Hey, there, gang. if you didn’t follow the link on twitter, then you don’t know. This is no longer the home of the Drunken Scholar. This is it. The end of an era. Not really though. I’ve just upgraded to Drunken Scholar 2.0 with my own domain and everything. So check it out. http://thedrunkenscholar.net.

DS Out.

Of all the rooms in your house, the one you should just be able to go crazy with is your theater room. Unless you know…you’re like the rest of us and are barely lucky enough to have a computer room, much less a whole room dedicated to watching fine cinema.

Well, Jacob Yarmuth of Louisville, KY has created a theater room that will make anyone on MTV’s Cribs cry in their anti depressant breakfast cereal. Jacob spared no expense (no, really, the room cost him $70k to build) and built a theater room that looks like the Stargate: Atlantis gateroom.

Here are some of the features/materials the "gateroom" features:

Wave your hand in front of the Atlantis logo outside the theater, and a motion sensor triggers the air pocket doors to open, like on Star Trek. The pocket doors are attached to pneumatic pumps powered by an air compressor.

The Stargate is made from MDF (medium-density fiberboard), with the symbols, or glyphs, of Lexan (a super strong plastic-like resin). The glyphs and other effects in the room are backlit with large, old-style Christmas tree bulbs.

Hidden behind the custom-made perforated screen are three Atlantic Technology THX front speakers. Atlantic Technology’s THX in-wall speakers are in the side and rear walls, along with two in-wall Polk subwoofers in the side walls.

Frakking sweet, Jacob, but your Stargate isn’t able to create an event horizon connecting two points in space that will allow me to travel to another planet, so points for effort, but FAIL!

More pics of this expensive, but kick ass room after the jump.

…James Olmos that is. Want to buy the ultimate Battlestar Galactica fan the ultimate Christmas present? Over at HijiNKSEnsue, they have a cool Admiral Adama t-shirt that spoofs the sadly popular Twilight team Edward t-shirt. I really want this. Not only is it hilarious, but Admiral Adama is my illegitimate father, and I wanna show daddy my support. What? I DON’T HAVE DADDY ISSUES. HE WAS AWAY BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY FIGHTING CYLONS!!!!!!

The shirt retails for around $20 bucks and has sizes for all shapes of Battlestar fans. Images after the jump.

DS Out.

Before I go any further, I need to clarify something. I liked this film. Okay? I’m not about to bash it in any way. I think Troy Duffy and Co. did a good job in this sequel. I’ve been a fan of the original Boondock Saints since its release. I was a senior in high school, and picked it up at my local Blockbuster as I’m sure many of you guys did. It shook something to my core the first time I saw it. Not only was the story amazing, and the philosophical arguments intriguing, but it was a cinematic crown jewel of independent film making.  So when I sat down to watch Boondock Saints II, was I expecting more of the same? Maybe. But in all honesty, that’s unfair. That would be like asking a great artist to one-up his magnum opus.

What a dickish thing to do.

When watching this movie what was most apparent was that Duffy is obviously having some fun with his own success. The sequel is a little over the top, the comedy much more generously spread throughout the film. While the first film had its funny moments, this movie has one foot in the comedy genre, something that bothers me a little, but I can’t really bitch, because I was laughing at almost every joke. Connor’s obsession with planning hits like in the movies is a little out of control this time around. In the first film they made that mistake once on their first hit, and then cut that shit out and got with the no nonsense mayhem. This time he’s got an outlandish idea for every job.

Duffy didn’t do anything new this time around from a cinematic perspective, but if it ain’t broke why fix it, am I right? Two pleasant surprises this time around were the casting of Julie Benz and Clifton Collins Jr. Benz plays Special Agent Eunice Bloom, a foul mouthed southern belle of a FBI agent who has motives of her own for wanting to track down the Saints. Collins does one hell of a job in filling the role of the Saints’ sidekick after the loss of Rocco in the first film. I honestly didn’t think I’d like him at first, but he was amazing. We also get some good back story on Il Duce, who is actually my favorite character in the movies, so I was immensely pleased on that front.

I give the Saints 4 pints for their encore performance. All and all it was an enjoyable experience, but nowhere nearly as amazing as the original. That said, it was good to see the boys in their trademark peacoats dealing death to inept Italian Gangsters again. Also, the ending was well done and suggests that maybe we haven’t seen the last of the MacManus brothers.

DS Out.

Hello, all. I know I’ve been away for the past…well…nearly month. Sorry. I got busy in participating in NanoWriMo and it took all of my writing energies. I still failed, btw. Oh, Well. Maybe next year. But now, that it’s all over, I can go back to devoting my time to you guys. I know. I’ve missed you too.

I thought I would start off this month with a book review. I recently had the pleasure of coming across The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and I’m excited to share this little gem with you. Every once in a while, a book comes along that flips the fantasy genre on its ear. The Magicians is part Harry Potter, part Chronicles of Narnia, and part Trainspotting. It is a well executed coming of age story that is achingly beautiful.

