I don’t know why, but I have a special place in my heart (and stomach, apparently) for the homestyle Indian cheese known as paneer. While I’m up for pretty much anything in an Indian restaurant (save the vindaloo - my nose starts running after mild food, so I’d be a mess if I tried anything legitimately spicy) I keep going back to paneer dishes because they’re so darned tasty. I met my friend for dinner tonight and we had Indian food; she’s eating vegan for the weeks prior to her wedding to insure the dress fits comfortably and, not surprisingly, the nearby chain restaurants didn’t have anything she could eat without sacrificing more than half of the ingredients. It’s all just as well; I prefer ethnic food to chain restaurants any day.

I was supposed to have a doctor’s appointment today, but my early train home was delayed since some fool (and yes, feel free to adopt the Mr. T voice right there) drove through the railroad crossing barrier a few stations ahead of where my train was stopped and we had to wait until the police arrived to direct traffic. The car that drove through the barrier broke it off; it was lying in the street, looking like a big smashed-up candy cane. I know this because when we finally got moving (after standing in one place for 20 minutes) we were traveling at a very slow speed and I was able to observe the police officer standing at the train tracks with his hand up. Because, I suppose, people are stupid enough that if the cop stood there with a train on the tracks behind him, they’d try to drive through anyway. The “halt” hand might’ve been a form of idiot insurance.

Thus, I did make it to the doctor’s office and my cell phone battery was dead, so I couldn’t call to say I was running late until I was already REALLY late and I just rescheduled. I have another different doctor’s visit tomorrow night, so that’s just peachy.

SO - some discoveries for this fine spring day (24 degrees in the morning, 60 when I got home, and raining)…

• For my money, the best author blog out there at the moment is Neil Gaiman’s Journal. He = hilarious. My little brain crush on Mr. Gaiman has increased to a massive brain crush with this short line from his entry today:

“Why am I still up and writing this? Why aren’t I in bed. Anybody sensible would be in bed. It’s almost two in the morning.”

So glad I ordered my ticket for the PEN Event at Town Hall. I’ll get to hear Salman Rushdie, Steve Martin, Don DeLillo, Nadine Gordimer and Neil Gaiman, all in the same night. Wowie. All appeal to very different delights of mine, but all are wonderful. I think, however, the two most exciting individuals to see will be Rushdie and Gaiman.

[singing]I’m a little nerd girl, short and stout…

• The MOST AWESOME BROWNIE PAN in the WORLD!!!

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing fame is also gaining points on the Researchgirl Brain Crush chart (which I might have to create now). While this link was submitted by another Boing-er (hmmm - wonder if they call themselves anything), Cory chose to post up info about a “labyrinthine” brownie pan. Take a look.

It’s not cheap at $34, but it’s such a wonderful idea in the “I can’t believe no one thought of this sooner” vein. There was even a review from “Cooking for Engineers” which informs us, “For the edge lovers, the brownies from the Baker’s Edge were perfect - chewy edges surrounding a moist chocolate brownie. ”

• CuteOverload NEVER disappoints. It’s like having the perfect thing for lunch every day when you didn’t know what you were in the mood for to begin with. Like this, for example? I think I didn’t stop smiling for about 10 minutes at work.

I know there’s more, but I just realized that it’s 11:30 (since I’ve been intermittently browsing and writing and browsing… oops).