Paula's drunk; Bowfinger's funny; Card is wise

Extraordinarily rough workout this morning. I’m not holding up well, particularly my back. To paraphrase Berkeley Breathed, I don’t think the Schwarzeneggerization of Stallion is meant to be.

Oh my living starts and garters. Idol last night was stunningly awful. Barbarino Castro and Brooke White need to go home. Now. David Archuleta is way talented, but he’s phoning it in. Syesha is starting to step up, but it’s too little too late. David Cook has the confidence of a rock star and is the most fun to watch of all of them, but that’s not saying much. I want Melinda Doolittle to come back from last season and win it all.

And what to make of Paula Abdul, stoned out of her mind? For her to ramble on about how Jason Castro’s second song left her “empty” before he’d even sung his second song, and then to say she was reading ahead to notes about David Cook, who she later said was her favorite.

Does anyone care that one of the judges shows up for work drunk off her tuckus every single night?

We watched Bowfinger after the kids went to bed, and that movie needs to be added to the list of the five best movies you’ve never seen. It’s got plenty of laughs throughout, but it holds the distinction of featuring the single funniest moment ever committed to film. The premise is that Steve Martin is filming a movie without Eddie Murphy realizing that he’s in it. Eddie Murphy also plays a nerdy stand-in who is asked by Martin to run across both sides of a busy freeway and avoid the “stunt drivers” in a pivotal scene. Neither I nor Mrs. Cornell could breathe by the end of it. If you’re not roaring with laughter after watching that, there is something seriously wrong with you.

I looked for it on YouTube, but I could only find it with some Scandinavian voiceover. The freeway bit doesn’t kick in until about halfway through, but even if you don’t speak Finnish, it will still make you howl.



Renowned Sci-Fi author and Latter-day Saint Orson Scott Card writes a weekly column that is always worth reading. His latest takes JK Rowling to task for her lawsuit against the publisher of the Harry Potter Lexicon. I was sympathetic to Rowling until I read Card’s very persuasive piece. Card also owns a website called the Ornery American where he does political commentary, and while he insists he’s still a Democrat, I have yet to find any other pundit with views that so closely parallel my own.

That may mean I’m not much of a Republican anymore, but I also think Card is in a state of denial re: his own party affiliation. It doesn’t matter - neither party is worth much of anything these days, so I take political wisdom wherever I can find it.

Card is also a great source for finding great books and CDs that you would never know about otherwise. His recommendation for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ought to be passed along, as it was the best book I read last year, Harry Potter included. Except I don’t understand why Patrick Rothfuss insists on wearing a goofy top hat in all of his author photos.

Writers are weirdos.