Quentin Coldwater is a brilliant young man with his entire future ahead of him. But while the future looks bright, Quentin can’t help but feel miserable at every turn. A certifiable genius, he fears the monotonous and mundane, and escapes into the fantasy novels of his childhood which tell the story of five children and their fantastic adventures in a land known as Fillroy.

Things start looking up when Quentin is accepted into a university of magic in upstate New York, where he will learn magic as well as all the other stuff kids learn in college: booze, babes, and boredom. Upon graduating, Quentin looks forward to his life as an honest to God magician, but soon comes to a horrible realization: being a career Magician is as boring as anything he would have done in the vanilla world! As Quentin’s depression deepens he soon finds himself mired in the fast and loose lifestyle of New York nightlife.

But the adventure he has always dreamed of awaits him and his friends. For they have made a startling discovery: the magical world of Fillroy is real. And something sinister has corrupted Quentin’s childhood paradise.

What I really like about The Magicians is that it is heavily character driven. The actual quest narrative is a relatively small portion of the story, and not at all what the book is about. Grossman does a good job in illustrating how the monotony of life can get down even the best of us—even young, talented magicians.

While Quentin is not always likeable as a protagonist, he is always relatable, and as real as any character I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. At some point we all are confronted with the crippling disappointment of reality. We dream big, and life sometimes slaps the stars out of our eyes. As we follow Quentin, we share his joy as he first experiences the novelties of magic and love, to the disappointment of life after college, and the hope and yearning as he sees in the quest for Fillroy as the only way to get his shattered life back together.

In spite of The Magicians fantastic roots, the moral of the story is very real. Life is what we make it; there is no perfect solution to make life everything we want it to be, even if that solution really is MAGIC. Grossman cleverly uses the device of magic not as a catalyst to make life suddenly better, but to complicate it further. There isn’t a whole separate society of the magically inclined like in the Harry Potter universe. Magician’s live in the same world, with the same rules as everyone else. They just have power that the rest of us don’t.

I give The Magicians 5 pints. This is more than a fantasy book. This tells a coming of age story that is as poignant as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. Good job, Mr. Grossman.

No pun intended on that title, but this shit looks awesome. I love the way they’ve been promoting this game. Not only the internet buzz, but their genius “protest” at E3, and now this. The anime will be composed six shorts created by nine animation studios, including the studios behind Ghost in the Shell, Blood the Last Vampire, Tales of the Black Freighter and Samurai Champloo – something similar to Batman: Gotham Knights.

I normally try and reserve judgments on games until I get them in my large, yet surprisingly gentle hands, but I’m not even going to pretend that I’m not chomping at the bit to play this one. It’s going to basically be EA’s version of God of War, which will work if we consider Dead Space, which was EA’s version of Resident Evil and that was great.

After the jump is the trailer for the Animated Epic, or so it is subtitled.

That’s right. The guys that originally gave us the awesome line, “We got Death Star! We Got Deathstar!” have done it again. Actually, the fellas of BentTV have outdone themselves with this amazing sequel. I want a whole album with this stuff, with a bonus dvd of the videos. That would be gold! Check it out, after the jump!

And for nostalgia’s sake, the original!

Yes, it is shitty that Fox sucks at life and keeps fucking Joss and Co. over. They are like the dick older brother who tells the little brother to get in, only to speed away as baby bro reaches for the door handle. The good news, is that Fox promises to air all 13 episodes of the series, which promises to wrap up the show in a big way. So while they fucked us, they at least bought us a cab home in the morning so we could forgo the walk of shame.

But that’s not what this post is about. A while back word hit the interwebs that viral hit Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog was going to get a sequel. Now we get some news courtesy of MTV on that front. Zack Whedon, co-writer of the original says that once Dollhouse wraps up, they will get underway in earnest:

"They finish up ‘Dollhouse’ in the winter—at least what they’ve scheduled to shoot thus far—so hopefully when that’s done, we’ll all be able to get together more frequently and grind it out," he explained. "There are a couple of songs written. It’s very promising. We’re all very excited about where it goes."

Zack also says that they plan on expanding the world and promises that hilarity will ensue.

While it is sad that Dollhouse is cancelled, this news is a soothing balm on that wound. While Felicia Day’s character Penny shouldn’t be in the sequel, I kinda hope they write it where she is.

DS Out.

If you haven’t seen it already, the trailer for the new Clash of the Titans hit the web and I feel…trepidation. Now, I’m still really excited to see this movie, but the trailer just seems lackluster. I don’t know if it’s the cut, or the mismatch of epic/rock music to the flashes of almost action, but I had no desire to watch it twice. I know it’s supposed to be a teaser, but c’mon. How about a little dialogue? And what is with the whole Titans Will Clash tagline? Talk about cheese. On the bright side we get giant scorpion action this time around too!

You can judge for yourself, but I demand a re-cut. With something more than snarling Perseus hopping around like Brad Pitt in Troy. Gimme EPIC not Action Movie.