S'no fun in Seattle

Okay, I'm all ready. Now where's the damn snow?

Billboard Names 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time

Unsurprisingly, this was #1:

You can find the rest here.

" And Starring Miss Susan Sarandon as Victoria Barkley"

I normally hate remakes, but I find this intriguing...

Susan Sarandon Eyeing "Big Valley"

Eyeing Barbara Stanwyck's role in film version of '60s series

By Jay A. Fernandez

Feb 10, 2010, 11:00 PM ET

Susan Sarandon is in talks to become the matriarch of the Barkley clan.

Kate Edelman Johnson is producing a feature film version of "The Big Valley," based on the TV show created by her late father, producer Louis F. Edelman, and writer A.I. Bezzerides. The Western series, which ran on ABC from 1965-69, starred Barbara Stanwyck as the matriarch of a ranching family in the 1870s San Joaquin Valley.

Sarandon would take on the part of Victoria Barkley, originated by Stanwyck.

Edelman Johnson's producing partner, Daniel Adams ("The Lightkeepers"), has written the feature screenplay and will direct. Johnson and Adams' Panther Entertainment will produce, with a May start date planned for principal photography in Michigan and New Mexico.

"I am so thrilled to be filming this project, not only to honor my father and Miss Stanwyck but to bring a great woman's part to the screen as head of this historical family saga," Edelman Johnson said.

"Etienne"

Beebo and I have been cooking at home more and more, because it doesn't seem that hard anymore, and most of time, it's more fun and cheaper than going out. Our division of labor usually goes this way: Foulard cooks meat and does the dishes; Beebo grocery-shops and does most of the other cooking.


Lately, my favorite instrument for cooking meat has been a non-stick two-burner griddle. It's very handy because it has a large surface area--you can cook meat on one side and potatoes or vegetables on the other side. You can also toast hamburger buns on it, make scrambled eggs, pancakes, or grilled cheese sandwiches. I enjoy the efficiency of cooking everything on one area--it makes me feel like a short order cook (somehow, I find this appealing).

We bought the griddle around the same time we bought an extra-larger frying pan. For some reason, we gave them names in an effort to differentiate them from each other--the griddle became 'Etienne' and the frying pan became...I forget what we called it--the name didn't stick (no pun intended).

For such a cheap item, it's been extremely useful.

Here's to you, Etienne! Or should I say, à votre santé!

Le Poster

When I was a kid, my folks got all their gasoline from Gulf gas stations--they had a charge card there. Does anybody do this anymore?

In 1971, Gulf had a tie-in with the new Steve McQueen movie, Le Mans, and were giving out a poster of him, much like the one shown above. It ended up on my bedroom wall, and in anticipation of the movie, I became a five year-old Steve McQueen fan. This was also at a time when racing was a big glamor sport, and people like Paul Newman and James Garner were playing race car drivers in movies (and sometimes racing in real life). There wasn't some over-inflated culture clash thing going on like there is now, when some people are supposed to love Nascar and some aren't. It was also before the big oil crisis, so driving like hell and using tons of gas seemed like a fine idea.

Anyhow, I was down with the program, too. I had a red nylon windbreaker that had an STP patch on one arm and a crossed racing flags patch on the other. And I think we ended up going to see the movie, though I'm not sure about that.

In the 90s, I watched it on VHS, and found it somewhat mystifying. As Wikipedia says:

"The film is today still popular among race fans as it is a relatively accurate depiction of the era, with a lot of racing but very little dialogue. Due to this, and partly to the American market's general low awareness of the Le Mans 24 Hour race, it was only a moderate success at the box office there."

The lack of plot and dialogue makes it a bit thick for someone who doesn't get really excited by racing cars.

But I thought the poster was cool!

The Man With a Plan

Tina Brown was on NPR this morning talking about recent political memoirs, and reminded us of this classic moment of the 2008 presidential campaign:

In the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 6, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson published an exerpt from his new book, On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System. It describes the scene at the White House in September 2008, after Sen. John McCain dramatically suspended his presidential campaign and flew back to Washington, calling on all political hands to join him in rescuing the collapsing U.S. economy.

"It really was, I thought, a riveting account," Brown says. "There is a great scene in here, where McCain finally gets this meeting that he's summoned. And then what Paulson gives is an account of how, in the meeting with the president, with all the players assembled including [then-candidate] Obama, McCain had absolutely nothing to say. It was like, 'I'm here to stop the fire! Uhhhhh, yeah: Well, maybe I'll just stand here and wait for a pail.' And finally Obama says loudly ... 'I'd like to hear what Sen. McCain has to say, since we haven't heard from him yet.' "

Writes Paulson:

As [McCain] spoke, I could see Obama chuckling. McCain's comments were anticlimactic, to say the least. His return to Washington was impulsive and risky, and I don't think he had a plan in mind. If anything, his gambit only came back to hurt him, as he was pilloried in the press afterward, and in the end, I don't believe his maneuver significantly influenced the TARP legislative process.

It's a revealing look, Brown says, at an "amazing moment in politics, completely subsuming any real care for this crisis that the country was in at the time." Better yet, it's a startlingly direct-seeming bit of reportage — in a partisan era, from a Republican-appointed Treasury secretary — on an incident that left a Republican presidential candidate looking less than presidential.

"I think that, to me, is what's authentic about it," Brown says. "It did feel like a real piece of reporting, which I didn't expect."

Beebo's New Logo

Beebo has a new logo/masthead for her blog:What do you think of it? I think it's a bit cutesy, myself!