State of the Union

Woah readers, crazy times!

I'm again postponing my heartbeat-raising review of Howling III: The Marsupials to later this week so I can give you a quick update on things around the Tirade Headquarters.

Today was a crazy day to be livin'. We got a huge president speech and another wacky product from Apple that could change us forever or something. Or the way we live somehow. Whatever.

Basically, Apple upgraded Moses' idea from back in the Bible ages. We all know that God could have easily made the iPad back then, but you've got to admit that it was way more dramatic to have those giant slabs of concrete with his message carved into 'em with lasers or welding torches. Now that I think about it, he probably used lightning bolts.

Anyway, Moses and company would have probably mistook the iPad for some kind of alien technology, and ignored God's law... and that would have led to a world a lot less awesome. Or... some of the smartest Bible-times scientists would have taken the technology and developed this whole new society of advanced gadgets.

Next time you stumble up on some phone booth that can travel through time, consider buying one of those iPads and handing it over to King David of Judah and see what happens for the hell of it. Might be a cool experiment, I don't know.

Anyway, moving on somehow, the name of this thing has set fire to the entire internet. There's about 10,000 billion blogs that you can read about the "iPad," and most of them have—for some reason—made connections between this new device and a feminine hygiene product. Some of the craziest can be found at this site, which is a woman's magazine. Feel free to head over there and discover how many thoughtful connections can be made between a cutting-edge piece of advanced technology and period blood.

Let's face the music, America: it's time to grow the hell up.

Moving on... the big State of the Union address was pretty intense tonight. We had a guy throwing down some serious claims of reform, goals and ideas of progress, sternly warning us of harsh consequences, reminding us of the failures and successes of past administration and delivering some pretty inspiring words of hope. ...And a whole giant group of guys in business suits sarcastically laughing at him.

Pretty weird time to be living in the USA, but some stuff never changes. I sure hope it all works out, though.

Editor's note: That's about as far as my State-of-the-Union commentary goes. The Tirade doesn't discriminate based on political stances or views, so if you think you can throw down some argument about the State of our Union, remember that this blog is for horror movies, horseshit pop culture commentary and other things that define me as being a gigantic geek. The Tirade is a magical entity that has its own health care system and clean energy. So unless you can somehow skew some political rhetoric into a movie about werewolves with pouches and giant heads, I'm not interested, bud.

So it's with all that stuff that I'm proud to present the first annual McClane Tirade State of the Union Address.

Second editor's note in the same blog post: It's important that while you read this, you imagine it being read by President Barak Obama. He's got the kind of voice that gets things done, and that's the kind of voice I need for MY address. So imagine he's the one reading this to you and it'll go down a lot smoother.

It's been an interesting year full of challenging topics and bone-crunching opinions on this blog. I set out to say a bunch of stuff about nothing, and I've succeeded in getting us there time and time again.

I never said it would be easy to write about giant snake movies, Friday the 13th films, Jessica Simpson's eviscerated dog and other useless pop culture events. However, I pushed through. I did what I had to do to keep things going, and for the most part, I've endured.

Sure, there have been naysayers along the way. There have been people who've not agreed with the wood background or oversized header at the top. To those people I say this:

Nobody ever got ahead by not using an oversized header or textured background. When you have a readership of more than 200 million people every week like I do, it's going to be impossible to please everyone. Sure, my header and wood background might not be the equivalent to me handing you a big bowl of orgasm ice cream with a g-spot spoon sprinkled with titties, solid-gold sprinkles and diamond sauce, but dammit, it's a start.

It's a start to our future.

Together we can continue to improve the Tirade. We can make it into something more powerful than any of us thought we could probably ever imagine. Together we can continue to write extremely obnoxious run-on sentences full of needless adjectives and juvenile adverbs that indefinitely continue to make this blog bigger than even Danny Trejo's giant chest tattoo.

But it doesn't stop there.

No, readers, it would be easy to say that writing a bunch of sentences full of nouns and verbs and stuff can change the way we perceive modern blogging about nothing. It would be easy to make false claims that I can provide coupons that you can print off to get free oil changes or breast augmentation surgeries. It would be easy to say that if you continue to read this blog, your sex powers will improve to levels that you would have never thought existed. It would be easy to say that after reading only a few posts, you'll be able to please your sweet, special lover in ways that you've only read about in Kama Sutra books and Danielle Steel novels.

But no. It takes more than that.

It takes passion and resolve to bring change. It takes a magical dagger or knife protected by a bunch of monks in some mountain stronghold.

It takes sacrifice. Not only the kind of sacrifice that calls for you to leave behind the things you love the most... but the kind where you take a giant bull and cut its head off with a chainsaw.

It takes a priest of some kind... or some guy in a robe disguised as a priest... to say a bunch of nonsense about power or strength or destiny before pulling the cord and firing up the engine on the aforementioned chainsaw.

It takes some kind of pan, or bowl or bucket or something to catch all the blood that's more than likely going to pour out of the cow's neck. It'll take a shop rag or hand towel to make sure a bunch of that blood doesn't stain or permanently damage your carpet.

It takes a man. It takes a man to stand at the door of your barn or arena or garage or whatever and collect money from the cult members that you've brainwashed with the whole bull sacrifice thing. It takes a good accountant to manage the proceeds from your cult meeting and then invest them into something lucrative. Like coal.

If we continue along this path... If we continue to strive to be more than just people who read about giant snake movies and other horror films... if we continue on a route to success and honor and steel and iron...

We can change the world.

Ladies and gentleman, God bless you all and God bless the McClane Tirade.

P.S. Remember to come back soon for the review of Howling III: The Marsupials!