Xocas has started blogging in English (saving me from having to run all his posts through Google Translate!). His first English blog post is about the terrific graphic showing David Rohde’s escape from the Taliban.

I discovered the other day that Verizon Wireless has a slick little feature on their Web site that lets you see how big its cell phones are by displaying them next to three items you may have around in your house: an iPod, a pack of playing cards and a pad of Post-It notes.

Given the varying sizes of computer monitors, it’s a smart way to let online shoppers see how well a phone will fit in their pocket or not.

You can try the interactive out yourself by going to Verizon’s page for the LG enV and clicking “View Size” at the top.

Michael Pollen has a fun set of 20 food rules today on nytimes.com. My 3 contributions to the cause:

1. If a restaurant doesn’t specialize in mussels, don’t order them. I’ve had mussels at far too many restaurants where they’ve clearly been around for a while or were cooked to death. Instead go to BXL (Times Square) or Monk’s (Philly) where they do them right.

2. “Truffle oil” on a menu usually indicates that cheap, artificial-tasting stuff that a chef added to make a dish look impressive, but which often overwhelms the dish, and not in a good way. (See also Frank Bruni’s lament on the same subject.)

3. Ever since I discovered that Costco sells prime rib-eye steaks for about $10 per pound, I’ve virtually stopped buying steak from the grocery store — there’s just no comparison in taste. If I’m going to consume that much fat in one meal, it’s not worth it to have a sub-par steak. (And the healthy upside, if you can call it that, to the Costco steaks: since it’s more of an ordeal to go to Costco than the grocery store, and the steaks only come in 4-packs, I end up eating steak far less frequently than before.)

Hilarious. [Via economix.]