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. Fri. Oct 9 2026.
Show notes page is shownotes.page. Stream and Subscribe HERE.
10 Seniors dominate old person contest.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/10/worlds-oldest-men-send-birthday-wishes-to-each-other-as-they-turn-113-and-114
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2026/10/worlds-oldest-men-send-birthday-wishes-to-each-other-as-they-turn-113-and-114
9 Couch drivers go for sofa drive.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/north-carolina-police-stop-two-men-driving-couch-public-roadway and image.
8 Bargain painting sells for more than a million!
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2026/10/02/estate-sale-painting-gertrude-abercrombie-auctioned/6081790959629/ and here's our shownotes page for the story before the auction https://www.scottyandtony.com/2026/09/weird-news-update-ten-weird-things-from_0947769036.html
7 Frozen waffles with Nutella inside.
https://www.fooddive.com/news/ferrero-nutella-waffles-breakfast-innovation/832036/
6 Vampire noodles.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cup-noodles-raises-the-stakes-this-halloween-with-vampire-noodles-302886901.html and pin.
5 Whale sinks yacht.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-news/articles/loud-thud-sperm-whale-sinks-085114541.html and video.
4 The things we do for love, psychic edition.
https://studyfinds.com/gen-z-daters-psychics-spells-find-love/
https://studyfinds.com/gen-z-daters-psychics-spells-find-love/
3 The left turn mystery.
https://studyfinds.com/almost-everyone-naturally-turns-left-when-walking-and-we-still-have-no-idea-why/
2 More coffee news that aint too shabby.
https://studyfinds.com/black-coffee-14-lower-risk-death-sugar-cream-2180-g1/
TRANSCRIPT for Season 7, Episode 41, published on 9 Oct 2026:
#weirdnews #odd #fun #interesting #strange #podcast
00:00
The bargain painting sold for a lot more than they thought. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. This is crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I am Scott. This is What a Weird Week. It's a program where we go back over the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories or the fun stories, the interesting ones, and we do a top 10 countdown of those stories. You can get everything we talk about in more detail.
00:29
on the show notes page, which is show notes dot page. is Friday, October 9th, 2026, a time of recording number 10. All right. I'm going to warn you right now. I have some trepidation about this one because I can't pronounce names well ever. And I'm going to try. So number 10 this week is the world's oldest man and the world's second oldest man dominating in their field of being old men. And they made headlines this week because they have the same birthday.
00:59
What are the odds of that? Gentleman from Brazil, the oldest man in the world whose name is Zuao? Probably not that. I think I got that very wrong, but and I apologize for that. But 114 years old, the gentleman from Brazil, oldest man in the world, has the same birthday as the second oldest man in the world, a fellow named Ken from Australia, who is 113 years old. They're birthday twins, one year apart.
01:29
And they are the oldest man and the second oldest man in the world They sent out birthday wishes to one another It's never too late to make a friend, to make a new friend Hey, that's my takeaway from this one Number nine This is one where you read the headline and you're like Hmm, I think I need to know more about these guys The fellows who made headlines for being pulled over They were driving a couch on a public roadway Got pulled over by police
01:58
This happened in North Carolina, United States of America. Was it a couch? Was it a sofa? Maybe you would call it a Chesterfield. Maybe there's another name you're fond of. It, in fact, I believe was a love seat. Technically, it's a love seat. In the photo where they got pulled over is pretty great. And we'll link to that in the show notes. You can click show notes that page. It depicts a love seat atop two of those electric scooters.
02:26
I think they're the same that you see in a lot of cities where you can rent them, swipe the thing, use the app and rent these scooters. Well, two of those and balanced atop of them a love seat. And the fellows were driving that down the road when police in North Carolina pulled them over. How far did they get? So far. Hey, so far, right? Should I stop now?
02:57
Alright, I'll stop now, but you can find more in the show notes. Read the whole story if you want. Number eight. Number eight is a follow up to the bargain painting story that we had a couple of weeks ago on our program. I think we can splice that part in right here. 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 Abercromb.
