Hey Riddle Riddle - #420: Do it for the Anagram w/ Amal El-Mohtar
Episode Date: August 5, 2026We are so thrilled to have author and poet Amal El-Mohtar on the podcast to nerd out about anagrams, anatomy, and a gas leak that's slowly driving us all insane! And if you liked Amal on this... episode, check out her episode of Gumshoes & Dragons! Starring:Adal RifaiJohn Patrick CoanErin KeifSpecial Guest:Amal El-MohtarEditing by: Casey ToneyTheme by: Arne ParrottLogo by: Emily Kardamis & Emmaline MorrisWant more? Get Weekly Bonus Eps on Patreon!JPC's Guided Meditations Volume 1, available now at our Patreon digital store!Want merch? Visit our Dashery Store!Want to mail us something? Hey Riddle Riddle 6351 W Montrose Ave #267Chicago, IL, 60634Want to leave us a voicemail? Call (805) RIDDLE-1 or (805-743-3531)Want to advertise on the show? Check out Hey Riddle Riddle via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is a headgum podcast.
Okay, so basically what the job is, is the two of you will be, oh, boy.
Have you guys seen the movie Tenet?
Christopher Nolan, one of his biggest films.
I watched it out of order.
Perfect.
Does that matter?
Yes, all the deleted scenes.
Can't matter.
Yes, that's great.
So you're familiar with Tenet.
Yep.
Okay.
So Aaron, and it's Aaron, you're going to.
going to be like the
oh
then's a Washington's
daughter
no you
we'll just have you
is it John
there's like
a middle name
in there John David Washington
John David Washington
you're going to be like
John David Washington
and then Addle
I'm saying in all aspects
oh yeah
what are we talking about
what are we talking about
Adel you're going to be
like
John David Washington
but
well
on the
side of. Okay, so basically what you're going to do is you're going to, and then, and you'll get, I watched
Tenet last night. I was going to ask. And it seems like, and correct me if I'm wrong, not a lot of it
landed the way it should. I feel like you watched it within the last like 12 hours or so. And you're still
pretty confused about what was happening and what's going on. My wife and I watched Tenet last night.
And at the end of Tenet, my wife went online to like read about Tenant and she was like, don't you
have any questions? And I said, no, I have zero questions. I never want to think about Tenet.
again. It doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to me.
Did you see it because you saw The Odyssey this weekend as well? Now you're on a Christopher Nolan kick.
I'm about to see The Odyssey and I realized that Tenet was my only Christopher Nolan blind spot. It's the only Christopher Nolan I hadn't seen. So I was like before I see the Odyssey, I should I should complete the circuit.
Hey, JPC. Tenet like you didn't why.
In case you play that backwards.
Why didn't you like Tenet?
What could this?
Okay, you know what?
All this like forwards and backwards time travel shit is actually way too hard to explain.
I've actually brought in a ringer to help explain all of this stuff.
Amal, El Motar, welcome to the show.
Hello.
Thank you for having me.
Is it fair to now bill you as a time travel expert?
Oh my God.
Yeah, absolutely.
For sure.
Yeah.
At some point in the future, I will help.
have become an expert. So that basically means that I'm an expert now.
Okay, now I get it. Yeah.
I can also be an expert about Tenet because I have not seen it and actually still don't know what it's about. But I did see The Odyssey literally yesterday.
Wow.
I'm still thinking about it. What did you think? I feel too earnest about it basically to be funny about it. But I'm still thinking about it. And I don't know if it's,
sort of like a bad comment on the film that what I most want to do right now is think about
all the other retellings of various Greek myth that I've really loved like chaos the TV
show that was so unfairly canceled and was amazing or Hades Town which I'm obsessed with
what year was chaos I'm I'm I have like the Vegas yeah yeah it was like last year or the year
before I know I think I watched it last year it might have come out the year before I think
was a Netflix show, and it's
basic premise is like,
what if the gods were just shitty billionaires
sort of, but like
the resource that
they're all hoarding is like
people's souls?
It just is really good and really
moving, but the Odyssey was
like, and I have seen, I think
a lot of Nolan films without like
knowing they were Nolan films.
Like I loved Memento when I saw it. I didn't know who Christopher
Nolan was when I saw it because I didn't watch movies
knowing their director.
You were just a huge Jonathan Nolan fan
when you saw the Minto and you were like,
because you're your writer, you love writers first.
I wish that was even the case.
I was just like movies, they just happen.
And you just go and see them.
People make them.
No.
But yeah, I just, there's a lot of stuff in the Odyssey in particular
that I am sort of trash for as a writer
in terms of like how people tell story
and framing devices and the question of like what even is a god is something I'm always really interested in.
And I think I'm just thinking about it from all of those places and also from the place of
how much complaint about like the wokeness of it there was. And then like watching it,
it's so interesting to think about that. But I really, I just like my opinions sort of haven't coalesced
except in the one most insufferable way that will only make sense.
as insufferable if you have seen the film.
But it's like for the majority of the film's runtime,
I was kind of irritated by most of what I was seeing
until this one crucial conversation
between Odysseus and Penelope towards the end.
And then it was like, oh, so it's like the film,
the whole film is like you've been slowly straining
to pull back a bow's string and string it until then you finally released.
There's nothing that Christopher Nolan likes more than making you watch two hours of a movie before he's like, and here's what the movie's about.
Yeah.
Thank you, man.
Thank you, Christopher.
Thank you.
Really good work today, Christopher.
That's a really good point.
Yeah, I loved it.
And I'm kind of, I can't believe I loved it.
Yeah.
Not to talk about the Odyssey for this entire podcast, because this also comes out, maybe four weeks after the Odyssey has been out in theaters.
But you mentioned that you never saw Tenet, which is crazy because it was probably the most viewed movie in the world.
Earlier this year, probably a couple, like a month ago, I read your excellent book.
This is how you lose the Time War, right?
Did I get it correct?
Yes, yes.
Which, did you before writing that?
And I know, it's technical, what is it, a novella?
Am I supposed to say novella?
I don't like to say novella because when I say novella, it makes it seem like I didn't read a book.
which I did. I read a whole book. You did. And you wrote a whole book.
I wrote half a book in fairness. I was like Max wrote the other half. So saying I wrote half a
novella also feels like that much more of a diminishment. But yeah, absolutely. We'll just split the
difference and we'll round up and we'll say you wrote a whole book and I read a whole book
and everybody's happy. Exactly. Sure. But did you do any like, did you seek out a bunch of
other time travel stuff in your writing and research for that? Or did you try to avoid it so that you
only had your own vision of what that was? So sort of like splitting the middle between those things,
because Max and I are both like science fiction fantasy nerds, we have consumed a lot of time travel
stuff. And we also like think about the stuff that we've consumed a lot. So like are very comfortable
talking about things like, so our time travel book is a
going to be a deterministic sort of time travel or is it going to be a multiversal kind of time travel?
