K&K's engagement has a nice big ring to it

Reality TV's Kim Kardashian nets Kris Humphries and a weighty 20.5-carat engagement ring, according People.com.

Finally! They've been dating for so long. What's it been, six months?

Kardashian may be happy, but I can't imagine Kris' dad, Will Humphries, who owns some Minnesota 5 Guys restaurants with his son, is really all that thrilled.

For one thing, if this engagement culminates in a marriage, it means the NBA player for the New Jersey Nets will have to be more influenced by his wife (and probably her mother) than his dad, who reportedly likes to control situations.

Daddy Humphries, who's been known to predict no marriage will ever occur, could not be reached for comment Wednesday regarding this joyous news.

No boost to local economy

If Daddy Humphries truly isn't happy about this development, Minneapolis' Gittelson Jewelers can relate.

"Lorraine Schwartz," Gittelson said with a question in his voice Wednesday after researching jewelry websites about the designer of Kardashian's rock.

"It's a 16.5-carat, emerald-cut diamond and it has two trapezoids, side diamonds, to enhance the center. They bought it from this woman who reportedly sells to a lot of celebrities. Dammit, they go to a person who sells [to] a lot of celebrities. She just does that for those people, dammit. I can't tell you what it cost, what kind of a markup there is. They say he paid $2 million for it. It's a very unique, expensive ring. Should have been from a local hometown boy, Gittelson Jewelers."

People.com reports that Humphries said, "I just knew I wanted it to be big." He was waiting in Kardashian's bedroom on bended knee to pop the question.

"I was in such shock," Kardashian told People.

"Kris didn't want a big celebration, but he had jokingly told my mom that he'd be fine if there were mini-horses there. Later that night, at the party, my mom brought out two mini-horses covered in glitter, for us! It was hysterical," she told People, which may have photos of this dog-and-pony show in Friday's issue.

A philanthropic alternative

"Who on earth needs to be wearing a 20-carat, $2 million engagement ring?" read an e-mail I received Wednesday. "Kris could be making one of his 'philanthropic' donations to the people of north Minneapolis, who need homes after the tornado!"

Oh, leave him alone. A professional athlete only gets engaged once.

Farm boy meets PETA guy

There was a kooks-free perimeter established around a meeting last week between Minnesota state Sen. Doug Magnus and PETA's senior veep, Dan Mathews, who flew in from Norfolk, Va.

"He walked into my office, I said, 'You don't look like you're a kook. Do I look like I'm a kook?'" Magnus recounted to me. "He said 'no.' I said, 'I'm just a farm boy. I don't know where you get some of the information you've sent out that says bad things about me, swear at me and yell at me, and say I must never have been to a farm before and don't have any pets,'" said Magnus, who backed up his words with photos of himself on the farm. "I said, 'We've got all kinds of pets out there, so I'm not an anti-animal person.' We had a very good discussion."

Magnus said he introduced the bill at the request of some agriculture groups.

Mathews told me: "Big multimillion-dollar [companies] Monsanto and all the big corporations that have factory farms have convinced the lawmakers in ag states to propose bills that make it illegal for PETA to go in and film. I was pleased he did not intend to push his bill through this session. As soon as Sen. Magnus realized how we worked with law enforcement so closely, it made him reconsider the whole thing."

Magnus said, "I don't recall saying" that he was unaware PETA worked with law enforcement officials. "We didn't get into too much enforcement," said Magnus.

But they were in agreement that "I'm not going to turn into a vegetarian and he's not going to have steaks with me. But otherwise, we get along just fine."