Merlin The Duck

We bounce from everyday check-ins to big headlines, mixing weather, internet oddities, and practical safety stories with our usual skeptical curiosity. We track earthquakes and solar activity, question how news gets framed, and end on the surprising history of a simple white line that changed how people drive at night. 

• value-for-value podcasting and keeping the show free and open 
• experimenting with cartoon-style YouTube Shorts and TikTok clips 
• weather snapshots across London, Mount Vernon, Spokane, and Phoenix 
• a reflection pause with the tone segment 
• Merlin the Duck as a viral World Cup mascot story 
• earthquake totals, ring of fire notes, and a quick solar flare update 
• CERN shutdown rumors, social media claims, and how belief spreads online 
• dinosaur fossil reporting from Antarctica and why we push for clearer evidence 
• the Wall Street Journal story on the white road edge line and road safety impact 

Transcript

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Welcome To The Rough Edges

Bruce 0:01

Me Merlin the Duck.

Capella 0:04

Welcome to the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast, the worst podcast in the unknown universe. Or at least that's what some people say. We prefer to think of ourselves as charmingly rough around the edges. We're passionate about podcasting and the value-for-value model, where creators and listeners connect directly. We believe in keeping our content free and open to everyone, because who needs another paywall, right?

Sunny 0:25

Hello everyone from the Ugly Quacking Duck. I'm Sunny.

Bruce 0:31

And I'm Bruce, and welcome aboard the newest episode of the Ugly Quacking Duck Podcast.

Sunny 0:40

Yes, we are recording today. It's Thursday, July the 9th, 2026. Yahoo!

Bruce 0:51

Yes, it is. And we really appreciate everybody tuning in. I hope you enjoy the show. I hope you continue all the way to the end of the episode.

Fourth Of July And Future Talk

Bruce 1:02

So Sunny, what is new with you?

Sunny 1:07

Well, I'll tell you, Bruce, not much. I've been ab all week.

Bruce 1:15

Oh, so you're singing your answers to me now.

Sunny 1:19

Oh yeah, we just love singing.

Bruce 1:25

Alright, well, I won't hold nothing uh against you for that because I have a tendency at my other job to uh shout out a a poem or two, which the poems are really not that good.

Sunny 1:41

Well, I believe that. You're doing them, so they're probably blah.

Bruce 1:46

Alright, well anyway, um didn't do much, huh? Did you enjoy the Fourth of July?

Sunny 1:53

Oh yeah. That was kinda cool.

Bruce 1:56

All right. Well, 250 years past anniversary now. That means there was a milestone passed uh on the Fourth of July for this country, and I hope everybody was excited about it. A lot passed through since 1976, which I remember that time too. Uh it's been a lot of activity, a lot of water under the bridge, but here we are now. Uh we can't look back in the past. What we speak now is our future. Uh look up future in the dictionary and you'll understand what I'm saying there.

Sunny 2:41

Nobody understands what you're saying, Bruce. It's like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Bruce 2:52

All right, just belittle me some more there. But while we're being silly, let's tell the uh listeners out there about what we've been working on on our cartoon, shall we?

Building Cartoon Shorts For YouTube

Sunny 3:05

Oh yeah. It's kind of cool, but then again.

Bruce 3:09

Yeah, all right, so well you're really down in everything today, aren't you?

Sunny 3:15

No, I wouldn't do that.

Bruce 3:18

Alright, so what we did was uh we have done a short on YouTube and a um TikTok video, which I still call them a short too. But anyway, um the one we did, we just had uh Sunny's picture out there, um, which is a still, and then the audio playing over it. So this week what I did is I sat down with an old program that I used in the past, uh, online programs called Toonie Tool. And I put together what it allows you to do is put together a um skit, a framework of a cartoon with preset um objects and props and backgrounds, and I did that, and then I imported Sunny's picture behind a desk, and that's gonna be his studio B, and then I imported my picture in in two studio A, which is a little bit different, and then I'm gonna run those two pictures back and forth during a recording, and we're gonna make our short that way. So hopefully it won't be too boring. You'll still get to listen to us talk. Uh, the pictures won't change much, but that's what we're hoping for anyway.

