Recreational Thinking

Contestants: Caitlin Joyce, Randall Eng, Chris Miller

How did a college student urinating into a potted plant bring down a national government?  In what way is Staten Island a magical realm?  When does Before come after After?  Can Belgian Waffles ever be wrong?  What is a "mezzo with moves"?  What is "vore"?  (Don't look that up.)  Who is a "pantspreneur"?  How is a hand grenade like an avocado?  We've met before, haven't we?  Do I know anyone in Idaho?  Is "Deuteronomy" or "Æ" a weirder name for a child?  And, most importantly, what did I say that made Caitlin vow to throttle me?

Discover the answer to most, if not all, of these questions — and learn about board games, celebrity couples, 21st century opera, mustache-less Sam Elliott, and a prolific 102-year-old character actor who's still lucid enough to give fascinating interviews — in this enigmatic, entertaining, and enlightening episode of one of the Top 25 most-listened-to Education podcasts on Podomatic!

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Ben Rothenberg, Jimmy Li, Chris Ottolino

The Wednesday Academic Purists may be my bitter rivals in CONNECTIONS ONLINE QUIZ LEAGUE and LEARNEDLEAGUE's A Typhoon rundle, but off the quizzing field it's all fun and games ⁠— and besides, now I get to turn them against each other, in a sidesplitting episode that covers everything from RuPaul's Drag Race to 20th century philosophy, the Eurovision Song Contest to comic book superheroes, tennis to professional wrestling, human anatomy to tech start-ups, the history of socialism to my father's taste in comedians ... yeah, this one's syllabus is exceptionally diverse even by RECREATIONAL THINKING standards.  The contestants are all close friends and it shows both in their rollicking chemistry and in the way the lead seesaws back and forth (and forth) until literally the final question.

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Mike Samuelson, Colin Smith, Ryan Palmer, Dan Schroeder

They think it's all over!  Well, is it?  Only once you're done listening to my ridiculously entertaining crossover with the hilarious and charming men of THE SOCCER THREAD PODCAST.  Yes, I mocked soccer in my description of E11, and for my sins I designed an entire episode around The Beautiful Game.  Yet as we learn about it we also traverse the fields of geography, history, mathematical topology, pop music, classical music, TV/movies, and the Waverley Novels of Sir Walter Scott (seriously).  These guys brought an all-new dynamic to RECREATIONAL THINKING, and I loved every raucous minute of it.  Listen all the way to the end to find out which boys took a hell of a beating!

(And also to hear people pronounce my first name correctly.  A fun novelty!)

You can find The Soccer Thread Podcast on your favorite podcasting app or here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-soccer-thread-podcast/id1147054293

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Daniel Cohen, Eugene Hung, Lindsay Goldstein

There are two kinds of RECREATIONAL THINKING episodes: Ones where the contestants already know each other and ones where they find their chemistry over the course of the episode.  This is an excellent example of the latter, along with being a competitive nail-biter in which the lead continually shifts back and forth over the course of the final round.  So enjoy learning about Roman emperors, jukebox musicals, contract bridge, and more in this episode where saying "We are all alive at the end" genuinely counts as a spoiler!

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Victoria Groce, Troy Meyer, Yogesh Raut

Did you notice that this week UM, ACTUALLY released an episode in which their usual host takes a turn in the contestants' chair?  That must be what Jung called synchronicity!

Yes, as a birthday present for me in 2021, several friends arranged to satisfy my long-standing wish to understand and experience my own show from the perspective of a player rather than my usual writer-host spot.  Special thanks to guest host Jason Myrowitz, who also supervised the question-writing, and to the other question writers who graciously volunteered their time and expertise (in alphabetical order): Susannah Brooks, Ronny Jackson, David Plotkin, and Tim Rich.

