Amber

by Ester Bloom

At least according to Yelp, the best food in America is, generally, Food You Can Afford. And a lot of it can be found on or near the west coast.

Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S. for 2015

1. Copper Top BBQ – Big Pine, CA
2. Art of Flavors – Las Vegas, NV
3. Soho Japanese Restaurant – Las Vegas, NV
4. TKB Bakery and Deli – Indio, CA
5. Ono Seafood – Honolulu, HI
6. Shark Pit Maui – Lahaina, HI
7. Gaucho Parilla Argentina – Pittsburgh, PA
8. Bobboi Natural Gelato – La Jolla, CA
9. Golden Bear Trading Company – San Francisco, CA
10. Little Miss BBQ – Phoenix, AZ
11. Dat Cajun Guy – Haleiwa, HI
12. Sweet Dogs – Miami, FL
13. Aviva by Kameel – Atlanta, GA
14. Sweet Spice – Savannah, GA
15. Royal Taj – Columbia, MD
16. Arun’s Indian Kichen – Coral Spring, FL
17. Hall’s Chophouse – Charleston, SC
18. Bronze Cafe – Las Vegas, NV
19. Saffron and Rose Ice Cream – Los Angeles, CA
20. Buddha Thai Bistro – Vacaville, CA

Wait, there are BBQ joints in the top twenty, and they’re not in Texas? Or St. Louis? 

I’ve never done a barbecue tour of the US, mostly because I’ve been (semi)vegetarian for so long. It’s a dream of mine, though. I always assumed said tour would take me through the deep south and then up into the midwest before dipping down again into Longhorn country, as per the instructions of this Thrillist list and, of course, Calvin Trillin.

In discussions of Texas barbecue, the equivalent of Matt Damon and George Clooney and Brad Pitt would be establishments like Kreuz Market and Smitty’s Market, in Lockhart; City Market, in Luling; and Louie Mueller Barbecue, in Taylor—places that reflect the barbecue tradition that developed during the nineteenth century out of German and Czech meat markets in the Hill Country of central Texas. (In fact, the title of Texas Monthly’s first article on barbecue—it was published in 1973, shortly after the magazine’s founding—was “The World’s Best Barbecue Is in Taylor, Texas. Or Is It Lockhart?”) Those restaurants, all of which had been in the top tier in 2003, were indeed there again in this summer’s survey. For the first time, though, a No. 1 had been named, and it was not one of the old familiars. “The best barbecue in Texas,” the article said, “is currently being served at Snow’s BBQ, in Lexington.”

I had never heard of Snow’s. That surprised me. Although I grew up in Kansas City, which has a completely different style of barbecue, I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then just to see how things are going. Reading that the best barbecue in Texas was at Snow’s, in Lexington, I felt like a People subscriber who had picked up the “Sexiest Man Alive” issue and discovered that the sexiest man alive was Sheldon Ludnick, an insurance adjuster from Terre Haute, Indiana, with Clooney as the runner-up.

But the people have spoken, and apparently the best restaurant in the country — not merely the best BBQ, but the best food experience for the money period — is now Copper Top in California. One Yelper reacts with slight bewilderment to the news:

I live in Bishop, and so pass by this place often, and I’ll definitely stop in if I’ve got the ducats.  I’m always willing to pay a fair price for good food, so you won’t be disappointed stopping by.  I wonder if they’ll become a Yelp-victim and get long lines now.  Still worth stopping by.  If you’re hankering for good Mexican, next door at the Chevron station (no, not kidding!) you’ll find excellent burritos for not much money. Why not try both?

Related: Eat free at Chipotle! If you start the process today.

Chipotle has declared that ordering a Sofritas item on Monday, Jan. 26, will earn you a free burrito, bowl, tacos order, or salad of your choice if you come back in the next month. Just show up to any location in the U.S. or Canada, present your receipt showing the Sofritas purchase, and you’ll get hooked up with a free meal between Jan. 27 and Feb. 28. Even better, Chipotle will throw in the guac with your redeemable item, too.

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Federal employees would be eligible for six weeks of paid leave for purposes related to the birth or adoption of a child, under legislation introduced Monday by a group of House Democrats. President Obama two weeks ago called on Congress to enact that benefit–which would be paid “administrative” leave that would not be charged against either sick […]

It’s not enough to take an awesome selfie and share it online anymore. Now you can share it on your body with Picattoo, a service that lets you turn your Instagram feed into body art. For $15, users choose 12 photos from their own Instagram account (sorry, Beyonce’s Blue Ivy pics are off limits). The Netherlands-based service will then transform them into temporary tattoos that last up to a week.

