The Puzzle Podcast: My New "Hat Mic" Podcast

I'd like to officially announce my newest podcasting endeavor: The Puzzle Podcast.

I'm co-hosting this short weekly show of brainteasers with David Leschinsky, the owner of Eureka Puzzles, a popular puzzle and game store in Brookline, Massachusetts. David is the show's "Puzzle Guy," while I'm the rube that has to answer the questions.

The premise is simple: we pick a puzzle type for the week, explain how it works and do an example or two from the genre. We finish each episode with a harder puzzle for the listeners to work on until next week's show (when we'll give the answer). If any of you listen to NPR's Car Talk puzzler, this should sound pretty familiar.

Car Talk aside, the motivation for starting this show was actually this episode of This American Life. After listening to that show, I was inspired to do some more puzzles, so -- always looking for free stuff first -- I went to my computer to find some puzzle podcasts. I figured there would be dozens of them, so I was shocked to find exactly one: the NPR Sunday Puzzle with Will Shortz from the New York Times. I do like this segment, but it focuses on one specific type of word puzzle -- and it is really just part of a longer radio program.

So, with the strong feeling that there should be a good puzzle podcast that featured puzzles of all types, I decided to start one. I quickly registered PuzzlePodcast.com, contacted David (who I knew from this interview I did with him for Boston Behind the Scenes), and got recording.

Now, this isn't just an ad for my latest show. I'm writing this here primarily because of this post David Battino made on this blog about my use of microphone-enhanced hats for interviews. This is the same setup I'm using for my new show, and I still love it. I can go to my co-host's store to record an episode with only a pair of hats, a pair of headphones, a Zoom H4 (with this add-on interface from The Sound Professionals), and my Giant Squid Audio Lab microphone set, all tucked into a small bag. Even in a somewhat noisy stockroom with concrete walls, the hats do a great job.

Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. I'd like to invite all of you over to PuzzlePodcast.com to hear the recordings and try your hand at our puzzles. There are now four episodes posted, with new ones coming out every Tuesday morning. If you like the show, send in your puzzle guesses for a chance to win our weekly prize.

As my co-host David always says, Happy Puzzling!