Sunny 4:52

I'm still trying to get Bruce to do a live recording with our live faces, but he's still a little bit shy.

Bruce 5:02

Well, yeah, and there's too much to do to make it worthwhile, so uh just slapping that picture up there. Hopefully, we'll keep people entertained for it's gonna be a short, short. I mean, we're not gonna do a very long one um each day or each week, and we'll see how that goes over, okay?

Sunny 5:23

All right.

Bruce 5:24

There you go, folks. That's what we've been up to lately.

Sunny 5:28

Yeah, yeah, and more, but most of it's boring. Bruce has been mowing and stuff like that.

Bruce 5:35

Yeah, well, that's that's our story, and we're sticking to it.

Weather Run Across Four Cities

Bruce 5:42

All right, Sunny, what do you say we do a little weather?

Sunny 5:45

That sounds like fun. Can I do the first country?

Bruce 5:49

You sure can. What would you like to do?

Sunny 5:53

All right, uh pull up London, England, Bruce, please. There you go. Thank you very much. You did it. Right now it is 90 degrees in London, England. Uh the wind is coming out of the south seven miles an hour, humidity is 37%, UV index is zero, air quality is ninety three, pressure is twenty nine point nine seven inches and falling, and visibility is ten miles an hour. There you go, folks. That's it.

Bruce 6:30

That's a very good job, Sunny, and I think I'm just gonna go ahead and do the local weather report today. It is 87 degrees here in Mount Vernon, which is very close to us right now. Or always, I should say. Humidity is 69%, which is high. The wind's coming out of the south at 8 miles an hour. UV index is 9, which is very high. Air quality is 55 degrees or 55. 55, which is moderate. I don't know where I got the degrees at. Pressure is 29.89 and falling. Visibility is 10 miles an hour.

Sunny 7:13

All right, Bruce, if you'll pull up Spokane, Washington, I'll do that. Alright, there we go. Thank you. It's 79 degrees right now there. Wind's coming out of the south-southwest at 10 miles an hour. The humidity's 22%, UV index is seven, which is kind of high. Air quality is 27, which is really good, pressure's 29.93 and falling. And visibility's 10 miles. You know, Bruce, it kind of sounds like that our European neighbors um has got higher temperatures again. Another heat wave their way.

Bruce 8:03

Yep, them uh few days of reports in the evenings seemed like it was calming back down, but now it's high again, and like I said, this is the uh evening weather they're reporting. So, yeah, I think it's back to hot over there. Let's do one more and let's do where. How about Phoenix, Arizona? We haven't done that one in a week. All right. You ready for this, folks? Right now, as of 7926, it is 108 degrees in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, woo! That melts some rubber on tires. The wind's coming out of the southwest at 7 miles an hour, humidity 17%, UV index is 10, which is very high. You only got one more mark to go on the bar. Air quality is 32, which is good, or 31, which is good. Pressure is 29.76 and falling, and visibility is 10 miles an hour.

Sunny 9:15

And that, folks, is the weather on our recording day from the ugly cracking duck.

Bruce 9:23

That's right, Sunny. Thank you.

The Tone And A Quiet Pause

Bruce 9:34

All right, folks, there's our tone. So what does that mean? That means take a moment, think about what you're doing. Uh if you're not driving and you have the opportunity to look around, look around, pause and reflect for a minute, take a breath, whatever it takes to reflect. The tone is our um moment to do the reflection and pause and deep breath. There you go, folks. We appreciate your taking the time to do that.

Merlin The Duck Goes Viral

Sunny 10:31

There are a flock out there. Bruce mentioned in the first comment meet Merlin the duck. Don't anybody get confused 'cause he's not talking about the ugly quacking duck. He's talking about Merlin.

