Those 25 Things!

Hey readers, fans, haters and escaped nursing home patients!

It's me, Matt McClane, and I run the show around here. Don't even think about trying to escape at this point, you're only to the third sentence.

So on Facebook, people are cranking out these viral posts of "25 Random Things" about themselves. I've gotta say, though, these lists have been fantastic. (Props go to my LA friend Thom Maurer for writing my favorite so far.)

I just finished up mine tonight, and I know that a lot of you readers out there don't have all kinds of access to my Facebook profile... so I'm here to share my list with you guys too... out there in the REAL world.

So here's the goods, straight from the pages of Facebook:


1. When I was really young, the "VCR" invention hit the stores, and my parents bought one. It was one of those giant, hilarious boxes... where the remote control literally had a giant cord running into the front of it, because I guess they hadn't invented infrared rays yet. Mom showed me how it could pause, fast forward and rewind, and it blew my mind. The next Saturday morning, I woke up at 7:00, ran into the living room, turned on the cartoons and grabbed the remote. The commercials did not fast forward. I was mad as hell.

2. I absolutely LOATHE the crab on the Little Mermaid. I could watch that thing sing that "Under the Sea" song before I play sports just to pump me up for kicking ass.

3. I don't intake caffeine into my body. No soft drinks, tea and especially no coffee. The last time I had coffee was in 2006, when Jon Ellison tried to trick me into drinking some by mixing it with chocolate. Three sips and it wrecked my life. (At least my entire day.) I haven't sipped a Mountain Dew since 1999, and I've never, ever tasted a Red Bull.

4. My entire family is made of teachers and farmers. Aunts, uncles, grandparents and parents. My mom & dad both taught school my entire life; dad was a principal. We grew up on a dairy farm and had a huge garden, so if you weren't teaching, you were milking. If you weren't milking, you were digging potatoes and picking beans.

5. I hate giant crowds of people, and I'm slightly claustrophobic on top of that. If I get pinned down in some big crowd, I'll ball my hands into fists and spin around like a mighty tornado to get the hell out of that situation. If I'm forced to sit in a situation with a tons of people when there's no convenient exit... I'll have a severe panic attack & totally freak out.

6. I've never accomplished anything on a PC computer other than looking at Web sites. I have absolutely no clue how they work or how to navigate through them. I've used apple computers my entire life... the first one I ever used was the original macintosh in 1984.

7. My favorite animal is the Raccoon. This is a little bit weird since my dad has been an avid coon hunter since I was born and has probably killed more raccoons than the Oklahoma City Bombing. (My second favorite animal is the Honey Badger.)

8. For more than three years of my life, I lived on an enormous sheep farm in an area called "Lascassas" outside of Murfreesboro, TN. It was a dilapidated, run-down doublewide trailer that had swiss cheese holes, a really serious mice problem, and a brown recluse spider infestation. To this day, it was one of the best places I ever lived. My roommate and good friend, Justin, can back me up here.

9. Every day of my life for the past 10 or more years, I've spoken a line from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Every single day. In his voice, with his accent.

10. I still have a piece of lead in my right hand from where Tyler Pilkington accidentally stabbed me with a pencil in Elementary School. You can see it through my skin. (And I'm not kidding, Maurer!! It's in there!!!) P.S. I still love you, Tyler.

11. I'm highly intolerant to mushrooms. Even cream of mushroom soup makes me sick as hell. Apparently, my stomach doesn't generate the certain type of acid that can properly digest the damn things. In other words, when Mr. Mushroom walks into the open-all-night McClane bar... the bouncer's gonna kick him the hell out. Both the back door AND the way he came in.

12. The first movie I remember watching in a theater was "Return of the Jedi" in 1983. The only thing I can clearly remember about the experience was that giant frog outside Jabba the Hutt's big palace near the beginning of the film. The image of that thing unleashing its tongue and snatching up this little bug creature completely blew my mind.

13. When I was around 15 years old, I became completely obsessed with Metal Detectors. My mom bought me a used one for Christmas, and Jared McClane and I would go every single weekend on these Metal Detecting adventures to find lost treasure. We found a whole lot of nails, a car battery and a spoon. It was a pretty sweet spoon.

14. My family chipped in and bought me my first video camera when I was around 13 years old. Since then, I've probably made more than 1,000 home movies. (Give or take.) The biggest hit of that first year, however, was my talk show called "Matt Bass." The premise was freakin' awesome: I was the talk show host, and my sister Amanda (then around 10 years old) played every single guest on the show. Looking back on it all... she was absolutely amazing. Her "Annoying Old Woman" character was a show regular.

15. All through Elementary and Middle School, my dream was to become a shoe designer at Nike. I created hundreds of shoe designs, different color schemes, templates and would draw and design custom shoe illustrations for everybody in my class who wanted one.

16. I have a MASSIVE collection of die-cast metal ERTLE farm toys in storage at my mom's house. There's really no telling how much those things are worth these days.

17. In 1998, I was making this necklace one day out of this random piece of rope. I cut a piece a little too short, so I tied it around my ankle for the hell of it. It's still there today.

18. The first real toy I ever had was a teddy bear that I named Ted. Right now, he's sitting on my dresser in my bedroom. He still watches over me when I sleep. I have no monster problems with him on duty.

19. When I was 19 years old, I smoked a half pack of cigarettes in one evening and got crazy sick for an entire long night. It's one of the only times in my life where my skin was so green that I felt like Lou Ferrigno. Ever since then, even the thought of letting a cigarette touch my lips makes me want to toss a whole box of cookies.

20. When watching films, I tend to slightly tear up anytime something amazing happens. It could be a romantic scene or a hard-core action movie where the hero saves the day. In the last ten years, it's been during comic book movies. I've been an avid comic collector since middle school, and every time I see one of my childhood heroes come to life... my entire childhood comes back and I lose it. (This happened like 50 times during The Dark Knight.)

Bonus Track: I CANNOT watch "The Iron Giant" without crying like a baby. Doesn't matter how many times I watch it.

21. When I was a senior in high school, I scored a 14 on the math portion of the ACT.

22. If I wasn't a designer, I would strive to be a Forrest Ranger.

23. My dad used to be a cock fighter back in the late 70's and early 80's. He kept these maniac roosters all over the place. One afternoon I was stumbling through the yard and from out of nowhere, got flogged by one of these monsters. I can't understand how I didn't lose both eyeballs to that vicious animal.

(Also: Last year my mom found one of my dad's old belt buckles in this junk drawer. I've worn it pretty much non-stop since then... it's a giant copper rooster with the phrase, "I'M A COCK-FIGHTING FOOL" across the top.)

24. I am severely terrified of babies. I have NO PLANS of having any. Ever, if I can help it. Being around them makes me nervous, hearing them cry makes me angry and the whole notion of childbirth in general gives me a really, really queazy feeling. (Easily on par with #11.)

25. The best year of my life has been 1998. No other year has come even close.


So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

-M