03:25
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.
03:45
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. That was a sound bite from a previous episode of our program where we talked about the bargain painting. The update is it sold for $1.35 million at auction. A $30 painting
04:15
sold for 1.35 million. How great is that? Every time we do a story like this, it gives me hope that someday, maybe I'll be able to retire someday. Because maybe someday I'll find some priceless work of art in a pile of junk. Number seven. Number seven is a new product that's been announced, a food product, which this portion of the show is not sponsored. But one of my kids convinced me, you have to cover this. This we need to spread the news to the world.
04:45
From the mountaintops to the valleys across the fjords. Everyone must know that they will be launching frozen waffles where inside that frozen waffle is Nutella. If our program goes out over the worldwide information superhighway. So I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with Nutella. We all know Nutella, right? The hazelnut spread. If you don't know.
05:13
It is a hazelnut chocolate spread Some people really love it Like one of my kids I'm just surprised they haven't already done this before Why isn't this already a product? Because when you go out for pancakes Or waffles Your favorite waffle place Where here in Canada we have something called a beaver tail Which no beavers are harmed in the making of it It is just a pastry if you're unfamiliar with what a beaver tail is All of those things you can order Nutella on So why didn't somebody
05:43
already invent the Nutella-Filled Waffle. Like, I question our focus. Where have we been directing our energies that we didn't already come up with Nutella-Filled Waffles? Let's get some marshmallow fluff in the next batch. And hot fudge. The floodgates are open now. This is supposed to be a United States of America product that is set to launch next spring. I will link to more details if you click shownotes.page.
06:13
Number six number six is another food story. This one is a publicity stunt is how I would describe it and no disrespect. I mean much respect if you can get your brand in the headlines. If you're the marketing team, the promotional team, if you're an advertiser working to get a brand in the headlines and you do it, especially in a competitive field like noodles. I mean, come on, the noodle consumer has tons of choices. If you get your brand out in front of all the rest.
06:42
Well done. How do you get your noodle in the headlines? In this case, we're talking about cup noodles and what they did is vampire noodles, which for a limited time for Halloween season, spooky season, when you add hot water to these vampire noodles, cup noodles, they turn blood red. Terrifying, right? Still delicious. It's not actual blood. That might be something to note if you're a vampire and you're buying these vampire blood.
07:12
Cup noodles, thinking it's a wonderful source of blood for vampires. It's not blood. I guess I'll stop there on that. It's not blood. Number five. Number five is Whale Sinks Yacht. The headline kind of says it all. A harrowing tale of a sperm whale hitting into a yacht in the South Pacific. Four sailors were rescued. The article gets into almost like a timeline of how it all went down. At first, they didn't know what hit them. Literally didn't know what hit them.
07:39
They tried to stay on the yacht as long as possible, bailing by hand. Eventually they had to get into a life raft and they were rescued by a container ship. The four sailors. It's just one of those things. I know it can happen. It has happened before. But when you read the headline, it seems like a movie. It seems like we've seen that movie, some sort of rescue at sea and the whales were angry that day, that kind of thing. But it wasn't a movie. It was real life.
08:09
Number four is about love, looking for love, finding love, keeping love, also psychic abilities and love magic. It's a survey of Generation Z daters, people dating in Gen Z. Maybe that's you. I think that goes up to age 29. Don't quote me, but I think Gen Z is up to age 29 at time of recording. So perhaps that's you or someone you know, dating, looking for that special someone in Generation Z.
08:39
So one of the things that we learn in the survey of Generation Z daters is that a majority have tried either going to a psychic or some sort of love magic, maybe buying a spell online or focused manifestation, different things like that. I'm grouping them all under the umbrella of love magic because it's fun to say, and maybe that should be a merch drop.
09:08
What a weird week love magic t-shirts. Anyway, put a pin in that. So psychics and love magic and of the people who tried the love magic spells or rites or rituals about half said it worked to some extent. So I'm an old guy who's been married a very, very long time. I had no idea this was happening and that it works half of the time. That is an eye opener for me.