New ways for promoting narcissism are nothing new. Last year, a service called Boomf popped up that allowed users to print their pics onto marshmallows. A similar app, which launched on Kickstarter a few months ago, wants to transform Instagram snaps into nail art.

Despite all the options, the “Insta-tats” sound like a real winner. Soon enough, celebrities and tweens everywhere will have photos of Starbucks lattes, beach feet, food porn, and inspirational quotes stamped onto their foreheads.

Via TechCrunch

Also, this whole thing is (predictably) not true, as Netanyahu was not in the United States while GloZell was interviewing the President. 

Here’s what it’s really about: Netanyahu decided to visit the U.S. Congress without first contacting the President’s office; usually, heads of state contact other heads of state before international visits. (The visit isn’t happening until March.) Basically it’s a bunch of middle school crap, but to be clear it has absolutely nothing to do with Hank, GloZell, or Bethany, except insofar as some commentators’ talking points have decided to include them in this ridiculously childish game.

Furthermore, Rob Lowe made a sex tape with a 16-year-old girl when he was in his 20s, so I’m not sure he should be throwing stones in re. things that people have been videotaped doing.

Teachers don’t get half as much credit as they deserve. Whether they spend money out of their own pockets on classrooms and supplies, or work through evenings and weekends to make sure their kids are caught up, teachers just can’t seem to catch a break. To make matters worse, administrators and parents often make their job more difficult.

Such is the case for one intrepid sex ed teacher in Mississippi. When told he couldn’t demonstrate correct condom application and removal due to state education policies, he decided to teach teens “how to put on a sock” instead. Since Mississippi Pornhub users spend more time looking at porn than anyone else, proper sock etiquette seems like a good idea.

(Via YouTube)

What would the world be like if Facebook had come about in the age of GeoCities and free America Online trial subscription CDs? This fake ’90s commercial for Facebook (i.e. “The Facebook”) gives viewers a glimpse into what this alternate reality might look like.

“How about just clicking on your mom’s profile and saying ‘Happy Birthday’? It’s the same thing as sending her a package!” Oh yes, it’s totally the same thing. All “The Facebook” needs now is a feed dedicated solely to back issues of Disney Adventures.

Source: YouTube

The best gin I've had in years isn't made by an American or British distillery. It's Spanish, an ultra-premium gin flavored with basil, thyme, rosemary, and, for a killer dose of savory, oily richness, arbequina olives. It's a gin that makes the case for sipping yours neat. Read More

Because they love us and want us to be happy — and maybe also because they are on a roll and there’s a possible Nor’ Easter coming this weekend — Amazon is going to stream its Golden Globe-winning original series Transparent for free this Saturday.

The show’s official Twitter account made the announcement this morning:

So, get ready to sit somewhere for a good long time because you only have 24 hours to watch all 10 episodes! Think of it as a warm-up for when House of Cards releases its third season on February 27. But if you need a break in between Transparent episodes, The Interview is also arriving on Netflix.

We can do this, you guys. We can make Wall-E a reality.

Via Vulture

by Mike Dang

In the past few days, I’ve opened my mailbox and discovered 1099 forms and a W-2, in addition to 1098-E forms (student loan interest statements) in my email inbox. The forms are currently being organized in a folder. Our favorite time of year has come and I’m slowly preparing for it. Today, Jan. 20, marks the official start of the tax-filing season.

I have friends who haven’t started thinking about tax returns, and those who shrug because they’ll have someone else do it for them, or plan on finding someone who will. The Wall Street Journal reports that Americans will pay an average of $273 to a professional to prepare a Form 1040 plus Schedule A (one of the most common kinds of tax forms—Schedule A allows for itemized deductions), plus a state return.

There’s already a small uproar among those of us who do our own taxes and use TurboTax software to do it—Intuit “has raised the price of TurboTax for many users by $30 or more,” and H&R Block is hoping to woo unhappy customers to use its services (I’ve used both services and have been equally pleased).

In the meantime, I’ll be waiting a few weeks to get started; the one time I filed a tax return super early I had to amend it later due to an employer accidentally sending me a wrong W-2 form. Serves me right for wanting to get it over and done with?