Special thanks also to two of the best quizzers in the world, Victoria Groce and Troy Meyer, for ensuring that this was an uphill battle for me.  Since this episode was recorded, we have gone on to form three-fourths of the team that brought home the 2022 Quizzing World Cup to the USA.  (USA!  USA!)  I'm told that people listen to this podcast in hopes of hearing a Battle of the Titans.  Well, it doesn't get more Titan-ic than this.  [Insert your own iceberg joke here]

NOTE: My audio starts off sounding like I'm underwater and gets somewhat better without ever quite reaching adequate quality.  I'm sorry.  But don't worry that this is a feature of all our Zoom episodes; you'll have no trouble hearing me from E28 onward.

As always: Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Oishee Shemontee, Drew Scheeler, Charlie Fritz

It's appropriate that in our very last episode recorded using Skype (*sob*) we discovered "Together Mode," as this episode's contestants are all very good friends with each other ... or *were*, until that bond was tested by an unprecedented streak of steals!

So come cheer on larceny as we delve into the oeuvres of Blackpink, Taylor Swift, and (why not?) Roy Lichtenstein.  Like a Very Special Episode of "Degrassi," this episode has it all: lesbians, supermodels, pirates, 1940s British cinema, and discussions of Florida real estate.  Oh, and a Very Special Episode of "Degrassi."

Is there a secret (even to me) hidden theme, like in the two prior episodes?  Listen and find out!

As always: Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Ronny Jackson, Joey Goldman, Andrew Fisher

Cheerio from across the pond!  We're joined in this episode by three brilliant UK quizzers, including Mimir's Well co-founder Joey Goldman.  Joey is a past victor on UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE and ONLY CONNECT, but has he met his match in RECREATIONAL THINKING?  Listen and find out!

Along the way, you'll learn about roguelike video games, Black Books, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, theoretical math, climbing, and pro wrestling, as well as for some reason anime, even though it wasn't anyone's selected specialty.  You'll see one contestant's incredible streak of bad luck, culminating in the most creative avoidance of an f-bomb in this podcast's history.  Most importantly, you'll get to spend 2.5 hours listening to British accents.

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Lynn Yu, Christine Whelchel, Monya De

Two of my favorite contestants from last season re-join us alongside a skilled third, and together they uncover a hidden theme to this episode's questions that I wasn't even consciously aware of.  What is it?  Listen and find out!  Also, you'll get to enjoy questions about very recent popular music, very old popular music (so old it's classical, in fact), ER, the Bible, and a lot more — and that's not even counting all the Shakespeare content I added even though no one asked for it.

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Trevor Alexander, Greg Peterson, Joe Trela

Get ready for a streak of some of my all-time favorite episodes!  Coming up we've got another all-brilliant-women episode, an all-UK-quizzers episode, a crossover episode with a soccer podcast, and even a Very Special Episode where I take a turn in the contestant chair myself.

None of which is meant to short-sell the return of WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE million dollar winner Joe Trela to take on two extremely knowledgeable challengers.  Chess, ice hockey, the night sky, and the late great Stephen Sondheim (RIP) are all on the menu in another brain-tickling installment of the podcast so demanding that one contestant moved to my hometown just to gain an edge!  (Or so he says.)

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!

Contestants: Gavin Byrnes, Ryan Rosenberg, Jason Luna

So I'll start off with an apology.  I kind of let this episode get away from me; I recorded it on way too little sleep, which threw off my energy, and also I tried some experiments in question-writing that, on reflection, didn't pan out.  (None of this is the fault of the contestants, who are awesome.)  Maybe this isn't my favorite episode, but it's still tons of fun as it covers A Song of Ice and Fire, pro wrestling, superheroes, MLB, NBA, and of course oodles of statistics and computational geometry.  I know what you're all here for!

Seriously, though, I have nine episodes in the pipeline that range from "solid" to "all-time classic."  We'll be reaching new heights very soon.  Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Consider donating via PayPal or Patreon, and remember to leave a review and/or rating on iTunes!