Bruce 10:50

That's right, Sunny. Thank you for that. Yeah, Merlin, that is a phenomenon that happened in Mexico. AP News had an article said Meet Merlin the Duck, a Mexico City street side regular turned World Cup mascot. And the first paragraph reads as as Mexico celebrated its World Cup opening victory over South Africa on Thursday, Merlin, a two year old duck dressed in the national team's colors, became an unlikely internet sensation and the tournament's first unofficial mascot. Apparently Merlin's a familiar sight at the fairs and events in the historic city center, according to the article. The duck regularly accompanies his owner, Carla Gomez, who sells water and soft drinks from a little cart each weekend. So apparently the Mexican people have seen this duck, and he was all it was all, I don't know if it's he or she was all dressed up in the colors for the Mexico team and it become a heartwarming sight to many of the fans.

Sunny 12:18

Well, why wouldn't he? He's a duck, duh.

Bruce 12:23

There you go, Sunny. You got it. Okay, so anyway, the AP's got this article on there along with pictures and a slow a slow small video. And I will post one of the pictures from the article on my um chapters so you can see it if you have a podcast player that does chapters. Alright, let's talk a little bit about earthquakes, shall

Earthquake Counts And Solar Flares

Bruce 12:52

we? Um again, we are doing a daily report on our paperwork, and then in the seven-day we just added up, trying to make sure we don't skip anything or the the electronics don't skip anything. So today, which is the 9th of July. You guys are tired of hearing that? We've said it about three times, but it is. And uh the report is we have 226 altogether all magnitude earthquakes, zero six point zero and over earthquakes. So it's been kind of calm for the last few days. Let's see if I go back one, two, three, four, five days, and including this one be six days, we have zero six point z and over earthquakes, and we only had one um two six point. Let me read them to you, in the seven-day period, which was the beginning, which was seven three. We had a six point one um in Japan and then a six point two in Indonesia. So that is two major earthquakes. Uh one the actual the Japan one was a little bit from Hirara and Tobola, Indonesia was a six point two. So I don't know. That's about what we've averaged here lately, uh a couple here and there. So we'll have to see. I do have to report, I don't think I've mentioned it before that the sarron saron, hello CERN Collider was turned off on June the twenty-ninth. Which I don't know if that's gonna make any difference. I've been seeing a lot of social media posts talking about uh headaches going away, um time seems to be working right, um, and that just could be an effect where they're believing something's gonna change. But I'm kind of curious if it affects our earthquakes any at all. Uh according to what they're doing is what everybody says. Ha ha. Do we know what they're doing? Well, we know what they've told us. There you go. On with the show.

Sunny 15:46

Yeah, we didn't get on with the show, but the earthquake report was kinda uh I know.

Bruce 15:54

I didn't mention any of the um moon things, but we had a couple flares. We had an X flare this week, and we've had a couple M flares and a couple C1 flares and a C9. Um not much on the geometric storms on the Earth. They've been kind of lax, which I like that. Um, so the noise ratio to the storms has been low. Uh the roars have kind of been showing up a little bit because of the X-Flares, but we've not had much down way south. So that's kind of a bummer.

Sunny 16:42

Yeah, there's always a drawback, but a plus two.

Bruce 16:47

You are absolutely right, Sunny.

Sunny 16:51

I know I am.

Bruce 16:54

All right, let's go on. And just a quick mention, uh, I don't normally d do this, but it may be significant. We've had uh or I should say China has had a 5.0, which is not it's big, but it's not the 6.0 or over that we always monitor. And then um there was one uh which was a 5.1 in Japan. And then there was a 5.0 uh in the Philippines, and then there was one more was a five point one in Venuta. Port Oliver, and I don't know if I pronounce that, but if you look at all them on the map, it's kind of like a triangle. The way that sh is shaped. Like a Y, actually. It and it's uh the very point is uh the 5.1 Vinuta. So I don't know, I'm kinda watching that 'cause it's kinda weird how that's shaped out. And uh I don't know if that's gonna trigger another earthquake somewhere else, a major one or not, but them are pretty big to be happening that close proximity. And that's n the one in China's near the fire, the ring of fire, and then Japan, Philippines, and this last one I mentioned are all on that ring of fire, is what they call that. And it stretches, from my understanding, starting on the coast of California all the way up to Alaska over to Russia and down Japan and Philippines and then them islands. So, yeah, that may be a major concern. Just letting you know in case something happens, all right.

Antarctica Dinosaur Bone Skepticism

Bruce 18:57

Well, I run across this news article again. I always like to run across these, but this one's uh from cbsnews.com, and it's titled Fossil Found Tucked Away in a drawer turns out to be the first dinosaur bone from Antarctica. And yeah, that's what it's called. And basically there was a scientist, or I should I say, a geologist named Mike Thompson, that uh was working with the British Antarctica Survey and found these bones and labeled them a large reptile. This was back in 1985, and I guess he deposited them in one of his drawers, and I mean uh office drawers, and later on another scientist stumbled onto them and uh reported them and went through them and discovered that they are let me read the article. The bone comes from the tail of a long-necked plant eating dinosaur called a titanosaur. And then it says, get this sentence. This is really important to to me telling this story because of the way they wrote this sentence. This falls at the bone comes from the tail. After that sentence it says, scientists haven't yet identified the species it belongs to. So they have identified that it comes from the tail of a long-necked plant eating dinosaur called a titanosaur, but scientists haven't yet identified the species it belongs to. Uh do you guys see a contradiction in that two sentences? Um I know they're they're saying they haven't sp got it down to a very specific species, but I think it's kind of strange that they can label it a tailbone of a long-necked plant eating. They know it's a long necked, they know it's a plant-eating dinosaur, they know it's called a titan sore, but they don't know what species it is. Come on, really? Are we that uh never mind?

Sunny 21:42

Oh, go for it, Bruce. Come on, hammer it home.

Bruce 21:46

No, I'm not going to. I'm just gonna say uh I can guess just as good as they can, and the trouble is my guesses don't have any backing from the science community so you know it probably won't hold water where their guesses are backed by some kind of scientific blah blah so you know they they hold more water. Oh well that's a well put bummer yes anyway I thought that article was really bizarre the way it was written. I think they could have did a better job of writing that um strange. The article goes on describes how they found the bone in the drawer from this uh last survey of Antarctica and how hard it is to find bones in Antarctica but they hardly describe anything about how they identified that bone as that long neck plant eating dinosaur called a titansaur. Yeah. Especially when the uh the guy that actually found it thought he found a what? A marine reptile fossil yeah so he had a marine reptile fossil until they come along and said it was a long necked plant eating dinosaur. Oh boy. Now there may have been some more paperwork done and um more scientific information there to back up what they said and where they found it and how they identified it as that particular long necked dinosaur. But uh this article did a poor job of doing that. I'm not sure what they were saying but they basically left it all uh speculation except for how they found it so anyway there you go that was the articles on cbsnews.com go check it out if you'd like I'll I'll have a uh link to it on my chapters.

Sunny 24:24

That's

CERN Shutdown Claims And Doubts

Sunny 24:25

kind of a you being a skeptic on that one.

