Wednesday, January 23, 2013

And Jessica Lange is like ten-year-old scotch

Yo yo yo. Signing up for ALL THE CONZ EVAR. Keep your eye on that there bar, that I killed on this tree.

Sounds like there's a Walking Dead Super Bowl ad coming up. I'm excited about that- it means we might actually see something entitled "Walking Dead" that proves viewable; hur hur hur. Not a fan. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

People getting eaten by zombies after doing something stupid is horror. People getting eaten by zombies after doing something stupid THAT THEY JUST BERATED SOMEONE ELSE FOR DOING is an episode of The Three Stooges. I laughed my ass off in TWD: S01E04 when the walkers stormed the camp in the dead of night during their unguarded fish fry and ate everyone there. Ha ha; serves you schmucks right; now's as good a time as any to stop watching this limply acted, car-stoppingly illogical, written like ass mess.

Our society has grown so critical that horror nowadays has to pick our brains and answer our most obvious questions before our eyes. Yes, it's stupid to wander the hideout of the killer in Wolf Creek by yourself- but your one friend is injured, there's no cell phone service this deep in the outback, and I'm betting it's not in you to abandon your other friend to unthinkable, psychotic whims.

That is why American Horror Story is currently what's bedazzling my eyeballs and making pillow talk to my brain. Give me its thick broth of melancholic unease, growing inescapable dread, and its endless cast of terrifying maniacs any day over The Walking Dead.

DON'T tell me the show's faults stem from being based on a comic book written in the '90s; Dexter has undergone numerous deviations from its books, and it's as enjoyable a show as ever. Maybe TWD has gotten better. I wouldn't know. I don't subscribe to the Whedon Defense (the show will become phenomenal if we give it x number of tries).


-The Gil-Monster

Monday, January 21, 2013

The answer is YES, IT'S AWESOME

Oh. Sure, brand new Windows OS. Import ALL ONE THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-THREE PHOTOS onto my computer. No need for me to pick and choo- oh. THERE'S the manual upload. Sigh... patience, gentle Gil-Monster, this will all one day make sense...

Four new monsters hath arrived in the Chenille Macabre store. The Games Workshop-sy Beast Lord and the Galactic Invader join the Onryou in gracing the Minis front, while Chelsea Grynn makes her debut in the AMPUTHEATRE aisle...



Apologies for this crummy photo; I'm using GiMP at the mo' and I'm still struggling with transparenci- hmmm? Oh. You're right. Chelsea Grynn's not up on the AMPUTHEATRE website. Whoopsy-pie. Well, she starts the game with a fencing foil and she was the only new Slasher I introduced in 2011. Here's her deal:

 “ ‘Hey! Chelsea Grynn! Swallow THIS!’ the men would always yell during my act, grabbing their crotches. Of course, I wasn’t above taking one or two men back to my trailer after the show... to run them through and take their wallets. You really expect a girl to live off sword swallowing alone? On what the Cirque du Sang used to pay? But when the riot happened and the dancing bear went berserk, I was peforming at the time- with a double-edged saber down my throat. Distracted as I was by the chaos, the sword slipped downwards five inches- slicing my cheeks open. As I lay in the hospital slowly dying from a pierced stomach lining, my murders were exposed and I was convicted. But when the CFA Wardens learned that I was a classically trained fencer- and thus, I assumed, good television- they ordered that I be imbued with the Amputech immediately. It arrested the tearing of my stomach- saving my life. My AMPUTHEATRE sentence does not concern me. I am forever grateful to the Wardens. My sword will spill all the blood they demand. En garde!

Evil Deeds:
Riposte: Chelsea can turn Dodge Movement into Counter-Carnage.
Acid Coat: Weapons deal Burn Carnage when she "swallows" them.
Appel: A fencing technique that Staggers an opponent and grants an Onslaught.
Initial Carve: Chelsea scratches "CG" in her foe, Bleeding and humiliating them.
Shish Kebab: Chelsea gores several foes on her foil at one time.
Glasgow Smile: A slice through the cheeks that impairs Healing via Spells.

Originally she was to be an archer named Camilla with archery-enhancing mutations: an amputated right breast a la the Amazons, a bony left forearm for drawstring protection, and a literal eagle's eye. I went for the whole swordswoman angle when the possibility of a loose composite bow in the game seemed like far too much effort to write up...

What I like the most about Chelsea is her outfit. It's a practical fighting ensemble that YES yes, her midriff is exposed, but hey- she's a sword swallower. Once a performer, always a performer...



Three of my favorite things in the universe are wanton fictional therapeutic carnage, Operation: mindcrime by Queensryche, and of course, Jinglebunny. Stir them all together in a neon 8-bit broth of adrenalized '80s nostalgia and you get Hotline Miami. It deserves every accolade on its homepage. Kick down the doors of Mafia strongholds, quickly and brutally kill everyone inside under the guise of a rubber animal mask, and get to the car. Ten bucks- TEN. BUCKS- on Steam gets you unlimited lives and millions of ways to eliminate thugs. New Murder Method #32: slamming a door in a mook's face, mounting his prone form, smashing a bottle on the floor, and slitting his throat.


Ha ha ha; now you want to play it...

If the NRA actually did any research on violent video games before head pimple Wayne LaPierre sputtered up his odious "Video Games Are Deadlier Than Numerous Hollow Points Tearing Through Your Heart and Lungs" speech, this game'd be at the top of their list. And then they'd discover that their argument was total shit. No such luck...

-The Gil-Monster

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

IN CASE IT DOESN'T COME ACROSS, I'M PRETTY PISSED

AMPUTHEATRE will be at RunningGAGG 2013: A Con You Can't Refuse this coming February 9th and 10th, at SUNY Geneseo. Come play it already, won't you...?


Apologies for the total lack of updates. As a New Years' Resolution, I'm concentrating on blogging instead. Why? Here's an FB post of mine you missed on December 14th because you likely aren't friends with me...

Gil Merritt sits before his Facebook Look Back At 2012. "What the SHIT, Zuckerburg."
"Ah! The Gil-Monster! My loyal frien-emy! Behold your own personal Year In Review! Ah yes, GAZE back in time... you placed in the Vertex Halloween contest for a FIFTH time... you saw the dinosaur skeletons in New Mexico... a cat sat on your ass..."
"WHAT'S WITH MARCH 19th."
"Oh yes! What a GLORIOUS time in your life, when you LINKED TO THAT CARTOON of the puppy and bunny playing with action figures!"
"Well, it's CUTE, but... but it was just a LINK. Wait- is this whole Year In Review bullshit driven by 'Likes'?"
"I bet you remember EXACTLY where you were at that moment when you saw that!"

"YEAH, but- At my COMPUTER, dillhole! Look, there was A LOT MORE to my year than just that! I was on TELEVISION with my artwork! And I raised $500 for Golisano Childrens Hospital by playing video games all day! And I saw Korpiklaani in concert! And..."
"I am The WATCHER. I am sworn not to interfere. Like you, I must simply wait and observe the events as they occur."
"I didn't even DRAW the cartoon! You try to write something funny; you're not FEELING it atm; you POST something that's FUNNY! THIS IS *NOT* MY LIFE!!!"
"MEMORIES/LIKE THE CORNERS OF MY MIND/MISTY WATER-COLORED MEMORIES..."
"...I am SO DEPRESSED."
"OF THE WAY WE WERE..."
Not that anyone else on FB saw this, because while I was typing this, chuckling to myself and thinking that it'll make a couple of people smile, the FB News Feed featured updates of upset friends reacting to the Sandy Hook School Shootings as they occurred in Newtown. Whee- fun fun. Tried to get my mind off the whole horror.

Then I lost a sale that day, as someone reconsidered buying my miniatures because of the tragedy. That was MY kick in the jimmies. You're THE CULTURE, Gil, an ominous voice boomed, and YOU'VE gotta clean up your act so THOSE people across the line in the sand can keep their guns.  


The ass-tumor that somehow found a job as head of the NRA didn't help matters either. Watching him gurgle out-and-out bullshit about violent video games such as a never-before-heard-of Flash game called "Kindergarten Killers" was a delightful heel grind in my scrotum. The level of obscurity told me it could just as easily have been AMPUTHEATRE he mentioned. I mean, I could have used the press, but not the fury that comes from being grossly, incorrectly blamed on television for the deaths of innocent children. (I've got high cholesterol, so says my doctor.)

So for now anyway, fuck Facebook and its endless squabbling wall of slacktivist memes and disgorged viewpoints that will not receive the time of day from me. I've already burned enough valuable crafting time writing anything MORE than "
AMPUTHEATRE will be at RunningGAGG 2013: A Con You Can't Refuse this coming February 9th and 10th, at SUNY Geneseo. Come play it already, won't you...?"