Weird World Variety with Matt and Jesse
A Podcast for every traveler. Funny and Family Friendly stories and news from around the world that just might make you smile.
Weird World Variety with Matt and Jesse
Pancake Racing Frenzy, Smuggled Snakes, & Nostalgic Gaming Waves
Ever sprint down Main Street with a frying pan in hand? Welcome to my solo venture this week on Weird World Variety, where I whisk you away to Olney, England, to uncover the quirky charm of pancake racing. It’s a tale of tradition, aprons, and some seriously skilled pancake flipping, all set against the backdrop of Lenten preparations. While Jesse's off, I'm stirring up nostalgia with a dash of my own family’s cinnamon roll ritual on holidays, and inviting you to consider if your town's customs could stack up to these festive, floury dashes.
Then, we set sail in the digital seas with a look at Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Skull and Bones, two games charting courses through uncharted waters of nostalgia and next-gen graphics. The remake of a classic RPG offers a world brimming with freedom and familiar faces, while the latest pirate saga has us yearning for the thrill of naval combat, despite leaving us land-locked on previous-gen consoles. Grab your gamepad and your sense of adventure as we navigate these groundbreaking titles and weigh anchor on the possibilities they bring to the horizons of gaming.
Welcome back to Weird World Variety with Matt and Jesse. Okay, cool, what's up everybody? How you doing? How you doing? How's everybody doing tonight? Alright, alright, enough of that. Welcome back to Weird World Variety with Matt and Jesse. Unfortunately, jesse is not here today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know he. You know life scheduling it happens, but he will be back next week, so don't worry, he will be back, so don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1:Today. We've got a lot of weirdness ready for you today. So if you're all ready, let's get this thing started with our first story of the day. Now, we've got a lot of weird things in the news, but I thought a few of these would be pretty funny. First off, if you've never had pancakes, you're missing out on life. So I feel like, I feel like if you haven't had pancakes, you're probably one of the few people in the world that haven't had pancakes. I know for one, I love breakfast and, yeah, I wouldn't pass it up for anything. So that brings us to our first story. Yeah, so here we go.
Speaker 1:Our first story of the day is about an old tradition. Now, I don't know if you have any traditions in your family. I only have a few. As far as, like the breakfast thing goes, the only thing I can think of is off the top of my head is during certain holidays our family likes to make cinnamon rolls. So cinnamon rolls are kind of a thing in our family. Otherwise we just knew the normal breakfast thing. But that's one of our traditions is anytime we have a certain holiday and we want something very special, a little bit too sugary, we might make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. So that's one of our traditions. This tradition involves a breakfast item and a very interesting and unique way to handle said breakfast item. That is a pancake race. Yes, that's right, a pancake race. You heard me right. The tradition, or the title, I would say the title of this is in this centuries old English pancake race. You just have to go flat out Now. This is being held in only England and, yeah, we're going to dive into this right now. Let's see what this is about.
Speaker 1:Women in matching checkered aprons, headscarves and a rainbow of running shoes limbered up Tuesday as they prepared for the centuries old pancake race in this English country town. They rolled their shoulders in unison, raised up their toes and did squats before stepping to the starting line, fried pans in hand at the word go. They sprinted through the streets trying not to drop their pancakes as they roughly trace the path taken by a hurried housewife in 1445. So this started. So this started in 1445. Is that what I'm getting here? Whose legend has it heard the church bells singing Not singing, I'm sorry signaling the Shrove Tuesday service and raced off with their skillet. It's a horrible distance, said Kaiser Larkas, 44, a mother of four, who legged it past Eloise Cramer to capture the only title with a winning time of 63.37 seconds. You just have to go flat out and then hope you're not going to fall over, but it's all a good fun. This tradition has been repeated over the centuries, not only in only, but across England, even in the United States, where the Kansas town of liberal copied the idea and has been trying to outrun the friendly British rivals for 75 years.
Speaker 1:This article is from AP newscom slash oddities. You can look it up. It is the Britain pancake race, so this is pretty interesting. So they have a wonder Do they have the distance here? Did I just say the distance? She did in 63.37 seconds. They were racing across. It doesn't say the distance. Let's see here.