Are we doing grandfather paradoxes or are we not doing that sort of thing? But we didn't-
You couldn't know this because you haven't seen Tenet, but they talk about the grandfather paradox
in Tenet. Oh, wow. It's such a great term. It's so inherently funny. And also like, you know,
we've seen a bunch of movies about it and you tend to kind of sort them into that. And also,
Ted Chang exists and is, you know, god of the genre and stuff.
Incredible short stories, yeah.
Absolutely.
And so I really don't feel like in our circles that you can really think effectively
about time travel without having read Ted Chang, who has done all the thinking that there can
be done about time travel and then has expressed it in some truly magnificent short stories.
So we weren't like doing research for the book.
the book totally happened because we sat down together in a place with no internet for like nine
days and wrote most of the book in that time. And so we just had like the contents of our
respective nerderies kind of jostling around. But we did know that like the general structure
of the time travel that we wanted to have was there is a multiverse, like infinite timelines,
blah, blah, blah, but one kind of core deterministic thing.
in the linear nature of it and stuff.
So there's one linear part in the whole of the kind of bouncing around timing space.
But yeah.
The book is excellent.
I really enjoyed it.
But as I was reading it, and I fucking, I should have like, I read it from the library,
so I read it on my phone.
But I should have taken a screenshot of it as I was reading it.
Because there is a section of your book where there are riddles.
Now, they're not like, I don't want to insult.
I totally forgot this.
I was like, oh, I wonder what we're going to talk about on the podcast.
I genuinely forgot that this is me.
I couldn't remember if it was, I couldn't remember if it was your section or Max's section.
It's my section.
Your section.
Okay.
That referenced the riddles.
Yeah.
And I don't want to belittle the riddles by saying that they weren't real riddles.
But they were, well, like a lot of riddles that we've done on the show, they're not
real riddles. The sick
twisted part of me was like, what if we
have a male on the show? And I make
her answer the riddles that she wrote for
her own book. But then I was like,
no, what are you doing? That's like a, that's not
a fun, chill thing to do
the person is to like force
their riddles back into their mouth.
So I won't do that, but I will
ask you the question that we ask all of our guests, which
is what is your relationship
with riddles, puzzles,
I don't know what am missing?
Escape rooms, lateral thinking problems.
Jinks, owe me a Coke.
12, 12, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
12 Cokes.
What present?
I have never heard that part in my life.
You've never heard that part before.
They're adding on to jinks.
I thought when you jinx someone they can't talk, so how are they supposed to say stop?
That's what I thought, too.
You guys don't know about that jinks thing?
I know about the jinks, but I don't know about the counting part.
That's the part that.
Like, I thought when you jinks, like, either you owe me a Coke.
and then that's the condition fulfilled
or you get to just dictate
when they can speak again.
Okay.
This is as complicated as time travel rules.
So it just depends on who you're talking to.
I'm going to jinx.
If I jinks with you and I say jinks
and then I say owe me a Coke and then I'm going to count.
Count.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Come on, Adel.
You didn't say jigs.
He didn't say jigs.
I didn't say jigs.
And then you have to say stop.
And then that's how many coax you owe me.
Oh.
See, I intuitively thought that was the amount of time Adal had to produce a Coke for you.
Whoa.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, exactly.
And if you fail, then that's it.
Your voice is forfeit.
Did Coca-Cola come up with this part of the dream?
Oh, my God.
Am I being manipulated by big companies?
No, right?
No, right?
No.
No?
No.
It's a sponsor.
Yeah.
God.
Sorry to interrupt, but lateral thinking problems, escape rooms.
Oh, yeah.
The question.
Oh, yeah. I unabashedly and completely earnestly love all of those things. I think I started, this was actually one of the delights for me when I started listening to Hey Riddle Riddle was remembering that when I was a small child, I had a game called Mind Trap. Didn't you ever encounter this?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it's like a box of a bunch of different cards with questions, teasers, like trivia, various things on them.
That's, you have it.
That's crazy.
Oh, my God.
It is, and that is the cover.
Like, that is the box that I had.
It's very vintage-looking.
It's very sort of like evocative.
It's like a nightmareish mind or something.
Yeah, yeah.
It's got like that black, purple, smoky kind of thing.
It's so 90s got somehow.
Don't let stranger things see that because they'll have a lawsuit on their hands.
So I had that.
And my absolute favorite, so a thing.
I don't know if I ever, this is so embarrassing to actually say, I genuinely can't remember if I ever played the game with other people.
Because no one in my life shared my passion for riddles at the time that I had this.
I think it was given it as a birthday present and I never played it.
But what I did, this is all coming back.
It's just so fucking sad.
What I did was I sat down and I read every single one of them.
Like I read every single card.
I had a marker that I put in the box for where I was at and stuff.
And so I would read them and try to guess them for myself and then like flip them over and get the answer.
But my favorite ones were the ones with Shadow, who is a character who like basically has almost a continuity throughout the box.
And he's a detective of some kind.
And so a lot of the scenarios of like, ooh, locked room mystery or whatever were the Shadow ones.
And I kind of had a crush on Shadow.
It's like, I cool as fuck.
I just like, he was made up as a like fully this realized character in my head.
And I was like, Shadow's so cool and smart.
And anyway, I was very, very young when I was reading these.
So it was quite formative.
But the OG riddles for me were the ones in The Hobbit.
And I super loved them.
And like I was a sucker for any italicized text in a book, clearly the most important text.
That's so funny.
As are all the songs.
And yeah, so I super love them.
And I only, like, started doing escape rooms, like, I want to say, like, 2016, 2017 was when I first did an escape room and also loved that.
So I just, I think, yeah, I've super loved them.
There was, like, to the point where I don't know if any of you guys ever played, I know, obviously, you play D&D now, but if in your wayward youths you ever encountered, like, World.
of darkness,
vampire the masquerade stuff.
Yeah,
yes.
So there were like,
those were my first
role playing game experiences
and the sheet,
the character building sheet
with its like abilities,
or like,
they were called skills, right?
Yeah.
There was at some point
a skill that was like
specifically for riddles.
It might have just been called
riddles or whatever.
And as one does,
like making one's own
person into a character
and stuff. I was always like, oh, what would my riddle score be at? Because I love them, but how good am I at them actually? And so, yeah, I don't know. I think I have more
enthusiasm than skill, probably, for them, but I love them unabashedly. We should start asking people on the show what their
riddle score is. I think that's like, yeah, it's way better, it's way better than what we've been
doing. But your riddle score should be external. So, like, Adela's,
and GBC you should give me my riddle score
and vice versa.
Yeah, yes.
If it has to come from internal,
it can't possibly be as mean as we need it to be.
Well, we will test your riddle score today.
Amazing.
We have some riddles, as we are wont to do on this show.
