Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Cowboys, characters and the barley incident.

There’s a lot of really big news to report tonight so I’d better get right to the point. First, Dallas Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips (pictured below with a pre-menstrual headache) was fired yesterday after leading his team to another humiliating loss.
Here in Dallas a Cowboys coaching change gets as much attention and television air time as a nuclear accident or approaching hurricane, because apparently nothing matters to north Texans except: 1) football; 2) beer; and 3) where is George W. autographing his memoir tomorrow. (The answer to item three is Borders in Plano.)

In other news, today was Edna Mae Oliver day on Turner Classic Movies, commemorating 68 years since her death in 1942. I should have reported this yesterday so you’d have a chance to watch or record her films, and I apologize profusely for this oversight. Edna Mae was a very popular character actress in the 1920s and 30s with a face like Trigger. Although she was mostly a comedienne, she also appeared in a few dramas but always wound up being funny, anyway. Her movies today on TCM included The Penguin Pool Murder, Meet the Baron (one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen co-starring Jimmy Durante and the Three Stooges), Murder on the Blackboard, We’re Rich Again, Murder on a Honeymoon and No More Ladies.

And finally, a devastating retail announcement: OUR LOCAL WAL-MART DOESN’T SELL BARLEY. I discovered this perplexing fact earlier today when I was loading up on ingredients for homemade beef barley soup and managed to find everything I needed EXCEPT for the requisite bag of barley. Wal-Mart wasn’t out of it ... they just don’t carry it. After I composed myself I realized my soup would be delayed until Sam makes a quick trip to Kroger in the morning. I’ll publish the recipe tomorrow so you can make some for yourself. Seriously, it’s the best beef barley soup EVER. Thank you for reading this.

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