Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

TubaChristmas is an annual concert tradition in which musicians gather to play festive music exclusively on tubas, baritone horns, sousaphones and and euphoniums. We'll explain how Christmas got so tuba-ey. Plus: Stan Freese got so into his tuba that he decorated the tree in his yard with the horns.  For a shining moment a year, tubas get spotlight (New York Times)   About TubaChristmas (TubaChristmas.com) Placentia musician’s tuba tree is home bass (Orange County Register) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon and it'll feel like TubaChristmas every day --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Many communities put down road salt in winter. It can make the roads safer, but too much salt is bad for the environment and for the roads themselves. Scientists at Washington State University may have found a better way to take the ice off the roads: grapes. Plus: meet the creepiest instrument ever, a baby doll head theremin!  Sustaining roads with grape and agricultural waste (Washington State University) Playing the Baby Head THEREMIN (Cubitsocks on YouTube)  Brace yourself. A Patreon backers-only bonus episode of Cool Weird Awesome is coming. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today marks one hundred years since the community of Enterprise, Alabama, put up a very special monument in the middle of town: a statue of a Greek woman holding a boll weevil, an invasive pest that had ruined the local cotton crop. Wait, what? Plus: meet the most destructive holiday force ever, Treezilla!  Boll Weevil Honored (Library of Congress) Treezilla! The Godzilla Christmas Tree (Steven Newland on YouTube)  You can back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon for just $1 a month!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

If you want a good party, you need the right soundtrack: researchers set up underwater loudspeakers in dead sections of the Great Barrier Reef, and playing sounds of healthy reefs attracted twice as many fish as areas where there was no sound. Plus: Pocatello, Idaho will give you something to smile about today. It's the law there.  Underwater Loudspeakers Make Fish Flock to Dead Coral in Radical Experiment (Washington Post) U.S. Smile Capital (Pocatello, ID) Cool Weird Awesome's backers on Patreon make everybody smile --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

There are tens of thousands of pieces of space debris orbiting the Earth. We've tried a few different ways to bring them back down over the years. Plus: in Huddleston, Virginia, a giant hay sculpture of a country music legend. Meet Will-hay Nelson!  ESA commissions world’s first space debris removal (European Space Agency) To Clean Up Space Junk, Some People Grabbed a Net and Harpoon (Wired) 'Will-Hay Nelson' creation at Virginia farm going viral (WSET) Put Cool Weird Awesome on the road again as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today in 1877 the Washington Post published its first edition. It brought us landmark coverage of Watergate, and John Philip Sousa named a march for it. But the Post's biggest achievement is helping to create the teddy bear. Plus: this weekend in Ashland, Nebraska, Santa Goes To Space!  Political Cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman and the Origin of the Teddy Bear (Theodore Roosevelt Center) Santa Goes to Space (Visit Nebraska) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon for as little as $1 a month - or credits will do fine --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The chessboard known as Square Off works if your opponent is nearby or not, because it can use Bluetooth technology to move the pieces for them on your board, and your pieces on theirs. Ron Weasley would be impressed. Plus: you haven't heard "Jingle Bells" until you've heard "Jingle Bells" played on a comb. World’s Smartest Chess Board Lets You Move Physical Pieces Without Touching Them (Oddity Central) Now That It’s December, Here’s Jingle Bells Played on a Comb (Twisted Sifter) Dash through the snow to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

There's a new medical startup called Cast 21, and, as startups do, they’re looking to disrupt those traditional plaster cast paradigms and make a cast so flexible that wearers could even go swimming. Plus: for National Cookie Day, we pay a virtual visit to the National Cookie Cutter HIstorical Museum in Joplin, Missouri.  Waterproof cast lets patients swim with broken bones (Yahoo Sports)   National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum   Nothing's sweeter than backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It was 48 years ago today that kids first got to play the video game Oregon Trail - the invention of three student teachers from Minnesota who ended up changing video game history without realizing it. Plus: a hospital in San Antonio, Texas marks the holiday season by sending all its December newborns home in red and white hats… and stockings! Oregon Trail: How three Minnesotans forged its path (City Pages) This Hospital Wins Christmas By Sending Newborns Home In Christmas Stockings For Over 50 Years Now (Bored Panda) You have reached Chimney Rock. Would you like to stop and back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It was the giveaway to end all giveaways - 70 years ago almost to the day, a store in Oregon advertised a drawing for a baby. How the heck did this actually happen? Plus: it's December and a good way to enjoy the season is a little thing called ice bumper cars.  Free baby? 70 years ago Fred Meyer had a strange giveaway for a store opening (KGW) Toilet seats, gall bladders and eight of the weirdest promotions in Minor League history (MLB.com) Ice Bumper Cars Cool Weird Awesome backers on Patreon will get a special bonus episode of the show at the end of the year! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

In 1953 Swanson had several hundred tons of leftover Thanksgiving turkey  - so they created the TV Dinner and changed how we eat. Plus: the 40th annual Holiday Cave Sing is this weekend at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  The Rise and Fall of the TV Dinner (Cheddar on YouTube) Mammoth Cave hosts 40th annual holiday cave sing Dec. 1  (WDRB) If you want to sing out, sing out, and if you want to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon, back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This holiday edition of Cool Weird Awesome celebrates that for which we are all most grateful: the bewildering foods that inexplicably become part of our annual Thanksgiving dinners, from "seafoam salad" to "tunies" to hot dog chunks warmed up in pizza sauce. Plus: holiday lights are coming, and "Peteyville" in Hammond, Indiana is one of the best and brightest displays you'll find.  i cannot wait to hear about the recipes you’re all excited to make for thanksgiving (Maya Kosoff on Twitter) Instant Appetizer (Brady Carlson on Twitter) Peteyville: A Holiday Lights Tradition for 30+ Years (Visit Indiana) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Maker and woodworker Tim Sway built a guitar out of reclaimed nails - which he calls the "Tetanuscaster." Plus: the It's A Wonderful Life Festival is in full swing in Jimmy Stewart's hometown!  Guitar Made of Nails (Tim Sway on YouTube) So Metal: An Electric Guitar Made Out Of Reclaimed Nails (Geekologie) It’s A Wonderful Life Festival  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Researchers at Penn State University have created liquid-entrenched smooth surface, or LESS. Why? To coat our toilets. Why? So stuff can't stick to them. Why? To save water, which we use by the tens of billions of gallons each day just to re-flush that stuck stuff. Why? Because life is unfair sometimes. Plus: Twitter minus words, videos, pictures and links is a pretty amazing thing, judging by the project called Emoji Storm!  New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water (Penn State University) Emoji Storm (Metafilter) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The busiest travel season of the year is getting underway, so here's a story about a vehicle right out of Richard Scarry’s Busytown: the Big Banana Car, which is a 15 foot long banana with four seats on the frame of a Ford F-150. Plus: the Volkspod is a motor scooter made with upcycled parts from old-school Volkswagen Beetles!  BigBananaCar.com Michigan trooper pulls over banana car, gives driver $20 (WTHR) Designer Transforms Vintage Volkswagen Beetles into Adorable Minibikes (My Modern Met) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Some research suggests those plastic tops for disposable coffee cups make up five percent of the millions of tons of plastic waste that end up in the ocean each year. The Unocup aims to do something about that. It's a paper cup that folds up to become its own top! Plus: there's goat yoga and alpaca yoga, but Zoo Miami may top them all with its new Yoga With The Rhinos program. The coffee cup gets a radical, desperately needed redesign (Fast Company) Yoga With the Rhinos (Zoo Miami)  Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon for less than the price of a cup of coffee!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The nefarious filbertworm is trying to infest our hazelnut supply! Researchers at the University of Oregon think the solution might lie with pigs. Plus: the Ebo is a little ball-shaped robot that will play with your cat when you're not home.  Biology Major Recruits Hogs to Help Hazelnuts (University of Oregon) This Smart Robot Is Designed to Keep Your Cat Happy and Healthy While You’re Gone (My Modern Met) It's a smart move to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week marks 50 years since the Apollo 12 mission, the second time humans went to the moon and the first time we launched an artificial earthquake there. Plus: one of the two moonwalkers painted a picture that included their command module pilot on the lunar ground.  Crash Site Of The Apollo 12 Ascent Module Possibly Found After Almost 50 Years (Bad Astronomy)  Conrad, Gordon and Bean: The Fantasy (Art USA)  Help launch the next great podcast episode when you back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today is the 60th anniversary of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, so in their honor, here's a real life moose who inadvertently helped foil a crime. Plus: a woman in Sacramento puts out a public call for her missing domesticated squirrel, Squeakers. Wandering moose stolen vehicle (CBC) ‘I just need my baby’: Sacramento woman offers reward for missing squirrel, Squeakers (Sacramento Bee) All alumni of Wossamotta U should back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

November 18, 1883 is when railroads across the United States adopted a uniform system of time, more or less getting all of us in sync with each other. But what was time like before then? Plus: Japan has had cat cafes, hedgehog cafes and bunny cafes. Now there's a minipig cafe!  Time! (Library of Congress) Standard Time Zones In U.S. Mark 100 Years (New York Times)   The Adoption of Standard TimeIan R. Bartky (Technology and Culture)  Mipig Harajuku: We visit the new micro pig cafe in Tokyo (Sora News) It's definitely time to back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message