48 Comments

via http://pinterest.com/pin/246079567112003862/

Found on yatzer.com

Along with imagining Mary Poppins as one of Doctor Who's Time Lords, one of my favorite literary alternate realities is imagining Hermione Granger as the main character of the Harry Potter books. In 2011, Sady Doyle wrote a review of the books as if Rowling had focused on Hermione.

In Hermione, Joanne Rowling undermines all of the cliches that we have come to expect in our mythic heroes. It's easy to imagine Hermione's origin story as some warmed-over Star Wars claptrap, with tragically missing parents and unsatisfying parental substitutes and a realization that she belongs to a hidden order, with wondrous (and unsettlingly genetic) gifts. But, no: Hermione's normal parents are her normal parents. She just so happens to be gifted. Being special, Rowling tells us, isn't about where you come from; it's about what you can do, if you put your mind to it. And what Hermione can do, when she puts her mind to it, is magic.

Ditto for the whole "Chosen One" thing. Look: I've enjoyed stories that relied on a "Chosen One" mythology to convince us that the hero is worth our time. I liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer as much as anyone. But it's hard to deny that "Chosen Ones" are lazy writing. Why is this person the hero? Because everyone says he's the hero. Why does everyone say he's the hero? Because everyone says so, shut up, there's magic.

And more recently, Daniel Dalton had a more overtly feminist and humorous take.

It was clear that she was the one who was protecting Harry and Ron, and this was never more evident than when she revealed she could control time.

She'd been using her Time-Turner to attend twice the number of classes, but she agreed to use it to help Harry save his godfather, even though it meant she'd never be able to use it again.

She'd given up her greatest power for her best friend, because helping people made her feel good.

And though she hoped he understood the sacrifice she was making by letting her education slide, she knew he didn't. Because men.

Over the past year or so, I've been rereading the books and rewatching the movies with my kids through the Hermione-as-hero lens. And I've noticed that even without altering the story as Doyle and Dalton do, Hermione is by far the smartest, most loyal, and bravest young witch or wizard at Hogwarts. Harry has his moments but the kid had a rough and abusive childhood and so his principal talent is getting angry and doing stupid impulsive shit. Mainly, he's manipulated by Voldemort and Dumbledore into doing exactly what they want him to do, and he plays the part splendidly. On the other hand, Hermione is an amazing witch and has a real choice as to how she wants to apply her considerable talents. And she chooses goodness, friendship, and doing the right thing over comfort, power, and even her own family, every time. (via @djacobs)

Tags: books   Daniel Dalton   Harry Potter   Mary Poppins   movies   Sady Doyle

This post has been updated. President Obama signed a memo Thursday directing agencies to advance up to six weeks of paid sick leave to federal employees with a new child. He also is urging Congress to pass legislation providing them an additional six weeks of paid administrative leave. This is part of a larger effort […]

Yesterday, the internet became obsessed with a new website that celebrates two things the internet loves most: being an evil troll and fancy sparkly things. ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, which does exactly as its name would suggest, crashed within hours of going viral. Now the site’s creator has some Gob Bluth-style regrets.

Matt Carpenter first went to ProductHunt.com and tried to plead with the masses to stop with the glitter:

As commenter Zoe Landon pointed out, Carpenter made his glitter-coated bed. But rather than lie in it, he is now attempting to sell it.

When you look at Carpenter’s Twitter bio, his rush to sell makes a lot of sense:

Assuming someone takes him up on his offer, he may get to enjoy that moolah after all.

Source: The Daily Dot

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The newest Honest Trailer from Screen Junkies and Smosh Games finally gives The Sims a send-up. They open with some SHOTS FIRED, “You’ve Simmed a city, a tower, an earth, and an ant. Now, EA and Maxis let you simulate the least interesting subject yet – you!” What? How dare you! I’m very interesting and oh who am I kidding?

Besides taking shots at all 4 games with 26 (and counting!) full-priced expansion packs, they also include jokes about “incomprehensible Simlish, a ridiculous fake language like Klingon or Swedish” while reminding us that Katy Perry sang a cover of one of her songs in Simlish, apparently. We’re not sure they made the narrator’s life seem quite sad and isolated enough, however. Then again, we’re bloggers. Our idea of a normal day might be stranger than most.

