Pro Puzzler

Just quickly before this week's episode kicks off, Flightless Bird has been nominated for a Webby Award. The Webby's are kind of a big deal for us and we'd love you to vote. If you like our show and you have a moment, this is a really key way you can help us. Here's what you do. Go to WebbyAwards.com. That's W-E-B-B-Y Awards.com. Click the go vote button, hit search and type in Flightless Bird. Click on Flightless Bird when it turns up and go and vote. Also, if you are now Instagram at Flightless Bird POD, there's a link in our bio as well. Thanks for listening to this very self-involved monologue onto the show. Now, Roosevelt, I'm not calling you today because you right now are here in the United States, because thanks to our Patreon members, we got to fly you to America for our live shows. So today's topic is pro-puzzling. It is about the scene of pro-puzzling. People that do puzzles very, very fast. Do you have you ever puzzled? Pro on normal? And what do you think of puzzles? And by pro-puzzling, you're talking specifically about jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles specifically. I have never pro-puzzled, but I know people who have. And I've seen the setup because you get sent the puzzle and then you have to put a camera above it and you are timed as you're doing it. But that's a remote version. So maybe is this in-person like everyone else? Yeah, we've talked into a competitor who attends like mass events with everyone's in the room pressured doing it all at once. I would love to have a go. I know I would be really bad, but my brain says I'd be really good. I've never seen you do a puzzle. Come so fast. When was the last time you did a puzzle? Look, let's not get into it. I haven't really done a puzzle in a very long time. But the instincts are still there. The killer instincts. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. We're back from our back from tour. I'm tired from yeah, I feel tired. We were gone. We go a while. Yeah, we were in it. The tour is a busy like we're active. Yes. We're in each city doing a lot of things, building the show. I also feel very pathetic saying that we have musicians in here a lot. I have a lot of friends and their musicians that are on tour for months. Yeah. We were gone for like nine days. We were gone for nine days. Three shows. A lot of days off. A blockbuster, three shows. And yeah, people are on tour for a hundred shows a year. Six shows a week. Yeah, completely. But we had fun. We had a lot of fun. The mind-blowing thing is that we bought Roosevelt over for two of the live shows. Yes, thanks to Patreon. We had to reach our goal. We reached it quickly as well, which was kind of mind-blowing. Roosevelt had this week off and so we flew her over to take part in the live shows. We recorded a bunch of stuff with her for over on Patreon for Patreon. Members kind of as a thank you for getting her here. Yeah. And idea before about two hours ago from sitting here, she was hitting off to the airport to fly back to New Zealand. We had a blast. It was weird how well the timing worked out. Yeah. We had hit that mark. We were like, well, maybe let's do some shows during spring break. Yeah. Maybe let's see if Roosevelt wants to go to Texas. Yeah. And Roosevelt is a very busy human in New Zealand with all of her work and life. And so the fact she was like, yeah, I'm free. I'll come over. So this is amazing. I got 12 days. Yeah. But it was it was neat to have Roosevelt here in person. And the one thing I'll say, we recorded the shows and we'll release them on the feed at some point. But having her walk out onto stage, the audience was it was a real energy in the room and a joy. Yeah. It was a jolt to the live shows that we don't know. Yeah. It was really cool to see. So yeah, that was a blast. How did you like having her around us? Was it was it a weird melding? No, it was coming together. Yeah. Because yeah, I mean, it's Roosevelt. I call her every two weeks for the show. And we talk and but we have this whole other life. And so having her, yeah, they're having you meet her and her meet you. I mean, I was worried because I like to keep certain aspects of my life separate. Yeah. And when people combine, you got, you know, I leave the room. I'm like, what are they talking about? What are they gossiping about? Well, you weren't you weren't concerned that we wouldn't get along. Not at all. You were concerned that we would get along. Yeah. That was a problem. Yeah. No, exactly. Because I feel like we did meld pretty quickly. You did pretty quickly. No, I noticed. I noticed. And which is wonderful. But also dangerous for me. What are they talking about? What are you sharing with her? What is she sharing with you? We learned things. We did a, there was one night you did a tickled screening. And I was like, Oh, well, we'll take her to dinner while you're busy. Yes. That was worrying. Yeah. We got into things because that strength involved as well, you know, people. Not for me, but not for you. Yeah. People start blabbing. No, it was, it was perfect. It was honestly, it was a lot of fun and she had fun. It was interesting. You are, you're a different person when she's around. This isn't, okay, this is interesting to me. What did, what, what did you notice? Good and bad. I don't mind. I'm curious about this. I don't, like, such all sort of changes or subtle, I mean, you're very, you are very attentive to her. But you're normally more mysterious, I think, intentionally. Yeah. But I feel like when she was there, the dynamic was just different. We're like, Oh, here's the real David that he's hiding. Oh, that's so, yeah. And now here it is. No, that's that kind of tracks because I do have a thing and it's partly to do with superstition and the way I conduct myself. I don't want to give too much away because I feel like things might fall over or not work like I like to keep things to myself. It takes me a long time also to be comfortable to talk about. I don't know, more real or intense things. I mean, I feel like we have a, I mean, we do, no, we do. No, we do. But despite Roosevelt goes back, we go back 20 years. And so you probably just see me defaulting into, and she knows all about me. So that just comes out much quicker. It was like a cloak was removed of like, here's all the stuff he's been hiding. Here is, here is a real version of him. That isn't the like clearly calculated and curated identity that he is crafted for himself in Los Angeles. I think that's fair. And I'm glad you got to see it. Yeah. I'm glad people at the live shows got to see a little bit of that. And yeah, I was sad when Roosevelt left. So it's been so cool to have a buddy to hang with. And we have fun on the road. And it's cool seeing like Texas with all of us in our different perspectives. Yeah. No, it was a, it was a lot of fun having her be part of it. And like, yeah, see this team. Yeah, we all got on. Yeah. And I think the other thing I think was neat for her is that she, when she walked it under stage and got that reception, she kind of, you know, sort of realized that I like people like me for me and to see his conversations. I have nothing to do with my work or what I do. They just like me and my point of view. And that was just a neat thing. I think for her to have as well. Yeah. Thank you, Roosevelt, if you're listening. Roosevelt has listened to the show. So, no, not all the time. Every, maybe every second or third episode, we did get to go to the magic castle with her. We did when we returned, which was a lot of fun. And we, we talked about it on a Patreon if you're not over there, but she had always wanted to go. She was deeply keen to see some closer magic, deeply keen to get into some sort of mind, top fullery. Well, the other crazy thing is a mentalism within 15 hours of our visit. The magic castle was on fire for the record. They had nothing to do with us. Yeah, nothing to do at all. It was a pair. They're doing construction on the roof. They were blowtorching some of the roof. I mean, we went on the right night. We went on the night of the night before it caught fire. So I'm not sure it's the shutdown. I don't know. I mean, it may well, I mean, may have been the last people to go to the magic castle. Like, there was like, there was a decent amount of fire trucks that had to be called there to put it out. They put it out quick. We had shout out to David, who's a flightless bird listener who took us on a tour. He got us in the door. And he gave us the best tour of this place. It was incredible. Had a blast. He was very knowledgeable. Oh, just having someone to walk you through and tell you what each room is and what that photo is, and because his dad was a member, so it's been like passed down multi generations, which is a trip hearing the history of what that place is. That's the coolest part of it. I don't manage exactly my thing. I think none of us are hugely into it. I think Roosevelt was super keen to see a mentalist, which we saw. But it's just the spectacle of it. And even the whole out of this, have to have no. put on a suit. You have to look a certain way. It's something and everyone is is in it. We did go to a diner after we dropped you guys off and we were still in our entire. It's like you've been out on a big date night or something like we went to the prom. That's really cute. Very cool. It's really cool eating at a bar at Fred 62. It's really good. Before we get into a pro posting. Some slight admin. We have been nominated for a webbie award. Big honor. Which is awesome. The webbies are a huge thing and if we win it, it's just a great way to spread the show around. So some of it is judged. Some of it is public vote. Yeah. There's like a people's choice version of it, which you can see the results were currently in second place. We're in second place. We would love to be at number one. We would love to be in first place. But it does require everyone listening to go vote. And it's a few steps involved, but it's pretty basic. And the show notes to this episode on and the links on our Instagram will have a direct link. Yes. But otherwise, if it's if you just want to do it right now, you go to webbieawards.com. That's WBBY Awards. There's a big button that says go vote. Click the button. Hit search. Type in flightless bird. It pops up. Click on it. Vote. Yeah. Or click the link. And this episode's description. I think you have to sign up with your email address. But slightly annoying. But it's got like the Google integrations. If you've got a Gmail account, you can just log in through that. But it's a huge help. Like if you're not on our Patreon, they're supporting there. A really good way to help us is to spread the word. And that is by I was like catch me like and subscribe or go and vote on something out of the web ease because it just gets us out into the world. Yes. So thank you for listening to this PSA. And one more thing before we get into puzzles. Can I talk about the the sewing situation? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought you were going to talk about how you're talking right now, though, too. So in this Billy who is editing the audio has run some sort of filter and I just sound the same. I just got in Visaline. Day two. Day two. Still learning to talk. Still learning to talk again. I have these two bits of plastic in my mouth. And I'm finding either I'm getting too much saliva or too little. I've got a bit of a lisp at times, which you're loving. And just so you know, I didn't get my jaw broken. If you've listened to some previous episodes, I had the advice I said, David, your face is a bit wonky. If you want good teeth and you want this bite to work, you need to break your jaw. Let us break your face. I said, no, I said, I said, I said, I'll get the invisaline. I'll do that. I'm not breaking the jaw. Heard from a lot of listeners who have had that jaw broken. Yeah, we talked to someone in Texas. Yeah, we did. Yeah. It sounded like not fun. Some there were mixed. They were mixed. I think we had multiple people that had the jaw broken. Come to our show. Oh, listener did say that their boss had their. They were wired shut for like a year or something. Yeah, it's a long process. I don't know that. That would be great for the show. No, I don't think I think it was like six weeks of wired shut, but like a year of dealing with looking crazy because your jaw is broken. Yeah, and figuring out how to move your mouth properly again. Which for a video podcast could be a fun thing to let people along the journey. Yeah, I'm not thrilled about it, but it's happening. And I will keep you all updated about that thrilling journey. But if I sound a bit different, then that is why. And you're being sued? I'm being sued first time. And since I've been here, I've got stuck here five years ago. Cut along three short, deeply American thing. When I'm not doing this podcast, I write a newsletter called Wheelworm and it's sort of like more of my journalism side where I'm often sort of poking into people doing sort of odd things, internet wormholes, poking people, he said? Poking people. Yeah, not physically, but just kind of going. There's something odd here, pulling on the string, finding out what happens. About six years ago, and I started Wheelworm, I wrote a series about this New Zealand woman called Anna Wilding, who just had some pretty out there stories, a lot of what she said about herself wasn't true. She ended up coming to America where for a while she was in the press gallery in the Obama White House, which was fascinating. She's currently running for Congress in LA, so I wrote a story about her recently. And this is a woman who stretches the truth to a really quite a devious way. Also very prone to threatening to sue over the years, but she's never sued me. So a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about her husband, who is kind of adjacent to her story, and he has taken exception to that and files a lawsuit. It's a lawsuit that you didn't report on it correctly, or what. What's done? No, what he is. So I've learned about this lawsuit in a deeply American way. I got a letter from a law firm, and they basically obviously look at cases that have been filed in the court. They look at the defendants, they find out their mailing address, and they send them a letter being like, so my letter was like, "Hi, David, we notice that you have been named as a defendant in a case that has been filed at this court. If this is you, reach out to us, we would love to defend you." So I still haven't been served yet. That's the next step. But the thing that's sucky about this when I'm working on a story about someone, and this is a story about a somewhat unhinged New Zealander who's running for US Congress, which is a really valid, fascinating story, when people use lawsuits to try and shut down free speech. Yeah. Pretty annoying, and the trouble is you have to defend it, and so I'm in that process at the moment of figuring out what that looks like. Yeah, well, because you didn't run an opinion piece. Did you like. No, no, no, no, little facts. Yeah, no, little facts. So it's the first time it's happened in a while here. I got sued when I made tickle that was 10 years ago now. But if you want to read this weird story, it's all at webram.co. It's a weird wormhole, and there'll be more weird suing stuff on there. I'm going to cover it as it kind of, as I go through the experience. Sounds fun. Have you been sued before? No, I, congratulations. I haven't, and I hope to not be. It's deeply annoying, and it's very annoying when people use the law just to shut you up. Pretty frustrating. But yeah, I just, I wanted to mention it because you had some ominous posts on Instagram looking for a lawyer. So if you want to follow that particular story, it's over at www.webram.co. That's my more sort of, a lot of journalism over there, a lot of weird rabbit holes. We're living in a weird time for free speech. The weirdest time. I mean, we say this a lot. I mean, as we're about to do this episode about proposing the Trump around the craziness there is just in a whole other place. But yeah, it's every day is going a thousand miles an hour. It feels like the unhingeness is harder and harder to follow. We're away for those 10 days on tour. The amount of crazy that happened in that country was just while we were away on that was couldn't keep up. I'm puzzling. Puzzling. Rob, do you, are you a puzzling guy? Do you do puzzles? I like puzzles. I like puzzles a lot. I did a lot of puzzling as a child as a form of relaxation or excitement. Not excitement. It wasn't like, it's like a puzzle. It is relaxing. It is relaxing, but me and my grandma would do them a lot together when I was little. That was hard thing. Since I am more design, I've always been into art and drawing and visual. I see patterns and things and I've been good at puzzles since I was younger. I find them frustrating, difficult. I'm a legal guy. I think the joy you get out and the feeling of completion you get from a puzzle, I get from legal. Yeah, that's my thing. But I will say after our interview today, I do not feel good at puzzling. But yeah, during like COVID, we were puzzling. Often it was just like something to do. Do your kids, are your kids in the puzzles? Vinnie is so into puzzling right now. Somehow doesn't surprise me at all. We were in Austin for these shows and my dad came out to kind of, to see the boys and my dad puzzles on his iPad and Vinnie was wanting to puzzle too. I was seeing at the table and my dad was talking to Vinnie who Vinnie's just turned four. He's a little guy. He's like telling Vinnie a bunch of strategy about puzzling of like sort Sort the pieces over in this and like work on this section and all this strategy like very Fairly complicated for how I would have talked to Vinnie and I yeah, yeah, I said to my dad I like I don't there's no way You're over complicating what he's gonna understand. Yeah, this isn't going in and then immediately Vinnie just started doing everything That my dad had said really yeah of like Yeah, it was and he's quit. He's a really sharp kid. He is quick on the airplane back to he was he was on his iPad to stay entertained and Natalie had set it up for him and then I like turned her I was like I think this puzzle is too complicated for like Can we change the settings of the less pieces and then he just immediately started doing it and it wasn't not too complicated It must be it's like a parent that must be quite fun to see it. Yeah, it is. That's like a holy shit like that brain is firing Yeah, and he was figuring it out Yeah, and we do puzzles at home to yeah, we have like some of the bigger ones so they're But I feel he's he's getting a little bit more advanced. Well, maybe like this speed puzzling thing could be a thing for him Yeah, what drew me into this world was the idea that puzzling could be a sport like I'd never thought of it in that way before did you Do they have puzzles in New Zealand? No, no, we don't have a homeschooled Christian boy and New Zealand. We we did puzzles As I never really like love them more of a Lego guy, but yeah, we've got puzzles galore in New Zealand And we're talking specifically jigsaw puzzles jigsaw puzzles not I'd be very clear any like this episode includes no talker puzzles except for the jigsaw puzzle. Yeah, that's a very important clarification survivor competition purely Little cut out bits of cardboard that you were like reassembling together into a beautiful image So I'd heard about The nationals in America. I don't know why this is popping off so much at the moment, but the Guardian and the New York Times have both been writing about this recently about puzzling in America This is from the independent Speed puzzling has only been recognized recently as a sport the world jigsaw puzzle federation was founded in 2019 and hosted the world's first jigsaw puzzle championship Later that year in Spain the following year the USA Puzzling Association was created and how the country's stress premier national championship in San Diego International is international so the world puzzling the world jigsaw puzzling champs Every year always take place in Spain Which is interesting and This three categories team pairs and individuals and just out of curiosity. I went on to the The world jigsaw puzzle comp Inside up my I just signed up next year. I just went to the rules and they're really like they take this really seriously Yeah, I would imagine so I'm just on their website now world jigsaw puzzle org I just want to go through some of the intense rules. Yeah, like one of the like the Q&A. Can I listen to music with headphones during the competition? Yes, although we recommend not using them at the beginning at the end So you can hear the notices being read out. Can I go to the toilet during the comp? Yes, you can go anytime without anyone being able to take your pace during your absence Is it possible to bring pets breathes of questions in the competition area and this is an area where there's like hundreds of tables laid out Yeah, of people like concentrating on making these puzzles in the competition area It is not possible to be accompanied by any type of pet Just love these questions that are coming. Yeah, they're it's been asked enough times that they have Rules which I really love so for this episode a couple of weeks ago or will be a better month ago now We talked to Karen Cabot. Um, she is Karen puzzles on Instagram. She's got a big following there And she sort of brings you into the world of what competitive puzzling is And so I've been watching her videos for a long time because she's been competing for a number of years and As we talked to her She was about to head off to the nationals in Atlanta. So she's prepping for that Do you find watching puzzle videos therapeutic? I like it. I like watching I have this weird thing where I like watching people play video games And I like watching people like do puzzles But I don't want to play the video games and I don't want to do the puzzle How long is a puzzle video though? They often speed them up. They wreck through it is speeding it by her Instagram. She'll speed it up But there's something just very satisfying about seeing those pieces being put into place When I'm doing a puzzle. I just feel frustrated that I'm not doing it quickly Watching someone like her do it quickly. That's part of like why puzzling is fun. Is it I this is I think speed puzzling is a different thing for what I'm about to say but like doing a puzzle is fun because it forces you to slow down It is yeah therapeutic and like I'm searching through all of these pieces and chiseling away slowly and There's patience involved. There's there is like big sense of accomplishment Uh-huh when you finish a puzzle and everything I'm wondering now why I don't get that from a puzzle because I get it from Lego like building a Lego model I'm like And also why is it that I think building Lego I get a bit tease for it But puzzling people don't get tease for puzzling adults can puzzle But not build Lego. I mean, I'm sure I'll say they're the same thing. I Rose about when she saw my apartment looked around and looked at all the um the Lego And sort of made a face, you know Yeah I don't know why there's something about I think I think I am bad at doing puzzles Okay, if you're bad at it, I could see how it's straighted. Yeah, I'm like where I might be tied in with my face blindness You know, what is that bit of image where does that go probably not might be tied up with that disability probably Um, so Karen gave an interview on the Guardian and I just like this line that she gave them speed puzzling is a strange blend of speed strategy and muscle memory Your brain is scanning for colors patterns and shapes while your hands are constantly moving Sliding pieces in over the years the process becomes instinctive Speaking of face blindness really quick. Yeah, when we went to magic castle. Yeah, the first position we saw Said he also had face blindness. He did he had gotten somewhere from the audience and then immediately sort of forgotten them We all got very excited and I I mean when I hear that I felt seen. Yeah, I was like this isn't just me felt this man has it It's a real thing face blindness. Yeah. Okay, so uh Let's listen to Karen explain what the hell is involved in speed puzzling Okay, so like just a very simple question to start with um, I'd love to know your name and what it is that you do here in LA So I'm Karen online. I go by Karen puzzles and I have a YouTube channel all about jigsaw puzzles and speed puzzling When did you get into puzzles in general? I don't imagine you started life as a speed puzzler Was it just like a casual thing at home? Yeah, I mean we were doing puzzles as far back as I can remember We have home videos of like little kids puzzles and photos and I remember crawling around while my mom was doing puzzles So we always had them around also. It's literally a family thing I was the one that really took two at the most um my sister and I growing up we would do them together and then eventually as I hit Kind of middle school and beyond I started doing them just on my own right So was there a point or an age were you or maybe a family member when oh my god, like you're getting these done Like quickly and we're lagging. I mean, it's not so much that they're lagging um, I think I was Maybe around like eight nine or ten somewhere in that age Where I decided to try to do a thousand piece puzzle on my own in one day It was the first time I had I had ever tried to do that and I did it It took me eight hours, which obviously is a lot longer than it would take me today But yeah, and then after that I just you know never really stopped What is the skill of doing a puzzle and that how do you get better at that thing? I mean a lot of it is just kind of Muscle memory for your brain, I think it's a lot of picturing what you're looking for and then being able to recognize that And you know find it and put it in place and also being able to look at an image break it down into the components to know where to start and where to go from there Uh-huh, and also just patience, I guess yeah Do you have techniques like are you sorting by colors and doing edges first or you're just Your past that it depends on if I'm doing it for speed or if I'm just doing it for fun No, I'm not talking fun. Yeah, all of us are only talking speed. How do we get faster at puzzles? Yeah, Rob wants to get into this scene by the way Okay, so your time starts with the pieces still in the box And you're going straight through like there's no pausing the time and you know taking a break and looking at the image and all of that I mean you do look at the image for you're not pausing the time to do that So you start you dump out the pieces and then the first thing you want to do is flip everything over And some people like to sort while they flip although usually pull edges while I flip or if you can't really do the edge If it's all the same color or whatever then I'll pull one element that I see Um, and your flip shouldn't take more than about four minutes. That's kind of the standard right just to get prepped basically. This is exactly how I puzzle so far, so far. I can picture it. Yeah. And yeah, so then once you have all your pieces right side up, then I like to start with the edge, not everyone does, but if I can, I like to have a container to put everything in. And from there, it really just depends on the puzzle. And are you looking more like such as obvious question, but are you looking at the picture and the colors or the shape, or is both in your brain at the same time? I feel like I go for color first. And then shape, you know, I'm not just going to look for a specific shape and not think about what the image is, unless you're working on the section of the puzzle, that's a solid color or all kind of the same thing. And then you would have to look for shape. And when you're in a competition, like, what is the room like? Because I'm picturing 50 people in a room, a hash falls, you're just hearing people tinkering with pieces here, a piece drop on the floor, a piece drop on the floor and someone freak out. What is it like in there? For the individual rounds, you're pretty much right. For the pairs and the teams rounds, it's going to be a lot louder, because everyone's talking to each other within their pair and their team. But for individual, it's pretty silent. Also, there's team puzzling. We are both one, two people on the one puzzle. Yeah. So for most of the big events, you're going to have the three different categories, I guess, individual pairs and teams and teams as four people. But for individual, once you open the bag and you dump everything out and everyone to start like, guess, because of how hard it is. Or like, oh my gosh, it's so cute. Whatever they want to say, then it gets pretty much silent. And all you hear is the pieces. One of the options is going to be like a cute cat or a solid brown gradient. So you'll usually know what company it is going into it. So you'll know which company is sponsoring that particular competition. So Ravens Rucker does most of the major ones. So like, nationals and worlds they'll do. And so you know what piece count you're going to get. So for individual, it's pretty much always 500 pieces. But from there, it could really be anything. For the national competition, which is coming up in about two weeks from now, they have all brand new puzzles. So no one will have ever done them before or ever seen them before. So when you open the bag, once you're in it, once the time has started, that's the first time you're seeing the image. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Wilder Leskin. Now we've talked about this on the show before, but we're not big fans. We're not experts at buying fish in the supermarket. Buying fish is hard, especially I grew up in the Midwest. You don't have access to a lot of good fish in the Midwest. So it was never something I was taught as a kid at the grocery store. Didn't see my mom don't eat fish. Same thing for me growing up. Yeah. And fish is one thing that you want to get good fish. Right. 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And for every item you purchase, an essential clothing item is donated to someone facing housing and security. One purchased, one donated with over 150 million donations and counting. Head over to Bombus.com/bird and use Code Bird for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com/bird. Code Bird at checkout. How do you see the images on the box or is it like a big image in the front of the hall or something? You get a no-pick bag sitting in front of you, and then you open it up, you pull out the box, and it's just, you know, any other jigsaw puzzle box. What's the most shocking shocker that you have had doing a competition like either an image that you were like, "Fuck this," or you've dropped shirt all over the floor like, "Have you ever had anything shocking happen to you?" So my first ever competition, which was Nationals 2022, pretty close to the beginning, I was working on the edge, and I knocked the bottom part of the edge off the table and onto the floor, and I had to fully like get down to pick everything up. That's nightmare territory. But then I ended up getting second place, so it worked out okay. That kind of leads me into my next question, which is like where are you in the, in the world of competitive puzzling, like where do you kind of sit in that world? And as a side question, like where does America sit in those world charts? So I used to be pretty close to the top. You know, my first competition, I got second place an individual, which was pretty good. But at that time, there were a lot fewer people doing it. There weren't even preliminary rounds at that point. It was just one single individual round, didn't it? You know, with a hundred people in a room, and that was it. Now, there's so many more people doing it. So going into Nationals this year, which is 2026, we have four preliminary rounds going into the final, and each of those preliminary rounds, I think has a hundred people in it. So now that's 400 people trying to make it into the final, and then trying to be at the top. So I feel pretty confident that I will make it into the final because of, you know, trying to do the puzzles from last year and seeing where I went to placed. I am under no delusion that I will be anywhere close to top three, top 10, anything like that. So it's tough out there. The competition's tough. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many more people now who have gotten really fast. I think when I started, I was, you know, reasonably fast, faster than your typical person off the street, which I still am, but compared to the people who really practice and really get into it, I don't know that that's ever going to be me. What kind of people are making up? Is it kids? Is it gender? Is it total mixed bag? A bag of puzzle pieces? Time to mix bag again. So to compete in individual for here in the US, for most of the big competitions, you have to be at least 16. So they don't even let kids compete, even though there are some fast kids out there. And then I would say it's mostly women, probably at least 80% women, 85, 90% women. I don't know the exact stats, but yeah, it's mostly women who want to get into it. But there are some very fast men out there as well. For two years in a row, Alejandro from Spain was the world champion. Yeah, right. And where in the world is the certain countries that generally chart like higher than other countries? Yeah. So speed puzzling, the modern events really started in Spain. They have a huge speed puzzling scene out there. There's a lot of really fast people in Spain. And then there are plenty of other countries where they have a handful of the top people in the world. Kristen Toove from Norway, she won in 2024. And then Veronica from Poland just one last year in 2025. And this is the world championship. Poland has recently kind of you know, debuted. It all had a really, really fast puzzler. That's my family. That's what I'm from. You're gonna find my blood. Are there any New Zealanders that you've bumped into? Do we come over your little puzzles there? Um, I mean, I've made a lot of Australian friends. No, that's offensive. That's the most offensive. I'm sure there are fast people from New Zealand, um, I'm trying to think, um, I can't pick them up hand, but I'm sure as soon as I leave, I'll be like, oh, yeah, so and so. Yeah, very kind. Well, if you want to just move your mouth and do a voiceover or three, um, so wait. So two weeks out from the nationals, what are you doing to, that is the training? Is there a sort of something you do to get into the hit space on the day? Yeah. I mean, it's just doing a lot of puzzles of all different types of images, like photos, illustrations, so you don't know what you're going to get in the event. Um, also, you'll want to get together with your pair and your team and do some pairs practice and teams practice so that all of you guys can work together well. So is it more like building up and practicing, like, does it give you your brain a break to do puzzles? Is that helpful? Like if you puzzled too much, it becomes exhaustive. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think there have been times in the past where I've done too much practice for this year. I feel like I've gone in the other direction and haven't really done a ton at all. See which way helps. Yeah. So you're doing a puzzle for us will essentially be practice for the nationals. Yeah. There's a great practice for nationals. So when you're except in speech of the award when you win, I would thank Dave and Rob from Fluttersford. Really? Big bad of it. Big bad of it. Is there any drama at a competition like do people, because it's pressure, you know, and people have, you know, they put a lot into this. Do people sort of flip out or cheat or is there any scandal? I think it would be really hard to cheat because everyone is sitting there watching you do the puzzle. I guess maybe you could like break into the room ahead of time to find out what the puzzles are going to look like. See what the picture is. Yeah. What kind of strategy are you building in your head if you've seen the image ahead of time? That was for when it was for the pair's final. Yeah. I mean, you can just look at it and be like, I'm going to do this section. I'm going to do this section. This is probably going to be the part. I'll take the blue and yellow and what's your dream, like fun puzzle to do? Do you want like a cute kitten? Do you want a landscape? Do you want a bit of still laugh? You keep bringing up kittens. Everyone pretty much who does speed puzzling hates fur. All right. It's so hard. Fur is the enemy. Yeah. If we get a kitten, everyone will be like, I don't know. Perfect. Do you have examples of puzzles that from these competitions? Let me think for the nationals final, they had an image