"Friday Farrago" w/ A.J. & Greg

Published Oct 11, 2024, 8:00 AM

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: our very own Chief Puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska.

Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.

Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts! 

"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. 

Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.

The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. 

Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.

Hello puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast The Hemoglobin in Your Puzzles, Red Blood celth I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here as always with Chief Puzzle Officer Greg Kuliska, and we are here to present our exciting new season two feature, Friday for Rago for rago.

Yes, what does that mean?

Well, it's very catchy, right, because it means you know what it means. It's a word.

I know that was. I was teeing that up for you as if it had I don't.

Know, well it is. It is an admittedly obscure word that means hodgepodge or mish mash. But it starts with the letter F and Friday also starts with the letter F. And according to the bylaws of the Puzzler Podcast, titles must contain as much alliteration as possible. So Friday farrago, it is welcome to Friday farrago and it will be. It means like a food mish mash. And these Fridays, I'm excited They're gonna contain all sorts of delicious puzzle ingredients.

You know, it doesn't have to be a food mish mash.

Oh, yeah, I looked at I thought that it started as a food, like a cattle height.

You're right, if mixed fodder for cattle. That's what we're offering here on the Puzzle Act. Puzzler actually on Friday. This is for your cattle. So play this in the barnyard. They're gonna have a great time.

We're not saying that the puzzlers are cattle or sheeple.

No, No, these puzzles are for the cattle.

I see, yes, but very discerning cattle.

Yeah, very discerning cattle. Now. I was also looking in the Merriam Websters on a bridge. It says farrago is a confused, disordered, or a rational assemblage as of words or ideas.

I like that. I think that described today's episodes. Confused and disordered. That's what we're going for people.

It's like life in the twenty first century, right, use disordered assembly.

We have a farrago of a world. Well, today's confused ingredients will include listener mail, which we're very excited about, a new segment called Clues that are Too Clever by half. And to start, we've got a segment called well, I can't decide what we could call it warm off the presses because it's kind of newsy or super timely puzzle news in the puzzles they inspire. So if you say that quickly, but regardless of what we call it, in this segment, we're going to find something weird or interesting happening in the Greater Puzzle Verse and then Greg and I will discuss it and maybe have some puzzlely clues related to it. So today's topic is one chosen by Greg and it's the Geo Guesser Puzzles. Geo Guessers tell us More.

Oh yeah, it's specifically news items about the Geo Guesser World Championship. Oh yes, but before we get to that, let's just for people who don't know Geoguesser dot com and that's g E O g U E S S R E Geoguesser in the form you know, the way we do that with grinder or tinder whatever you take the E out. So Geoguesser is a website where you can find basically, you have to find places on the globe, but there are different modes you can play it in. I just happen to have pulled up the basic single player mode and what it does is take you to a spot on Google I believe it's Google street View, and you have to figure out where you are somewhere on the planet.

It's amazing. I mean, my son Jasper showed it to me a few years ago, and it is because, yeah, it'll just show you a street scene and you have to guess where on Earth it is and you use clues like the license plates and where the sun the shadows are. And it is crazy how good some people are.

And you can actually move around, I mean you could. You're on Google street forew, so you can start going in all different directions and following the road to try to find because sometimes you're in the middle of a farmyard and like this could be Ohio, this could be Lithuania, this could be you know, South Africa. I have no idea.

Yeah, but these people know like which grains are grown in which parts of the sole. They can look at the grass and be like, oh that is you know, that is blue Thomas grass. And now there are competitive geo guessing. It's not just a hobby. It is a sport, an esport.

It is a sport, and these people are crazy good. They just had the world Championships.

It is fantastic and people can watch the replay on YouTube and it is hilarious because these people really are just yeah.

Insanely good. It is. Yes, Well, you know, I was trying to think how do we do this audio? And I came up with a puzzle that is kind of like Geoguesser puzzler version. Love it, So I'll give it to both you guys. You guys can both play unless you've seen the answers, in which case you can't play at all. Basically, the way this works is, I'm going to give you three things and you tell me what city name proceeds all.

Three of them. Okay, okay, all right, and they're what they're like landmarks? Is that what you said?

And then well these are the they're a combination of basically words are phrases with the city name and.

The Okay, got it. Now, you can't say it until all three have been said. Andrea, don't you jumping jumping in?

In fact, give it. You know, you can say, oh, I know it, and then the other person has a chance.

It's very very gentle competition.

Competition. All right, here's here's what common tea party. Let us I.

Was gonna say I know it after the first one to be obnoxious. But I do think I have it.

I have it too, you can you can go ahead, all right.

That would be Boston, Boston tea party and Boston. Wait it is Boston, Lettuce Boston. I don't even know. Yeah, all right, excellent, alright. What about this Wandre Well that gets it?

Agreement Commune Hilton.

Well, I don't know it. I don't know this.

I think I do.

I think I do. There's a little bit of a twist in the third album.

The third element is yeah not it's related.

To oh I see, oh, I see okay, because of the third element is a name.

The answer is Paris, the Paris Agreement, the Climate Accords, the Paris Commune, and Paris Hilton. Very good, and I.

Think you can fact check the fact check this. But I think during the Paris Commune, which was kind of a siege, they ate the animals in the zoo, like the poor giraffes. But I could be wrong.

Well, that's a way to turn em in dark quickly.

It's a fun fact that's not so fun. It's a depressing think. Yeah, you gotta throw some into show.

It's important to be prepared for the apocalypse. That's what we're saying here at the Buzzler. Very good though. I also think Paris Hilton was named for the city.

That does make It might be wrong, but it could have been the city. The city was named for, Paris Hilton. It's one of those.

Two depends on Yeah, one of the two. Okay, here's another one, Bridge Broyal.

I all right, I think I got that because it's one of my favorite cities.

Yeah, I think it's I think it's your turn to answer.

It is London, London, London Eye. That's fun ferris wheel type.

Thing, exactly, and it actually is, in fact, a ferris wheel is not so much a type. It is a giant, giant ferris wheel. All right, I'll do two more. Mule Art Theater on the Hudson.

Well, go ahead, Andre, you got it after the first one.

Wow, No, now.

I'm doubting myself. Two don't seem familiar.

To me again, Greg, say again.

Mule Art Theater and on the Hudson.

Uh.

Yeah, this is a movie. Probably the last one is a movie that's too old for you, way too old for Andre's Robin Williams.

Robin Williams movie.

Okay, playing, I definitely don't know.

Well you know the answer why.

The first one is Moscow mule.

Yeah, Moscow mule, Moscow out the art theater.

And I thought you were doing maybe another tricky thing where because there are other mules Moscow mules the original mule, but there's other mules named after different cities with different ingredients. So I doubted myself.

I doubted you know too much.

Andre.

This is a niche beverage.

No, I had no idea there was non moscow mules, all right.

The last one almost food theme, but it isn't quite nuggets omelet boot.

Okay, wait you have I'm a little I'm not sure I have it. Nuggets omelet boot okay, yes, uh, well, I'm going off in different directions. Italy is in the shape of a boot. There's the French omelet. There's this what was the first one again?

Boot?

If nuggets omelet boot nuggets.

See that's interesting. I mean, I'm trying to think.

There's golden nuggets. Nuggets is a given if I could get it.

I mean the nuggets, there's golden and chicken mook, chicken moot and what.

Category would you say you're least proficient in.

Oh, good one. It's the Denver Nuggets. Denver.

Oh look at that. Nothing like a clue that says this is the thing you don't know and then immediately you know it.

I am weak on sports for those who are new to the puzzler.

But Denver Nuggets, the Denver omelet, which is uh, is that cheeseham and onions?

Is that different from a Western omelet? Or is that a Western?

Great question? If only you were available to this offline while we're playing, we don't.

And figure out whether they ate giraffes during the parents.

Do you know what the Denver boot is?

Yeah?

Yeah, it's the one what they put on cars when Yeah, it's terrible. It's a fear.

Named for the Denver Why is it Denver boot?

Are you asking or you know?

