Awesome Weird

The #1 requirement for getting into the Olympics is that you’re an exceptional athlete. Half as Interesting explains how in 2018, a woman managed to hustle her way into an event at the Pyeongchang games with not much more ability than a bunny hill skier. You can watch Elizabeth Swaney’s amazingly mediocre ski half-pipe run here.

Engineers from Stanford University have been working on an unusual design for a robot that uses inflatable tubes for its body. It can move about and change shapes by squeezing on its air bladders, and can pack up small when not in use. It’s like the more evolved cousin of the wacky waving tube guy.

Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time and Duncan Trussell of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour team up for a trippy Netflix animated series about an interstellar broadcaster who roams the universe looking for beings to interview. It sounds like Space Ghost Coast to Coast meets Rick and Morty. Drops on 4/20/20, of course.

This weird and wonderful very short film attempts to answer the question “what kind of food would androids consume, if they needed to eat?” Apparently, the answer seems to be something very colorful and strangely textured. Directed and animated by Lukas Vojir, with music and sound by Resonate for XK Studio.

(PG-13: Language) The Sony PS4 game Dreams lets players create their own games from scratch. But the latest from the creator of LittleBigPlanet might not have enough guard rails to keep people from designing complete garbage. At least that’s what Dunkey shows us in his demo of some user-submitted content.

We’ve already seen how computer graphics tech can be used to replace Back to the Future’s DeLorean with a Cybertruck. Now watch as Spider-Man’s Tom Holland and Iron Man’s Robert Downey, Jr. are placed into the roles of Marty McFly and Doc Brown, courtesy of EZRyderX47 and some sophisticated deepfaking software.

This quirky platform puzzle game has two interesting constructs: 1) you can only jump twice in each level; and 2) you break one leg each time you jump. Azaan Lambkin’s submission to itch.io’s Finally Finish Something 2020 contest ironically has a bug that keeps some players from seeing the game’s ending.

What do you get when you take a bunch of old Garfield comic strips and feed them into a machine learning algorithm designed to morph them into a cohesive animation sequence? Nightmares, that’s what. Go figure it was the guy behind Garfield Gameboy’d that tipped us off to Daniel Hanley’s bizarre AI experiment.

This unusual guitar effects pedal changes its sound based on whatever liquid you pour into it. Unscrew the watertight lid, pour in the beverage of your choice, and the conductive properties of said liquid will influence signal gain, while its opacity affects the equalization of the sound. Demo video here. (Thanks Mike!)

Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit Billie Jean is one of the most played music tracks of all time. But we’ve never heard it played almost entirely on one of those springy door stopper things – until now. Musician Beeble recorded a variety of sproingy sounds and edited them together to create this very silly version.

Art of Play’s limited edition deck features imagery by illustrator Jenny Gebhardt, who provided each of its 54 cards with a uniquely warped and twisted character or scene. Printed by the U.S. Playing Card Co.

Just because two foods can be combined doesn’t mean it should be done. But Good Mythical Morning’s series Snack Smash does just that all the time. In this clip, host Josh Scherer managed to make Pop-Tarts that taste like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and we got heartburn just looking at the video.

A charming and hard to describe new game from the creator of Katamari Damacy, Wattam is about as wacky and weird of a game as you can imagine. It’s filled with goofy anthropomorphized objects living together in a dreamlike world where these characters team up to complete puzzles. It’ll land on PC and PS4 any minute now.

Animator Cyriak Harris takes us on a typically trippy journey through one of his weird and imaginative worlds. This time, the place is populated with self-replicating fractal teddy bears, spiraling highways, and cats operating mechs made out of buildings. As the insanity passes by, it eventually circles back on itself.

(PG-13: Language) A man and a woman get together over what appears a delicious brunch, and have a particularly outlandish conversation over croissants and orange juice. John Purcell’s nonsensical short film is unabashedly silly and offbeat.

There are a zillion covers of Billie Eilish’s hit Bad Guy out there, but we’re going to have to give our vote to Dan Davidson’s group DD and the Butterlovers and their bluegrass version. We have no idea what the deal is with their outfits, but we still say “yee-haw!”

Unofficial naturalist ZeFrank is here to educate us yet again on one of nature’s stranger creations, a funky fungi that rapidly develops and expands in some of the most extraordinary ways. Not only does it look disgusting, it smells the part too.

Artist Mike Pelletier’s experimental short film is an incredibly trippy visual created by tossing together a bunch of digital human models, removing their skeletal structures, and then dipping them in virtual paint. If it sounds weird, that’s because it is. We can’t help but think of the part of Terminator 2 where the T-1000 melts.

Musical mashup maestro Bill McClintock issues his apologies in advance for this hilariously weird melding of The Spice Girls and Slipknot, with a dash of The Black Crowes tossed in for extra seasoning. All we really want is to zig-a-zig-aaaaaaarrrrgh.

We’re gonna need a bigger cup. Somehow a great white shark has made its way into your kitchen, and is swimming around in your tea. Fortunately, that’s not blood in the water, but just the red from a fragrant hibiscus and rosehip tea blend. Still, sip at your own risk. Sold in sets of three. Also available from CD Japan.

We already know that octopi are incredibly smart creatures. What we don’t know is if their big brains dream like ours. In this fascinating footage from Nature on PBS, we witness a octopus changing colors as she sleeps, while the narrator imagines what she might be dreaming about.

Described as “glassless cocktails,” scotch whiskey maker The Glenlivet’s uniquely packaged booze is sure to raise some eyebrows. Each edible pod is filled with a 23ml whiskey cocktail, offering up a burst of flavor much like taking a shot. While they’re a cool idea, they’re not headed to the US at this point.

The Q built one of the most insane custom bicycles we’ve ever seen. He replaced the standard wheels of his wide-tire bike with special rims that wear six shoes each instead of tires. It doesn’t look like the smoothest ride ever, but the shoe rubber does provide decent traction.