July 30, 2025 • 19 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: Jeopardy! host and friend-of-the-podcast, Ken Jennings!
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 AI” 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.
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.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello puzzlers, Let's start really quick puzzle. We will be
talking about world capitals today, so I have a world
capital starter puzzle for you. Are you ready here it is,
please name three capital cities that are homophones of common
(00:21):
English words. Homophones meaning these cities are pronounced the same
as common English words, but they are spelled in a
different way. For instance, there's a city in Columbia called
Kali Cli and that sounds like the dog breed collie
co Llie, but Calli Cli is not a world capital,
(00:46):
so it doesn't count for this game. I'm looking for
world capital cities that are homophones to help you along.
Two of these capitals are in Europe and those are
four letters long. One world capital is in Asia and
that one is five letters long, and one is in
South America that is also five letters. The answers and
(01:09):
more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
to the Puzzler the executive bathroom in your puzzle office suite.
Before the break, we asked if you could come up
(01:29):
with any world capital cities that sound like common English
words but are spelled differently, so they are homophones of
English words. I said. Two of these capitals are in
Europe and our four letters long, so those would be Rome,
as in Italy's capital Rome Rome, but it also sounds
(01:52):
like Rome roam, as in the roaming charges you might
rack up while visiting Italy. There's also Burn, Switzerland's capital
spelled b e r n, which is a homophone of
Burn b u r n. There's an Asian capital that
I said was five letters long. That would be Korea's capital,
(02:16):
soul seo u L, but sounds a lot like the
eternal soul s o u L. And finally, Keto, Ecuador's
capital sounds a lot like Keito in Keto diet k
e t oh. I bring this up because we have
with us today none other than Ken Jennings, Jeopardy champion,
(02:38):
Jeopardy host, author of the new book The Complete Connections
that's k E n Actions. Please welcome Ken Jennings.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Thanks for having me back, and thanks for always spelling
the title of the book like a like a podcast
host giving the sponsors r L like I appreciate that
it's Kennections, even though I don't like the sound of it.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, can you omed people are going to go on
Amazon and go connections and then they're going to find
like a networking how to network book.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's right, like that you are helping out.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, it's a wonderful book, super fun. But it's not
your only bestseller. You've written several books, a couple of
them blurbed by me. I'm honor.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
We're very generous, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I enjoy the blurbs. One of them is about your
torrid love affair with geography, and that one is called maphead.
What is your favorite map of all time? Maybe it's
too hard to choose, but what do you got?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Like? I have very fond memories of the map of
Disneyland that they put on the brochure. I don't know
if they still have the paper brochure now that there's
an app. But when we were kids, we would just
pour over that map and then you take it home
and you remember all the good times. It's a beautiful map,
but it's a light It has none of the behind
the scenes stuff. So there's a big forest near Tomorrowland,
which is actually you know, cast Member area.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It's not an important map, but it's nostalgic for me.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They don't have the garbage can underneath.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The yeah, or that it has some lies on it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Interesting. I always liked the maps where the South is
at the top and the north is because it reminds
me it's it's arbitrary, like it's not that's not nature.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, Australia, but even in Australia their novelty maps, Like
you know, I really think Australia should lean into that
and put those things in classrooms, and instead they just
sell them on T shirts at the airport or something.
Oh interesting, because they really when you see that map,
Australia really dominates the world and we're kind of cowering
beneath it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Well, then they have to change. Well, no, I guess not.
I mean I learned recently Australia I mean south and
Borealis or something means north, which I did not know
until Alarming Leisure. You you knew that, I'm sure I did.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
But there's but you're right, there's no reason the South
has to be at the bottom. We just think there is.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, all right, Well, in honor of your map mania,
we have a geography puzzle for you. It was written
by me and Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska, who says hello,
He couldn't be here today because he's his other job
as a composer, and he's composing. Now. This puzzle, I
have to say, is a little challenging, but you are
(05:10):
Ken Jennings. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm going to give it a go. Age no promises.
I'm not I'm not in the same fighting ship i
was when i was twenty one years ago. I'm like
the I'm a Julio Franco here. I have stayed too long.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, I feel even like a Ken Jennings at like
eighty six is better than ninety nine percent of people
at like twenty two, or whatever your brain peaks. I'll
give it a shot, all right, freach answer, I'm gonna
you're gonna have to figure out the world capital and
the country it's a capital of. But the twist is
(05:47):
there will be a secret word hidden inside those two words.