Speaker 1:The race is held the day before the start of Lent, the Christian period of repentance and sacrifice before Easter, celebrated as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday in other parts of the world. The name Shrove Tuesday derives from the English word meaning seek forgiveness or to be granted absolution. If a secret recipe behind the winning race exists, it would probably call for a pinch of skill, a dash of athleticism and an extra scoop of whimsy. The competition falls somewhere between the Great British Bake Off and zany local pursuits such as rough and tumble cheese wheel chase down Cooper's Hill. The runners must flip the pancake. So here's the rules the runners must flip the pancake at the start and the finish. The four hundred and fifteen yard. There it is three hundred and eighty meter sprint itself may be a form of penance ahead of Lent.
Speaker 1:To Kansas sit or sisters sitters to Kansas. Sisters who competed in liberal since they were children traveled to only this year to see where it all began. We've been talking about it for a long time, said Amy Thompson, who painted her nails with British and American flags and, of course, pancakes. We like those festival odd things and we decided to quit talking about it. It's the seventy fifth anniversary and this would be a perfect time to come Only. And Buckinghamshire is about sixty miles northwest of London and liberal is in southwest Kansas, just north of the Oklahoma State line and about two hundred miles west of Wichita. I don't know why my accent just went south there. Oh my goodness. Mellor reported from London, heather Hollingsworth reported from Mission, kansas. So there you go.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you let's see what any of our listeners participate in the pancake race. I would try it at least once. It reminds me of like the old egg on the spoon race where you had to like balance it. One kind of idea, but a little bit bigger with the pan and the pancake thing. So there you have it, pancake racing across England. But yeah, this is definitely something fun to go see.
Speaker 1:I wonder if they have like a whole festival for it. That would be cool. And then everybody like makes pancakes and stuff. Dude, you could totally have a pancake festival for this, yeah, and then, like the race would sound a little something like this and now they're starting at the starting line. They're ready with their skillets and their pancakes. As they're ready to go, the prize is within sight 400, some meters, no, 400 yards, my bad, 300, some meters. As they get ready with their hot skillets. I also wonder if the skillets were hot too. They have hot or cold pancakes, I wonder. So they race off, and then we, and then you know, here they go. Oh, there they go, as they race down the track and we've gotten runners in first and second they're tripping. Oh, there's a stumble in the backfield as three ladies tripped over each other. We'll have to watch out. Those pancakes are flying. Here comes Caitlin up the set, out the center, and she won the big Jake race. So yeah, it would sound something like that. I don't know, but yeah, that to me sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Let me know in the comments if you guys have a tradition or you have something you would race in. It could be breakfast, could be lunch, could be dinner, I don't know. Something involving food that would be pretty interesting. Let's go right on over to our second story. All right, so here is our. Huh, who's there? I'm not answering that. Anyway, here is our next story. I thought it would be interesting to try to blend in a little bit of variety here.
Speaker 1:We have been talking about animals the last few weeks and I thought this would be interesting because last week, if you remember, we talked about a guy who got caught with some monkey business in his backpack and it was pretty funny. So this time it gets even worse and involves New York. Yes, I said it right, the one place everybody wants to go to. Not really, but it involves New York. And somebody was naughty at the border, looks like. Here's the title caught at the border with pythons in his pants. New York City man fine and sentenced to probate. Yes, you heard that right. This man had pythons he was trying to sneak, not in his shirt, not in his backpack, yes, in his pants. Now I know how funny that seems, but it gets even worse, I promise. Here we go. A New York City man who admitted to smuggling three Burmese pythons in his pants through a US-Canadian border crossing was sent in Wednesday to a year of probation and fined $5,000. Federal prosecutor said Calvin Batista, 38, crossed into Northern New York with hidden snakes on a bus from Montreal to New York City.
Speaker 1:First of all, here's the thing you would think it would be rather difficult to keep snakes hidden Because, I don't know, maybe our reptile experts in our listeners' audience can attest to this, but snakes are very mobile creatures. Sometimes they'll sleep, yes, and then they don't move, but when they're awake they're often moving around and looking for things to eat. You know things to climb, that kind of thing. So at least that has been my experience of what I've seen from snakes. If you know something, like if you are an expert on snakes, you could kindly fill us in. But wouldn't this be rather difficult to keep snakes hidden? I would think so, even if you tucked them away in a backpack or something because I feel like they wouldn't want to get out. I feel like a backpack would have been a better option. But yeah, this was this person's approach. The young adult snakes were hidden in the inner thigh of his pants and snake bags tied to the pants drawstring. This was the elaborate, probably very uncomfortable for the snakes. This is kind of snake abuse.