from an artist named Demelzehotin, which was kind of a fantasy, fantasy-ish illustration. Just like super cute for the preliminary rounds. All three of them were kind of flower themed. And so the first one had this border of pink flowers that everyone would said was so hard. And on my own, just the border, after I had done the middle, took me a full 10 minutes. So that was really hard. Yeah. Still quite quick. But still, yeah, 10 minutes terrible. But you know, 10 minutes out of an hour saw all of this a pretty big chunk of time. Yeah. And then so then the second one was basically a grid. So it was a bunch of red flowers and individual images right next to each other. And then white flowers and then blue flowers. So that one was a lot easier because you can separate it out by color. So you're basically doing three different puzzles that all connect to each other. Yeah, okay. So that one took me like 50 minutes ish. And the fastest person in the competition was at 37 minutes. So that one was a lot faster. Anytime you can get down into the 30s, you know that it's a relatively easy one. And then the third one was so hard. It was this flower shop image, which is all of these tiny little bouquets of flowers. And so you couldn't really store it. You were just kind of placing things as you found them. And so it took everyone a lot longer, including me. It took me an hour and 10 minutes. And you only have an hour and a half to do it in the event. As that clock is counting down, like how much of a mental game is it where you're going? You're a bit behind. So you start to panic and you get frazzled and you're sort of, you know, oh god. Is that plan to things? Yeah. I mean, a lot of people try to not even look at the clock at all. Yeah. Ignore it. I don't always see that. Sometimes I look. The thing that really gets to you is when the first person finishes, there's like a murmur in the room and then a huge cheer as soon as they finish as they're like, oh, someone's already finished. And so if you're really close, then, you know, that's when the adrenaline hits. You're like, I'm so close like how many other people are going to be really close. And if you're not close at all, you're like, oh no. This is not good. Yeah. Do you ever race with your partner to get that final piece in when you're doing doubles? Yeah. You're a team. You have to work together. There's, you can't be against each other in pairs. You can only work together. Where has this taken you around the world? Have you gotten out of the States with these competitions? Yeah. So the world competition happens in via deletes fame. So I've gone there twice now. I went in 2023 and 2024. And then I've been all over the US. So there's a big event called the St. Paul Winter Carnival, which happens in January in Minnesota every year. So it's really cold. Yeah. So I've gone to that a few times. And then, yeah, wherever our nationals happens, so that was in San Diego for a while. I'm about to go to Atlanta. Well, good luck with it. Thank you. I feel like you're going to do well. I can sense it. We'll see. And social media is pro puzzling growing because I feel like I'm always getting served up pro chess players at the moment, just for whatever reason, I have no interest in chess. But just like chess players, just like really going at it, where does puzzling fit in with that? Yeah. I mean, now there's so many people doing it on YouTube. It's a thing. Yeah. On YouTube, lots of people are live streaming. So the live stream, they're, you know, speed puzzling practice or even just puzzling for fun. And there are plenty of people on Instagram and TikTok and, yeah, everything. Yeah. But you were in there early, right? Yeah. So I started on YouTube, at least, there really weren't a lot of people talking about puzzles. There were some time lapse videos of, you know, people doing giant puzzles. But I felt like I have a lot to say about techniques and strategies, which have changed over the years since I started speed puzzling, but also reviewing different puzzle brands. And so that's how I started doing it. This is unrelated. My other job was writing this newsletter and the very first newsletter I sent out five years ago was about this puzzle company that kept sending up puzzles with a missing piece always. It was just like this thing they always did. I wish I could remember the brand name because you probably know it. Is that Simone Hitch's puzzle? No, it's like clementine puzzles. Oh, clementoni. Clementoni. Yeah, they just, a whole lot of people in New Zealand had that puzzle and it was all missing the same piece. Oh, interesting. And it drove people insane. Anyway, I just remembered that. Some production, like it just got caught in the die in that one place. Some weird line. Yeah. Every single puzzle. I hadn't heard of that. What's the, what's the most legit company would you say or are you allowed to say with sponsors and stuff? Like what is the company that is like doing it best? No missing puzzle pieces, great quality. The pieces like fit and properly durable, durable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do puzzles from lots of different brands and I love tons of different brands. I have been gifted a ton of puzzles. It's a small company called Soonness. They're more expensive than your typical, you know, puzzle that you would find at Walmart or whatever, but they're beautiful quality, beautiful artwork. I also really like a company called Ibu. They've gifted me a lot of puzzles over the years, just really nice artwork. They work with pretty much, I think, all female artists and really, you know, have a focus on the artists and the artwork. Awesome. Honestly, I do a lot of Ravensburgers. What puzzle do you want to do today for practice? What have you bought in? So I brought two fast ones. The one that I think is fastest is a Disney Pixar, like Radiant Rainbow image. Okay. And then I also brought postcard from Paris. So they have this postcard series. It's three puzzles and those are kind of the unofficial speedrun puzzles. People just do them over and over again. They've gotten them so fast down to like, I don't know, 20 minutes for a single person doing it, which I cannot do. Let's do it. I think we should crack in. So I put the puzzle in here so that we could have, you know, the full competition experience. So at the event, I mean, this is a little see-through. So you usually have it upside down like that so that you can't see the image. So you'll have it like this and front of you. So this is like an official competition bag? Mm-hmm. Aha. So I wasn't at Worlds last year, but one of my friends brought me this back from Worlds. It's pretty cool. Okay. And so you're, you know, you just open it up, grab the puzzle, dump out the pieces. I don't have them in an inner bag, so that would be an extra stuff that you would usually have, but we're just going to skip that. And what is this little pink situation over here? So this is a box top holder. For the puzzle that I have here, I don't actually need that because it can sort of balance on its own. But for the thinner puzzle boxes, you just slide it in here so you can look at it. Okay. Ira, can we just get into it? All right. You ready? We are ready. All right. Three, two, one. Go. Okay. So for those of you not watching our video on Spotify or YouTube, Karen is laying out all the puzzle pieces on the table, and she's getting to it. She's chaotically fast at this. It blows my mind, the video that we're running right now, it's a time lapse. So, it's even more impressive to watch, but she's doing it in sections kind of intuitively, but obviously she's sorting through colors right now and my god, she's fast. It makes me feel even more incompetent about my puzzle ability. I mean, good god. The thing's almost done. We're at 25 minutes in real time. Right now, in 25 minutes, she's almost got this 500 piece puzzle done, which just I don't understand. She's almost going to do it. She's almost finishing. Oh my god, she's in the red section. It's almost done. I'd say like 20 pieces left. This is so satisfying to watch. 