In this case, in Dublin, Ireland, you can find bleanie
b l I ni. Those are that it's the potato pancake.
So a clue might be this European city has a
lot of corn, beef and cabbage, but it also has
(06:08):
restaurants where you can get a great bleeding. So within
the clue. I'm going to give you the word that
is hiding between the country out of the city and
the country.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
But I don't believe for a second. But you can
get very good bleeding in Dublin Island. Yeah, I just
for the record, I'm just going to say that and
offend your Irish listeners.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There you go. Well, there's some suspension of disbelief in this.
They're little fictional stories, so yeah, I'm not claiming they are,
but the words are real, and the cities and countries.
All right, Visitors to this city's famous wall or famous
former wall have to linger a while if they want
to see it.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Oh, so you're actually going to say the words something.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I am always going to say the word. Oh okay,
and I'm not going to stress it like that. That
one was just since it's the first.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
You can't spell Berlin, Germany without lingers.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
There it is Berlin linger and you can still see
the remains of the wall. So just want to fact
check that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
How about this one one of the highest capitals in
the world. It's a good place to get a rape us,
but maybe not so good to get a taco.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Hm. One of the highest capitals in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, which do you think is the word? They're kind
of two that it could be.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean, it's gotta be taco. Oh, it is taco.
It's Bogota, Colombia.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There it is Bogata, Colombia. So the ta from Bogata
and the CEO from Colombia. You got taco. And I'm
sure you can get good tacos in in in Colombia.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Better than the ble of iron probably.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
All right, they don't farm row in this Nile Delta city,
do they? So they don't farm row in this Nile
Delta city, do they?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Uh? Yeah? Uh, it's Cairo, Egypt, right, row, the row,
the horrow from Cairo and then from Egypt.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's it exactly. And I did look it up and
they do. Actually, they do have row from mullets, which
are not just a haircut but a kind of fish.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So do you think that's why they do it? Like
this thing appears in our name, if you ignore the
common we must farm it here, right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It's like how guys named Dennis become dentists. The uh yeah,
the nominative determinism with and by the way, I know
you've written a lot about ancient Egypt. I do love
ancient Egypt and trivia, including mummies and the trend. This
is one of my few facts I remember from the
(08:59):
encycloped is the powdered mummies that they would drink in
like nineteenth century England as a health tonic. Crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, they had so many mummies they were like, I
think they were possing them into steam locomotives as fuel.
They made them into brown paint. Yeah, and they thought
it would be healthy to eat ground up mummy.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah yuck. Yes, Well they are no longer alive, so
obviously it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
But luckily today in modern day America, we do not
do any question about healthcare things like that. Like you know,
we've we've advanced so far.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Don't give our FK. Junior any ideas.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
He's gonna be like mummies.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Really federally funded mummy.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I could go swimming in mummy water. All right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I've got another couple for you. I wanted to have
some adobo in this capital city, but I couldn't find
a table, so I ate it on my lap ah.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That would be Manila, Philippines.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You got it, did not?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Luckily I like Filipino adobo, so I knew where I
was going there.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
There we go. All right, you'll need a map to
get from here to Machu Pichu.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You need a map because it's Lima Peru.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
There it is all right. We got two or three
more and then you have You've made it through. I
wanted to tour some inc and ruins in this capital city,
but I couldn't because I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I guess we've already eliminated Peru, so that makes it easier.
Toe is found in Quito, Ecuador.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Correct. How about this southern capital's port handles a ton
of cargo and we are spelling Ton the British way.
