“Hidden Mina” w/ Mina Kimes

Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: ESPN analyst and podcaster Mina Kimes.

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.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler podcast, the Orthopedic Pillow
for your puzzle spinal alignment. I am your host, AJ Jacobs,
and I'm here with our guest, the fantastic Mina Chimes
ESPN analyst and host of the podcast The Mina Chymes

(00:27):
Show featuring Lenny. Lenny, of course being her dog. Welcome, Mina.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
We are very excited to have you on the Puzzler
seeing as you are not just a fan of puzzles,
but you have solved a Saturday New York Times crossword
puzzle in eight minutes and thirteen seconds. If I'm not mistaken,
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
That's my pr I think it's a little lower.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
But uh sorry, tell me what it is.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I don't want to break because you know, when you
start dipping your toe into the crossery community, you realize
that that's actually not that impressed because I follow a
lot of the puzzle creators on the socials. But yeah,
I'm a big Saturday Times person. I lately have been
loving this game not Words. Have you ever played that?

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So I played it.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's a great app sort of like a combo crossword
Sudoku game, So I do that every morning, is the
first thing I do when I wake up.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
And I know some of these crossword solvers, like a
friend of mine wrote a crossword puzzle for the crossword
Puzzle tournament and he could not finish it faster than
other people in the tournament, even though he wrote it.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, when I see some of the times, for me,
it's not even like, oh my god, they're so smart,
but I'm like, how do you type that fast? Like
that's what blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Is exactly. And with the writing I did learn you
you're supposed to do a lowercase E, I think because
it's faster. Anyway, moving on me not you are everywhere
in the media landscape. You're on TV, radio, podcast, streaming,
but you are also everywhere in the English language. Your
name Mina. The letters M I na happened to show

(02:04):
up in a lot of English words and phrases. So
this puzzle is I'm going to give you some clues
to words and phrases. And the twist is that each
of the answers contains a hidden mina wo, so somewhere
in the answer will be the letters M I NA. So,
for instance, if I said when an athlete loses at

(02:27):
the sp Awards, she might say it was an honor
just to be nominated. As you notice this mina, it's
no mina ted. The Nomina's right in there between the
no and the ted. So are you ready for other
hidden minas? Let's go? Yeah, all right, here's your first
hidden mina. Mountain climbers, bird dogs and planks are good

(02:52):
exercises for these type of muscles, abino muscles. And the
pronunciation you get bonus points for that. That is impressive.
All right, next, hitten Mina. This is a word that
means to think deeply, like when you contemplate the nature
of the universe or the state of the Seattle Seahawks franchise.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, something I do on air daily is roominate about
football exactly.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
All right, you're cruising along, all right. I don't know
if this will get you, but maybe it's a little harder.
Who knows? Hit and mina number three? According to the
paper of record, The New York Times, you Mina Kimes
are a fan of spinach feta wraps from Starbucks, which
are rich in this nutrients.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
A good question, what are they rich? And I'm gonna
go with wait, I have hints again, I don't want
to Okay, good is it vitamin a?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
It is vitamin a. Vita mean vitamina exactly. I will
tell you my hint because I think it's news. You
can use that the liver. You might know this. The
livers of polar bears contain toxic levels of vitamin a.
So do not eat polar bear livers to know, I thought. So,
all right, final one for you is this is a

(04:14):
word or phrase, and the clue is that you might
stroll this way with a lover, or march this way
with a fellow protester. Oh yeah, this one's a little
trick here.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Stroll this way with a lover, or march this way
with a protester.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Right. This comes from associate puzzler Andrea Schomberg, So blame
her if it's yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, this is a good one because you just did
one with two words. I believe this one has three words.
If I'm correct, you are correct. Okay, So yeah, you
would go arm.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
In arm armina arm exactly. Look at that. You did
great as expected, way less than eight minutes and thirteen
seconds or whatever. Your personal record is on crosswords, So
thank you. So much. Where can people find more hidden
or not so hidden minas?

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Not so hidden on ESPN every day one pm Pacific,
four pm Eastern on NFL Live. I do occasionally post
about crosswords and various puzzles on my Instagram. I don't
really get to work that into the football analysis so much,
but sometimes I get to. I'll post my scores and

(05:35):
I'm not that good, so I feel like I came
in pretty hard with the no my pr is lower.
But if you're a crossword person out there, I'm not.
I'm just an amateur.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I'm an intramural player too. I have actually not broken
ten minutes on Friday, so you definitely got me. Before
we wrap up, as always for all you puzzlers at home,
here is an extra credit puzzle. This word or phrase
with a hidden mina. We have embedded in this podcast
a secret message using this type of communication. We actually

(06:07):
did not, but that's the that is the clue. 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.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
Hi puzzlers, Greg Pliska here and I have the extra
credit answer from our previous show. That show had our
guest Michael ian Black, solving a series of Dit Lloyd's,
those clever, wordy number puzzles that we like to do.
The clue he got was two hundred and six B
in the HB and the answer to that is two

(06:50):
hundred and six bones in the human body and puzzlers.
Your second extra credit clue was four W and a
F and the answer is four weddings and a funeral,
famous film. Thanks for playing along and we'll see you
next time on the Puzzler Podcast