Bruce 24:29

Well I think it's important for us all to be a skeptic on everything. Even if it's something you actually really believe you still need to be more skeptical of it and make them prove their point because it you know it just holds us all to a higher level of learning and uh uh everything acceptance and everything it brings up the whole world's accountability when we do that it's a very important skeptic uh no I'm not gonna no that's not a good nickname I'll just go by the ugly quacking duck Bruce Alright and I'll go by the ugly quacking duck Sunny there you go now Sunny I mentioned earlier that the CERN collider was shut off uh on June the 29th and they're talking it could be down for four years so that could be a a bummer to the scientist that's trying to discover something and it could be a hurrah for you know us people that think it may be affecting our uh world our health or any uh number of things uh have you noticed any effects since they turned it off Sunny I've noticed there's more talk about it but not really uh it seems like the same old thing well you know I haven't noticed much else either uh everybody's reporting not everybody but people are reporting being able to sleep better sleep all night where they couldn't sleep before uh less headaches uh I watched one person on uh uh social media talking about how that they could go out and touch trees and grass and they felt real where they hadn't been in quite a while and they felt uh the vibration off of all those things and that's been since they've turned CERN off and I've s mentioned it before that maybe it may be like that sugar pill syndrome where you know somebody mentioned it and somebody else said well wait a minute maybe yeah and you know they all start believing that something has changed Yeah that's very easy to see happening especially especially on social media because one person mentions it videos it next thing you know fifteen people are believing it I haven't really seen anything um the weather's been kind of messed up here lately some person said that time seemed like they went back to normal like we went back to uh right before they turned it on and I don't remember when they turned it on but things have been messed up so much in our society that I don't know how you could judge anything by one thing being flipped off unless it was such a humongous change which it hasn't been. Uh if anything all those changing changes that they're mentioning is very subtle and I don't think anybody has pointed anything they were bringing up some more um Mandela effects that has happened since they've shut it down which don't make sense because they were saying that is what caused the Mandela effect and then I seen one social media post where he was talking about that the so the Mandela effects some of them had returned back to the normal I think that a lot of those are just making them up so they can get um clicks and hits and counts and all that stuff. I think they're all full of not all of them I think some of them are full of hot air because they're just trying to get traffic. Now Bruce you know people wouldn't do that they wouldn't make up stories just to get hits and traffic and likes no I don't know how you could ever say such a thing Oh forgive me I don't know how I could ever say such a thing nobody would ever do such that no they wouldn't lie make up stories make up videos no people don't do

The White Line That Changed Driving

Bruce 29:56

that. No not at all see you're just full of hot air all right so I guess we better go on now Sunny you've heard the statement the line's been drawn yeah yeah I've heard that all right well we're gonna talk about the line all right what line we're gonna talk about well it's the the article's in the Wall Street Journal that's where I found it and it's a a pretty uh good title it says this simple white line is Americans greatest unsung innovation this article is written by Ben Cohen and it's a pretty good article but it it sets down to describe a very well seen line but very um not paid attention to why it's there or where it came from and basically it happened around 1950 there was a gentleman that um door I think was his name but he decided that the roads would be yes I said roads would be a whole lot safer if they put a line on the right side of it so people could look at it especially at nighttime instead of looking into the car headlights it would give them a direction to go basically um and that's what they did. Now he fought for it and fought for it and that stripe was painted and it has reached billions of people and actually guided drivers in other countries. I mean it's been accepted everywhere and it really was a revolutionary idea. I hadn't thought about I read the article I appreciate the guy writing it but it's one of those things that we take for granted we use it every day we don't realize truly what it's for and how great it helps us and where it comes from we don't know anything about it basically is what the article says but he's right if you stop and think how many of us has gone down a country road especially a blacktopped country road and you cannot see any of the road you can't tell where the ditches are you can't tell where the middle stripe is because there's not one especially out in the country where there's no lights light poles or anything and I know when I was younger we had that problem a lot there's less and less of those type of areas but there's still many but just imagine if nobody ever decided to paint that line on the edge of the road to lead you from going that side of the road too far and to guide the road hey you can glance over and see where you're headed and yeah it would make a huge difference folks but we got blessed because a gentleman basically made it his what career to do this and get everybody to realize that we needed to do it I won't go over the whole article I suggest you go and find it it's in uh the Wall Streetjournal dot com but let me read a portion of it real quick to you because it's interesting. It says once he discovered it Dorr proposed a line to his state's highway commissioner in 1952. The man in charge of Connecticut's roads told him to get lost That's about right that's the way it goes apparently he didn't stop though when I first suggested it Dorr later wrote it was turned down completely. The next time he suggested it he wrote to the West Point Westport Town Crier newspaper in nineteen fifty three and offered to pay for a demonstration test of a few miles Oh he had the money to do that that's that helps yeah it does it helps quite a bit this time he got a more welcoming response oh I bet he did he was paying for it doctor Door's suggestion the paper wrote in an editorial is a dandy Yeah they even liked it to the point of keeping it on yeah okay well money talks it says before long Connecticut was testing his dandy idea on a few miles of the Merritt Parkway between Greenwich and Stamford the study found that Doors line nudged cars away from the center line into the middle of their lanes and narrowed the speed gap between day and night. In other words the study found scientific evidence that a single line could dramatically alter human behavior Yeah that's an unsung hero Well I don't know if I'd go that far but he made something that made a difference and I'm glad he stuck with it and had it done because I drive down roads all the time with them lines and don't realize how much they help. The article's got a picture of a highway from 1941 that has no lines it's a two-lane highway no lines and then they got a picture from 2026 of the same highway same bridge with lines and it's what we're used to seeing it's called the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut and that's where they tested it boy it's a big difference. It really is so there you go folks a line that we have all seen that we have not paid a bit of attention to except just to watch it to road watch it to travel the road but we don't know where it's come from I suggest you go back and read this article because it's very interesting it has pictures and the gentleman did a very good job of putting it together. Again that article is called This Simple White Line is America's greatest unsung innovation and it was written by Ben Cohen.

