Murdering people is okay, provided you inscribe a Christmas joke on the corpse

I have never murdered anyone, nor do I plan to. I fall into the Seinfeld category, where if I really, really hated someone, I would opt for years of subtle mind games on the victim. Insanity trumps lack of breathing. Still, if an intruder ever barged into my house (god forbid) and I was forced to defend my keep against the hostiles, I would certainly need to finish my self defense spree with a little humor to keep my own sanity. (Like that? In the literary world we call that "coming full circle").

When McClane kills the blond terrorist from a workout video, he scribbled "Ho, Ho, Ho" on his lifeless corpse. Bloody brilliant. Helps McClane keep a level head. I mean, he just killed a man, right? He just saved himself 30 years of therapy bills with a little holiday humor. I have decided that if an intruder enters my home and I shoot him up to kingdom come, I really hope it is around a holiday, such as Easter. Then I can write, "Only one person rose from the dead at this time of year" or something like that. Then me and the cops will have a good laugh.

Always Have an Exit Strategy

Whether you're going to war with a foreign country, hooking up with a girl you probably won't respect in the morning, or knocking over an LA high rise with a team of anonymous henchman, it's ALWAYS a good idea to have a way out.

Hans Gruber's plan to flee the scene of the crime was both brilliant in nature and incredibly short-sided. Let's imagine for a moment, that everything goes according to plan. They jack the vault, blow the roof, and make their getaway in the ambulance stashed away in the back of their cargo truck. Genius, really, unless you're one of Gruber's gunmen. I can't believe that during the ride to Nakatomi, when Gruber's crew was crammed into the truck with said ambulance, not a one of them thought to ask: "How the hell are we all going to fit in this thing?" I mean how many bodies does your typical ambulance hold? Six, maybe? And how many terrorists were there? That's right - TWICE that many.

If I know Gruber like I think I do, he was well aware of this. He doesn't seem like the type to watch his henchmen pile into a tiny ambulance like it's some sort of clown car or Mexican transport. No, it's my contention that Hans KNEW his numbers would be thinned by the end of the night, and he wasn't planning on bringing the whole gang with him on the way out. So it's actually a good thing McClane started picking off terrorists one at a time. Each one of Gruber's men that bit the dust was a bigger cut of money for the rest of them, and one less he'd have to send up to the roof before it went bang.

Sometimes I wonder how Die Hard 2 would have been different if Gruber and a few of his boys had successfully executed their escape plan. Nothing against Colonel Stewart and his gang of Mercs, but a second round of Gruber vs. McClane would have been AWESOME.

Organization is the key

You would think a boozehound that is behind on child support doesn't have his shit together, but McClane proves that alcoholic, deadbeat dads can have a clear head that is ready to function. McClane needs to remember names and number of terrorists, so he writes that shit on his arm. Nice thinking, John-Boy. What the camera didn't show you was the names of McClane's kids scribbled on his other arm. Those are a little difficult to remember.

For Emergency Use Only

It's hard to imagine, some two decades removed, that Die Hard is an 80's film. Director-extraordinaire John McTiernan has a way of making his films immune to aging with a minimal amount of bad music, outrageous costumes, and crazy hair. Sure, there's some Run-DMC and a pair of leather pants, but it doesn't have the same "HEY, DON'T FORGET THIS IS AN EIGHTIES FILM" theme music as, say, Beverly Hills Cop.

With this in mind, think how bored McClane must have been while NOT gunning down Terrorists. Granted, the whole thing takes place in the course of a single evening, but nobody of today's generation has the patience to sit still for longer than a couple of minutes. And again, this is in an era before cell phones, Facebook, Twitter, and internet porn. THIS is why McClane smokes. I mean what the hell ELSE is he going to do? When *I* have some down time between death-defying shootouts and fist fights, I like to keep in touch with the outside world. A text here, an online quiz there, whatever makes the time go faster.

In 1988, McClane's walkie-talkie was as close as the world had come to a Blackberry or iPhone. So what does he do? He uses it to keep himself occupied. Nevermind clearing the airwaves for official police business; when Johnny Mac has something on his mind, the boys downstairs are going to hear about it. Between passing on love letters to his wife and making play dates for his children, there's plenty to keep him entertained. Want to talk about Twinkies with the big black man outside? Yep, there's an app for that.