From time to time on the weekends, we’ll be bringing you some of our recent favorite episodes. Enjoy your weekend, and we’ll be back with a brand new puzzle on Monday!
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.
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"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.
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Hello Puzzlers, and welcome to the Puzzler Weekend, where we bring you some of our favorite episodes from the vaults for your weekend listening. Here's a mini puzzle to get things started. I'm going to give you clues to two words. You put the two words together and you'll get the final answer. The first word is what movie studios do to foreign movies before distributing them domestically. So what movie studios do to a foreign movie to help people like me who are too lazy to read the subtitles? And yes, I am ashamed, I don't read subtitles. They blank the movie. They dub it. That's right, dub. That's the first word, dub. The second word is the last name of the Taiwanese American basketball player Jeremy who created a sensation with the Knicks in twenty eleven. That is Jeremy from the Knicks and his last name is Jeremy Lynn. You got it, so put him together. Dub Lynn dublin. As in Ireland, as in Saint Patrick's Day, Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Everyone. Today's classic does not have to do with Ireland, but it does have to do with countries and Ireland is a country, so that is something please enjoy. Hello Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast The Miracle Grow for your puzzle Garden. I'm your host, AJ Jacobs, and I am here with our guest for the entire week, the amazing Ken Jennings, host of the omnibus podcast Jeopardy Legend and author of the Newish book One Hundred Places to See After You Die, which explores depictions of the afterlife in literature and pop culture. Welcome Ken, Thank you for having me Aga. Ken and I I'm proud to say, have known each other a long time. I interviewed you when you were on your first Jeopardy streak and I had just written a book where I read the Encyclopedia. You at the time asked me what I remembered from the encyclopedia, and I am very excited that it stuck with you. The main fact that I have taken away I.
Still think and talk about this opossums have thirteen nipples. You read, you read, you read millions of words, and this is a.
Few other things. Did Yeah, I don't know. I mean a possum is a funny word. I like the word of possum. And you know nipple was also hard to forget, so and thirteen it had all of the elements. It's not everything, got everything well, one of my favorite books. You've written several books. One of my favorite book she wrote is called Maphead, and it is about your obsession with maps. And I still remember some of your favorite places from that book, like Hibbert's Gore, Maine. Do you remember hibbert score Main population.
Oh, it's only one person, right, And as a result, the census data for Hibbert's score Main actually tells you everything about that person because they publish averages, so you can find out what her income is, what her age is. It's she's been docked by the Census Bureau.
That is unfortunate. She needs to get at least one other person so she can average it out well. In honor of Maphead, this puzzle is about geography and it is called putting the pan in Panama. So every answer is going to contain the name of a country as well as a word consisting of the first three letters of that country, so or three or four letters in some cases. So for instance, if the clue is I got them massage and a seaweed wrap in Madrid, The solution might be I went to a spa in Spain. There you go. I wish I could count that, but that was the sample one. So but these next ones are fully for accreditation.
Well I hope I all have the capital in them because I studied those for Jeopardy back in the day.
Oh nice, And you still think you've got all of the capitals in there.
Probably. I mean I'm a pretty big map nerd. Like when I say I studied, I mean like I was six years old, like reading the Atlas for fun. So hopefully it stuck with me. The post nineteen ninety stuff, all the post Soviet stuff. Maybe I don't know, because I was interesting.
All right, you will see, we will see. I think there is a couple of capitals. The first one is I bought some lingerie for my wife at Copa Cabana Beach.
Copa Cabana as Barry Manilo Tatas is in Rio, I think would be Brazil. So it's bra and Brazil.
There it is. He doesn't have any trouble. I kind of figured, all right, what about this one. This one is a little pop culture. I passed the legal exam in a Rihanna's country of birth. I passed the legal exam, he say. He's nodding his head.
See like, I'm used to this on Jeopardy. You're already parsing when you're talking. So as you're talking about the law, I'm like, what are three letter words related to the law? Elsat is not going to start any countries, but bar Those are the first three letters in Barbados, where Rihanna is from.
Oh my god, exactly. Well, should I just read the first like three words of the clue and then you can answer.
I don't know if i'm I don't usually request more difficulty, but yeah, yeah, I mean if you want to, if you want to stop before the country doesn't see if I can read your mind.
Oh okay, all right, that'll be interesting. I replenished my vital energy in vital vital energy in the andes in the andes.
Well that makes it a little easier. Oh, I was spelling Chi with a que and I didn't have it, So it's Chi and Chile.
There you go. Yes, I might have the wrong I might have the more anglicized spelling, so so bad on me. That's my bad.
Well it could have been China. Also, there's there's two Chi countries.
That's true. That's true. Yes, so replenished. My chi Chi is the eastern energy in Chile. All right, couple more. You're doing as expected, pretty good. All right, here is a capital. We got a capital. I snapped my ulna in Yerevan. I snapped my Ulnahna.
Yeah, Erevan's the capital of Armenia. And the Olma is a bone in your uh what your upper arm? Arm in Armenia, arm in Armenia.
Exactly?
All right, wait lower arm right, I said, upper it is.
I was going to correct you, but I then thought you're allowed to correct me. Well, it was going to be an easter egg for the for the listeners.
Yeah, there's nothing people like more than and finding a podcast coaster guest in a mistake. It will make their whole day. They're yelling at the car radio right now.
Well we'll we'll insert some mistakes just for their pleasure, all right. Final one. I did some planet gazing in the Bikini a toll. The planet gazing in the Bikini A toll.
Planet gazing.
Now I did mention. I hope it's either three or four letters. It's not always three.
Oh, I see Mars is four letters. You didn't mention that. So the Bikinia tole must be in the Marshall Islands, which I didn't know. I learned something today. Agent.
Oh my god, this is huge, this is huge. All right, Well, I feel I've done my job. Then the possums have thirteen nipples and the bikini toll is in the Marshall Islands. Well, Ken, you did not do so bad as expected. You did great. If we had cash prizes, we would give you one.
Wait, there aren't cash prices.
You get our esteem.
This is like the first year they let pro basketball guys in the Olympics and they're like, what, I'm not getting a check for this.
It's true, you are the equivalent of a pro basketball player. So where can people find more Ken Jennings content if they want, which they should?
Or one hundred places to see After You Die? Is just kind of a fun faux travel guide to different versions of the afterlife, all the way from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians all the way up through TV's The Good Place, theme park, rides, comic books, video games, and it's on sale wherever books are sold, independent bookstores, evil e retailers. It's everywhere a.
Jane is a great book. I loved and I learned a ton, including hell with one l.
Norse. Hell. They couldn't afford the second out. That's how that's how threadbare Viking culture was. They had to save those olms.
All right. Well, before we wrap up, as always, there's an extra credit puzzle for those at home. Actually, I'll get them to I got e coli from some undercooked sour Broughton. And how about this one? I got into a bit of a sticky wicket at the Bob Marley Museum. So puzzlers, please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler Podcast and I'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzlingly.