So much to tell!

Hey readers, sorry I've been away for so long.

Here's the high points of my sabbatical from the Tirade:

1. SUPER busy with work. Doing some really fun things that are shaping up to be great design, but there's just never enough time to do 'em. So you make time... and then you realize that you've just worked 75 hours in one week and your life has been sucked up into a vacuum cleaner run by a giant robot "Mega Maid."

2. HUGE creative project in the works. The Yellow House crew is once again teaming up to create something really, really fun. Tommy Forrester is at it again!!! You will probably see a teaser trailer in a few days, as well as a poster in the next few weeks. We haven't set a premier date yet, but it looks to be in the fall. Jus' keep a look out.

3. I saved the world from an impending alien robot invasion. You probably didn't hear about it since it all happened way the hell up in Northern Canada. Where my girlfriend lives.

4. Everybody is getting married. To hell with you people in love.

5. The Dark Knight ransacked my brains and caused me to slip into a "no-blog-writing coma," from which I've just now awakened. I plan on seeing it again soon... and this time I'm going to be prepared. I'll walk in there with aluminum foil wrapped around my skull, so to keep the "badassness radiation" from melting my cerebral cortex into silly putty.

6. Sometimes I just get tired of looking at a damn computer screen.

7. I got this cool new gas grill, and I've changed my middle name to "Steak-Man." This works out pretty well in supermarkets, at parties and in the company of friends. Unfortunately, it totally backfires and makes me look like a total dick when hanging out with all my vampire buddies, and when visiting the local homeless shelter. (Side note: grilling steaks is such a great thing to do in life. Hell... I think I'll go grill one up right now.)

8. Before I go grill this delicious New York Strip I recently purchased, #8 is for my favorite neighbor of all time and a good friend, Margaret, who moved away to Ohio. Marg: I wish you could be here to grill this steak with me on my new grill. The deck isn't the same without you shouting at me across the way. I miss you and hope you're doing well up in the dangerous war zones of Ohio. Sometimes I glance over at your old porch and envision your damned cat jumping around with that giant, weird plastic cone on it's head, and I smile a lot. Keep in touch, playa.

9. This year's Comic Con introduced a whole new level of awesomeness to my life. I feel like this one is a post all to itself, but I have to at least throw up the teaser poster unveiled at the show:



Yeah. That's mind-blowingly awesome to me. Please take a minute to visit my friend Justin's site over at Camp Voorhees for TONS more information from the SDCC, and amazing new quotes and information from the panel. My favorite quote by Derek Mears (the new Jason):

“What I’m really excited about is that the script is smart. It’s not your regular slasher film. It takes the best parts of [FRIDAY THE 13TH 2-4] and puts them all together. It puts the series back to reality and we understand the psychosis of why Jason’s doing what he’s doing.”

Absolutely amazing.

That's my update, readers. If you don't like the things I have to say to you: don't ever tell me, because not only will it give me a complex, it'll also cause me to visit your homes late at night with very stern letters about how you hurt my feelings and ruined my whole week with your selfishness.

But in all honesty: I love you all. I love you all so much that I'll make these cool dirt sculptures out of all of you as soon as I get some down time. I'll keep those dirt sculptures safe, and if anybody ever knocks them down or smashes them... they'll have hell to pay. I'll face them with some kind of mighty sword or something. Whatever I can find at that ninja store up in Gatlinburg. Nobody likes to get cut... but cutting is what I'll do. That's how much I love my readers.

This has been your captain speaking.

You may now unfasten your seat belts and move about the cabin.

-M

Brain Tumor Junk Yard

Hola Readers, it's me... Matt McClane.

You might remember me from such groundbreaking theatrical hits such as "Murder on Hinchey Hollow Road," "Too Late," "The Big Lick," "Badman & Sanchez 2: The Onslaught of Drako" and "Moonshine."

Today I ask of you a simple question: When does the junkyard start?

Today at work, we traveled to luxurious Morristown, Tennessee for three photo shoots at three different massive homes. These homes are part of our new home section in the magazine, which is working out pretty well.

Yeah, I know, I don't talk about work much on here. That's mostly because at work, I'm totally a completely different person than when I'm off the clock. When at work, I have the ethics of a bear, the mighty strength of a rhino, the understanding of an experienced wizard and the wisdom... of a man.

When I'm off work, I mostly just hang out in my underwear, drinking Gentleman Jack with one hand down the front of my pants like Al Bundy.



I mostly just repeatedly watch Arnold Schwarzenegger and Friday the 13th films. I'm the McClane you all know and love. That other person... well... let's just say that he's just like the ocean: he gives... and he takes away. That "work version" of McClane isn't even worth mentioning.