That might be a little hint.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'm glad you told me that, Ah southern, it's actually
the southernmost world capital. It's Wellington, New Zealand. That's it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Have you been to Wellington, New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I have not. It's the it's the trip I've most
wanted to take us to New Zealand. And Uh. You know,
if you have kids for twenty years at home, you're
always at the mercy of the school calendar. We have
never been off at a good time to go to
New Zealand. But my last kid is graduating from high
school next month.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So New Zealand coming up, right, Yeah, I'm I would
love Have you been to Australia or no?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That might actually happen this fall.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Okay, very good.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Twenty fifth anniversary trip coming up, so it might be
might be Australia.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Fun fact just while we're on New Zealand that I
learned from my deep googling. It is actually the original
Zealand was the land, not ze a land. So it
is a a British butchering of a Dutch province. Uh
that sounded dark kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Things British did. Yeah, that's just how colonalism works. They
don't care how anybody feels, especially not the Dutch.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
We should do this for all of them. We should
decide which is better, like New Hampshire or Hampshire. Like
clearly Mexico's better than New Mexico. Sorry New Mexico, but
you know a lot of them. It's a much closer call.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There you go. We can have a vote. We can
have a vote, all right. Last one, A lot of
Safaris begin in this African city, but most go by
land rover, not bike.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Not bike. You said, yes, okay, So it's clearly bike
and luckily there's not that many Safari destinations. Nairobi, Kenya
has bike in.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It exactly, the B I from the end of Nairobi
and the K from the beginning of Kenya. Well, I
feel like I've traveled the world with you, ken and
it was it was absolute blast. So it's fun.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You're you're a good traveling companion agent.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Well, thank you, and we will. People should pick up
the complete connections. And of course keep watching Jeopardy and
what is the percentage of answers that you know when
you're reading it before you get to the end.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We used to ask Alex this all the time, and he,
you know, he had he had the cop out of
being an older gentleman. He could say, well, back in
the day, I could have competed, but now I'm past
my prime. I do play along when I look at
the Jeopardy scripts every every morning, and I'm not as
good as I was in two thousand and four, let's
put it down. But I could still hang like, given
(13:28):
some breaks, I could play anybody, but luckily I don't
have to. That's what beauty of retirement aj. Well.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
What I loved about Alex is he just projected so
much confidence. You're like, oh, well, of course he knew that, like,
and he also had the wonderful accents, so it was
it sounded even smarter.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
In Alex's defense, he did know that stuff, like when
he said, ah, you were thinking of Henry the Seventh. No,
like he actually did have that stuff in his head.
He was not getting fed lines like smart.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Guy, No, No, he was. In fact, I interviewed him
for Esquire magazine a long time ago, and I remember
being very impressed, like he used words like escarpment in
everyday conversation, Like, who not a lot of people use escarpment.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I'm going to start now that I know that's a
that's a trademark of intellectual exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And by the way, since I interviewed him, I was
told I could not compete on Jeopardy because he might
have slipped me the answers. And now that I've had
you on the puzzler twice, there's no way they're gonna
let me compete on Jeopardy. That's my excuse. Otherwise i'd
be there. Yeah, otherwise celebrity.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
You could be a celebrity Jeopardy. Still they don't. There's
no rules as.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, all right, I listen. I don't think I quite qualify,
but we have had We've had a lot of your guests,
Mina Kimes, Josh Molina, a lot of them have been
on the puzzler. There's a nice overlap where they get
to earn zero money here.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
For their charity. For their charity, you should do that
bit now, name the charity you're gonna You're gonna earn
zero dollars for Minika.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Listen, it's publicity at least. I have the four question
lightning lightning round. Uh yes, okay. What is your puzzle diet?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Meaning?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
When you wake up or go to bed? What do
you do? Is it spelling bee? What do you got?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I do the New York Times crossword puzzle from three
years ago, because I do the desk calendar. Oh, then
I play spelling bee all day. And I just started
doing this movie one called The Burgle. And then I
do connections with my wife over dinner.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So connections or connections on actions? Gotcha?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I can't do connections. I already know all the answer.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that's true. What is your favorite word in the
English language?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I'm gonna say escarpment.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's Alex Turbeck's favorite word too weird.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Uh, it's a proper name, but I've always loved the
name of the actor, Costas Mandelor does that? How can
I use a project?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
But I don't even I'm not familiar with his work.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Eighties brief, eighties heart throb?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I think, okay, love it? What is your favorite children's
riddle like the cows go to the movies on Saturday night? Type?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Oh? It does it have to have a wordplay element
like that? It has to be a pun?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I mean it could be like a dark existential one
about the.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, here's a dark existential one. Well, why did
the monkey fall out of the tree because he was dead?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay, that is dark. You cannot get darker.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
All darker than the movies, I guess.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Last Oh, do you do wordle or not so much?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I don't do wordle that much anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Sometimes, Well, what when you did wordle? What was your
starting word?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I would always rotate? Do people always have a starting word?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Some do?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I like the fact that you rotate. I think that
shows you know an innovative mind.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Every day, I'd try to do well I hadn't done
before and of course there is no great you know,
kind of using the wheel of fortune letters right rst
l an and then a couple of good vowels right,
so it would just be like, you know, stern or
saner or I heard cater is good.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I don't know, I don't know. I read some article
that AI had figured out it was. It was the
name of it. It was a word for a young
hawk that I had never heard of. And now I
even forget that word. So I'll get back to you
on that. But thank you, Ken, thank you for our
Puzzled Diet questionnaire, and congrats on book. Congrats again, thank
(17:36):
you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me
back home.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Ah, we love it. We love it anytime. And before
we go, I have an extra credit for the folks
at home. Many people find the cathedral of Santa Maria
in this Caribbean nation a great place to worship God.