And the first riddles that I have for you,
and for Adela and Aaron as well,
you guys are welcome to participate.
Thank you.
come to us from a listener named Chloe Evans.
Now, Chloe sent us something in the mail,
some riddles in the mail.
And Chloe says that they did not write these,
but they found them.
And so if these are not good,
let's not blame Chloe's mind for these.
These are found riddles that Chloe is sent in.
Your first riddle is,
how do you spell cow in 13 letters?
He's spelled cow in 13 letters.
Okay, I've been stumped.
I mean, the mean answer is to, like, find one of your enemies whose name happens to, like, have 13 letters in it.
Have 13 letters in it.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Let's see.
Does it work for any of us?
Never once thought to be like, how many letters are in my name?
Wait, John Cohen 8.
Patrick is P&T, R-I-C-7, 15.
Yeah, 15.
Fuck.
Full name is, full name that doesn't work.
Aaron Keefe.
No.
No, it doesn't work either.
How do you spell cow in 13 letters?
How do you spell cow in 13 letters?
This, oh, please, Erin.
Okay, so you write 13 letters, like, handwritten, like, put them in envelopes.
And you just do a tiny bit of each, of the word cow in each letter.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
You got it.
Yeah, right.
Well, you know what my first thought was?
Aaron, that's not correct, but my first thought was, how do you spell cow in 13 letters?
You know how, like, there's no set?
I guess it's, I guess it's two.
Like how many O's are in moo?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's like you could like cow, you know, like cow with like 11 O's in it or something like that.
That's not the answer, but that's where my brain went.
I counted the letters in my own name, and they are 12, but there's also a hyphen in my name.
And if you counted that, then I guess I would have 13 letters on my name.
Great.
So the answer to that riddle is we can call you a cow.
That doesn't seem very satisfying to me.
That's right. Exactly.
This is such a tangent, but have any of you ever made up, like looked up
anagrams of your name to like.
Oh.
Adel, do you want to take this one?
I had, so I'm Adel Shoki Rify and I did it sometime back.
But there was something fun where it was like something about a hawk or something.
It was just, it was, it's really delightful to be like, ooh, I didn't realize the word
hawk is tucked into my name yeah yeah there's something like almost divinatory about it that i find
really fun my two favorites of mine were amoral hamlet and uh ha lame mortal
those are really good thank you i guess if i can take any credit for it but yes i i enjoyed
i guess props to whoever named you because uh they they do exactly what they were doing
I just put my name into a generator, and one of the first ones that came up was easier, freethink, or freakish teenier.
Ooh, freakish teenier.
Freakish teenier is great, actually.
My alias, my pen name.
I put my name into a generator, and I got infinite free energy, which is pretty cool.
Wow.
Yeah, I could power an entire city.
That is such a great thing to get from something that is presumably taking up energy to produce.
That's incredible.
I feel like, Adel, you have like a, is it a secret talent?
I feel like you will often, this also happens, I think, on Gobshoes and Dragons quite frequently.
Like, you will say an anagram for a villain's name and you're like, is this anything?
We're like, how did you do that?
Yeah, if it strikes me as like, that's a specifically unusual name.
Like, it doesn't feel like, oh, I had fun naming this.
It's like, I got this name for a reason.
I will sit there and be like, what's going on here?
But then what happens is I'm like, inevitably, I go, oh, your name is an anagram for evil fishes.
And everyone goes, okay.
And then at the end of the thing, it's like, oh, the names I was using for the characters were all rom-com names.
And I was like, so I was on the right track.
I was just, I just focused on the wrong thing.
I feel like I read
Oh fuck
The Westing game is that
I love the Westing game yeah I love that yeah
I read that as a child and then there was a part of me
after reading that was like never not pay attention to someone's names ever again
Because the names are everything and then I proceeded to live an entire life where that wasn't so quite important
Nominative determinism B
Is this like actually like my parents didn't just
nakedly be like, yes, the thing that my parents actually did do while they were naming,
not just me, but my three siblings, they very deliberately, so my family's from Lebanon.
Lebanon has a history and present of, like, sectarian violence.
So my parents very deliberately gave us all names that were not, like, easily identifiable
with any particular religion.
And so my name is Amal, which is, like, hope, but like the plural of hope, there's Amal and there's Amal.
and my sister is Dunya
which means the world
my youngest brother's name is Reis
which is like generous reign
and my middle brother's name
which genuinely was
a non-sectarian name
at the time of his naming
is Jihad
which
has served him so well
in the intervening years
but anyway
one kid being named the world
is a very
funny.
Yeah.
Very different vibe.
Yeah.
But anyway, I'll just say,
nominative determinism.
Yeah, that's a thing.
Well, I mean, we're circling it.
Do you guys want me to help you out here?
Yes, please.
Okay.
So, look, I like this.
I like this, but I think it's kind of hard to get.
But the way that you, I'll just give you the answer because I don't know.
No, no, no.
No, no.
Okay.
Okay.
So, how to spell cow in 13 letters?
Yeah, I would say maybe your hint is break down the word cow.
Maybe that's the hint.
C-O-S-E-A.
C-E-E-O- yeah.
S-E-A.
Okay.
O-H.
You're on the right track.
It's not O-H, though.
You don't need the O-H to get to 13.
So it's literally just spelling the word cow with enough letters in it that, like, it will still sound like cow.
But there will be 13 of them?
No, I will say this doesn't really say.
sound like cow at all. Is the last part D-O-U-B-L-E-U?
Y-O-U.
Oh, my God.
The way that you spell cow in 13 letters is S-E-A or S-E-E-E-O-D-O-U-U-B-L-L-E-O-U.
That's all Aaron-Kee. That's all Air-N-G-U.
Well, I'm mad.
That's incredible.
I'm mad, bad.
Very good.
Mad cow.
A mad, mad, mad-mad cow.
Yeah, we're having a cow.
Can you cleanse the space with a new riddle?
Well,
I open all the windows.
What we are going to do is,
we're going to do it.
We're going to do a scene.
We're going to see a scene.
Ugh.
We're going to have to sit in this riddle longer.
My God.
Aaron, you're supposed to be the expert here.
So here's what the scene is.
We're going to do a spelling bee.
I'm, of course, going to be judging the spelling bee,
but it's not going to be, and all three of you are welcome to participate.
It's not going to be normal spelling bee rules.
You're going to be, the goal of the spelling bee is to spell,
things as long as possible, with as many letters as possible, okay?
All right, your next contestant is Aaron Keefe.
Aaron, please approach.
Your word is hat.
Could I have a definition, please?
A hat, something you wear on your head, hat.
Could you use it in a sentence?
Hey, there's something you wear on your head.
your head. A hat.
And language of origin.
A hat.
There's a bee. There's a bee by my neck.
There's a literal B by my neck and I know it seems like I'm making an excuse.
Are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm saying that there is an insect right next to my neck.
And he's, he's trying to give me the answer, but I'm not listening.
Okay.
Well, even if you're not listening, it is still cheating.
And so I do have to disqualify.
No, no, no.
wait, H-U-H-A
H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-T-T-T.
I'm sorry, we were looking for H-A-T.
It was half.
Fuck me up.
Fuck you.
And fuck your, fuck everybody.
Fuck you.
We're all kids here.
We're all kids.
Oh, yeah.
We're all kids here.
Oh, yeah.
Crips.
We're all scripts.
Can I go?
Yes, you could go.
Addle, you are next.
Okay.
Your word is car.
Language of origin.
Car, Japanese.
Could you scream the word, please?
Car!
Said like people playing street hockey.
Could you make the sound that the word makes?
Chudy, chudy bang, bang.
Car.
That's so fucking funny.
K-H-A.
A, A, B, B, a B, a B, a B.
That is correct.
It is K-H-A-A-A-A-B-B-B-B.
That is correct.
Adelg, you are moving on to the semifinals.
Amal, you are next.
Your word is I.
Could you use it in a sentence, please?
Not this one.
I simply don't know how.
Oh.
two
correct
you have two eyes
and so I starts with the letter
two the number two the number two
you guys are great at that
I trained for years for this
okay here's your next
red all Aaron is correct we don't have to live in that one
anymore
why is your
I was going to ask real quick
does anyone know what is scripts
is that like a company or like a software
or something wasn't scripts a
pod. Didn't scripts own some podcasts? It was a podcast coming, right?
No. Well, the script filling bee has been around for a minute. So I think it's got to be,
they maybe dip their toes into podcasting. I had no idea what the reference was. I,
I thought you were just talking about like scripts that were being written. Scripts versus bloods.
Yeah. I feel like the big one is maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought the big one was like called
the scripts spelling bee, but I, this is nothing. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't
I don't, is that like the national spelling bee?
Like, that's the, that's the, okay.
I'm not familiar with scripts.
It's, it's probably like everything where it's like,
now it's just there's four companies.
It's like Unilever owns whatever it used to be and it's, you know.
Have you ever played a game?
There's like a, there's a game by Emily Short,
who is an absolute genius that is about a spelling bee.
And it's like, it's like you are training to be a spelling bee champion.
in. But it's very moving and put it's a very like browser game thing.
Oh, okay. Gotcha.
Yeah. I, everything I know about how spelling bees work in the U.S. is from this game,
and it was harrowing. Like, it was really, the general premise of this game is that this
girl is, like, trying to support her family or, like, emerge from, like, a really shitty
environment by winning the spelling bee. And, uh, I'll, I'll take it up and send a change.
It sounds like a wonderful game, but it also sounds to me like a Josh Safdi movie where it's like, why would I ever want to be? Why would I ever want to live in that? Like, it's like, spelling, I was in Spell Bowl when I was in like seventh grade and it's so stressful that I'm like, I don't know that I want to do that in my like leisure time. Like, oh, in the walls.com. Yeah, the game is just called B. Interesting. Yeah. The, okay, let's do one more. Let's do one more riddle real quick. And then we can.
and then we can head to break.
So your next riddle is, why is Europe like a frying pan?
Oh, um.
Adel.
Because there's a little grease at the bottom?
Adel is because there's grease at the bottom.
Is it a little grease or just grease?
Um, you, wow.
Let's call it a little grease.
That's incredible.
I think a little grease is funnier.
I thought you were about, I was going to be like, if this is actually about how it's climate change is making everything.
43 degrees Celsius right now, then that's real dark.
The migration of the monarch butterfly has actually been affected by the...
I saw one yesterday. I was so happy.
So they're doing fine. So no one worry about it. They're doing fine.
Okay, if you've got your eyes on a butterfly, please let it right in to let us know where it is in the world.
And we will see you guys all back after this brief break.
This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace.
Hey, Addle, Aaron, settle a bet for me.
Who has the better website?
Hey riddle.com or gumshoes and dragons.com.
Ooh.
He's fishing for a compliment because he created both of these websites using Squarespace.
I don't know if that's a fair question because I feel like any website created by Squarespace.com is going to look pretty great.
I mean, when you use Squarespace, and yeah, I'm talking about the all.
all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online,
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The best thing about Squarespace, guys, is you don't have to pick.
Both websites can be equally very good.
And if you're on the website and you click around and something's not updated,
don't send me an email.
I'll probably get to it eventually.
really, guys. By the way, GPC, there's some things on this website that I'm pretty sure you thought me and Adel weren't going to see. I have eyes on those websites. Casey, let's end. Let's end the ad. Let's just say. I have eyes on them. We'll just say head to squarespace.com slash riddle for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code riddle to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. He did our descriptions of like our bios. Adel, have you read what he wrote? No.
Hey everybody, JPC here, and I want to tell you about a traumatic experience that I had recently.
Now, if you listen to the show, you know I'm a big foodie.
I love restaurants.
I love restaurante touring.
I love going out to eat.
But a lot of times because of how I am, it's hard to get a group of people to want to dine with me.
So I go to a lot of restaurants solo.
Now, classically, I like to go to restaurants.
I don't like to dress up.
I don't like to put on airs.
So I do eat out a lot of restaurants.
wearing a potato sack with armholes cut out.
And not really leg holes cut out because it's just the bottom of the sack.
I guess there is a head hole for me to stick my head out of the sack if I remember.
But recently I was eating in a restaurant and they kicked me out because they didn't like
the potato sack that I was wearing.
I'm sorry.
It's hard for me to talk about this.
So I went to Quince because Quince is all about fewer better pieces.
Their clothes are made with premium materials built to last and designed to become the ones
you reach for day after.
day and they will not scratch you like a potato sack. They will not hurt you like a potato sack. And they,
for the most part, do not smell like potatoes. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder,
like their ultra-soft organic cotton teas and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile,
timeless, and transitions seamlessly from casual workday to dinner out. I love my Mongolian cashmere
sweater that I got at Quince. I wear it whenever I have the opportunity. I am so excited for
fall because I will get to fall back into that sweater. Summer's been really hard for me because I have
been wearing so many potato sacks and they are scratchy and uncomfortable and you cannot buy them
at quince. Everything at quince has priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with
ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for high quality, not brand
markup. And it's not just clothing quince has become my go-to for everything from hotel quality
bedding and bath essentials to premium cookware and travel must-have. Now, I know I said they have
premium cookware. Potato sacks are not cookware. I know it's because you cook and you wear it.
But potato sacks are not something. You were not fine in potato sacks.
Quince do not even look. So upgrade your every day, download the Quince app for app exclusive offers,
or go to quince.com slash riddle, get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available
in Canada and the UK too. That's QI-N-C-E.com slash riddle. And do not mention that you used to
wear potato sacks to anyone ever. Hey, everybody, it's Aaron. Sometimes the universe is a very funny thing.
