Words in strange places.

Don't you love words in strange places?



(This is eyeshadow.)

(Don't you love 3-letter words that end in x?)

Escolar, the snake mackerel with gempylotoxins.

Yum! Last night, I ate a type of fish I'd never heard of before, and if I'd had internet access in the restaurant and looked it up, I would never have ordered it:

What gives these fish their desirable taste is actually a component similar to those used to produce Olestra, the fake fat found in some snack foods: a fatty substance called wax esters, in this case, gempylotoxins. Humans cannot digest these wax esters because they lack the enzymes necessary to break the large molecules into smaller, absorbable components.

Harold McGee, the author of ''On Food and Cooking'' (Scribner, 1984), described the process elegantly in a paper he delivered at the 1997 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery: ''The wax esters therefore pass intact, their lubricating properties undiminished, from the small intestine into the colon, where a sufficient quantity will defeat our normal control over the ultimate disposition of food residues.''

So it's the Olestra of fish? Well, I was perfectly fine and the fish was delicious.

A cold day in August.

It was cold here in New York City yesterday, with a high temperature of 59° -- the lowest high ever for August, tying with a day back in 1911.



And the restaurant had a dog:

Welcome to paradise.

Why so grim?



Grrrr....



No fair.

Obama's rock and roll gaffe.

Obama's not showing much respect for Iowa history:

Barack Obama has spoken in many venues -- high school gymnasiums, college basketball courts, union halls -- but none has been as unusual as the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, where he talked to a group of Iowa Democrats last week.

The Surf Ballroom is the scene of the last concert played by rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson just hours before they were killed in a plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959.

And it is a place frozen in time with wooden booths, a linoleum floor and murals of palm trees and beaches.

Obama didn't mention the '50s rockers in his speech, but earlier this summer former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee came here and made a video commemorating Holly, Valens and The Big Bopper. It can be seen on YouTube....

The walls are filled with photos of Holly and include many of his gold albums.

The piano once used by Ellington has been preserved. The Pepsi machine used by Waylon Jennings (who played in Holly's band and gave up his seat on the plane to the Big Bopper) remains in the kitchen. The phone Holly used to call his wife, Maria Elena, in New York is still there, and so are the sinks in the green room Holly used before making his appearance on stage.

"That'll be the day" anything changes in this cultural mecca still cherished by Iowans and others who revere Buddy Holly.

And what do they think of a candidate who gives a speech here and doesn't mention him?

By contrast:

Lowest ever approval rating for Congress.

18%, matching the historic low of 1992, when there was a big scandal involving check cashing. Why so low, in the absence of a scandal? I think people have gotten more judgmental, and the politicians themselves have been teaching us to be super-critical. The very members of Congress who got into office by stoking dissatisfaction now face observation by the people who see no reason to be patient and sympathetic. It doesn't necessarily mean we're all walking around feeling exceedingly pissed off at the government. It could just be that if anyone ever asks if we approve, we're going to say no. Why should we approve? And what's with all the approval-seeking anyway?

Are you a closet...

... napper? Why must we feel ashamed? In fact, why shouldn't our employers provide us with nap rooms? Some actually do. Or maybe you can set up your own office to make it nappable. Back in my home office, in Wisconsin, I have a perfect sofa for napping. And it is not goofing off. A 20 minute nap is part of a formula for a very productive day. Why are people so Puritanical about naps? They want to see people looking busy. They can be barely conscious and get nothing done, but to surrender consciousness altogether... we're so afraid of that.