Okay, I don't know.

I can just interject. According to simply Recipes dot com, Denver and Western omelets are basically the same thing.

Okay, Right, So the other part of the West was like, no, Denver, you do not get to own this omelet?

Right?

Makes it all right? Well? That was an excellent, excellent puzzle.

Newsy Geo Guesser for the radio.

And do check out that these these geo guessing wizards because they are hilariously brilliant, excellent. Thank you Greg for that super timely puzzle and puzzle news and now we're onto the next segment. Listener mail. We love getting mail. Please go to the puzzler dot com website and it has a little a little button you can click send us your your notions, your ideas, your corrections, your complaints, your compliments.

No complaints. I want what's there to complain about? I know I'm with you. No, No, I want feedback. I'm with you one hundred percent. You want feedback. You want someone to say this puzzle was too hard, or this is too easy, or right this puzzle, this kind of puzzle makes me crazy and I almost drove my car off. Whatever it is. We want to know.

We do not want any puzzler related injuries. Yes, please, you need to know. And our listener mail goes directly to associate puzzler Andrea, and she is the one who's going to open and read them. Tell us what we got today, Andrea, All.

Right, well, today we've got some mail from Adam proct So. Adam wrote in about Michael ian Black's appearance. At the end of season one, we gave Michael a puzzle where one of the answers was blue blood, and Michael added the fun fact that Vulcans from Star Trek have blue blood, but Adam writes Vulcan blood is canonically green rather than blue.

Oooh no, I did see this note, and he did sign off by saying love the show. So even though we were spreading Star Trek misinformation, which can drive Treky's like you don't want to do that. You don't want like that's one of the areas you don't want to get wrong, but he still seemed to enjoy the puzzling. Thank you, Adam, Thank you for the correction. Now, I was the one giving that puzzle to Michael, and if I had known, I would have corrected Michael. But I didn't know. I didn't know. But he is Adam is correct. Did you know that, greg Or Andrea?

No, I I one of the you know, I'm deep into nerdy nerddom in many ways, but somehow Star Trek is not one of those categories. Like I never did a deep became, never became a big Treky, never a deep dive, So I would have believed anything Michael said about Star.

Trek, Well, it turns out their blood is green due to copper based element. I also learned now talking about Deep Dive. This was half an hour of my life I'll never get back. I learned that Vulcans possess an inner eyelid which protects protects their vision from blinding light. That's what Spock said. But then one other Trek, he said in a later episode deep Space nine or something, one of the Vulcans was blinded by bright light and he was very upset. Maybe she was very upset. So yeah, even Star Trek makes mistakes about its own cannon.

Its own lore.

Yeah, thank god. All right, so that's it it Uh, what about clues that are too clever by half? This is our new and exciting segment that because Greg, as you know, and Andrea, maybe listeners don't. When we write puzzles, we write tons of clues, but we only have to time to deliver some of those clues to our guests. And that always made me sad, because I love some of these orphan clues. Some of them are just ridiculous or fascinating or too clever by half. Now I would say too clever. If you want to make the phrase too clever by half, too clever by half, you would do something like too clever by two thirds. But I'll just leave it at too clever by half.

It's gonna get complicated because then you have to make it too clever by whether you know four to six or five.

Yes, it's an infinite infinitely.

Yeah, it's like Zeno's paradox. You know, every day you get halfway exactly and you never actually get there.

Wow, that was a nerdy one minute of pule jesting, but I loved it all right, So we want to feature a couple of these expurgated clues, as you know. This week we had Chuck Bryan from Stuff You Should Know as our guests. We love Chuck and he's a fan of both Hollywood movies and the metric system.

So our premise was puzz and so of course there must be a puzzle that it combines those two things.

Oh yeah, well listen, yeah, give us two topics and we will combine them into a puzzle. That is our chance.

That sounds like send it to us, don We're in.

So anyway, if a movie adopted the metric system as a title, then this would be the new title, and the example was the green one point six kilometer with Tom Hanks. Is of course the Green mile or Green Mile. I don't know if it has a But Greg wrote some delightful clues that did not make the final puzzle. I would guess them, but on un fortunately I mistakenly saw them, as did Andrea. So they are for you the listener, and I will just make comments.