So we're looking for the name of a capital, say,
(18:00):
and it's country that will contain the word God. The
word God is hidden in between the capital city and
its country. The answer tomorrow and in the meantime, if
you are hankering for more puzzle goodness, then check out
at Hello Puzzlers, which is our Instagram feet and we've
got visual puzzles with gosh videos, you name it, and
(18:23):
of course we'll meet here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you puddlingly.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lap
with your extra credit answer. From the previous show, we
played right Number with Ken Jennings, a throwback to the
origin story of Jeopardy where you're just given a number
and you have to come up with the Jeopardy style
question for which that number is the answer. Here's your
extra credit. The extra credit is.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Three point zero five second and we gave you a
hint too. It's the world record to complete a colorful
twisty task, And of course the answer is what is
the world record for fastest time to solve a Rubics cube? Now,
I assume that starts with a well mixed rubics cube.
I can certainly solve one twist your Rubics cube in
(19:20):
less than that amount of time. That's about the best
I can do. Thanks for playing with us. We'll catch
you next time.
Hello puzzlers, Let's start really quick puzzle. We will be
talking about world capitals today, so I have a world
capital starter puzzle for you. Are you ready here it is,
please name three capital cities that are homophones of common
(00:21):
English words. Homophones meaning these cities are pronounced the same
as common English words, but they are spelled in a
different way. For instance, there's a city in Columbia called
Kali Cli and that sounds like the dog breed collie
co Llie, but Calli Cli is not a world capital,
(00:46):
so it doesn't count for this game. I'm looking for
world capital cities that are homophones to help you along.
Two of these capitals are in Europe and those are
four letters long. One world capital is in Asia and
that one is five letters long, and one is in
South America that is also five letters. The answers and
(01:09):
more puzzling goodness after the break, Hello puzzlers, Welcome back
to the Puzzler the executive bathroom in your puzzle office suite.
Before the break, we asked if you could come up
(01:29):
with any world capital cities that sound like common English
words but are spelled differently, so they are homophones of
English words. I said. Two of these capitals are in
Europe and our four letters long, so those would be Rome,
as in Italy's capital Rome Rome, but it also sounds
(01:52):
like Rome roam, as in the roaming charges you might
rack up while visiting Italy. There's also Burn, Switzerland's capital
spelled b e r n, which is a homophone of
Burn b u r n. There's an Asian capital that
I said was five letters long. That would be Korea's capital,
(02:16):
soul seo u L, but sounds a lot like the
eternal soul s o u L. And finally, Keto, Ecuador's
capital sounds a lot like Keito in Keto diet k
e t oh. I bring this up because we have
with us today none other than Ken Jennings, Jeopardy champion,
(02:38):
Jeopardy host, author of the new book The Complete Connections
that's k E n Actions. Please welcome Ken Jennings.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Thanks for having me back, and thanks for always spelling
the title of the book like a like a podcast
host giving the sponsors r L like I appreciate that
it's Kennections, even though I don't like the sound of it.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, can you omed people are going to go on
Amazon and go connections and then they're going to find
like a networking how to network book.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's right, like that you are helping out.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, it's a wonderful book, super fun. But it's not
your only bestseller. You've written several books, a couple of
them blurbed by me. I'm honor.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
We're very generous, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I enjoy the blurbs. One of them is about your
torrid love affair with geography, and that one is called maphead.