Right before I started recording this, I got an email notification from Rocket Money, an app I've been
using for so long way before they became a sponsor of Hey Riddle Riddle. I got an email from them saying
that they had successfully canceled a subscription for me that I had asked them to cancel for me because
I had forgotten about it. And it's just the best feeling to know that someone is looking out for you
when all these other companies are trying to be predatory and take your money right under your nose.
Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions,
monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.
things. Rocket money is a really helpful tool for my brain because it's color-coded. You can set budgets
for yourself and there's categories. Everything is really intuitive and easy. You can see where your
money is going and you can see it's going to things that you've completely forgotten about.
They can help you save so much money every year just by keeping you on top of your finances.
Also, I've been using the automated savings tool that they have to grow towards my goals.
You can set the adjustable amounts and the frequencies and it's a set it and forget it approach.
and then you go, oh my gosh, I've saved up for that thing that I wanted or that bill I wanted to pay off.
It is so intuitive and I think you should give it a shot.
Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster.
Join RocketMoney.com slash riddle.
That's rocketmoney.com slash riddle.
RocketMoney.com slash riddle, R-I-D-L-E.
Thank you, Rocket Money. I appreciate it.
You guys, I have a real life example about how good Helix sleep is.
Okay.
Aaron, you had me at you had a real life.
I am so happy for you.
My dear friend texted me saying, what brand is your mattress again?
I love your mattress.
And I said, it's Heelix Sleep, baby.
I got the Midnight Lux.
And then she said, can you send me a code?
Because she's about to move and she needs a new mattress.
And she's about to have a luxurious Heelick Sleep mattress.
I'm very excited for her.
Because also, when I go to Chicago, I stay with her.
And now I don't have to be too far from a midnight lux in any given moment.
Aaron, that is money in the bank, never being too far from the midnight lux.
I have one of those trackers that I got installed, like what you put in pets, that things every time I'm close to a midnight lux so that I can just kind of hop on and have a little sleep.
Huh.
Helix doesn't sell that guy, so it's third party.
But what Helix does do is they offer free shipping and seamless delivery.
Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the U.S.
Plus they have 120-night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty, and the happy with Helix guarantee you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges.
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And right now, you can get a Helix sleep mattress just like Aaron's and I'm doing big,
air quotes, friend that definitely exists.
Shelby, her name's Shelby, she's real.
Sure, I can make up names too.
Shnell, Shnell.
Shnellby.
She was just Shelby with a name.
Go to Helixleep.com slash riddle for the Labor Day Early Access Sale.
That is 20% off site wide.
That's Helixleep.com slash riddle for the Labor Day Early Access sale that is running until August 13th, 20% offsitewide.
Helixleep.com slash riddleby.
Schnellby.
Hi, it's me.
Schnellby.
Come to bed, Schnellby.
Just Schnellby with an end.
Okay, we're rolling right along here.
We're back.
We're going to do more riddles.
Here's your next one.
This is, again, another one that Chloe sent in.
What can you hold in your right hand, but not your left hand?
What can you hold your right hand?
Aaron, that is correct.
It is your left hand.
I, what do I want to see a person?
Oh, my gosh.
Amel, you're going to be a person.
and a JPC is going to be your left hand
and I know you're going to be
finally you're a person
And Adel you're going to be the right hand
And you two are kind of bickering and arguing
And you're trying to sort of get your hands to get along
Okay
Okay so we've talked about this right
Now we're going to use feeling words
Right
Strokes your chin
Strokes your chin
That's very nice
I'm feeling great about this
left hand how are you feeling?
I'm in the pocket.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
No, no worries.
It's just like, I feel like that keeps happening.
It keeps happening that I'm in the pocket and, uh...
Oh.
Hey, Larry.
Hey, you're right.
Right.
And old?
Um, yeah, this is great.
This is great.
I'm sorry.
I take responsibility for my role in this.
I think I,
I've just gotten used to needing to keep the two of you apart.
No, no, no, you've done nothing.
Claire, you've done nothing wrong.
Nothing wrong.
Well, I just, I really want to see the two of you, you know,
I know you have your differences, but I really think that you, like, they can meet, you know?
They can, they can come together.
You can appreciate those things together.
It's so, it's so cool to hear you say that.
Um, do you think that maybe like today, if, if we're like everything's equal and we're trying to like, you know, work together, maybe we teach me how to write? Or no, that's stupid.
No, we can do that. We can do that. We can do that. Let's, hey, let's become ambidextreous at 37. That's an awesome idea. That'll be super simple and very quick.
I'm hearing some hostility from you, right, general. I think this actually could be a really great idea. Um, like, because why not?
I mean, I, right?
Yeah.
Why not?
Yeah.
Have there been things you've been longing to express that you feel like not being able to write has been holding you back?
Huh.
I mean.
Yeah, I guess so.
I just like, it's just like I just can't participate in like a lot of stuff that Rachel Nold can participate in.
Like, you know, like part of writing is reading.
So it's like I know that he knows how to read and I don't.
And I've always wanted to open a pickle jar.
I know this not what we're talking about.
But it's just like something that.
It's just something that I've always wanted to do.
You're right.
And it's also, honestly...
No, I'm left.
Exactly.
I'm left.
Scene.
Scene.
Scene.
Classic stuff.
You just say you want to be the one to jerk off.
Just say it.
Hey, Aaron, I was thinking it.
I was biting my thumb.
Is that the kind of energy that I want to bring to, we have a guest on the end of the internet?
You're right.
You're right.
I just love that opening a pickle jar is.
on par with writing. That is truly, those two things are the same. And I'm a hand. That's got to be
like the most important thing to you at life. It's opening a pickle chop. Also I this is so this is I don't,
do you guys have things where you are? I'll just say the thing that it is for me. I am right handed
in all aspects of my life except swinging a baseball bat. Weirdly like ever since I was a child,
I would swing on the left, and I didn't have any cause to think about this in my adulthood until Friday when I was unexpectedly drafted into my sister's workplace softball team.
And suddenly it all came back to me.
I was like, wow, I should maybe try swinging?
No, that doesn't work.
It has to be on the left.
And it's very weird.
This is the only thing.
That's wild.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think I do most.
I'm right-handed, and I think I do most things in a right-handed way.
But so much of this world is made for right-handed people, and it is crazy that, like, when you stop to think about, like, they sell left-handed scissors.
Yeah.
You're like, aren't all scissors, like, can't use them with both hands?
And it's like, no, not really.
Scissors are made to be right-handed.
And it's like, wow, fuck.
Yeah.
Writing with a fountain pen is really interesting for this, too, because you can get, like, the fountain nib ground to a different angle, specifically if you're left-handed.
and I don't know how this interacts
with the fact that I've been thinking about this recently
because my dad is not going to listen to this, so it's not going to get this away.
But I've been wanting to get my dad a fountain pen for a milestone birthday.