How To Reach Us And Send Fan Mail

Sunny 37:19

All right Sunny I think it's time for you to tell the flock how to leave us a message and get a hold of us all right I will do that go to the uglycrackingduck.com and check us out subscribe to our webpage and you'll get updates from us you know do that it's on the home page well I'm not sure where it's at nowadays.

Bruce 37:46

Well that's because uh I've changed stuff so much.

Sunny 37:50

Yeah you have but anyway and leave us an email the uglycracking duck at gmail dot com and if you'd like to really let us know you're out there it's real easy go to our description page of our podcast and click on the link and leave us a fan mail either record it or type it out folks let us know you're there it makes us feel good and it gives us something to talk about later on.

Bruce 38:27

Alright sonny you are right we want to know you are out there so if you get a chance leave us an email subscribe to our webpage or leave us a fan mail that's all we can ask you to do for now. Okay everybody this is the Ugly Quacking Duck and we're gonna turn you over to Capella There are many ways you can show your support for the Ugly Quacking Duck podcast.

Support Options And Weekly Sign Off

Capella 38:56

First, simply keep us in your thoughts and prayers and maybe send good vibes too. Second, spread the word. Tell your friends about us even the ones with questionable taste in podcasts. Third, share your talents. If you have skills in technology, art or anything else that could help us, we'd love to hear from you. And finally consider supporting us financially. Equipment, hosting and website costs add up and any contribution is greatly appreciated.

Bruce 39:24

We promise not to spend it all on rubber duckies unless you want us to thank you for your support all right everyone we want to take a moment out and say wherever you're at whatever time it is we thank you for listening to this episode and our podcast. We hope you come back we hope you enjoy the show as much as we enjoy putting it together and we hope you get a hold of us and let us know what's going on in your life yeah we want to talk to you we want to be part of your group and you be part of our group okay that's well put Bruce we want to be there that's all we can say everybody we hope you have a good week get back with us next episode alright that's right we ask you couldn't even talk there for a minute we ask you to remember to pray for the victims of the storms and the hurricane or Lord I hope there was no hurricanes tornadoes and the earthquakes keep the your country in prayer wherever you're at whatever you're doing to remember the Father of above all things and keep positive folks keep positive even when it doesn't look like you can do it okay and uh seek help if it's getting bad and you can't do it on your own. All right that's it for us we're the ugly quacking duck and we're gonna say bye all right we're gonna say bye I'm ready for right bye bye