women's world record for Rubik's cube. Okay? Oh, the pressure. On your mark. Get set. Pick it up. Okay. Good. All right. You like yellow. That's wonderful. Now switch to. Stop. A 20 year old girl in China took four under four and a half seconds to solve the Rubik's cube and wins the women's title. And now Guinness Book of World Records. I don't know how that's possible. I know. Right. I mean, there are a lot of very smart youngsters out there. Very very good. Good at things. But I don't four and a half seconds to solve an entire Rubik's cube. I don't know if you got the notes there. I sent grab your Rubik's cube. Also did you see where I said grab your hammer and chisel. So now what I want you to do is just destroy that Rubik's cube. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I posted. If you click today's show notes, I posted the video. You can watch the little girl and be inspired. Can you even see her hands moving?
Number 4: Fat Bear Week Breaks the Internet Number four is the fat bears who broke the internet. If you don't follow fat bear week, it's an annual online competition. It's to celebrate these bears in Alaska at a National Park in Alaska and you go on the website and vote for who is the most majestic and fattest of all the bears and then they announce a champion fat bear. Well it caught on so much this year that it broke the website. Explore.org had to extend voting. There were slow loading pages and errors and stuff. Everybody went wild for the fat bear competition this year. They're supposed to announce the champion fat bear on September 29th. I want to say hello and good luck to all the fat bears getting ready for hibernation. You're all my favorite.
Honorable Mention: Rumble Rims Concussion Headset Honorable mention. What is Rumble Rims and why did they settle for that name? Because Rumble Rims when you hear that what do you think of? Maybe a few things but to me it sounds like a car accessory that my neighbors are going to hate. Rumble Rims. It's actually one of these simple inventions maybe not simple but inexpensive invention that may change the world make the world a better place invented by some students at Harvard University. This headset where if you're coaching minor sports high school something like that kid gets hurt and you have to do a concussion screening this headset will do it in about 60 seconds. Keeping kids safe. Helping coaches. That's kind of it I guess I'll stop there but you can get more details I'll link to everything in the show notes. Click show notes dot page. Also in the show notes I might take a picture of what I'm looking at right now as I broadcast from the mobile news unit. Spoiler it's pine I think pine trees spruce trees. Some bonus content this week in the show notes.
Number 3: Danish Viking Silver Hoard Alright if you're a fan of the behind-the-scenes stuff we have changed broadcast locations again for number three. Number three is what's that sound? Treasure. Treasure is that sound. This is the fellow in the headlines this week the fellow in Denmark he's preparing his yard or maybe where you're at you would call it his garden or maybe there's another term but the grass you know his yard around his property he's preparing to put down some patio stones and make a nice space there and as he's digging leveling ground removing some grass at one point there is some digging and a noise which at first the fellow said in the article he thought that maybe is an iron fence an old iron fence or something like that something metal I'll just get rid of that and digging down further it was treasure. They are calling it the largest known Viking Age silver hoard ever discovered in Denmark about 700 objects ingots bracelets coins a small Thor's hammer discovered amongst the treasure side note the article doesn't say if somebody tried to pick up the small silver Thor's hammer my understanding is you can't pick it up unless you're Thor right we need a follow-up story just about the Thor's hammer I'll stop there if you want to see photos of the treasure we'll link to all of this in the show notes so they don't get into what the treasure is valued at one more thing the fellow who found the treasure in Denmark you don't get to keep it's the law that you have to turn it over the treasure is going to a museum but also according to Denmark law they pay you something you get some sort of reward for finding the treasure.
Number 2: I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Mascot (Tubz) & Book Okay number two is not a sponsored segment but it is about a product named I can't believe it's not butter which is a margarine full disclosure I think there's some in my refrigerator right now we have some in our fridge maybe they have this margarine where you're at perhaps they don't our program does go out over the Worldwide Information Superhighway the backstory on this a savory spread for sandwiches called I can't believe it's not butter it has been around I didn't know it ever went away the article talks about how it fell out of favor or something so I guess maybe is that sales-related public perception I'm not sure because it's always been available somewhere where I get my groceries in recent days I can't believe it's not butter has launched a mascot named Tubbs with a Z or Z T-U-B-Z Tubbs imagine like the Kool-Aid man or Mr. Peanut it looks like a sophisticated Halloween costume a giant margarine tub well that is phase one of what I believe to be what I would call a publicity stunt or a marketing promotion first mascot for the margarine or sandwich spread also they have published a self-help book the folks behind I can't believe it's not butter now have a self-help book that they hope will inspire you one of the quotes is I used to be famous I was in every fridge in America but that was before the slow imperceptible descent they got that right about the imperceptible because where I'm at I'm not sure there was a descent.
Number 1: Japanese Robot Trash Bins Number one if you're new to our program often we'll talk about robots and how I feel there is a robot uprising coming we need to be ready for it anyway perhaps it's not immediate but let's be ready just in case is this the beginning of the robot uprising the headline is Japan's busiest rail station tests robot bins and they're talking about garbage cans or bins depending on where you're at how you refer to them they are cute garbage cans or garbage bins on wheels that drive around the rail station very slowly slow enough that you can catch up to it and put your trash in there and then eventually these garbage cans or garbage bins make their way to a central trash location I'm calling it that's my phrasing central trash location write that down though that is catchy they want to test if people will use the things people do tend to right now it's testing through the roof with the cute eyes the robot bins have eyes and they're not creepy I guess they're cute and so people are enamored with that according to the article we linked to and it's supposed to free up time for employees who would normally be in charge of cleaning up different areas if the garbage comes to you if the trash makes its way to you to the central trash location that should save time theoretically anyway it's just a test right now that's kind of the story they get into the trashy details a bit more in the article that we linked to if you want to do a deep dive but I'm gonna stop there and I thank you for listening to our program this has been what a weird week my name is Scott if you want to get all our show notes go to the show notes page which is show notes dot page we are back next Friday with 10 more weird things from the news on what a weird week.