HBO's New Hit Comedy "Silicon Valley"

In the media-driven world we live in today, every technically inclined individual with a computer wants to discover or create the next big thing. Not for the billions of dollars that flow through the market every day but in order to "make the world a better place." Right?

Well the creator of "Office Space" and "Idiocracy," Mike Judge, has decided to team up with HBO to create one of the funniest and most modern shows to date, that accurately depicts the previously mentioned scenario.  

HBO's new hit comedy series "Silicon Valley" is the story of a group of socially awkward computer techs that finally get their break.

This series follows five roommates, Richard (Thomas Middleditch), Erlich (T.J. Miller), Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Jared ( Zach Woods), as they try to survive in the competitive world of computer programmers and engineers.

Richard, (Thomas Middleditch) while in the process of creating a website called "Pied Piper" to download music, creates an algorithm that compresses files and creates an almost instant download. What he doesn't know is that this algorithm with the right investors can turn into a billion dollar company.

"Right off the bat the show reaches for the low-hanging fruit you's expect, and there's a lot to pick from.

Richard and his friends can't talk to girls. Brogrammers give them a hard time. Twitter and Instagram get egregious name-checks, while Grindr and other apps are used as joke fodder," wrote Bryan Bishop from theverge.com

Richard begins the show working for a company called Hooli, which has a very Google like feel to it.

The completely money-driven CEO Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) finds out about this very lucrative discovery of Richard's, and has to have it.

Gavin offers up $10 million for his algorithm out right, but he isn't the only one who is interested.

Another big-time investor is more interested in making Richard's dream come true rather than exponentially profiting off of someone else's work. 

Peter Gregory (Christopher Evan Welch) is an extremely awkward person, yet he is by far one of the most intelligent investors in the world. After you see his run-in with Burger King and their sesame seeds you will know exactly why I feel that way.

He tells Richard that he will give him $200,000 for just 5 percent equity of "Pied Piper." Richard, as none of us would do, passes on Gavin's $10 million and accepts Peter's investment.

This show offers the best of both worlds, it relates to the tech audience with accurate depictions of the modern-day lifestyle of a computer tech, which includes references to Steve Jobs and TED talks.

"Silicon Valley" also relates to the general public. 

T.J. Miller, who you may remember from the role of Stainer in the movie "She's Out of My League," plays a guy named Erlich who thinks he is the perfect package with his brain and good looks, when in fact he is quite the opposite. Gilfoyle never fails to make you laugh, whether the joke is pertaining to the fact that he is an illegal immigrant from Canada or that he is a satanist. 

"Silicon Valley's strength is in showing how the locus of cultural cred has shifted. The big showbiz dream of Vincent Chase and pals in "Entourage" look puny beside the empire-builiding of Hooli. That is cemented in the opening scene, where Kid Rock entertains a listless crowd at the party for a barely post-pubescent host whose start-up just sold to Google for over $200 million," wrote James Poniewozik of TIME magazine.

This group of actors will have you laughing through every step of their process, never a dull moment.

AT A Glance:
Silicon Valley
Starring: Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Martin Starr.
Creator: Mike Judge
Genre: comedy
Run Time: 30 minutes
Network: HBO
Overall Rating: 4/5

College Players Deserve More

According to Mark Koba of NBC News $10.6 billion was generated by college athletics in 2012.

Out of the 450,000 college athletes not a single one of them have a piece of that pie. They are simply compensated with a full or partial scholarships. Somehow that seems to be fair in the eyes of the NCAA.

So to bring you up to speed the NCAA makes billions, the schools make hundreds of millions, the coaches make millions, and the players have an opportunity to get a "great education." The numbers just don't add up.

Furthermore the education is solely based on how good the athlete is in the first place, they don't simply give away scholarships to everyone that wants to join the team. So the more likely you are to succeed as a professional athlete the less important the education aspect is.

"If a student-athlete is hurt or unsuccessful, the coaches and administrators suddenly discard the noble ideals of "education" and a player is left with nothing. Fans would no doubt feel differently about the issue if a student-athlete was in their own family," said Brian Frederick, a board member of Sports Fans Coalition.

