Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

People can celebrate Christmas the way any way they like, no matter how far it strays from those common paths. We share a few unusual but enjoyable places with their own special traditions for December 25th.  Tiny town of Christmas, Fla., is home to Swampy, World's Largest Alligator  (Southern Thing) The Magical Place Near Cleveland Where It’s Christmas Year-Round (Only In Your State) Washington Crossing the Delaware Reenactment (Washington Crossing Park) Merry Christmas to all our Patreon backers, listeners and well-wishers!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Santa Claus stuffing a terrified kid into his bag of presents? Creepy monsters chasing people? A Christmas dinner come to life, with utensils as legs? Meet some of the many terrifying designs for Christmas cards back in the Victorian era. Plus: today is the anniversary of Earthrise, the iconic photo taken by the Apollo 8 crew as they orbited the moon.  Have a Creepy Little Christmas with These Unsettling Victorian Cards (Hyperallergic) Earthrise: Celebrating the Photograph that Changed (How We View) the World (Library of Congress) Thanks to our Patreon backers for making Cool Weird Awesome possible!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Take the Hanukkah favorite, dreidel, and turn the intensity way, way up. Now you've got Major League Dreidel, a growing new sport in New York City. Plus: an agency in Nova Scotia decided people needed a break from ads this season, and released some ad-free ads.  Competitive Dreidel-Spinning Is a Thing. Here's How Major League Dreidel Got Started. (Civilized) Creative agency buys $10k of blank ad space to give everyone a break from ads (It's Nice That) Cool Weird Awesome is listener supported. Thanks to our Patreon backers! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

As we get ready for the official start of winter, it's worth noting that some of us deal with this time of year in unusual ways. Like the people of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who spend their cold, cold winters drinking Slurpees. Plus: on this Star Wars premiere day, a visit to a German observatory painted to look like R2-D2.  How One of Canada's Coldest Cities Became the Slurpee Capital of the World (Thrillist) Giant R2-D2 Structure is an Overhauled German Observatory  (Interesting Engineering) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon for less than the cost of a Slurpee a month! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

You’ve heard about making cars smarter, but what about smarter intersections? Cornell researchers find that making intersections more autonomous could help get self-driving cars where they want to go more efficiently. Plus: on the anniversary of the last day of the last Apollo mission to the moon, how about a trip to the Museum of the Moon, now visiting Philadelphia? Smart intersections could cut autonomous car congestion (Science Daily) Last lunar-landing mission ends (History.com) Museum of the Moon (Franklin Institute) Backing Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon is extremely smart --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

An increasing number of museums are offering EnChroma corrective glasses to visitors with color blindness, to bring more color to the world of art and those who enjoy it. Plus: a museum in London is exhibiting a disposable cup from 3,500 years ago, proving that from our earliest times, we’ve been trying to avoid doing the dishes. When Colorblind Visitors Put On These Glasses, The Art At The MCA Looks A Lot Brighter (Colorado Public Radio) How EnChroma’s Glasses Correct Color-Blindness (Technology Review) A museum’s 3,500-year-old disposable cup shows the desire to avoid dishwashing is ancient (Washington Post) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today marks 30 years since the first episode of “The Simpsons” aired, and so we pay tribute to the house Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie call home - not to mention a real-life, 3D version of the place in Nevada. Plus: the closest real-life town to Springfield, USA isn't a Springfield at all.  Duff beers, colorful walls and THAT saggy couch: Inside the real-life Simpsons house that was built as a competition prize in the 1990s ... but the winner decided to take the money instead! (Daily Mail) 25 things you never knew about The Simpsons (Telegraph UK) Twenty dollars can back many Cool Weird Awesomes! Explain how! Money can be exchanged for goods and services!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Fruitcake is one holiday tradition that's not for everybody, we know that, but those who love it, love it - like the Ford family in Michigan, which has kept a single fruitcake as an heirloom for over 140 years. Plus: if fruitcake is so infamous, why are there two towns that want to be known as the fruitcake capital of the world?  For Tecumseh family, 141-year-old fruitcake represents love (Detroit News) Georgia Town Makes Claim For Fruitcake Capital Of The World (The Salt) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon and you'll get a bonus episode of the show this December! Or a fruitcake, if you really prefer --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

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