I know my nemesis.

Listen up, people! It's me, Matt McClane, coming at you with another exciting adventure further into... THE TIRADE!!!!!

(It's important to remember that I began writing this blog entry with the goal and idea of having giant Photoshopped images and hilarious captions, etc. into it, but things don't always pan out like we'd like, do they? Do they Skeletor? If you still don't believe me about how things don't always pan out like we'd like, consult THIS GUY.)

I'm here to give you a bit of a biology lesson today. Well, hang on, let me take that back. I'm here to give you a bit of a religious-cult / devil influenced / biology lesson today.

Basically I'm gonna go ahead and fill you in on a bunch of junk you obviously don't know (unless you're one of the scientists that accidentally turned a teen into a car, then you definitely already know this stuff).

There's one species on this planet that transcends simple biology. This unique animal's bimolecular makeup is like nothing you've ever seen; made of thousands and billions of very interesting strands of DNA super-matter inside its brain.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that this animal is the devil.

All that science stuff all leads to some un-knowable source beyond the areas of human understanding. This creature was actually born in hell, forged in the fires of Mount Doom and was kept as a pet (for training purposes) by the Fiery Man of the Magma.

Actually, I just made up that part about the Fiery Man of the Magma, but I think that should somehow be inserted into Pop Culture as just another one of the shit-tons of names for the devil. Let's work on that, okay, readers?

Somehow, back to the point: the creature I'm here to talk about is evil. It wants blood. It wants OUR blood, and it will stop at nothing to get it. This killing machine that I speak of?

The woodpecker.

How do I know all this, readers? Because that damn thing wakes me up every single morning at 6:45 by jackhammering the back of my apartment like a flippin' machine gun.

I guess those of you who live right beside a massive skyscraper construction site know exactly what I'm talking about. Or even those of you who actually live on a machine gun firing range. It's a nightmare, isn't it? 6:45 is just so damn early for me.

This morning, the bird was slashing into my wall, directly above my bed, with blood-craving, bone-sawing accuracy. It seemed to have located the spot outside my apartment that's literally inches away from where my head lies on my pillow. I'll give it to him: he's a crafty, methodical bastard. I HATE that bird. HATE it. But dammit, do I respect it.

With every punch of his razor sharp beak, his movements appear to me in slow motion, as a flaming spire of red and yellow flashes blaze from his mouth into the wood. Sparks and lasers fly out of the newly-made hole. The adrenaline surges in my fists, causing me to jump out of bed and shake my fist repeatedly at the wall like a 70-year-old man in a nursing home, complaining about his stale soup.

This scenario is a typical morning these days.

You see, my apartment, unlike most, is made entirely of this material called 'wood'. For at least a whole millennium, apartments were forged out of powerful iron, sweat, screams of pain and concrete. Now a days we have this material called 'wood' that these devil hell-creatures crave like a lusting French prostitute craves American tourists. Tourists with oddly-fitting fanny packs. Tourists who are traveling all alone. Tourists who will most likely be at the corner of Rue de Rivoli and Avenue Victoria at 10:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 4th, in case any of you Paris-based French Whores are in the area and looking for a good time.

I know what a lot of you are thinking, or possibly even speaking out loud right now. Maybe you're even reading this with your friends on a typical Friday night. If any of that is the case, let me go ahead and put a cap on this quote:

"I'd buy me a b.b. gun."

Or this clever one:

"I'd get out there and shoot that damn thing with something. Probably a gun."

Either way, we have to acknowledge that I do live in the city. Technically. Also, my incredibly cool landlord keeps a series of video cameras around the property. I'm not trying to say that he'd care if I was to carry around a rifle through the bushes of his apartment complex area... I'm just thinking that it would be possible to trigger a mean war flashback of some kind from the old man who lives a few buildings down.

There's one thing that I DO know, readers, and that's a solid rule: don't give old dudes flashbacks, man. Whether it's a major land war or acid, don't get those guys fired up. If they don't come at you with a weapon of some kind (mostly it's going to be that extra pair of dentures that they've sharpened into a shiv, a clubbing device of some kind or some plastic silverware), they're going to use direct physical combat training to disarm you and more than likely resort to ball-flipping or dick-smashing with their fists.

I do NOT want to get caught carrying around a rifle, and most definitely not at 6:45 a.m. Besides, at that time of the morning, I got no aiming skills. I can barely hit the toilet with my piss on most mornings. How the hell am I supposed to shoot a little demon bird from a mile away with a pellet gun?

Plus, these things are extremely fast. We're talking Flash fast. We're talking super speed. Since they came from Hades, these woodpeckers actually coined the term, "Fast as Hell," because they just are. If you don't believe me, why don't you become a freakin' woodpecker hunter and see how much money you make, bud. Yeah, don't quit your day job.

Anyway, short of camping out all night long in a bush next to Micah and Whitney's back porch with a hand cannon, I've already come up with a few solutions that'll do the trick. In the morning I plan on covering the back of the apartment building with Holy Water I stole (ala "The Lost Boys" style) from the parish last night. This will help burn the animal's talons when they latch onto the wood, hopefully delaying their machine gun attack.

(Editor's note: I am NOT shitting you here, people. These things LITERALLY sound like a jackhammering machine gun is crashing through your wall. Ladies, if you don't believe me, let's schedule a time for you to come by one night this week, say... Friday... and join me in a "let's stay up all night to hear the woodpecker jackhammer" session and you'll totally see what I mean.)

Anyway, after the Holy Water I'm going to get Jared McClane, who's actually an ordained minister, to come bless the back of the apartment and anoint it with oils and stuff. Basically it's just a formality, since he uses this mixture of generic Kroger-brand olive oil and Bud Light. The trick, though, is to do it while the satanic monster bird is watching and listening from a distance. Maybe even some dialogue will help sell the deal:

Jared: I hearby anoint this apartment building with the sacred oil of the spirit and heaven for every and all eternity, amen.

Matt: Thank you, REVERED, for delivering such a strong blessing on the back of my apartment building. Now that all these powerful BLESSINGS are on this apartment, any certain animals from hell that come near it will really definitely perish under their powers. Especially any and all birds that happen to be in the area. I sure hope they're not listening right now.

Jared: Fuck yeah.

Well, don't worry readers, we'll work this out. I have some secret skills up my sleeve for dealing with this situation (Read: I'll just call my landlord and have him spray some stuff back there), so don't worry. Everything's going to be just fine.

If you don't hear back from me in a few days... I'll see you in hell. With that bird's corpse in my bony, hell-fire-burned hand.

I love you.

-McClane






Also, while we're getting in touch with nature's comedians, check this guy out. He looks like he'd be a whole shit-ton of fun: