Awesome Weird

We’ve been following the work of animator Cyriak for more than a decade. His music video for prog rock band Light’s track Betray makes us of the artist’s surreal, kaleidoscopic collage style to tell a story of murderous mayhem bubbling beneath the surface of 1950s idealism.

(PG-13: Language/Gore) After a woman calls an exterminator for an apparent bedbug infestation, things get so much worse. But the bugs aren’t the only irritating thing in her life – a telemarketer is hounding her too. Daniel DelPurgatorio’s gross-out horror-comedy short film is a trip straight to Destination WTF.

At first we weren’t sure what we were watching, but we were immediately transfixed by this video. The footage shows someone taking a knife to a sphere made of countless layers of tape. As they cut deeper into the tape, a rainbow of colors emerges. Go figure that there are a bunch of tape-cutting videos on YouTube.

AI image generation technology continues to improve – though it’s still not great at dealing with things like text and logos. While the results of ThomasDotCodes’ breakfast cereal experiment are questionable, we enjoyed watching the weird stuff styleGAN2 came up with when trained with 700 images of cereal boxes.

Now that we’ve got your attention, we’re here to reveal that the hydraulic exosuit that Handy Geng created is not for self-pleasure but for tenderizing beef. It’s still a ridiculous idea, and just the kind of thing we’d expect from the man who gave us the corn on the cob machine. It can also provide massages and chop veggies.

(PG-13: Gore) A thousand years from now, civilization has fallen, and chaos rules the wasteland. Fortunately, there’s one way out of the HOT FUTURE – epic dance moves. This bonkers 3-part animated series comes to us courtesy of Mike Anderson and Ryan Dickie for Adult Swim SMALLS.

After these Christmas decorations were set up in London, England, strong winds took hold of some of the giant metallic baubles decorating Tottenham Court Road, and the balls went rolling down the street, resulting in a wonderfully surreal scene. We half expected the music from Katamari Damacy to start playing.

This fascinating book tells the stories behind the organs, appendages, and other bits attached to (or detached from) famous bodies. What’s the deal with Charles II of Spain’s jaw? What does Anne Boleyn’s heart reveal about the Crusades? Odd skulls, spleens, and breasts give an enlightening and entertaining view of history.

A 32-piece orchestra needs need a pretty big stage for all of those musicians and their instruments. Jonathan Kayne has solved this problem by replacing those pesky humans with stepper motors. The members of his band never talk back, and they play everything from All-Star to Piano Man to The Mandalorian theme.

Purveyor of weird, wild, and wonderful objects Archie McPhee expands its already bizarre collection of candy canes with three new flavors. First up is sweet, creamy butter, followed by smokey beef brisket, and a savory caesar salad, complete with a hint of anchovies. We don’t mean to yuck anyone’s yum, but we’ll pass.

It took 56 people four years to build Gremlin Symphony inside Convergence Station, Denver. The room is an art installation made from trash sculpted around instruments that play themselves using robotics or can be played by a human. Reggie Watts got together with co-creator Meason Wiley to give it a test run.

There’s a good reason that guitars are only playable from one side. But that didn’t stop musician Rob Scallon from giving this unusual double-sided guitar a try. This strange string instrument is configured as a regular guitar on one side and a bass guitar on the other. It’s super tricky to play both sides at the same time.

We don’t know much about farming watermelons, but apparently, part of the operation includes keeping them cooled off as they go from harvest to shipment. This clever farmer takes advantage of the melons’ buoyancy not only to transport their melons but to keep them from baking in the hot sun.

Mountain biker Sam Pilgrim took the five-wheeled Street Surfer for a ride on a variety of urban freeriding locations, including skateparks, stairs, and a pump track. The unusual bike has four small wheels in place of a single front wheel and both front and rear suspension. It’s all about the lean.

Hooded seals have one of the strangest mating rituals we’ve ever seen. The males have inflatable noses, which they blow up when it’s time to attract a mate. Their big honkers are used not only to attract females but to intimidate rivals. BBC’s Frozen Planet II gets us up close and personal with their unusual snouts.

A year before Sesame Street debuted, Jim Henson’s Muppets turned up on The Ed Sullivan Show. The fuzzy, smoke-blowing aliens repeated the phrase “Sclrap Flyapp!” while hunting an elusive snail creature whose only utterance was “Merp.” Yes, it’s as silly as it sounds.

When it comes to pedal-powered vehicles, weight is your enemy. But that didn’t stop Play to DIY from making this fully functional bicycle (and matching helmet) by casting concrete. The slow-moving bike weighs in at a whopping 134.5 kg – or about 296 lb. We’re surprised that it moves and balances as well as it does.

All we could think of was the 7-1/2 floor from Being John Malkovich while we watched this bizarre video of a woman walking through a half-height apartment building and serving up a gigantic hamburger. The Chinese cover of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles seals the deal.

One of the many memorable images in My Neighbor Totoro is Catbus. Studson Studios thought it would be fun to redesign the walking bus as if it was Garfield. It’s not an original idea, but the first time we’ve seen the orange Catbus brought to life as a 3-dimensional object. We imagine it’s powered by lasagna, not gasoline.

You’re Saying It Wrong podcast hosts Kathryn and Ross Petras authored this quirky book for trivia, history, and anatomy buffs. Told in chronological order, it explores milestones in history tied closely to human body parts, from Cleopatra’s nose to Ann Bolyeyn’s heart to George Washington’s fake teeth.

Musician Steve Cruickshank likes to take classic songs and change them up a bit by replacing the original harmonies with their mirror image. The resulting music is at once familiar and pleasant to the ear but also completely different from what we’re used to. Let’s kick the playlist off with his version of The Sound of Silence.

Taking a page out of Back to the Future II, Hawaii’s Holomua Kitchen makes and sells skinny slices of freeze-dried pepperoni pizza, packed in an airtight bag. We haven’t tasted this crispy, crunchy snack food yet, but the 5-star reviews on Etsy sound quite promising.

Do you like your coffee with sugar and bad dreams? Stoned and Fired Pottery creates these delightfully creepy mugs in the shape of a baby’s head. The vacant eyes and empty skull make them all the more unsettling. Each one is handmade from ceramic stoneware and holds up to 22 oz. of your beverage of choice.