I was in my car, approaching a “T” intersection when I spotted something I wanted to take a picture of. It was a bare, almost white tree sticking up like a giant skeletal arm and hand. The light ahead was red anyway, so I slowed down and turned on the camera in my phone.

I ran my window down and held the phone out to snap the picture. I knew it probably wouldn’t look good, as I had rolled too far away passed it, and I wasn’t holding the phone steady out the window.

A car had come up behind me by this time, and the driver honked his horn. Oops, I thought. The light, about 30 yards ahead, was still red, but I still shouldn’t have slowed down so much in the middle of the road. I was in the wrong, so I gave up on the photograph and drove on up to the light.

The light was still red when I stopped at the line. I was putting away my cell phone when the guy behind me blew his horn again. Crap, I thought. I looked up and saw the light had changed to green. But it must have just that second turned green, because the car in the lane beside me also hadn’t started moving before I looked up.

I thought, Wow, that guy behind me is in a hell of a hurry. I pulled on out just a half-second after the car in the lane beside me. The first time the guy blew his horn, I deserved it, barely. The second time, the guy was just being too impatient. I mean, come on: I held him up from getting to a red light faster, and then I was what, a second late noticing the light had changed to green.

As I got a couple hundred yards down the road, I thought I should pull over and just let the guy get past. I sure as hell didn’t want to hold him up another second. There was very little traffic on the road at that point, so I pulled off to the side to let him past. As he went past, he laid on his horn for a few seconds. OK, then he was just an asshole. I flipped him the finger, and pulled back onto the road.

A couple miles down the road, he pulled into the left turning lane to turn at an intersection. I continued straight, and I laughed well when I went past him and noticed the dozen or so cars ahead of him and the heavy traffic coming from the other direction. He’d probably have to sit through another red light. That jackass needs to learn patience.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I just tried watching what I thought would be a fun action movie: House of Flying Daggers. Unfortunately, I found it so just bad that I turned it off after 30 minutes. I know some people like or love that movie, and I rented it based on some reviews from them, but it just wasn’t good to me. There have been a few other movies I found so bad that I turned them off before the end, for instance: Death Proof.

I’ve had someone (not a friend) say that stopping a movie before the end is immature. Movies don’t always give you the good stuff all right up front, and they have to lay groundwork to support the better stuff coming after.

I don’t expect a movie to give me all the best stuff right from the beginning. I understand some things need to build up over the course of a story. But I do expect a movie to be interesting and logical (within its world) from the beginning. I don’t want to watch an hour of watching the grass grow to get to the part where the lawnmower comes through to make it exciting.

I want to be at least entertained while waiting for the great stuff. I want the build up to be interesting. My free time is too rare to sit through an un-entertaining movie. I don’t think it’s immature to give up on a movie before the end if the first part isn’t good. I see it as just good sense not to throw a good hour after a bad hour watching a crappy movie. After all, there’s no guarantee that the second hour of a movie will be any better than the first hour. I figure if the writers and director can’t make the first part entertaining, they probably can’t make the second part good.

I can be immature in many other ways without wasting time.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com