Previous honest game trailers:

• Kingdom Hearts
• FIFA 2015
• The Last Of Us
• The Walking Dead
• Pokémon Gold And Silver
• Super Smash Bros.
• World Of Warcraft
• Dark Souls
• Destiny
• The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
• Team Fortress 2
• and more

Via Smosh Games

If we have to put up with constant reminders on social media that our friends’ lives are better than ours, at least some of their updates can be delivered in the cleverest of ways. One such couple saw a great opportunity to make a joke about their pregnancy announcement since neither one of them actually contributed sperm in order to conceive. Reddit user MeggoEggo1 posted a picture of her with her wife wearing coordinating Hers-Hers T-shirts: “I’m pregnant” and “I’m not the father.” I swear, as long as people get pregnant, Maury Povich jokes will survive every attempt against them.

On the Reddit post titled “A nontraditional baby announcement for a nontraditional family,” the mom-to-be (not the physically expectant one) answered a few questions about their growing family including how they decided who would carry the baby:

 

Classy responses to trolls:

 

Answers to even stupider questions:

 

And plans for the future, plus some great parenting advice in general:

 

Yeah, this kid is going to be just fine. With moms like these, he or she will grow up with a lot of love and a wicked sense of humor.

Via Cosmopolitan

Helen Green drew all the hairstyles worn by David Bowie from before he was a star in 1964 on up to the present day. Here's they are in a glorious animated GIF:

Green also did a one-sheet of the B&W drawings. See also every Prince hairstyle from 1978 to 2013. (via @Coudal)

Tags: David Bowie   Helen Green   illustration   music

Set your DVRs, plan your viewing parties, and start getting excited: CBS has officially announced that Late Show With Stephen Colbert will premiere on Tuesday, September 8. Dave Itzkof of The New York Times broke the news on Twitter and included a comment from the incoming host:

Last month, David Letterman announced that his final show will be Wednesday, May 20, which means there will be a three-month gap in between new shows. That would make May through September the last trimester for Colbert’s show-baby, so someone should tell Colbert that this is when the most growth takes place and he should look into some stretchy pants and a serious air conditioner.

Via Twitter

Bill Cosby is currently on three-date standup tour in Canada, full of standing ovations and heated protests in light of ongoing sexual allegations against the comedy legend. The dividing line is clear and the supporters have been coming out left and right, something I can only assume has given Cosby a little confidence.

That’s the only way I can really understand these comments he made to the audience and were then Tweeted out by at least 8 reporters at the show:

I’m not sure how to feel about this. I guess one way to look at it is he’s a guy who knows he isn’t guilty of a crime, so he’s going to joke about it. Make light of the situation and get people laughing. Good, clean fun with the Cos!

Of course that means the other way of looking at it is picturing Cosby as a giant peacock waving his crimes in the face of his critics and accusers, making a mockery of it on stage and showing that none of it truly affects him. What do you think?

(Via Mediaite)

sierracuse:

youngblackandvegan:

accras:

President Obama talks with Yolanda Renee King, 5, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 2013.

she has his eyes

GRANDDAUGHTER

Not great great granddaughter
Not great granddaughter

But GRANDDAUGHTER

Think about the generations and how far away the civil rights movement actually was not

I hate food. Well, more specifically, I hate that I need food. Sure, going to a BBQ place with some friends is a fun experience, but most of the time eating is a terrible inconvenience.

I used to think I was in the minority with this mentality. Whether I’m at home playing video games or at work on my computer, I always found it annoying that I’d have to stop what I’m doing to eat something. This usually leads to waiting until I’m absolutely starving and then binging on whatever easy junk I can get my hands on.

If you’re dieting, it’s even worse. I’m always having to watch what I eat, and the guidelines for a proper diet turn meal planning into a nightmare. They recommend you eat 5-6 times a day, within a certain calorie range, and with a specific ratio of carbs to protein. Trying to grocery shop for the week makes you feel like you’re in a chemistry lab. Come on, I just want to force something down my throat and get back to what I was doing without those annoying stomach pangs — hopefully without it being more cottage cheese, a popular diet food thanks to its high protein content. No one has ever put a spoonful of cottage cheese in their mouth and simultaneously uttered “I love life”.

