One of my favorite things about physics is thinking about real world applications.  I think the king of this was probably the physicist Richard Feynman. (From the awesome book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.)

You can find him on youtube- there are videos of him talking about these weird puzzles, or just interesting things like how rubber bands work.  My favorite:  Why does a mirror swap left and right but not up and down?

Another favorite: how fire works.