Engaged!

I'll add more later, when I'm not at work fielding congratulations and trying not to get fired for lack of productivity, but Dan gave me a shiny ring last night and I'm incredibly happy!

(Props to Dennis for the new and improved header).

Viewing

I guess the upside of feeling like shoe-gum and staying home from work is, if you happen to be in the television industry, catching up on all the pilots and screeners you should be watching for work.  So, my current reviews of my recent viewing (like the past week or so.  I actually spend most of today sleeping):

Community - Really funny cast and a solid concept that's neither too specific nor too vague.  Chevy Chase is perfect in it.  Whoever put him in a turtleneck suit: A+.  This will make it the full season and then some.

The Office - as good as ever.

Parks and Recreation - Amy Poehler is just better than this.  P&R is a comedy that makes me sad.  No bueno.  Maybe she should do movies.

The Good Wife - This is hardly competition for where I work, but I was really into the premiere.  It's like Nurse Carol Hathaway dumped Doug, went to law school, had two kids, straightened her hair, and is now a disgraced political wife who's still, surprise surprise, a killer legal thinker.  Plus: Christine Baranski.

Fringe - so underrated!  Back and better than ever!  Shapeshifting soldiers from a parallel universe: bless.

500 Days of Summer - I happened to have the screener in my purse.  This was really cute, but I don't get why Tom was all surprised when Summer dumped him.  She just wasn't that into you, bro!

Entourage - I still occasionally tune into this, because for some reason, it still rates and garners critical attention.  YOU GUYS.  STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS SHOW.  Season two was amazing, and I think we should all hold the "tsetse fly" episode in our hearts for the rest of our lives, but seriously, the current big plotline is whether Eric will dump his not-that-cute-especially-for-this-show girlfriend for being too clingy?  They need a murder mystery or something.  Yawn.

Curb - anyone else think Loretta will go the way of George Costanza's fiance, Susan?

Bored to Death - finally.  An elitist New York seriocomedy on HBO.  It's like they've finally made a show about my dreams.

Ew

I'm sick.  Stay-home-from-work sick.  This doesn't happen very much but it is currently displeasing me greatly.

OMG and Wolverine

OMG!  I just realized that my last (self-adulating) post was my thousandth!  Wow!  Imagine all the hours devoted to these 1,000 entries that could have been spent elsewhere!  Meghan Valerio: The Blog is the equivalent of a thousand origami paper cranes, basically.

Anyway, in more exciting news, I just saw Hugh Jackman and his elderly wife over lunch.  They were taking  a small horde of children to the playground on Bedford and Bleecker, and I wouldn't have noticed anything if it weren't for the swarm of photographers surrounding us (I was kind of walking with them.  It was weird).  The paparazzi couldn't go into the park, but were filming them from over the fence, getting shots like this:

It was really creepy.  I'm glad I'm not famous.

BOOKZILLA RETURNS

I didn't think The Power Broker was ever going to end, but it did.  I FINISHED IT.  It took like twice as long as I was hoping, but finally: I AM BOOKZILLA.  FEAR ME.

TTM

I made Tofu Tikka Masala last night, in an effort to get back on the "I don't eat much meat" train. I would rationally say that attendance at the National Buffalo Wing Festival was the final nail in that coffin, but I will exhume the ghost of mostly-vegetarianism as preached by Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, and rediscover the glory of eating a balanced diet.

This is largely because my mom sent me a video from inside an Iowa chicken hatchery for laying hens, and now I feel like there's a hole in my heart. It shows how chicks are separated by gender and the males are then killed by being fed through a meat grinder. Alive. The video's at the end of the post, and aside from Oprah's "Oprah Goes to Africa" special, it's about the saddest thing I've ever seen.

So. Tofu Tikka Masala. I slathered tofu cubes with yogurt and spices and then fried them up a little - next time I'll skip the yogurt; I think it kept the cubes from getting crispy - and then topped them with an easy sauce of garlic, various spices, crushed roasted tomatoes and a swirl of cream. I mixed it all with fake-saffron-scented brown rice and packed it for lunch. I'm eating it now! And I have to say, it's pretty good. Tofu works in Indian food, I think. Maybe because you can trick yourself into thinking it's saag paneer.

Ooooh

So, it turns out that Casey Wilson did get the boot from SNL. Aw. Now I feel kind of bad about wishing for it. Sorry, Case!

However, I found some fresh info on the new girl, Jenny Slate.

And I think I'm in love.

The National Buffalo Wing Festival

Dan and I went to the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York, this past weekend. It was awesome. We also went over to Canada for some Niagara Falls action, and overall had a really fantastic weekend.

At the start of the festival, Dan suggested that in addition to the late afternoon National Buffalo Wing Eating Championship, we have our own private contest.

It's called, "Who At the Buffalo Wing Festival Least Needs to be Consuming Buffalo Wings?"

Yessssssssssss

Totally Random Thought

I read the blog of Tim Urban occasionally, and occasionally he does a series on things that annoy him. It's always pretty dead-on and very funny (he also blogs frequently about traveling in Kazakhstan and Dubai and Vietnam, and being on The Apprentice. In other words, things I won't be doing anytime soon. Check it out). So after reading his most recent lists of things that annoy and delight him, I started thinking of my own. I do these things on the L train. (I used to spend the ride on my L Train Scoring System, in which I assigned points to various riders for tattoo density, jean tightness, esoteric nature of reading material, and whether or not they were biracial. But the yuppie invasion has made The L Game far less exciting lately. It's a pity).

So! I realized that a very significant thing that annoys me is when people try to make me feel bad about liking Billy Joel songs. You know what? Billy Joel's songs are awesome. They tell stories. They're catchy. They meander a little bit in a way that doesn't make sense, which is strange given their catchiness. I think Billy Joel detractors are just jealous he got both Christie Brinkley and the host of Top Chef season one, and they think he's old, and they can suck it. I live in Brooklyn, and I like Billy Joel. And that is my random thought for today.

Oh, btw, SNL has added two ladies for the fall. But have they gotten rid of Casey Wilson? She's useless. Also, her friends were nasty to me at her first show when I wouldn't put them in the VIP section, and... she co-wrote Bride Wars. We should probably keep her away from the movies.