So, when I heard about former Software Engineer Rob Rhinehart and his meal replacement drink, Soylent, I immediately placed an order. When looking into it, I found that a lot of people were like myself and tired of the usual meal-time routine. It makes sense, really. Think about it: corner delis sell lunchtime sandwiches for the ridiculous price of $6 because they know people will buy them out of necessity. I personally avoided this by making my own sandwiches at home, but doing so every day became a chore. So instead, I would make an entire week’s worth of sandwiches and throw them in the fridge in a large pile. This only worked though because I am unusual and didn’t care that Friday’s sandwich would come out of its baggy as a soggy mess.

Most of the support for Soylent came from fellow employees in the Tech Industry. I’m guessing it’s from a combination of factors. We tend to sit at our computers too long, and by the time we realize we are hungry, we’re starving and are quick to resort to junk food. Plus, I think programmers, engineers, and anyone that plays video games seriously are also more accepting of a meal-replacement beverage (just replace the Mountain Dew and Doritos with Soylent). We also are often found at our computers at awkward hours that aren’t conducive of thorough meal prep.

Take my boss, Mike, for example. He frequently is working into the early hours of the morning at his computer. Do you think when he gets hungry at 1 a.m. he makes himself some Beef Bourguignon with Maple-Glazed Carrots? No. More likely, he’s like me and shoves his mouth with cereal. So, when I brought in my Soylent for the office to try, he at least understood the mentality behind it. However, I think the Play-Doh taste would make it a hard sell for him. Actually, everyone at the office thought it was a great idea but would find it hard to convert to a gritty protein-shake type diet.

Personally, I’m still drinking it. In fact I just received another box of it. Soylent is so popular that as a new customer it took 6 months for them to expand their operation and send me my starter kit (it just includes a pitcher, though a nice one). Now that I’m in, though, I get additional shipments within the week. I’ve been drinking it for a few weeks now, usually for all meals except dinner. I feel great, I think I’m slowly losing weight since I can actually manage my caloric intake, and instead of getting sick of it I find myself craving it. Just be careful – a major ingredient is maltodextrin, which quickly absorbs into the blood. On the one hand it’s great because I can drink a small amount and immediately lose that hungry feeling, but on the other it’s like drinking a candy bar, so you want to drink Soylent slowly throughout the day instead of binging on it a couple times.

I don’t know how successful Soylent will end up being; I doubt it will become a common household staple. It does show though that there *is* a demand for healthy and easy food alternatives, and I can only imagine what Soylent and other competitors will evolve into. Hmmm, Doritos flavored Soylent sounds pretty good, actually…

Adam Greenwood of Lancaster, England found himself in a bit of a sticky situation. While riding a Virgin train from London to Glasgow, Greenwood felt the urge to use the onboard restroom. The problem came once he realized he had no toilet paper.

It’s not a dire a situation, but it is certainly a bit of a laughable embarrassment to deal with. That’s why Greenwood took to Twitter to inform the public of his situation. From Buzzfeed:

As soon as I saw the was no paper I instantly thought, let’s tweet about it and make people laugh. There were a few small laughs on Twitter but nothing more.

Luckily the right people were paying attention and Virgin Trains official account soon started to ask questions, seeking to help Greenwood out of his situation.

It wasn’t long after that wheels were put in motion to save Greenwood’s sphinx from disaster:

I tweeted back with the carriage number and I shortly after I saw a guy looking quite worried in a full black suit carrying toilet roll, after the awkward exchange and smiles I grabbed it off him and finished what I started!

This is a much better experience than the time I flew British Airways and got caught in some turbulence mid-squeeze. There was no friendly smile or courtesy then, just a lot of knocking and a frantic teen attempting to pinch one off without being thrown into the ceiling. A good toilet experience is an important thing.

(Via UPI / Buzzfeed)

Netflix, which is reportedly at least partially behind the significant drop in movie attendance among younger viewers in back-to-back years — wants more than just to cut into the movie theater business. Netflix wants to ensure its dominance globally. In order to do so, however, Netflix needs to shore up its country restrictions.

That’s why, according to The Verge, Netflix is finally starting to crack down on subscribers in other countries who use various technological tools to gain access to Netflix in America, which offers a different catologue than other countries.

Many users rely on VPNs — virtual private networks — or custom DNS settings to stealthily access Netflix as though they were in other regions. But Netflix may have started closing some of those loopholes. Torrent Freak reports that, in the past few weeks, popular VPN services like TorGuard have started seeing a spike in errors when users try to access Netflix.