According to a report by the National College Players Association and Drexel University, the fair market value for an average college football player is $178,000. Where the big name athletes, such as Johnny Manziel would have earned closer to half a billion in his two years as a starting quarterback at Texas A&M University.

Whether or not you are a Heismen Trophy winner or a back up kicker you are still part of a team and more importantly a brand. A brand that according to ESPN.com is making hundreds of millions of dollars each year on your account, but football isn't even the highest earning sport in the NCAA.

There is one event related to one sport that surpasses anything else in a matter of three weeks.
The event I'm taking about is the College Basketball Tournament, more commonly known as "March Madness."

According to Zach Cheney-Rice of policymic.com, TV ad earnings alone surpassed $1 billion in 2012. In the same year the NBA, MLB and NHL playoffs combined only produced $991 million. Yet players in those leagues are sufficiently compensated because they are professionals.

What really separates an amateur from a professional in this case? Is it their age? No because basketball players only have to play one year of college and both the MLB and NHL can draft players straight out of high school.

What separates an amateur and a professional is a salary. Amateur in this case is just a word that legally dismisses the obligation to reimburse players for the work that they do.

Shabazz Napier, the starting guard and captain of the current national champions Connecticut Huskies, is one of the best college basketball players in the country and recently told the world that he goes to bed sometimes "starving."

"He says he's going to bed hungry at a time when millions of dollars are being made off of him. It's obscene. This isn't a Connecticut problem. This is an NCAA problem, and I want to make sure we're putting pressure on them to treat athletes well," said Connecticut State Rep. Matthew Lesser.

Players can no longer stand by and watch the money they produce, on their own, slip right past them and into the hands of the NCAA.

Imagine a college player that spends 40-50 hours a week to achieve his dream to be a professional athlete, but behind that dream is a single parent with multiple children working two jobs just to keep their house from foreclosing.


Without the NCAA regulation that forces players to play at least one year of college when talking about basketball and three years when talking about football, the majority of players would have a salary in the hundreds of thousands and would be able to support his or her struggling family.

If the NCAA needs the star players for at least one year to ensure their ratings don't dive and their revenue stays in the hundreds of millions, then the players should get what they deserve, and what they deserve is a big piece of an enormous pie.

At A Glance:
$10.6 Billion were generated by the NCAA in 2012.
"March Madenss" generated more than NBA, NHL and MLB playoffs combined.
Athletes going to bed "starving."

Eric Mckenzie: LBCC's ITS President

We all come to a point in our lives when we finally find something we love doing. That point where you wake up one day, look yourself in the mirror and without words you realize you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

For Eric Mckenzie, an LBCC welding student and the president of the Industrial Technical Services (ITS) club, this moment happened when he moved here from Southern California to pursue his interest in welding.

29 Palms, where Mckenzie is from, there isn't much to do and it's hard to stay motivated out in the desert and away from big cities.

"Traditional class room settings were always a little tough for me, that's why I enjoy welding so much, I'm hands on at all times and I'm actually getting job experience while in school," said Mckenzie

Mckenzie doesn't just represent himself but an entire organization of welders alike. ITS helps out a lot of people every year, locally and globally. This year ITS is creating a bell that will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

They have also helped out around the campus, by welding a new cart for the Commuter's paper deliverer, and also helped improve the athletic facility, by welding all new racks for the zumba room.

Behind all of these projects you will find an amazing group of people and behind them you will find a man doing what ever he can to help them all.

 "He is always willing to help, and promptly addresses and situation that involves the ITS department, that's what makes him such a good president," said fellow ITS member Colby Cantrell.

Past the biker beard, steel toed boots, and flame retardant jacket, that ironically has red flames on it, there is motivated man with a very calm demeanor. All of Mckenzie's work with the ITS department helps hundreds of student every year pay for expensive certification classes and tests.

 "He is a really big motivator to the rest of the students, really outgoing and energetic about welding, "said Fred Stuewe who is the Co-Chair of the ITS department and current welding instructor.