Speaker 1:They were discovered by US Customs and Border Protection officers. According to court documents and a release of the Office of the US Attorney, the Queen's Resonant purchased the snakes, which were more than $2,500. Wow, at a reptile store in Canada, according to court documents. First of all, you liked snakes that much that you went to Canada to purchase these snakes, and not only that, but at $2,500? I don't know, it seems like a lot. I get it, but still. I know you want a rare and wild animal. I get it, but still seems like a little bit much. Importation of Burmese pythons is regulated by an international treaty, by US Federal regulations listing them as Injuries to Human Beans. I wonder why the Burmese python, one of the world's largest snakes, considered a vulnerable species in its native Asia and is invasive in Florida where it threatens native animals.
Speaker 1:Batista's attorney had no comment. Of course he didn't. I wouldn't want to be this person's attorney. He clearly got busted doing something very illegal, all for because he wanted a wild animal that I guess wasn't available in the US. I don't know what to tell you. Maybe moved to Canada, I don't know. I think the better option would have been to move to Canada, but instead you tried to hide the snakes, tried to come back over. Anybody seen snakes on a plane? Yeah, this was snakes on a bus and didn't work out so well. So there's that.
Speaker 1:I don't know what people think about this. Y'all are going to have to let me know in the comments. Like seriously, what in the world is going on with people trying to smuggle these weird things? Last week we had monkeys that were dead and mummified they weren't even alive or preserved in any way which had to smell awful, like absolutely awful. And then this week we've got someone trying to literally smuggle snakes in their vets. Just ugh, I know, I know, I know it's just, it's crazy. It's crazy to me that this is the world that we're coming to and I feel like it's going to get even worse.
Speaker 1:What's next? Man? Here's my thing. If you're going to have any animals, please read the laws, because there are a lot of animals that you are allowed to have. There are a ton, especially here in America. So please read the laws.
Speaker 1:If you're going to go own something that's maybe okay in another country, that's not okay in this country, why not move to the country? I mean, if that's what you want to do with your life, I have nothing against it. So why not move to the country that you want to go to and own the animals that you want to own? No, no, nothing against it. That's why they called American Dream, because we have no reason to like hold that overview. You know, like America don't care. You can go anywhere, you can leave, you can stay, and right now it's pretty easy to come in and go out. So I don't know. I don't know, just my opinion. All right, so that's our daily dose of weird news. We've got a special section coming up for you.
Speaker 1:Next, we are going to dive into video game news for 2024. Yes, that's right, I said it right after we come back, right after this, alright, alright, we're back, we're back, alright. So we've got some awesome video game news for you. First off, some simple reviews. So when I saw this let me make sure I pull up the actual reviews here when I saw this, yes, I've got three piece of news for you and it involves three different games We've got on the menu. We've got Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. I've got an article for you there. We've got Hell Divers 2, which, if you don't know what Hell Divers 2 is, you will very soon. It is quickly becoming the rage of the century and, okay, rage isn't the right word, but it's definitely becoming high news now and known across the gaming community.
Speaker 1:And then we've got a rating for Skull in Bones. So this is from Game Informer. If you want to follow along Game Informercom, they are very good when it comes to news and they've got some news for us. So, first off on the list, final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has received a review of an 8.5. Now, I believe that's out of 10. I'm not sure, don't quote me, but I believe that's an 8.5. The next one on the review is Skull in Bones, a 7.5, which honestly, I thought Skull in Bones would be a little bit higher than that, because the just the outlandish marketing and crazy talk about this game has been insane since last year. They've been talking about this game since last year and people have just been going crazy, so I thought that review would be a little bit higher. We'll get into that in a little bit. And then, finally, hell Divers 2, which everybody's been talking about lately on the gaming news, receives a 9. I you know, I wish I could tell you I didn't see that coming, saw it coming, bro. Like I've seen maybe four or five gameplay videos and this game is phenomenal. We're going to dive right in right now. So let's open this up and see what we got.
Speaker 1:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's cover store a new found freedom. So here's, here's the big news. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth presents players with a new adventure in a massive world brimming with endless possibilities. What are they talking about here? Looks like the making it dives into a bunch of stuff. You guys can like read this if you want to. There is so much going on. They talk about the introduction, the remaking of Final Fantasy 7, what goes on, what went into it. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Let's look into some of the changes going on in Final Fantasy 7. Following the events of Final Fantasy 7, remake, cloud, tifa, aerith Barrett and Red 13 have escaped from the restrictive confines of Midgard. This accurately reflects reflects the progression of the story and format in the original Final Fantasy 7 as the party emerges from Midgard's close quarters in linearity into an open and explorable world map. Now I did play Final Fantasy 7. I think it was the first one available on PS4. I think the new games they're not available on PS4. Unfortunately for me, because I don't just buy every single console as soon as it comes out. It is available on PS5, the new adventures. So we'll see what happens with that and what they do with that. Here we go.
Speaker 1:The long time Final Fantasy developers have had this in mind ever since Final Fantasy 10 changed how adventures in the world progress. We started off expressing this world that you can venture through with a world map. That was how it was starting with Final Fantasy 1. Kid, I want to say Kase, you guys are going to butcher me with that. I have no idea how to pronounce this. Who serves as a producer on Rebirth says. But starting with Final Fantasy 10, when we entered into real time 3D world, this is when the world map development ceased or halted to some degree with X or 10. It was the style where a player chose a point or an area they would like to go and travel there. In that sense, the feeling was that since it's real time 3D, it's not quite possible to create this world map anymore like the full world map. So the story of Final Fantasy 10.
Speaker 1:Final Fantasy VII explores themes of corporate greed, environmentalism and mental health all topics more relevant than ever in more than 25 years since the release of the classic RPG. If you play the new Final Fantasy VII, the graphics are amazing. The story is really cool, the play style is actually really cool and everything just feels very fluid for me in the game. So for it to get the review that it did, we're looking at what was it? 8.5? Yes, very worth it. I mean it looks like there was so much work that went into this game. If you guys have not tried Final Fantasy VII, yet rebirth. Where have you been? You need to try it out. It's definitely something to look into and they're just gonna, with more and more episodes and them wanting to make it an open world, it's just gonna get better and better and, like I said, the only one that I played was the very first episode that came out with in PS4. And so from there it looks like it's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 1:From the screenshots that I've seen here, we get to see all of our favorite characters and their RPG attacks and their greatness. It looks fantastic. If you've played any Final Fantasy games, you know kind of the play style of the RPG format. Also, there's a screenshot here of Cloud on our. What is it Really? You guys gotta check this out.
Speaker 1:Gameinformercom there's Clouds writing a people mover. I can't. Oh, this is too good. We're in a Hawaiian shirt and the people mover is even Hawaiian. That's hilarious. Looks like he's a tourist. Anyway, there is a lot going into this. I feel like this is gonna be pretty epic. 8.5, that should reflect how good this game is actually gonna be, and it is well deserved in my opinion. It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Next on the list let's talk about a little game called Skull and Bones Now I have not played this it got a 7.5. Was that what I read off here? I wanna make sure I'm quoting right Yep, 7.5. But from what I've heard, everybody has been talking about this game, been waiting about this game, because the Sea Warfare in this game has just been fluid as heck and everybody's been loving it. Yeah, so, and it also fills a void for those of us who have played Assassin's Creed. I've also heard from several of my friends that have played Assassin's Creed like I have. I definitely loved Black Flag. That was one of my favorite and if you know Assassin's Creed, black Flag, it was the pirate game and it was definitely one of my favorite out of all the Assassin's Creed. But if you know that game, you know that you were a pirate and that you were traversing this Caribbean area and it was just fantastic. But a lot of people were complaining about the Sea Warfare. Yeah, they were complaining about the Sea Warfare and the movement and everything and it being fluid, and this just feels it feels like it fills a void for those of us who have played Assassin's Creed, skull and bones.