And he writes a lot in Arabic,
and Arabic is written from right to left to left, as opposed to from left to right.
So you can get a specific grind of fountain pen nib to accommodate that.
It's like the same as an architect grind.
Yeah.
And I just find myself going like, yeah,
so if you were left-handed but writing in Arabic would
How would that work?
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
Amal, can I be vulnerable with you?
Absolutely.
Up until the age of maybe 10 or so, my dad would read the whatever newspapers in Arabic.
And they were backwards.
And for a while, I thought my dad could read.
Oh, my God.
And I was like, this is embarrassing.
Like, he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.
And then at some point, he was like, he was like, oh, let me teach you how.
to do this. And I was like, oh, okay, so this is legit. And I'm just, and then he's like,
what? And you were like, nothing. Um, no. You're, of course you could read. You're my dad.
So you saw all the notes I left. Okay. Okay. And you and mom are getting a divorce because of the
notes. Interesting. Interesting. Oh my God. Oh. If anyone out there during that scene,
you know what I kept thinking of is like I want songs for.
musicals and if anyone out there writes musicals please write a song from the perspective of the
non-dominant hands and everything it wants to do open a pickle jar sign its name flip a coin
I'm totally hearing it to the cadence of like the little mermaids like look at this stuff you know
the year before my kid was born I was working with a personal trainer I was getting in shape a lot of good
that fucking did me but it but it was a fun experience but one of the things that I did after I had
I had been training for a few months was I got one of those like full body scans because the they, you like lay on a table. It scans your whole body. And then it tells you basically your like weight percentages of each like muscle group of your body. But you, one of the reasons why you do it is so that you know like your dominant side. How much like how much more muscle mass you have on your dominant side so you can adjust the way that you're like working out. So like things become more even. And it is crazy to like have a dominant side and. And it is crazy to like have a dominant side. And,
and not like go through that in your life and being like,
oh, there is like a weight, a measurable difference of like how strong, you know,
my dominant side is.
Even, and for whatever reason, I just never thought of having like a dominant leg,
but I'm like, no, of course, I'm right handed in, right leg.
Like, I'm right footed.
This is actually, like, I'm such a, I'm such a nerd for this thing.
Specific, because I do work with a trainer as well because I have all sorts of like
lower half imbalances.
And the thing that is super messed up is.
that there is a governing logic that makes perfect sense only if you understand everything about anatomy.
So, like, there's this thing where it is a concept of referred pain, basically, where you can be
feeling pain in one part of your body, but that's not where the problem is. Very metaphorically resonant.
That's wild. Yeah. So, like, if you're feeling a pain in your shoulder, it might be because of something,
like, in your lower back or various things like that. So the thing that I have had to be working on,
lot is figuring out what muscle in what leg is overworking, causing a muscle in the other leg
to underwork or overwork. And so you get up like the sense of your body that isn't so much
split down the middle with one side stronger than the other. It's more like you're an elastic
band that's been twisted on itself multiple times and is creating all of these tensions,
pulling in all of these different directions. And everything that I learn about like,
muscle and anatomy and stuff just becomes layers and layers of metaphor for the ways in which
we do and don't understand our psyches and so much stuff and frustrating.
But yeah.
That's crazy.
I can talk about this for so long.
It's ridiculous.
But yeah.
So our bodies are basically pretzels and salt is basically sweat.
So we basically are pretzels.
So if I eat a person, I'm not a cannibal.
Wait a minute.
No, hold on.
Back up.
Wait, hold on.
But if you eat pretzel, you are accountable.
So don't do that.
I am a cannibal.
Yeah, exactly.
I can't eat pretzels anymore.
Don't do that.
Do we want to do another riddle?
This is a riddle that has something to do.
Well, I'll just, I'll say it transitions well.
Yeah.
What has a bottom at the top?
What has a bottom at the top?
A dabbling duck.
I just always see.
You know what I watch and their bottoms go out.
You should not dabble ducks.
Everyone knows.
Leave ducks alone, guys.
Don't feed them bread.
It's bad.
Midsummer night's dream.
Ooh.
Now Aaron's going to be on top.
What was the first scene that Bottom is in midsummer night's dream?
Is it at the top of the play?
Yeah, Bottom opens the show, right?
And it's like, hey, what's up?
I'm going to be a donkey later or something.
I just want you guys, don't get scared.
God, I forget that Shakespeare is such a word.
You forget that Shakespeare.
What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal?
Peter Quince's friend. I will not see Lysander this play. What else? What else? What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal? What's my deal?
Can you read the riddle one more time?
What has a bottom at the top? What is it bottom at the top? What has a bottom at the top?
Someone, like a boss.
Oh, boy.
And help me with it, Aaron.
In what way?
Every boss has an ass.
Hmm.
This has big, every kiss begins with Kate.
I'm trying to not just answer this.
He did rivalry fan fiction.
I was going to say like a gay pride flip or something.
And what stopped you from saying?
Nothing.
Nothing.
What is the bottom on the top?
I mean a barrel
because you can put a barrel
either way.
That is a good
a barrel.
Okay, so Amal gets
you get partial credit
sometimes what happens
is when you get an answer
that is not the one
that is written down but still works
you get the rest of the riddle off.
So congratulations.
You don't have to do it.
You don't have to do any more
this riddle today.
But yeah,
it's like that
the conversation we were having
right before I read this riddle
feeds into it, I will say.
In another way.
Pain.
We're talking about your body scans.
Are we talking about bodies?
Oh, is it?
What is the bottom?
Like a touch.
Oh, sorry.
Can I go again?
Yeah, you don't have to.
You're off for the rest of the day, but you can't if you want extra credit.
Well, I'm just saying bodies and like a body of water.
You kind of can't tell what is at the top or the bottom, right?
Because it's water all the way through.
What is the bottom at the top?
Yeah, because it's water all the way through.
Okay.
You're off.
You're off twice.
If I get enough partial answers, do I get full riddle credit?
Like, this is important for my riddle score.
It's never happened before, but I don't see any reason why today can't meet the day.
An inverted pyramid.
So this has something to do with our bodies?
Your body, yes.
Something on your body has a bottom of the top.
Your specific body, Addle.
Oh, geez.
Can I, do you guys mind if I turn off my camera?
I'm sorry.
Chloe sent it a lot of Adel's body riddles.
Chloe. I gotta say
we need riddles for the show Chloe, but this is
maybe a little too far.
It's everyone's body
it's a part of the body
that has a bottom at the top. Eyes, nose,
ears, mouth. Heal, toes.
Head, shoulders. Where's the bottom
of your body? What's another word for bottom?
Foot. Feet.
No, another one. But, butt, butt, ass, yes.
So, what has a bottom
at the top? Your legs.
Your legs. Oh my God. Your legs.
Boo.
No, don't say boo.
It's good.
This is a good one.
