The comedy4cast network. Let's dog ear that for now.
This is comedy4cast, episode 797. It all hinges on this.
It's time once again for the Dog Days of Podcasting, a call for podcasters to
try to put out a podcast every day in August.
For more information and to hear all the shows, go to dogdaysofpodcasting.com.
Here at the comedy4cast studios, we've been working on a new format for this year's Dog Days.
Sure, like in years past, there will be an actual odd news story, but that's not all.
So, let's get started with Odd News Plus.
Here are our stories for Monday, August 5th, 2024.
First up, according to the latest edition of the Trapper Keeper of the American
Medical Association, doctors are no longer recommending that people aim to get
in 10,000 steps a day for good health.
The new guidelines suggest people should target walking 4,000 steps,
shuffle for 500, lumber 200, stagger 50, trudge 20, and meander as much as possible.
Strutting, striding, and strolling are optional. And sleepwalking is always encouraged.
Now let's get to our actual for real odd news story.
A recent TikTok video has taught people how to drink a bottle of Coke or Pepsi.
It's all good. Peace and love, peace and love.
But getting back to the story, you're probably wondering why people in 2024
are scratching their heads over how to drink out of a plastic bottle.
It turns out that as a part of an initiative to help curb the massive plastic
waste problem affecting us all,
the European Union has mandated that those screw-off caps on plastic bottles
have to stay attached to the bottle.
Apparently, bottle caps are one of the items most often carelessly discarded by consumers.
That and fidget spinner display cases.
I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But it's the design of
the tethered bottle cap that has people in a bit of a tizzy,
or more accurately, in a flap, because everyone is finding it hard to drink out of the bottle.
You see, when the cap is flapped back, it stops when it's halfway turned over
and ends up looking like some kind of miniature submarine hatch.
It can hit you in the nose or the side of the mouth, making it hard to take
a sip of your favorite caramel-colored caffeine in sugar water.
Okay, first of all, if you all hadn't been tossing these things on the ground
like oak trees shaking off acorns, we might not be here in the first place. Just saying.
But here we are. And also here is a video by a TikTok content creator who simply goes by the name Joanna.
Her video starts off with her sharing her own frustrations with the new caps. Nice.
Remember, it's always good to first identify with your audience and state the
nature of the fizzy drink emergency.
But then, in an M. Night Shyamalan twist, Joanna says that a friend at work
explained that just unscrewing the cap and flipping it back is not how it works.
I guess that means Joanna's friend is really the hero of the story,
but her contribution will always be reduced to simply being a friend of Joanna.
Joanna then holds up a plastic bottle, ooh, props, and notes that the hinges
that attach the cap to the bottle are on a thin band.
After you unscrew the cap, you simply drag the cap over the opening,
bringing the hinges and the thin band along for the ride.
The cap then sits snug against the neck of the bottle. out of the way.
Mind blown. Now, Joanna, about those coffee cup lid flaps that never seem to
want to stay in place. Got anything on that?
No? How about your friend? And finally, our last story for today is a follow-up
to a story we ran about six seconds ago.
We were talking about those plastic bottle caps. It turns out that they break
down, tossing even more microplastics into the environment.
Seriously, microplastics are so much less fun than Micro Machines.
Even worse, some caps break down faster than others.
Researchers at the University of Leicester have demonstrated that the color
of the cap can affect the rate at which the plastic breaks down.
And it doesn't even matter if you spell color with or without a U.
The researchers say that tests show black, white, and silver colorants in caps
protects the plastic from damaging ultraviolet radiation, which changes its
polymer structure, making it brittle.
But hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's some positive news here.
Now you know that if you don't want your outdoor furniture to disintegrate,
forget colors like red, green, and blue.
Get some nice black lawn furniture. It will last way longer,
especially because outdoors, that stuff will heat up close to the temperature
of the sun, and you'll never sit on it.
That about wraps it up for today's Odd News Plus.
A big thanks to the comedy4cast patrons for helping make this show possible.
Story, voices, and original music by Clinton Alvord. Copyright 2024.
All rights reserved. Talk to you next time. But for now, that's it.
We're done, done, done, done, done. Bye-bye.
Music.