Speaker 1:I've heard really good things from this. There's a full breakdown and a full review at GameInformercom. Feel free to check it out. It is on the PS5, also on Xbox Series S and X, pc and some other stuff. So, yeah, it's on. I don't believe it's going to be on PS4, which is also another reason why I have not played it, but the company Ubisoft is one of my favorite game companies, like as far as games. So, yeah, I thought this, honestly, would get a little higher score. It's got a 7.5, but I thought it would be up there with Final Fantasy and Helldivers too. To be honest, because of how much talk is going on about this game, it's just insane. If you look at the screenshots, they're just gorgeous, gorgeous and gorgeous, and if you're addicted to the beach and the sea, like I am, this is definitely one game to look out for. So, if you guys get a chance, go check out the review, the trailer, everything, the article and see for yourself how cool this game is. Start on the list. And last one for today I thought I would let you guys know. Last one for today Helldivers 2.
Speaker 1:Again, if you have not heard of this game, you will soon, because it is pretty epic. The whole fame of the game is that you fly in and you have to liberate planets, and the way that you do that is you have two choices. You can either face off in a war against these humongous bugs or face off in a war against robots, and either way it can be pretty difficult depending on how crazy you get into it. But from the videos that I've seen, the trailer is pretty epic. It's also like the whole story, and propaganda video at the beginning of this game is hilarious. It's somewhat very, very crazy. So you're going to have to check it out and, yes, you can compete with your friends. I would recommend it. Definitely.
Speaker 1:Bring your squad out for this game, because there are people all across the world right now calling for it to be released on Xbox as well, because they want the Xbox Halo people to join the fight. It's pretty cool to see what it's doing for the gaming community. It's actually uniting a lot of people on this front of just let's all join in this war together against the bugs and the robots. It's pretty neat. So if you guys get a chance, check out Helldivers too. It is insane. Now to dive a little deeper, you go in as a squad, I think, of two to four people. I wonder if you can have more. I don't know if you can have more, I want to say at least two to four people and you get dropped in and you have to fulfill these missions. And once you fulfill these missions on these planets, then they have a percentage that your squad has helped liberate. Now that percentage is dedicated to everybody trying to liberate that planet and it will show the progress of that planet as it's being liberated.
Speaker 1:The game impeccable, crazy, flawless, beautiful. The monsters and armies that you face just insane. The only complaint that I've seen so far is that the servers are very restricted on how many people they are that can play at the same time. So every once in a while you guys might be waiting on getting into the server or it might crash for some reason. I've seen some crashes on there, but nothing that would take away from this review.
Speaker 1:Again, top tier game. Everybody's having a blast on it right now. Also, you can. So it has this feature where you can prank your friends, because if you kill them, you can also call them back in. So even if you accidentally throw a grenade at your friends or something and they blow up, you can call them back in right away within a few minutes. So there has been really funny content coming out of this game as well, because of the Just the pranking and just the fun that's had to be this with this game.
Speaker 1:Also, there's different types of units with the bugs and the robots, so you're not just facing like the same units all the time. You're facing heavies, you're facing tanks, you're facing scouts, you're facing like little soldier bugs and soldier robots. It's literally one side of it Looks like Star Troopers if you've seen those movies and the other side of it, with the robots, looks like Terminator or Star Wars, because they have like ATT walkers and Terminator type units. It just gets nuts. It's absolutely insane. I definitely recommend it.
Speaker 1:If you have never played Helldivers 2, check it out because it's going to be awesome. Again, unfortunately for me, it will not be on the PS4. It's only on the PS5 and PC right now. Again, everybody who is calling for this to be released on Xbox I absolutely agree. We need everybody and to also hopefully expand the servers, because everybody's going to want to play this game and I can see like, if it was possible, I could see millions of people playing this game and enjoying it.
Speaker 1:So there you go. There's my two cents. Those three games again amazing. If you haven't checked them out, please go check them out. They're awesome. The game community is great and the fact that it's all these new games, not only by the big companies but independent companies, are being invented and everything's just getting pushed as far as the boundaries of gaming and what we can do. Let's keep it going. I say let's keep it going. What do you guys say? There we go, there we go, all right. So from the WWV, that's all we got this week. See you guys next week on Weird World Variety. And remember we have a Facebook page and Instagram. We have an email and we might have a voicemail soon. So look us up on Facebook or Instagram at Weird World Variety with Matt and Jesse. Message us your funny, your weird, your crazy stories, anything you want to tell us, anything you want us to bring on the show. We would love to have it on the show. So until next time, stay weird, everybody, all right, all right.