What is your favorite map of all time? Maybe it's
too hard to choose, but what do you got?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Like? I have very fond memories of the map of
Disneyland that they put on the brochure. I don't know
if they still have the paper brochure now that there's
an app. But when we were kids, we would just
pour over that map and then you take it home
and you remember all the good times. It's a beautiful map,
but it's a light It has none of the behind
the scenes stuff. So there's a big forest near Tomorrowland,
which is actually you know, cast Member area.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
It's not an important map, but it's nostalgic for me.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
They don't have the garbage can underneath.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The yeah, or that it has some lies on it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Interesting. I always liked the maps where the South is
at the top and the north is because it reminds
me it's it's arbitrary, like it's not that's not nature.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, Australia, but even in Australia their novelty maps, Like
you know, I really think Australia should lean into that
and put those things in classrooms, and instead they just
sell them on T shirts at the airport or something.
Oh interesting, because they really when you see that map,
Australia really dominates the world and we're kind of cowering
beneath it.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Well, then they have to change. Well, no, I guess not.
I mean I learned recently Australia I mean south and
Borealis or something means north, which I did not know
until Alarming Leisure. You you knew that, I'm sure I did.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
But there's but you're right, there's no reason the South
has to be at the bottom. We just think there is.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, all right, Well, in honor of your map mania,
we have a geography puzzle for you. It was written
by me and Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska, who says hello,
He couldn't be here today because he's his other job
as a composer, and he's composing. Now. This puzzle, I
have to say, is a little challenging, but you are
(05:10):
Ken Jennings. So there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm going to give it a go. Age no promises.
I'm not I'm not in the same fighting ship i
was when i was twenty one years ago. I'm like
the I'm a Julio Franco here. I have stayed too long.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, I feel even like a Ken Jennings at like
eighty six is better than ninety nine percent of people
at like twenty two, or whatever your brain peaks. I'll
give it a shot, all right, freach answer, I'm gonna
you're gonna have to figure out the world capital and
the country it's a capital of. But the twist is
(05:47):
there will be a secret word hidden inside those two words.
In this case, in Dublin, Ireland, you can find bleanie
b l I ni. Those are that it's the potato pancake.
So a clue might be this European city has a
lot of corn, beef and cabbage, but it also has
(06:08):
restaurants where you can get a great bleeding. So within
the clue. I'm going to give you the word that
is hiding between the country out of the city and
the country.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
But I don't believe for a second. But you can
get very good bleeding in Dublin Island. Yeah, I just
for the record, I'm just going to say that and
offend your Irish listeners.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There you go. Well, there's some suspension of disbelief in this.
They're little fictional stories, so yeah, I'm not claiming they are,
but the words are real, and the cities and countries.
All right, Visitors to this city's famous wall or famous
former wall have to linger a while if they want
to see it.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Oh, so you're actually going to say the words something.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I am always going to say the word. Oh okay,
and I'm not going to stress it like that. That
one was just since it's the first.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
You can't spell Berlin, Germany without lingers.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
There it is Berlin linger and you can still see
the remains of the wall. So just want to fact
check that.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All right?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
How about this one one of the highest capitals in
the world. It's a good place to get a rape us,
but maybe not so good to get a taco.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Hm. One of the highest capitals in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, which do you think is the word? They're kind
of two that it could be.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I mean, it's gotta be taco. Oh, it is taco.
It's Bogota, Colombia.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There it is Bogata, Colombia. So the ta from Bogata
and the CEO from Colombia. You got taco. And I'm
sure you can get good tacos in in in Colombia.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Better than the ble of iron probably.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
All right, they don't farm row in this Nile Delta city,
do they? So they don't farm row in this Nile
Delta city, do they?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Uh? Yeah? Uh, it's Cairo, Egypt, right, row, the row,
the horrow from Cairo and then from Egypt.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
That's it exactly. And I did look it up and
they do. Actually, they do have row from mullets, which
are not just a haircut but a kind of fish.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So do you think that's why they do it? Like
this thing appears in our name, if you ignore the
common we must farm it here, right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
It's like how guys named Dennis become dentists. The uh yeah,
the nominative determinism with and by the way, I know
you've written a lot about ancient Egypt. I do love
ancient Egypt and trivia, including mummies and the trend. This
is one of my few facts I remember from the
(08:59):
encycloped is the powdered mummies that they would drink in
like nineteenth century England as a health tonic. Crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, they had so many mummies they were like, I
think they were possing them into steam locomotives as fuel.
