I snapped out of it last weekend, though, when Matt proposed marriage. We had decided to take a trip to Philadelphia to celebrate Valentine’s Day since for the past few years we’ve celebrated only by ordering a heart-shaped pizza.

We took the BoltBus from NY to Philly on the 13th and spent the day walking around Center City. We got pizza at Lorenzo’s on South Street and walked from there to the Mütter Museum. I’d been meaning to get to the Mütter Museum for years, so I was really excited that we finally had the opportunity. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a fascination with medical oddities and the fact that there’s no blood involved meant that I could stomach it. I was fascinated by the museum while Matt looked slightly green.

After the Museum we walked back to the hotel and by that point, our feet were killing us and we were exhausted. We took a nice long nap before our dinner reservations at 8:30. We got dressed up and headed across the street from the hotel to Upstares at Varalli’s.

We had a lovely dinner there – I had the surf and turf which consisted of filet mignon, a jumbo lump crab cake, mashed potatoes and asparagus. Matt had a pasta dish loaded with all sorts of seafood. We drank some wine and felt a little tipsy by the time we left. I wasn’t ready to go back to the hotel room after dinner, so I suggested a drink at the hotel bar. Matt had other plans though – he whispered that he had a gift for me that I couldn’t open in front of other people. I was a little embarrassed because an older couple standing behind us heard the conversation and I could only assume that he had bought me something risqué.

We got back to the hotel room and Matt opened the curtains so that we could look out onto Broad Street. We had a great view of the street below and we could clearly see Philadelphia’s City Hall from our window. Matt walked away from the window and told me to close my eyes so that he could get my gift. After a moment, he stood in front of me and said, “I want you to know that this is NOT a Valentine’s Day gift.” I was confused at this point until he told me I could open my eyes. When I did, I saw that he was down on one knee in front of me holding a ring box. I sucked in my breath and immediately teared up.

He said some very beautiful things and then asked me to marry him. He says I said yes twice. I don’t really remember that. I just remember realizing that we were going to get married and feeling slightly overwhelmed and intensely happy. We called our families and friends and just kept saying, “Wow, we’re getting married.” We ended the night with a celebratory drink in the hotel bar.

2010 is off to a great start, and I have a feeling that 2011 will be pretty awesome, too.

Engaged

Via Consumerist.

Via CNN.

Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town’s many tourists. That’s more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston.

Via L.A. Times and my friend Crystal

That doesn’t daunt Matt Little, an unemployed comedian who spends hours each day scouring news websites in his Brooklyn apartment, crafting one-liners that may never air. The 28-year-old got his joke-writing start while working as a page at the “Late Show,” where he persuaded the head monologue writer to let him submit material.

Little still remembers what it felt like the first time Letterman used one of his jokes. The quip: “It was so hot out today that Rupert Murdoch bought Dairy Queen.”

“I was in the balcony paging that day, and I had to run off in the corner where it was really dark and kind of jumped around, trying not to scream like a little girl,” he recalled.

For each of the 15 or 20 jokes that he’s gotten on the air, he’s received a check for $75 from Worldwide Pants, Letterman’s production company. In the memo line, it reads “one joke.”

“You pour so much time into this,” said Little, who also submits material for the “Weekend Update” segment of “Saturday Night Live.” “And you don’t find out until the show airs if you got a joke on or not. I like to say that it’s like you’re holding your lottery ticket in your hand, hoping that the words match up.”

No photos of the bunny, though.

Let your hair down!

Yeah, I watch Real Housewives. Yeah, I’m excited about the NJ variety starting up on May 12. So what?

via freshdirect