I like this one.
That's like I could, all it comes to mine, this is, I met a traveler in a desert land who's a
two vast and trunkless legs of stone is what comes to my who I just, I'm just imagining
these two like shining glutes at the top of the trunks of stone.
My ass is not a hat.
My ass is not a hat.
I was thinking, I was starting to think about hats and like, you know, just.
a top hat.
That's a good.
Let's go with that thought process.
We're going to see a scene.
Adel, you are going to a Haberdasher.
You are, I guess a Haberdasher is just clothes.
Does anyone know the one that means?
Haberdasher is hat?
Is it hats?
I think so.
I was confused Milliner and Haberdasher
but I think Miliner is dresses and Haberdasher is a hat.
And Haberdasher's hats.
I thought for some reason that Haberdasher applied to all clothes, but let's, let's,
Oh, no, you're right.
You're right.
me call Paul of Tompkins.
We need, next time we see Paul of Tompkins, we can ask him what the one for just hats is.
I, this is thing, I just never remember it.
I know, I know that it's not that.
I just don't remember what the one is.
But anyway, you're going to a hattery addle.
It is actually milliner.
Sorry, I had them confused.
I thought milliner was for sewing and stuff, but it might just be women's hats.
I'm not sure.
Fuck, well, this won't work.
You're going to go to the male equivalent of a milliner, adle.
A man.
That's thor.
And Aaron, you're designing a hat, but Adel, you're trying to get a hat made for your butt,
but you don't really want to admit that it's for your butt.
Great.
Oh, wringlingling, hello.
Hi.
Good.
I was hoping that you wouldn't be busy today.
Fantastic.
Oh, B?
Are you the customer?
I see. I buy internet cutout.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Oh, wait.
Start over.
I own a store.
Okay.
That was an internet issue.
Oh, my God.
Aaron, you had a 50-50 chance of getting it right.
Let's try one more dog.
I'll try again.
Okay.
All you.
Well, let's wait, hold on.
No, because I thought I had guessed right.
And then Adel did the wringlingling.
Adel that was not your fault.
I just, I was having to guess.
All right.
Guys, hey, I don't have a horse in this race.
Who wants to be the customer or who wants to be the person buying the hat?
I want to be the hat person.
I want Adel to be the customer.
Okay, got it.
Great.
Adel, you are the customer.
Aaron, you are making the hats.
Oh my goodness.
Welcome in.
Oh, thank you so much.
I see a naked head.
Oh, ready for a hat.
Oh, yeah.
I never thought of hatless head as being naked, but, oh, let me cover it up with my hands.
Oh, you've seen everything.
Oh, I've seen it all.
No, let me just measure this.
Circumbrance, big head, big thoughts.
Let me measure this, measure this.
Now, what kind of hat would a man like you want on a day like this?
Gray, top hat, Sherlock Holmes thing.
Oh, Deerstalker?
Doc Holliday's hat from Tombstone.
Oh, my, oh my goodness, that would be a goddamn delight.
No, but think of top hat, but the inverse or reverse.
Or opposite.
Let's say opposite.
Okay.
Hmm.
So the brim's on the top of the top hat.
Yeah, butt hat.
What was that?
I want.
No, nay, I need a butt hat.
I roll my eyes and I point to a sign that says we do not sell hats for butts.
Oh, for 14, Reginald.
There is near a hat salesman on this street, sir, that will fulfill your purvish request.
Pervish.
Hats are for heads.
Pervish?
Oh, aye, mate, I heard you were looking for a specialty hat that you couldn't find in a store.
Yes, might we get out of these cobblestone alleys? I feel like this is a dark deed.
Yeah, well, it is. You want, you want a specialty hat? I'm the one who makes it.
Okay, um...
So, there's a hat for your penis, then, is it?
Oh, mm-hmm. No, no, no, no, I, um, I want a hat, I want a butt hat.
Oh, good God, sir. No, no reason.
Shubbing me. Stop shoving me. Get out of my alley. This is for perfect.
I never.
Hey, here's my last chance is to knock on this random home.
I'd hope that whoever resides inside is willing to bend their moral compass to a...
Ding-dong.
Hello?
Hello, citizen. My name is Reginald. I come from across the pond and I'm looking for a...
Your ass is...
Huh?
Remarkably uncovered.
Thank you.
Finally, someone notices.
I'm all kicked up and nowhere to go.
Yes.
Yes.
I think we should see about that immediately.
Come in here.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Yes, I'm looking for an ass hat.
That's right.
That's right.
But bonnet, or whatever you're willing to provide.
All right.
Well, a custom job was going to take some time.
You can, of course, peruse from the ready-made merchandise.
Oh, you sell out of your home, which have a hearing.
I do, but have to, obviously.
Okay, what, oh.
And also, you've never spoken to me.
You will leave here with your ass-covered butt.
You know what I mean.
However, you will never speak of me again.
I will never utter a word about, let me look at the address.
H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. I simply must get to the world's fair, the Colombian exposition even.
Yeah, I think we all wanted to just make that ass-hat person an absolute serial murderer.
It was like, you come on in. I'll kill you for sure. Why not?
All right, I think we can do one more.
Well, we will do one more because this is the last one that Chloe sent it.
So what tastes better than it smells?
Tong.
It's the tongue.
It's the tongue.
It's the tongue.
I keep hearing people say this of durian, but I've never had it yet.
So I don't know neither how it smells nor it tastes.
I do want to see a scene.
Okay.
All three of you are in a
what is it like a Somali A exam I guess or certification.
Yeah, sure.
And I'll be sort of running it and putting the three of your palate to the test.
Everyone please pick up class number A, swirl it around.
Okay, number eight.
Class number eight.
We pay it out.
There's glasses just scattered around the table.
They're not indefinable in front of any one person,
and they're all labeled with like infinity symbol.
Oh, this one, guys, it's this one.
It's this one.
It's this one.
And as you taste it, please, just let me know, everyone,
what you, what notes you taste.
Long legs on this one.
Mmm.
I can't tell if you,
said notes in this way because I've never, I've never experienced anesthesia before, but
I'm like tasting C-flat?
Mm, yes, let me know what notes you taste or what flavors you hear.
I taste this.
I taste aoli in mold.
Okay, checks that down to my notebook, aoli in mold.
Write song later question then.
And I guess it's the, there's an aftertaste.
I guess it finishes, I think they say, the wine finishes,
and it tastes like 100% black pepper.
I guess the wine finishes first, if you're a gentleman.
I don't mean to be uncouth about this,
but there's a rumor that in your taste tests,
you have a gas leak in the room where we're being tested.
Just to really see if we could work through any and all sensory issues.
That's not happening now, is it?
I don't know.
Do I look like an eye?
albino seal to you?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Remarkably, that's what you look like.
Okay, everyone.
Grab glass number blue and let me know what notes.
See, now you're finally making sense.