They made them into brown paint. Yeah, and they thought
it would be healthy to eat ground up mummy.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah yuck. Yes, Well they are no longer alive, so
obviously it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
But luckily today in modern day America, we do not
do any question about healthcare things like that. Like you know,
we've we've advanced so far.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Don't give our FK. Junior any ideas.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
He's gonna be like mummies.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Really federally funded mummy.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
I could go swimming in mummy water. All right.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I've got another couple for you. I wanted to have
some adobo in this capital city, but I couldn't find
a table, so I ate it on my lap ah.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That would be Manila, Philippines.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You got it, did not?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Luckily I like Filipino adobo, so I knew where I
was going there.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
There we go. All right, you'll need a map to
get from here to Machu Pichu.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You need a map because it's Lima Peru.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
There it is all right. We got two or three
more and then you have You've made it through. I
wanted to tour some inc and ruins in this capital city,
but I couldn't because I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I guess we've already eliminated Peru, so that makes it easier.
Toe is found in Quito, Ecuador.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Correct. How about this southern capital's port handles a ton
of cargo and we are spelling Ton the British way.
That might be a little hint.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'm glad you told me that, Ah southern, it's actually
the southernmost world capital. It's Wellington, New Zealand. That's it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Have you been to Wellington, New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
I have not. It's the it's the trip I've most
wanted to take us to New Zealand. And Uh. You know,
if you have kids for twenty years at home, you're
always at the mercy of the school calendar. We have
never been off at a good time to go to
New Zealand. But my last kid is graduating from high
school next month.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So New Zealand coming up, right, Yeah, I'm I would
love Have you been to Australia or no?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That might actually happen this fall.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Okay, very good.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Twenty fifth anniversary trip coming up, so it might be
might be Australia.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Fun fact just while we're on New Zealand that I
learned from my deep googling. It is actually the original
Zealand was the land, not ze a land. So it
is a a British butchering of a Dutch province. Uh
that sounded dark kind of.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Things British did. Yeah, that's just how colonalism works. They
don't care how anybody feels, especially not the Dutch.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
There it is.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
We should do this for all of them. We should
decide which is better, like New Hampshire or Hampshire. Like
clearly Mexico's better than New Mexico. Sorry New Mexico, but
you know a lot of them. It's a much closer call.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There you go. We can have a vote. We can
have a vote, all right. Last one, A lot of
Safaris begin in this African city, but most go by
land rover, not bike.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Not bike. You said, yes, okay, So it's clearly bike
and luckily there's not that many Safari destinations. Nairobi, Kenya
has bike in.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It exactly, the B I from the end of Nairobi
and the K from the beginning of Kenya. Well, I
feel like I've traveled the world with you, ken and
it was it was absolute blast. So it's fun.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You're you're a good traveling companion agent.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Well, thank you, and we will. People should pick up
the complete connections. And of course keep watching Jeopardy and
what is the percentage of answers that you know when
you're reading it before you get to the end.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
We used to ask Alex this all the time, and he,
you know, he had he had the cop out of
being an older gentleman. He could say, well, back in
the day, I could have competed, but now I'm past
my prime. I do play along when I look at
the Jeopardy scripts every every morning, and I'm not as
good as I was in two thousand and four, let's
put it down. But I could still hang like, given
(13:28):
some breaks, I could play anybody, but luckily I don't
have to. That's what beauty of retirement aj. Well.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
What I loved about Alex is he just projected so
much confidence. You're like, oh, well, of course he knew that, like,
and he also had the wonderful accents, so it was
it sounded even smarter.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
In Alex's defense, he did know that stuff, like when
he said, ah, you were thinking of Henry the Seventh. No,
like he actually did have that stuff in his head.