09:34
You want to read the whole thing? will link to that in the show notes. three. Number three is the left turn mystery mystery. We're going to get into this. But if you don't know about the left turn mystery, you can't unknow this and it might bother you next time you're out walking. We might occupy more of your brain than you want it to. That's how it worked with me. I didn't know anything about this. And now whenever I'm walking, I'm like left turn mystery.
10:04
Here's the headline from Study Finds. It kind of sums up the left turn mystery. Almost everyone naturally turns left when walking and we still have no idea why. And then they get into the research and according to the data when we're walking in a group or alone we tend to go counterclockwise or make left turns. Why? They've tried to look at, you know...
10:30
Where walls are set up or boundaries they've tried to look at. Is it because you're left handed, right handed? Cultural habits, a number of things. They cannot figure it out. Now they're thinking maybe something inner ear. Maybe our inner ears are asymmetrical and it's causing us to veer left. They're still looking at it. So let's not panic yet, but I wish they'd figure this out because it's starting to bother me a little bit. Number two.
10:59
Number two is some coffee news that ain't too shabby. Often we talk about coffee and lately there has been a trend whereby coffee researchers are finding some good things. But more research is needed before you go on an all coffee diet. Please consult your physician, your dietitian, your barista. And then after you've consulted all three of them, still don't do it because an all coffee diet, that's bonkers.
11:29
Okay, so there is a write up that we link to some research into coffee drinkers. One of the studies, 46,000 ish coffee drinkers from the United States of America. And it looks like there's a link between drinking black coffee and a lower risk of death overall. If you have too much cream and sugar, it wipes out that lower risk of death. So how much is too much cream and sugar? They get into that too. And the sweet spot, eh, sweet spot?
11:57
They think maybe it could be a teaspoon of sugar again. And I know we say this all the time, but more research is needed. But if you're a coffee drinker, you might find this interesting. Science seems to say you're a beverage genius. Number one. For number one, it's one of my favorite categories of story that we have on this program. When something we've had forever, when they discover that it might be good for something new. In this case, it's vanilla.
12:27
Which might be useful in healing wounds. The article says vanilla has anti-inflammatory properties, antibacterial properties, and one of the great things is it can be produced rather cheaply. So if it is useful in healing wounds, if this research pans out, another use for vanilla. Besides, the most delicious of all the ice creams. What? Am I wrong?
12:55
Vanilla is the best. Come on. Let me know how you feel about vanilla ice cream in the comments. Oh, what's that? The comments are turned off. Well, then we'll all agree vanilla is best. Okay. Stopping there, but thank you for checking out our program. This has been what a weird week. My name is Scott. If you want to get our show notes or anything about our podcast, all the things are on the show notes page at show notes dot page.
13:25
We'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things from the news on what a weird week. One last thing. It is Canadian Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Canadian friends.
The bargain painting sold for a lot more than they thought. What a weird week. Hi, everybody. This is crazy. Really weird. Big foot out of my trash. I got a great joke for you. It was so wonderful. Weird stuff. Hi, friends. I am Scott. This is What a Weird Week. It's a program where we go back over the news of the week and we pick out the weird stories or the fun stories, the interesting ones, and we do a top 10 countdown of those stories. You can get everything we talk about in more detail.
00:29
on the show notes page, which is show notes dot page. is Friday, October 9th, 2026, a time of recording number 10. All right. I'm going to warn you right now. I have some trepidation about this one because I can't pronounce names well ever. And I'm going to try. So number 10 this week is the world's oldest man and the world's second oldest man dominating in their field of being old men. And they made headlines this week because they have the same birthday.
00:59
What are the odds of that? Gentleman from Brazil, the oldest man in the world whose name is Zuao? Probably not that. I think I got that very wrong, but and I apologize for that. But 114 years old, the gentleman from Brazil, oldest man in the world, has the same birthday as the second oldest man in the world, a fellow named Ken from Australia, who is 113 years old. They're birthday twins, one year apart.