Oh, wait, he faded it out.
Notes are, notes you.
Do I have it?
It's so hard to find the right glass with this blindfolds on.
And is that part of it?
Trust. Daredevil did it.
I think he was blind.
Excuse me?
You're right. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I only saw the Ben Affleck movie. I never saw the show. I never saw the show.
In the show, he simply has a blindfold on.
Okay, okay, okay.
Everyone drink the blue. Let me know what you feel.
This is Gatoray.
This is the blue Gatorade.
This is Gatorade.
This is Frost Gatorade.
Yeah, Frost, I believe.
Mine might be Diet Frost.
Mm-hmm.
Anything else?
Uh, taste each other.
I'm remembering something, something deep.
Something suppressed.
Something.
Why is there a ball balanced on my nose?
I, I, I, I, I, I'm clapping.
I'm clapping for an audience.
But the audience should be clapping for me.
Are we seals too?
Would you believe we're all seals in the zoo?
And we took LSD.
Oh, that'll make so much sense.
That makes so much sense.
Baby!
Our lives to rock.
I'll compare you to a sylero wide at the zoo.
Mommy, they think they're singing.
I do.
think that if you go to the zoo and they have a seal exhibit at the zoo, they should be playing
Kiss from a Rose all day. Because A, seals love that song and it'll never get old for them.
They won't know that it's not just those sounds of nature. They're in a zoo, right? And it's fun for the
people that come in visit. I just need to know when you said albino seal before, were you actually
talking about the singer and I just made it into a seal in my head? Oh my God. I was thinking, I was thinking
about a real seal. I was thinking about a real seal. I was too. Okay. Thank you. I was thinking of a real seal.
I was too.
Okay, thank God.
But, I mean, there's certainly the concept of an albino seal could exist.
Yeah.
And I mean, like the singer, he could, like, he's not albino, but, you know, in a spiderverse situation where we're in multiple collapsing realities.
Yeah.
Is it a seal morale situation?
Are you, are any of you familiar with a game called skeel?
No.
This is where you are, it's like a skiing game.
Then you're trying to just navigate a bunch of stuff while Kiss from a Rose is.
playing and and
at some point
the seals
actual like the creature appear
in the game
and it's very
it's very funny
it's very brief it's a joke game
but it was very fun and it's called
is it yeah what was those games called
like the free running games like
is it a side scroll or you're like skiing downhill
I'm gonna play it yeah yeah
I'm gonna play it sounds awesome wasn't there one where you
control like the left and right leg of like a sprint
or something and you have to...
I don't know that one.
Yes, I remember that one too.
It was probably like 15 years ago.
I can't remember.
But it was like you control the right and left leg and it's you have to like make the person run.
But it's pretty much impossible.
You're just basically a sack of potatoes.
It was quop battle.
Thank you.
Quap.
Quap.
Was it cooperative?
The link the links by the way that people have just posted in the chat for this episode or just a mall
and Casey posting like obscure video games in the chat.
That's all we've done here today.
I remember in the days of like early internet,
like when flash games were like a huge thing.
And I would like be stuck at my office job
when I worked at a self-storage facility in college.
And I would just be like constantly on like Newgrounds.com
just playing the worst flash free flash games
that could run in browser forever.
So I have a deep fondness for like,
not that those are bad video games, but I have a deep fondness for like bad video games.
Absolutely.
I didn't have a console.
I was like, I grew up not allowed to play video games, but all of my cousins had like every conceivable console.
So video games were something I could only play at my cousin's places.
Up until my brothers came of an age to play video games and then suddenly it was totally fine.
I don't have elder daughter of immigrant's trauma at all.
But my brothers did in fact eventually have like.
like a PS1 and and then one of my most formative game experiences at that point was that
they kept saving over my Final Fantasy 9 games.
No.
And so I still have not actually finished that game except for one of them because they were kids
and they kept asking me to take them through like the harder parts and stuff.
But anyway, yeah.
So I'm playing flash games on the computer was something that I also did a lot of because of
that particular intersection of time and place.
Once you have your, what was it, Final Fantasy 9?
Yeah.
Would you have your Fantasy 9 file erased?
I would only play Flash games because that is traumatic.
Yeah.
To get that, that's a long game.
Yeah.
Damn.
I'm so sorry.
One day.
Now that I know that you played Final Fantasy 9,
it kind of makes me not having sat on the,
you had a crush on Shadow and I also had a crush on Shadow from Final Fantasy 6 bit
that I sat on for,
most of the show, but he's so cool.
He's a ninja and an assassin.
Come on.
Come on.
What's not to love?
So true.
Well, that brings us to the end of the show.
And the only thing that we have time for is our plugs.
So, Amal, thank you so much for joining us.
Is there anything that you have that you would like to plug?
Yeah.
Where can people find your work, follow you, all of that jazz?
Yes, thank you.
So I have, besides this is how you lose the time more,
I have two other books that are out.
One is called The River Has Roots, which actually also has riddle content in it because one of the...
Fuck.
It's a retelling of a ballad, and it's about sisters.
And one of the sisters really loves murder ballads, and the other one really loves riddle songs.
And so their like riddle songs are a kind of component thing there.
And I also had a short story collection come out this year called Seasons of Glass and Iron,
which is the name of a specific story in it as well as.
the whole collection.
And that is, I think, I think that's it.
Those are the things I want to plug.
Amazing.
Congratulations.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, that's very awesome.
And I can't recommend, I've only ever read one of your books, but I can't recommend
them enough because they are, the first one that I read was fantastic.
That makes me so happy.
Hopefully it's not all downhill from there.
I peaked.
And Adel, Aaron, do you guys have anything that you guys want to pull?
plug anything for the people out there?
Yes, I want to plug
Gum Shoes and Dragons
podcast that the three of us do with Anthony
Birch that Amal was a guest on
very recently. It was a goddamn delight.
It was, I believe, a Broadway-themed episode.
Hell yeah.
And I have one other quick thing.
Amal, would you mind closing your eyes?
Shadow and other Avid Mountain
climbers paid a lot of money to be the first to scale a mountain. After several days of climbing,
they finally reached the pinnacle and in their dismay found a cabin and three frozen bodies.
Since Shadow and his fellow climbers were the first men to ever climb the summit,
how could this be possible? It was the cabin of an airplane. It was the cabin. The cabin shadow
and his fellow climbers found was the airplane cabin. Just want to see if you still had it.
God, how do you not want to fuck that guy? I mean, he's got everything. He's the full package.
He's got three dead bodies.
He's an avid climber.
Okay, that's great.
Aaron, anything you want to plug?
Nothing.
Bye.
Hot dogs.
All right, bye, everybody.
Bye.
Hey, Redd.
Hey, Redd.
Hey, hey,
Hey,
Hey, whiz. If you like that, you're going to love this week's episode.
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Guests like Mark Maren, Jack Black,
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