He was not getting fed lines like smart.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Guy, No, No, he was. In fact, I interviewed him
for Esquire magazine a long time ago, and I remember
being very impressed, like he used words like escarpment in
everyday conversation, Like, who not a lot of people use escarpment.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I'm going to start now that I know that's a
that's a trademark of intellectual exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So he was.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And by the way, since I interviewed him, I was
told I could not compete on Jeopardy because he might
have slipped me the answers. And now that I've had
you on the puzzler twice, there's no way they're gonna
let me compete on Jeopardy. That's my excuse. Otherwise i'd
be there. Yeah, otherwise celebrity.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
You could be a celebrity Jeopardy. Still they don't. There's
no rules as.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, all right, I listen. I don't think I quite qualify,
but we have had We've had a lot of your guests,
Mina Kimes, Josh Molina, a lot of them have been
on the puzzler. There's a nice overlap where they get
to earn zero money here.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
For their charity. For their charity, you should do that
bit now, name the charity you're gonna You're gonna earn
zero dollars for Minika.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Listen, it's publicity at least. I have the four question
lightning lightning round. Uh yes, okay. What is your puzzle diet?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Meaning?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
When you wake up or go to bed? What do
you do? Is it spelling bee? What do you got?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I do the New York Times crossword puzzle from three
years ago, because I do the desk calendar. Oh, then
I play spelling bee all day. And I just started
doing this movie one called The Burgle. And then I
do connections with my wife over dinner.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So connections or connections on actions? Gotcha?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I can't do connections. I already know all the answer.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, that's true. What is your favorite word in the
English language?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I'm gonna say escarpment.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
That's Alex Turbeck's favorite word too weird.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Uh, it's a proper name, but I've always loved the
name of the actor, Costas Mandelor does that? How can
I use a project?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
But I don't even I'm not familiar with his work.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Eighties brief, eighties heart throb?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I think, okay, love it? What is your favorite children's
riddle like the cows go to the movies on Saturday night? Type?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Oh? It does it have to have a wordplay element
like that? It has to be a pun?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I mean it could be like a dark existential one
about the.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, here's a dark existential one. Well, why did
the monkey fall out of the tree because he was dead?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Okay, that is dark. You cannot get darker.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
All darker than the movies, I guess.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Last Oh, do you do wordle or not so much?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
I don't do wordle that much anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Sometimes, Well, what when you did wordle? What was your
starting word?
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I would always rotate? Do people always have a starting word?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Some do?
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I like the fact that you rotate. I think that
shows you know an innovative mind.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Every day, I'd try to do well I hadn't done
before and of course there is no great you know,
kind of using the wheel of fortune letters right rst
l an and then a couple of good vowels right,
so it would just be like, you know, stern or
saner or I heard cater is good.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I don't know, I don't know. I read some article
that AI had figured out it was. It was the
name of it. It was a word for a young
hawk that I had never heard of. And now I
even forget that word. So I'll get back to you
on that. But thank you, Ken, thank you for our
Puzzled Diet questionnaire, and congrats on book. Congrats again, thank
(17:36):
you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me
back home.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Ah, we love it. We love it anytime. And before
we go, I have an extra credit for the folks
at home. Many people find the cathedral of Santa Maria
in this Caribbean nation a great place to worship God.
So we're looking for the name of a capital, say,
(18:00):
and it's country that will contain the word God. The
word God is hidden in between the capital city and
its country. The answer tomorrow and in the meantime, if
you are hankering for more puzzle goodness, then check out
at Hello Puzzlers, which is our Instagram feet and we've
got visual puzzles with gosh videos, you name it, and
(18:23):
of course we'll meet here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you puddlingly.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Hey puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle Lap
with your extra credit answer. From the previous show, we
played right Number with Ken Jennings, a throwback to the
origin story of Jeopardy where you're just given a number
and you have to come up with the Jeopardy style
question for which that number is the answer. Here's your
extra credit. The extra credit is.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Three point zero five second and we gave you a
hint too. It's the world record to complete a colorful
twisty task, And of course the answer is what is
the world record for fastest time to solve a Rubics cube? Now,
I assume that starts with a well mixed rubics cube.
I can certainly solve one twist your Rubics cube in
(19:20):
less than that amount of time. That's about the best
I can do. Thanks for playing with us. We'll catch
you next time.
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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