33, not bad. And she's done. My mind is blowing by this whole thing. How did that go for you as a practice round? How did that feel? That felt good. I mean, I've done this one a bunch of times. So I know, you know, where everything is going to go, but it's always interesting. Every time I do it, I spot a different character first. Or I sort of go in a slightly different order. It's blows my mind the speed you did that. It's crazy to me. It's absolutely crazy to me. Any particular technique you have for breaking a puzzle apart, by the way, to put it in the box. I mean, typically for me, since I do the videos, and sometimes I want to reference past puzzles that I've done, I don't even break the whole thing up. I take it apart into sections. And then I stack them up in the box. How many puzzles do you reckon you would have done in your life? In my entire life. Since you're good. I mean, I just looked and I'm up to, so we're 73 days into the year. And I've done 43 puzzles this year. But I feel like that's not even that many because people who practice this kind of thing, you know, every night can rack up so many more than that. And in the next two weeks, are you going to sort of ratchet up the number of puzzles you're doing? Like what's your technique? Yeah, maybe. I'll probably try to do a few more practice puzzles. Well, good luck. Thank you. That was amazing. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Shopify. Now, starting your own business can be incredibly intimidating and lonely thanks to all the different hats you suddenly have to wear. Yeah, it's really overwhelming. There's a to-do list that just keeps growing every single day with things that you need to do to get things off the ground. And finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be a game changer. And for us and millions of other businesses, that tool will Shopify. So Shopify is the comments platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce here in the US from household names you might know to brands just getting started. The really cool thing that I like, I spend a lot of time in the web design world and they have a lot of ready to use templates that allow you to very quickly build beautiful online stores. That match your brand style. And if you get stuck in the process at all, Shopify is always around to share advice with award winning 24/7 customer support. Invest yet Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise and everything from managing inventory to international shipping to places like New Zealand to processing returns and beyond. So start your business today with the industry's best business partner Shopify and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com/Bird. Go to Shopify.com/Bird. That's Shopify.com/Bird. So a quick update. Karen has now competed in the nationals. I emailed her saying, how do you do? She wrote back the event was really fun and well organized. It was the biggest nationals by far in America with 800 puzzles just in the individual round. So there's a lot of people, 800 people puzzling all the ones furiously trying to win. Did you watch the Queen's Gambit? I did. When she was telling us about the competitions, I imagined that show. Yeah, no, I had that running in the background mind as well. Completely about intense. I loved that show. I'm not a big chess. I know how to play chess, but I don't play chess. No, I mean, somehow made chess interesting, which is an amazing accomplishment. That show was so sexy and cool about chess. Yeah, she said, my best placement was with my team. We got 13th place overall, but I finished all of the puzzles and made it to all of the finals, which was my main goal. So she did pretty darn well. I would like to go to a nationals and future years of this podcast. I want to be in that room. Well, those puzzle pieces drop couldn't go this year because they're conflicted with some other work next year. So yeah, if you're listening to this and you think this could be the sport for you, just know that pro puzzling is a thing you can do. Just practice and just give tips on how to get faster. If what's your dream puzzle picture? Oh, my God, because that does play in a lot to like being excited to do a puzzle during during COVID. I remember looking for like I found there was one piggy blinder puzzle that I could find on the internet. Oh, my God. And like that was a fun one to do. You know, all the different faces. I think I want something simple so I don't get too stressed, probably a children's puzzle. Something or maybe a toddler's puzzle. 10 pieces max. Maybe like a cat. Maybe a bird. I mean, you got to do like 250 piece minimum. What's like an air like 500 is kind of like your simple effort to a thousand. Yeah, I think it's like, but no, I mean, a kitten. Something cute, you know, but is there like a TV show or a movie? Yeah, the dream thing. No, the dream thing. I would love molder and scully X files. Okay. With their faces looking dramatic. I think that's how we get you into puzzling. It's a part. I think puzzles aren't being built for me. I mean, I think about they have X file puzzles. They probably do. The one time I remember getting excited by a puzzle. And I didn't buy it, but there was a Jurassic Park related puzzle. And I thought that is cool dinosaurs. Do you have like a P.O. box? People can send puzzles to you. I don't. And I don't really want puzzles yet. But I will take suggestions of good puzzles. Okay. At FlightlessBridge at gmail.com. I do like the gimmick puzzle you can get, which is just white. It's just white. I mean, so yeah, there are really hard puzzles. I have seen ones that are just like solid colors that are like blends of colors of those actually. Those aren't that bad because you can you can figure out the gradient and where things are going to go. Oh my god. But just having one that's just entirely white. Well, it's hard when you're when you're reduced to having to just figure out the pieces based on the shape. And there's not like clues within it that help you. What do you do? She packed up the energy, packed over a puzzle, very carefully sort of broke it into portions, like put it back in the box. When you are done with the puzzle, what do you do? Do you destroy it? Do you frame it? Do you put it on the wall? What are you doing there? I will leave it for a little bit. And you sort of walk past and go. It's a big enough puzzle. Yeah, like a little thrill to put your hand like put your hand over it and like feel. You sort of give it like a little like all the texture. Yeah. And how long do you leave it assembled before you sort of move on to the next puzzle or let it go? It's not like on to the next puzzle of it. So the thing that does drive me nuts about puzzling