There are now three people who read my blog regularly: my fiancee, my dad, and my friend Jess. Woohoo! Thanks for your interest, Jess. If anyone else reads this regularly, please let me know. It’s fun to know who my audience is.
Jen and I had another really busy, super-fun weekend.
Friday night we met up with Ben and Jess at the Royal Exchange for drinks and dinner. Then we walked to the Embarcadero and saw what is probably the most important documentary of our lifetime, Bowling for Columbine. It was a special preview screening that Michael Moore himself attended. It was an amazing and rare opportunity to hear from the director/interviewer, who also wrote Stupid White Men.
The film was inspired by the Columbine shootings in April 1999 and began as a documentary about gun control. But it turned into so much more. The audience journeys with Moore as he explores why America is such a gun-obsessed nation and why our gun-related homicide rate is more than 11,000 people per year — compared with only hundreds, or, in some cases, fewer than 100, in other countries. Other countries like Canada, he realizes, simply have a different ethic than does America, where we proudly hold a “Fuck Everybody” attitude. We also live in a society of fear that is created and fueled by the media and by Washington. Moore’s documentary is incredibly powerful and will hopefully make people question the way this country is run. Jen got to ask Moore a question about why he’s a member of the NRA. He explained that his original plan was to take over the organization from the inside, but decided that was too much work and opted instead to make this film. Here’s a review of the film in the UK Guardian.
Saturday morning after a quick brunch with Karen and Bill at Easy Street Cafe, Jen and I headed home for a bit and actually managed to squeeze in some house cleaning and laundry. I even was able to begin installation of a new OS on my home computer, too. (It now flies like the wind with a brand-spankin’ clean install of Windows 2000.) Then it was off to the city.
We met up with Ben and Jess for the Sixth-Annual (but our first) Consorzio Cal-Italia Wine Tasting, with proceeds benefitting Hands On San Francisco. For a mere 30 bucks a head, it was more than worth it for unlimited food and wine for a full 3 hours. We even walked out with an entire loaf of bread each. The gals were the designated drivers, so Ben and I were having a grand ol’ time by the end of the day. Jen did a great job driving the Scoobie up hills back to Ben and Jess’ place. We spent the rest of the night kickin’ it at their pad, where Ben and I exchanged disbelief that the other also owned a rubber plant.
Sunday we met up with Tiff, Miguel, Aniko, Jeanine, and others at Crissy Field to watch the full Blue Angels show, only part of which we had seen on Saturday. The rest of the evening was pretty chill, mostly watching the Giants advance to within one game of clinching the NLCS. Go Benito!
Tonight is the beer focus group. Before that, it’s time for a cleaning at the dentist.