I just finished watching Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine with Seema and Nick. Should you not know, Nick is one of my roommates. He is a 3rd year medical student like I am at UT-Houston. He went to school in Missouri, but we shouldn’t make fun of him for that. I should tell the story behind how I met him. Back in the spring of 2001, I had graduated from Texas A&M the year before and was back in Dallas working in the Small Business Administration lending department of Compass Bank. One day, my mom told me Ken Leveno (a family friend and tremendously accomplished obstetrician) met a guy working up at Parkland Hospital (the county hospital in Dallas) who would also be attending UT-Houston Medical School with me that fall. He had mentioned possibly being roommates, and that I should e-mail him and introduce myself. At that point, I wanted nothing to do with roommates and simply wanted to live by myself for a few years. So I e-mailed him and let him know my position. Later that spring I got to meet him at a mixer. I actually still remember the circumstances of the meeting. We were all congregating a bar in the Village (which no longer exists), and this dude with dark curly hair and a baseball hat walks up and says he’s Nick Hamilton who worked at Parkland. I think we played some pool or something, then I got too drunk to remember anything else about that night except that I danced the night away at a place called the Gallant Knight on Holcombe with a bunch of students who were 1st years at the time (actually they’re all doctors x1 week now). Geez, I remember seeing Alan Kitchings from Aggie Fish Club that night too. Strange world. Anyway, that was my first exposure to Nick in person. Then the weekend before school started we met again, this time at a bar called Sherlock’s on Shepard and W. Grey. It was at this point when we both found out that we have mutual admiration for Ayn Rand and objectivism; proceeded to coo over one another the rest of the night; and have been friends ever since. Plus we drank WAY too much. I think that’s probably the main reason we’re friends is that we have an automatic drinking buddy, which turns out to be a lifesaver in medical school. So that’s how I know Nick and now unfortunately live with him. It turns out that he’s a remarkable person, but I can’t say too much good or bad, cause he’ll probably read this and I don’t want to deal with it later. (how’s that for a digression?) I need to talk about Seema too, but we’ll hold that for another blog.

So back to Bowling for Columbine. This film is absolutely wonderful! I’m not a terribly huge fan of what Michael Moore portrays in public (the left-winged, obnoxious, in-your-face anarchist), but I certainly am a huge fan of his filmmaking. His first venture, Roger & Me was a wonderful look at how important the GM plant was to Flint, Michigan and how devastated the town became after the company left. His second film Bowling for Columbine looks at the gun culture of America and tries to determine why homicide is such a problem here when it’s not a problem in gun-toting Canada or pussy European countries that don’t have any guns at all. The film looks at the National Rifle Association; our government’s penchant for killing people in other countries; the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; the White Man’s hatred for the Black Man; and much more. The filmmaking is excellent, the research is thorough, his conclusions are sound, I learned something, and I was entertained. So in my book, that’s a good movie. I highly think you should check this film out if you are interested in any of the things I just mentioned.

In other news, my mom confirmed for me that Dad is still smoke free, now on day 11. To quote her "I'm happy to say, Dad is still smoke-free. The sweats are less and so are the shakes. He is doing well." Sounds like fun eh? My dad quitting smoking is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen him do. Of course there are tons of others including raising good kids, earning a decent wage, and being a man of integrity. But his Achilles Heel has always been the wacky tobaccy, and I’m not talking about the fun wacky tobaccy. I’m talking about the legal shit that kills your lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, blood, bones, intestines, stomach, throat, mouth (you get the idea). I’ve never had an addiction like he has to smoking, but I know it’s an impossible thing to give something like that up. So I’m extremely proud of him right now. Seriously, he’s been saying he’d quit for 26 years (my lifetime) and never had the balls to actually do it. But something came over him a week ago Wednesday, and he quit. I pray to God it will stick.

The Lightning beat the Flames last night in OT. It was like 5 seconds into the 2nd OT, and it was an AWESOME game! Playoff hockey really kicks ass. I highly recommend that you partake in viewing someday…maybe even Monday night for the deciding game 7.