Over the weekend, 8 of the hours that weren't spent playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or frolicking ecstatically with friends and new friends or paying off sleep debt were spent sitting in movie theaters. Those who know me well know that I hate talking about film in general, so much so that I patently refuse to talk about a movie withing 100 yards of the theater after walking out, but since you're reading this on your own volition, I figure it gives me the right.

In any case, two of those hours were spent Saturday watching "Bowling for Columbine", the new Michael Moore film. I highly recommend it, if only because it might change your mind about whether or not scruffy, obese men can squeeze out more than one good documentary. But seriously, it was great in that makes-you-really-question-a-lot-of-things-to-the-point-where-you-want-to-do-something-about-it kind of way. I will try to not wreck the movie for those who haven't seen it (not that there is some sort of crazy "he's really her brother and their father is the evil guy" kind of plot twist), and will just assume (you and me, we're asses) that the rock you happen to live under is within crawling distance of the 24 theaters in the country that are playing it and you've gone and seen it. It wasn't so much about the gun issue as it was about the U.S. and our society driven by fear. Sensational stories about people killing and stealing beget high ratings. High ratings allow media to sell advertising space. Advertising strikes fear into your heart, making you believe that you can't talk to the girl on the street because you don't drive a Lexus or use the right toothpaste or your furniture isn't shiny enough because you don't use the latest waxy wood cleaner. Fear, spoon-fed by our sensationalistic media and our money hungry advertisers and corporations--oh yeah, that's me. I make a decent living working for a large make-you-buy-things-kind-of-place, making people aspire to unattainable lifestyles, overextending themselves, making them feel bad for not having what I have to sell them. Great.
Having said all that, do you want to maybe move to Canada with me? I'm thinking about leaving my doors unlocked somewhere in Vancouver. There's good snowboarding there, good concrete skateparks, and it's a relatively nice, new city. I realize it's pretty far from Graceland, but it's close to Seattle, and I like Nirvana more than I like Elvis, so that doesn't matter too much. It's close to Los Angeles too, so we could visit our friends here. Oh, maybe you don't have any friends here, but we could visit MY friends here. If you're a girl, and we get to like each other, maybe we could visit my family too. All the recent garbage about my loving Los Angeles has just gone out the window, because I think I love Canada now, and I'm now, I'm not sure I'm entirely happy about what I do.