is it takes over an entire table. You need a table that you need a table that you need. I will say when we did this episode, I was soon after targeted on Instagram for a puzzle table top. Oh, incredible. I was very. You would change it? I was tempted to get. No, because it does. It takes over a dining room table or a bench top or something. It was like this big foam board that had like a piece that comes over so you can just like pack it up, move it. It had little drawers so you could sort, you could sort by color, by edges and close those away. So if I could figure out a system to where like my dining table is out of commission for a week because we're doing a puzzle. But if I can neatly pack it up, put it somewhere else. That's very you. I feel that fits in the organiser part of your brain that also loves me putting a drink on a coaster. That's a similar thing to you because puzzles are also a mess. They're stressful when they're not done. Maybe that could be something. How much was it for one of those things? Maybe a little risk as far as that. I love what you're served as ads on Instagram and stuff. It's crazy. It's crazy how appropriate it is to what you are currently into. I mean, it seems like it is for a reason. Oh yeah, something happened earlier while we were doing some technical things with this recording. And I heard the sound. You on your phone briefly and I heard the sound of a dieboard kind of like kind of jumping. And I felt it's sort of a twitch. Do I mean do we want to play this video on the podcast? We probably could. It's not my first moment. It's a fun moment. So we were in Barton Springs. A beautiful natural spring in Austin. And you had taken Calvin across so that he could jump up. off the diving board. I had Vincent over in the like, you did little shallow area. We actually did the little like hike up the side. My dad had Calvin, but my dad is in his 80s. Yes. Not great knees. No, so I said, I said Calvin, I will take you to the diving board. Yes. And I will jump first, bravely. I'll show you how it's very doable and you can follow. Yeah, it's nice of you, but I saw Calvin. I saw Calvin was over there and I was like, great, I'll film him jumping off the diving board, send it. Tennately, she was with us. And then I accidentally got you jumping off the diving board. First, there was some move. I don't know. He got maybe scared. Yeah, he was a bit apprehensive about diving straight in, because yeah, you're diving into deep water. A lot of adults doing it as well. My adults are scary. They run off and do a big jump. Yeah. I wanted to show him this is chill. And you either have to like swim all the way across or quickly to the side. He's a newer swimmer. Yeah, completely. He's a newer human. He's a newer human. But I did get a great video then of you jumping off the diving board after him. Yeah, we're still rolling. How would you describe my technique? Here's David. Yeah, I walked to the end. So I got a bit of a nose model. And then I hold my nose before I jump like the biggest fucking dog you've ever seen. Yeah, I didn't know I'd done that. And looking back at that, horrific. There was the biggest point extra that's ever lived. I think Rosa Bell was also watching. Because I didn't notice, I didn't notice the nose hold until it was pointed out. Yeah. And then I went back, watched the video, saw the nose very special. Yeah, when you jump in that water, you don't want that water rocketing up your nose. I mean, I agree. There's nothing worse than jumping in a pool and getting water up your nose. I think I normally just blow out so that it doesn't go in. But I take a thumb and a full finger. You place it around the nostril squeeze up the nostril. Yeah, two fingers jam straight up and my nostrils. But now I'm really glad you're re-watching that video just to torment me. Yeah, Calvin was a much cooler jumper. Also, I can't dive. I've never been able to dive. I'm scared of going head first. I'd love to learn Monday. I'm not a diver either. Yeah, Monday. I can attempt it off like the side of a pool. My body refuses to let me go in head first. It's like, look, I think, yeah, mine. I haven't tried it in a while. Yeah, it's not because I like swimming. I get laps of pools. But my getting in is never graceful. It's always a hole in nostrils and jump. Well, another thing you would love about survivor. They do a lot of swimming challenges. And there is definitely people that are jumping in and are just doing like perfect dives and continuing their swim. Because of race, always. Yeah, they're jumping off like high platforms on the big diving perfectly and then just graceful. Yes, very like a fish for a while. Then they surface. And then there's the other people that are just like running jump, do the jump and run in the air and then land not gracefully and then continue to swim. I know what group I would be in. Yeah. I'm just going to read one bit of feedback to wrap up this episode because there's a lot of feedback coming in. We've just got back from tour. As soon as you go through all of it, but I thought this was really nice email. Anastasia said, I was very depressed yesterday. I told my spouse this, but I went to bed with your podcast in my ear. I dozed a little. My night to have it is to fall asleep to podcast. I subscribe to not the urinaclepsy inducing podcast. I work later with tears streaming down my face. Goosebumps on my skin. Not Arostone Goosebumps. Happy subconscious tears. Wow, listening to Genevieve's clear, beautiful voice made me smile and I feel so much better today. Anastasia is referring to our latest nest session, which is a real magic episode. It made me very happy to see how much people liked Genevieve's. People love her so much and so much. And just a voice. Yep. She's got a very special voice. Yeah. Yeah, she does. Her whole vibe was the first time I met her. I just certainly liked her so much. Also, that was a contained acoustic version, seen her with a full rock band too, which was mostly the version that I saw of her back when we were on tour of like genealogy, really wailing. Well, that's big. It's like it's beautiful, but it's like can be so big. Yeah. And she was getting into it in the studio here, but I imagine like on a just giant stage. Yeah, very powerful. And that's why she was cool. So thank you, Anastasia. I'm glad that episode made you feel less shitty. That's what it's nice to be able to have that effect. If you have any feedback, [email protected]. I love hearing from you. What else? It's a bunch of rosable stuff over in Patreon. I mean, I don't mean to be banging on about that. I know probably it's annoying at times, but there is some cool stuff over there. Yeah. We did a special episode in Austin with her. Yeah. We then did another episode when we came back, recapped some of the trip. Our magic castle visit. Yes. And there is also going up a rosable confession, which is entertaining for anyone who's been following along the rose about journey. Yes. What else? I think it's basically it. Thanks for listening. Like and subscribe. Vote for us. Webby Awards. Yeah. Webby Awards.com. Click, vote. Search, flightlessbred. Vote for us. That will be amazing. We're at number two at the moment, which is great. I mean, that's an amazing reason there. Yes. But we and our narcissistic minds would love to be number one if you want to do that for us. And we'll see you next week. See you next week.