(Hey "work version" of McClane! If you're reading this, please clean out the damn refrigerator. I know you're always at work and never home, but you've left a pot of your damn "secret chili" in there for more than a month now. My beer started tasting like Jalapeño peppers last week. I haven't really complained because it's actually kind of cool... but please get rid of that shit before my Golden Delicious apples start smelling like moldy turkey meat.)

Anyway, back to the point... somehow... while on our voyage to the vast regions of "who-knows-where-in-the-hell-we-are-ville," we pass many, many, many homes with the standard junkyard directly in front of the house. You know the kind. I didn't have any time to snap photos of the millions of homes I saw today, but I was able to find some pretty close examples, just to get your brain working in the right direction:












Excellent. Now that you've got a good picture in mind, tell me: how the hell does this happen? I mean, honestly... at which point in time do you just decide that the washer and dryer just looks better in the front yard?

It's such a weird, weird phenomenon. These junkyards are EVERYWHERE, and I'm so confused at how they all began.

Maybe it was a child's broken bicycle... left for dead at the end of the driveway... and dad just didn't have time to fix the chain in-between either finalizing the investment deal, handling important stock trades, getting fucked up on huffing gasoline, or working the details of child custody with the screaming-mad ex-wife.

Maybe that bicycle symbolized something to the family. Maybe that loose chain and slightly-bent wheel in the front yard represented their current plight... be it a problem with the government, a dickhead boss, gas prices, the fact that crystal meth is illegal, global warming, not enough yards to mow to pay the electric bill, the situation with health insurance... or perhaps even the bone-chilling fear concerning the terrifying number of people who eat more than two hot dogs in a week and end up with brain tumors.

Maybe every time they see that bike, they think of those brain tumors. Perhaps they just don't even want to touch it. Let's call this bike the "tumor-cycle." Nobody wants to pick up the damned tumor-cycle. It's going to lay there (in symbolism) out by the road from now on.

Pretty soon mom comes home frustrated and tired, and finally loses her temper when the microwave oven just keeps on burning her popcorn. She immediately thinks of the tumor-cycle. Next thing you know, the tumor-cycle's got a new neighbor out in the front yard: the micro-temper-wave.

So these two pieces of junk begin to attract more and more symbolist objects of negativity, until the whole damned front yard is covered in their angst. Let's face it: nobody likes to face their frustrations, phobias, fears and symbolic demons. Let 'em sit there under the maple tree. They're fine.

Of course, that's just speculation.

They could have also had problems with the movers. Maybe they tried to move themselves, and just got really tired after barely making it up the stairs with the sectional couch. After that last trip up those damned steps, maybe it's just easier to leave the refrigerator in the front yard. I mean, hell, who wants to carry a frickin' refrigerator up stairs??? Not me, bud.

Unfortunately, after the first year at your proud new home, going outside to the fridge every time you need a Diet Coke gets old when the tumor-cycle's out there leering at you. You can feel its cold stare beaming into you every time you turn around.

As you're running through the yard with your slice of cheese and glass of milk, you can practically feel the tumor-cycle burning your skin off with its radioactive, raging beams. ("Eat more hot dogs" it whispers to you.)

In fact, you get so pissed off at it, you decide to throw the old carburetor from your dad's truck at the bastard. That didn't quite do the job, so you take a second to throw the entire muffler system at it.

Ah yes, that did the trick. It looks like the tumor-cycle has been sacked fo sho.

However... just to make sure... you throw the bumper from his Chevy Nova at it too.

You're in the clear now, bud. Enjoy your cheese.

At any rate, it's a weird, weird thing. At one point, it goes far beyond being a slight mess and turns into a completely terrifying disaster. When it's gotten to that point, there's no turning back. When you mow, you just decide to mow around it... but there's not really any use in firing up the weed eater when trimming around a ripped-out dishwasher unit. The weeds will grow and grow around it, until suddenly it's become sort of a twisted miniature golf course of rusted shit and broken dreams.

That's right, you've got yourself a full-blown junk yard, man. When it's there, what do you do about it? I say ride it out. Let children of the neighborhood play in it. Let snakes of all kinds make the old computer desk their home. Let all those poor mice find refuge in those plastic shelves that didn't quite fit in the bottom rack of your refrigerator. Finally... let that annoying homeless guy who always asks you for 75¢ at the grocery store live there amongst your old broken stereo system and demolished George Foreman Grill.

If he gets bored out there... keep in mind that under there somewhere...

There's a nice bicycle he can ride.

Trash 'em if ya got 'em, readers.

Muah.

-McClane

P.S. If you're really interested in this type of thing, please, for the love of God, visit THIS BLOG and check out how GENIUS it is!!!!!!