Hey, alligites. It's your old dad over here, Ali Ward.

I'm not recording in my closet today. Can you believe it? I'm 16 floors up in a hotel in New York,

and it's midnight on a Friday night, and I'm out here for work shooting this new show.

If you listen to the very end of each episode, I usually tell secret to the people who stick it out past the credits.

So you may have heard it last week, and if not more on that when they let me tell you, like legally or whatever,

but I'm excited about this episode wiggling its way into your consciousness.

It's a good one. Thisologist is, like, imagine when an Italian chef kisses his fingertips. She's so good.

Also, if you hear any weird sirens or the people in the hotel room next to me coughing or doing other things,

sorry. Okay, so fish. They're out there. They're underwater. They're deep in the sea,

or skimming the surface of lakes with fins, and they got fleshy,

lobe fins and sharp noses, and sometimes blobby faces and big teeth and sucker mouths, and we really like them.

Some people love them, and I like fish, but I love the people who love fish. I love them.

I'm a creep for fish people, the way that their eyes light up when you talk about swim bladders,

and larval stages, and biodiversity. So I was giddy as hell to talk face to face about fish.

But while we're talking creeps, let's get to our intro segment, creeping your reviews,

in which I thank you all for leaving reviews on iTunes. It really helps get allergies up in the charts.

Since launching this kind of dream project in September, this podcast is pretty much

hovered in the top 30 or 20 science podcasts on iTunes, which is a very big deal for me and my heart.

Thank you for putting it there with your ratings and reviews, and by subscribing and telling a

friend, it really matters. So I'm going to read the reviews that really tickled me. I am going to say

Rare Cactus said Infotainment, Intercation, whatever your favorite portmanteau is for the intersection

of learning and laughing, Alli Ward lives in that space. I thought her use of portmanteaus

...