On the other hand, those of you who are still borrowing Netflix passwords from friends and family members need not worry; Netflix, so far, has no plans to crack down on that practice, although it is illegal to share passwords for Netflix or any other streaming service in Tennessee.

Source: The Verge

by Hallie Bateman

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by Ester Bloom

Here’s your horror story for the day, in case you needed one: an able-bodied, 30-year-old Princeton graduate living in New York City became so enraged with his parents for threatening to reduce his allowance and stop paying his rent that he killed his father and tried to make the death look like a suicide.

Police said the son entered his parents’ Beekman Place home Sunday afternoon and asked his mother to get him a sandwich.

Boyce said that the mother “had a bad feeling” after leaving the two men alone together and decided to return to the apartment, but when she came back she found her husband shot in the head in his bedroom.

The allowance reduction, by the way, was going to take him down from $400 a week to $300.

Perhaps it’s a good time to read that Michael Lewis piece going around about “What Wealth Does To Your Soul.”

He cites one study that found that richer people are more likely to be unscrupulous:

The value of winning $50 is greater for the poor, and, by implication, the incentive for lying in our study greater. Yet it was our wealthy participants who were far more likely to lie for the chance of winning fifty bucks.

There is plenty more like this to be found, if you look for it. A team of researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute surveyed 43,000 Americans and found that, by some wide margin, the rich were more likely to shoplift than the poor. Another study, by a coalition of nonprofits called the Independent Sector, revealed that people with incomes below 25 grand give away, on average, 4.2 percent of their income, while those earning more than 150 grand a year give away only 2.7 percent.

A UCLA neuroscientist named Keely Muscatell has published an interesting paper showing that wealth quiets the nerves in the brain associated with empathy: If you show rich people and poor people pictures of kids with cancer, the poor people’s brains exhibit a great deal more activity than the rich people’s. (An inability to empathize with others has just got to be a disadvantage for any rich person seeking political office, at least outside of New York City.) “As you move up the class ladder,” says Keltner, “you are more likely to violate the rules of the road, to lie, to cheat, to take candy from kids, to shoplift, and to be tightfisted in giving to others. Straightforward economic analyses have trouble making sense of this pattern of results.”

Yikes. The truth is, though, the more you have, the scarier loss can seem. It makes sense that people with privilege might do whatever is necessary to retain their hold on their advantages. In novels, after all, the fall is rough: Lily Bart doesn’t descend from the leisure class to the middle; she ends up dying in a rooming house after failing as a seamstress.

My question is, do these findings hold true in countries with more robust safety nets? Maybe if there’s no real threat of poverty and disgrace, rich people have less to fear and so can behave better.

Regardless, take heart! If you’re an ethical rich person, that means you can feel extra good about yourself; if you’re a not-that-ethical rich person, you’re average; and if you’re an ethical not-rich person, you can feel morally superior. Win win win!

14 Comments

Over the holiday, the Smithsonian's Freer|Sackler art galleries put more than 40,000 works of art online; that's their entire collection available for high-resolution download. Here's the announcement on their blog.

We've digitized our entire collection and today, we're making it available to the public. That's thousands of works now ready for you to download, modify, and share for noncommercial purposes. As Freer|Sackler Director Julian Raby said, "We strive to promote the love and study of Asian art, and the best way we can do so is to free our unmatched resources for inspiration, appreciation, academic study, and artistic creation."

Great to see galleries and museums doing this sort of thing, e.g. the Met and all the institutions participating in The Commons at Flickr. (via the verge)

Tags: art

According to People, Joseph Gordon-Levitt married his girlfriend, Tasha McCauley, in a private ceremony at their home back on December 20. Presumably, the couple said their vows, then he did this:

The private star didn’t talk much about his relationship, saying in 2013, “I have a girlfriend but I tend not to really like to talk about it in public. The girl that I’m with, she really doesn’t want to be a part of that.”

Gordon-Levitt is one of those universal boyfriends we all share, which explains that slight twinge of loss you’re experiencing right now. And he knows that.

But let’s not mourn–let’s celebrate. Clearly, McCauley is a catch — she’s the co-founder and CEO of Fellow Robots, a robotics company at NASA Research Park. So she can probably just build you your own JGL! Double win!

Congratulations to the couple. We’ll be watching 10 Things I Hate About You and dreaming.