You guys can just comment. Well, okay, so one of them is the sword in the six point three five kilograms?

I mean I would have gotten that because of the sword in the stone? Is I believe I would have I who knows, Maybe I would have been stumped.

But so that one, that one strikes me. As you know, the sword in the blank is just a fill in the blank clue. And either you know that movie or you don't, right, I bet more people know that movie than you. Who know a that stone is a unit of measurement and that it's equivalent to six point three five kilogram?

Right?

And what so a stone? I know it's like the British do they still use stones? I think they do.

I don't know, it's the old the stuff your older one. God sure, yeah, but it's like a stone or something fourteen pounds or something interesting. It's something like that. It's a weird you know, fourteen like based on the base on the weight of the first stone found in Great Britain. Oh, some guys said, oh the stone, Oh, it's about fourteen pounds. Let's call it fourteen pound weight of stone. No, I don't know where it came from, and I became vaguely Scottish, but.

That is in the same general area. It would be interesting if they had that actual stone, because I remember for a long time they actually had the kilogram, the ultimate kilogram that all kilograms were based on. All right, so we got another greg what else?

Yes, the other two two of my favorites. This one is nine trillion, four hundred and sixty billion, seven hundred thirty million, four hundred seventy two thousand, five hundred eighty point eight kilometers.

Yeah. I'm not sure I would have gotten this, but it's it's great.

It is.

I mean, you gotta figure that's a big long distance, right, What other measurement could possibly be over nine point five trillion kilometers?

Right?

Something very fat would have had to cover that in a medium amount.

Of time in a fair amount of time, that would in fact be light Year. That's the toy story spin off about Buzz light Year. The movie is called light Year, and that's the distance light travels in a year. Also, that's the kilometer equivalent.

I love that, yeah, because it's so clean, just the distance, all right. And then finally, and this one I do think wins the two clever by two thirds prize. Yep, go ahead, it is give it to us.

Texas twenty point twelve meter saw mass four point zero four seven meters squared. So too clever. That's great, So kind of impossible to pars, Like, what did you say? It's Texas some weird length measurement, saw mass some other area measurements, right.

And people might be able to get it from the Texas and the saw and the mass. But it is brilliant. These are we'll explain. What's the answer.

The answer is Texas yard saw mass. Now it's Texas chainsaw massacre mass acre acre we're familiar with. And that's that roughly four thousand square meters. And then chain is another unit of length measurement that's about twenty meters long.

And did you know chain before or that you found.

I knew it was a unit of measure. I never heard of it. Yeah, but I well, I've never used it in a polite conversation, but I'm sure it's a thing that people talk about in some specific field.

And that's not the chain like the chain in football, that the ten yard chain.

That's just moving the chains. That's just because it's a ten Yeah, ten yard.

Lance, temperate one, very confusing. Well loved it. Thank you everyone for tuning into for Rogo Friday or Friday for Ago. I can't remember which one we are deciding on, but regardless, have a great puzzly weekend and check out well over the weekend. Check out our Instagram feed at Hello Puzzlers, and we'll see you next week for more puzzling puzzle Puzzly, Puzzlingly.

Hey puzzlers. Greg Pliska here up from the Puzzle Lab with another extra credit answer from our previous episode, we played Chuck Chuckle with Chuck Bryant. Every answer is two words, the first of which is has Lee added to it to make the second as in Chuck and Chuckle. Your extra credit clue was a soup server for a young boy, and that is a lad Ladle. I might have said the young boy who brings you the soup, which would be the Ladle lad but that's a different puzzle anyway. I hope you had a few chuckles here with us on the Puzzler, and we'll see you here next time for more chuckling chuckles that will chuckle you chucklingly. Thanks for playing along with the team here at the Puzzler with Aj Jacob. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Newhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Crisp toastthead No distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com. See you there,

The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs

Finally, your daily puzzle fix—in audio form! Every day, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jaco 
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