01:29
And they are the oldest man and the second oldest man in the world They sent out birthday wishes to one another It's never too late to make a friend, to make a new friend Hey, that's my takeaway from this one Number nine This is one where you read the headline and you're like Hmm, I think I need to know more about these guys The fellows who made headlines for being pulled over They were driving a couch on a public roadway Got pulled over by police
01:58
This happened in North Carolina, United States of America. Was it a couch? Was it a sofa? Maybe you would call it a Chesterfield. Maybe there's another name you're fond of. It, in fact, I believe was a love seat. Technically, it's a love seat. In the photo where they got pulled over is pretty great. And we'll link to that in the show notes. You can click show notes that page. It depicts a love seat atop two of those electric scooters.
02:26
I think they're the same that you see in a lot of cities where you can rent them, swipe the thing, use the app and rent these scooters. Well, two of those and balanced atop of them a love seat. And the fellows were driving that down the road when police in North Carolina pulled them over. How far did they get? So far. Hey, so far, right? Should I stop now?
02:57
Alright, I'll stop now, but you can find more in the show notes. Read the whole story if you want. Number eight. Number eight is a follow up to the bargain painting story that we had a couple of weeks ago on our program. I think we can splice that part in right here. 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 Abercromb.
03:25
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.
03:45
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. That was a sound bite from a previous episode of our program where we talked about the bargain painting. The update is it sold for $1.35 million at auction. A $30 painting
04:15
sold for 1.35 million. How great is that? Every time we do a story like this, it gives me hope that someday, maybe I'll be able to retire someday. Because maybe someday I'll find some priceless work of art in a pile of junk. Number seven. Number seven is a new product that's been announced, a food product, which this portion of the show is not sponsored. But one of my kids convinced me, you have to cover this. This we need to spread the news to the world.
04:45
From the mountaintops to the valleys across the fjords. Everyone must know that they will be launching frozen waffles where inside that frozen waffle is Nutella. If our program goes out over the worldwide information superhighway. So I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with Nutella. We all know Nutella, right? The hazelnut spread. If you don't know.
05:13
It is a hazelnut chocolate spread Some people really love it Like one of my kids I'm just surprised they haven't already done this before Why isn't this already a product? Because when you go out for pancakes Or waffles Your favorite waffle place Where here in Canada we have something called a beaver tail Which no beavers are harmed in the making of it It is just a pastry if you're unfamiliar with what a beaver tail is All of those things you can order Nutella on So why didn't somebody
05:43
already invent the Nutella-Filled Waffle. Like, I question our focus. Where have we been directing our energies that we didn't already come up with Nutella-Filled Waffles? Let's get some marshmallow fluff in the next batch. And hot fudge. The floodgates are open now. This is supposed to be a United States of America product that is set to launch next spring. I will link to more details if you click shownotes.page.
06:13
Number six number six is another food story. This one is a publicity stunt is how I would describe it and no disrespect. I mean much respect if you can get your brand in the headlines. If you're the marketing team, the promotional team, if you're an advertiser working to get a brand in the headlines and you do it, especially in a competitive field like noodles. I mean, come on, the noodle consumer has tons of choices. If you get your brand out in front of all the rest.
06:42
Well done. How do you get your noodle in the headlines? In this case, we're talking about cup noodles and what they did is vampire noodles, which for a limited time for Halloween season, spooky season, when you add hot water to these vampire noodles, cup noodles, they turn blood red. Terrifying, right? Still delicious. It's not actual blood. That might be something to note if you're a vampire and you're buying these vampire blood.
07:12
Cup noodles, thinking it's a wonderful source of blood for vampires. It's not blood. I guess I'll stop there on that. It's not blood. Number five. Number five is Whale Sinks Yacht. The headline kind of says it all. A harrowing tale of a sperm whale hitting into a yacht in the South Pacific. Four sailors were rescued. The article gets into almost like a timeline of how it all went down. At first, they didn't know what hit them. Literally didn't know what hit them.
07:39
They tried to stay on the yacht as long as possible, bailing by hand. Eventually they had to get into a life raft and they were rescued by a container ship. The four sailors. It's just one of those things. I know it can happen. It has happened before. But when you read the headline, it seems like a movie. It seems like we've seen that movie, some sort of rescue at sea and the whales were angry that day, that kind of thing. But it wasn't a movie. It was real life.
08:09
Number four is about love, looking for love, finding love, keeping love, also psychic abilities and love magic. It's a survey of Generation Z daters, people dating in Gen Z. Maybe that's you. I think that goes up to age 29. Don't quote me, but I think Gen Z is up to age 29 at time of recording. So perhaps that's you or someone you know, dating, looking for that special someone in Generation Z.
08:39
So one of the things that we learn in the survey of Generation Z daters is that a majority have tried either going to a psychic or some sort of love magic, maybe buying a spell online or focused manifestation, different things like that. I'm grouping them all under the umbrella of love magic because it's fun to say, and maybe that should be a merch drop.
09:08
What a weird week love magic t-shirts. Anyway, put a pin in that. So psychics and love magic and of the people who tried the love magic spells or rites or rituals about half said it worked to some extent. So I'm an old guy who's been married a very, very long time. I had no idea this was happening and that it works half of the time. That is an eye opener for me.
09:34
You want to read the whole thing? will link to that in the show notes. three. Number three is the left turn mystery mystery. We're going to get into this. But if you don't know about the left turn mystery, you can't unknow this and it might bother you next time you're out walking. We might occupy more of your brain than you want it to. That's how it worked with me. I didn't know anything about this. And now whenever I'm walking, I'm like left turn mystery.
10:04
Here's the headline from Study Finds. It kind of sums up the left turn mystery. Almost everyone naturally turns left when walking and we still have no idea why. And then they get into the research and according to the data when we're walking in a group or alone we tend to go counterclockwise or make left turns. Why? They've tried to look at, you know...
10:30
Where walls are set up or boundaries they've tried to look at. Is it because you're left handed, right handed? Cultural habits, a number of things. They cannot figure it out. Now they're thinking maybe something inner ear. Maybe our inner ears are asymmetrical and it's causing us to veer left. They're still looking at it. So let's not panic yet, but I wish they'd figure this out because it's starting to bother me a little bit. Number two.
10:59
Number two is some coffee news that ain't too shabby. Often we talk about coffee and lately there has been a trend whereby coffee researchers are finding some good things. But more research is needed before you go on an all coffee diet. Please consult your physician, your dietitian, your barista. And then after you've consulted all three of them, still don't do it because an all coffee diet, that's bonkers.
11:29
Okay, so there is a write up that we link to some research into coffee drinkers. One of the studies, 46,000 ish coffee drinkers from the United States of America. And it looks like there's a link between drinking black coffee and a lower risk of death overall. If you have too much cream and sugar, it wipes out that lower risk of death. So how much is too much cream and sugar? They get into that too. And the sweet spot, eh, sweet spot?
11:57
They think maybe it could be a teaspoon of sugar again. And I know we say this all the time, but more research is needed. But if you're a coffee drinker, you might find this interesting. Science seems to say you're a beverage genius. Number one. For number one, it's one of my favorite categories of story that we have on this program. When something we've had forever, when they discover that it might be good for something new. In this case, it's vanilla.
12:27
Which might be useful in healing wounds. The article says vanilla has anti-inflammatory properties, antibacterial properties, and one of the great things is it can be produced rather cheaply. So if it is useful in healing wounds, if this research pans out, another use for vanilla. Besides, the most delicious of all the ice creams. What? Am I wrong?
12:55
Vanilla is the best. Come on. Let me know how you feel about vanilla ice cream in the comments. Oh, what's that? The comments are turned off. Well, then we'll all agree vanilla is best. Okay. Stopping there, but thank you for checking out our program. This has been what a weird week. My name is Scott. If you want to get our show notes or anything about our podcast, all the things are on the show notes page at show notes dot page.
13:25
We'll catch you next Friday with 10 more weird things from the news on what a weird week. One last thing. It is Canadian Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you, Canadian friends.