Though sometimes the breaks and off times consist of conversations that one may here in a bar or from a group of veterans, when it's time to get down to business, welders make the transition faster than anyone I have ever seen.

Some days Mckenzie has 12 hour days, eight of which are in the shop, the remaining four are in a classroom so that he can receive his contractor's certification, which would allow him to work as a welder while still in school.

What you don't hear from him is a single complaint. What you do hear from him is the excitement in his voice, that after each day there is a renewed sense of accomplishment.

You can see how much welding means to him and how much pride he has in himself and the ITS department as a whole.

In the future Mckenzie hopes to get his general contractor's license and start his own welding company, but welding can be a very profitable occupation so working for a well established company wouldn't be to bad either.

Where ever Mckenzie ends up in the job market doesn't matter because he knows he will be the best welder that he can be, and that in itself will be a dream come true.

At A Glance:
Eric Mckenzie
ITS President
26 years old
A second year student at LBCC
Hobbies: Anime and Soccer

Starz's New Hit Series "Black Sails"

Because of movies like "The Rock", "Pearl Harbor" and more recently the "Transformers" series, when Michael Bay stamps his name on anything people's ears perk up, So start perking your ears, because Bay has done it again. 

Starz's new series "Black Sails" has become one of the most talked about shows this year. It is an intense, provocative, and an accurate depiction of the pirates life as you have never seen it before. 

This isn't another kid friendly "Pirates of The Caribbean" knock off. The Co-Creators Robert Levine and Jonathan Steinberg wanted to show the more realistic side of the historically correct life of a pirate, that included the harsh conditions at sea and the brothels on land.

"On this show, sex isn't just sex and murders have meaning; such things are acts of power and politics," said Makeisha Toby from thewrap.com

"Black Sails" was created and written as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island", with Captain Flint (Toby Stephens), and all his pirates. Only this version of Captain Flint isn't the one we all remember. 

"Flint is an extreme libertarian; a would-be king; a man who yearns to leave the sea, settle down, find peace; an incurably restless, rabid animal; and, of course, a criminal," said Jeff Jensen from ew.com.  

He will stop it nothing to find the largest treasure in all of the world, and he will go through anyone that tries to stand in his way.

The story begins twenty years prior to "Treasure Island" in a place called New Providence Island. This is an island that the British Navy watches very closely because it has become a haven for pirates, from all walks of life, to come and hide their smuggled goods, enjoy their riches, and embrace the true extent of a pirate's lifestyle. 

The Island is controlled by Richard Guthrie(Sean Cameron Michael), who is depicted as the kingpin to all illegal pirate trade, and his daughter Eleanor (Hannah New).

Eleanor is an assertive and independent woman that somehow holds her own in the midst of drunk and disorderly pirates that see her as just another prostitute.

Captain Flint isn't the only one Eleanor has to deal with though. Possibly one of the most ruthless, and cutthroat pirates of the show is Captain Charles Vane (Zach McGowan). 

Captain Vane is the wild card of this show. You will never know what he is going to do next, and if Captain Flint never makes it to "Treasure Island" Vane may be the reason why.

This show is fueled by high intensity situations from beginning to end, there is no time to blink.

"The first episode delivers all the swords, blood, sex and nudity that a Starz Subscriber may be seeking, but slowly, through the next three, it becomes clear that "Black Sails" has more ambition than merely artfully framing a lesbian sex scene or a sword fight," said Tim Goodman from Hollywoodreporter.com

Because of the huge turnout during Comic-Con 2013 and a lot of support from fans, the second season of "Black Sails" was guaranteed before the series premiere aired. 

Though the first season only included eight episodes, they are all an hour long. You can watch the pilot episode on tv.com if you don't have Starz and we all know inevitably it will make its way to Netflix in no time.

The second season however will have the standard 10 episodes that most Starz's shows have and will not air until sometime in 2015, so there is plenty of time to catch up on this must-watch show.

At a Glance:
Network: Starz
Starring: Toby Stephens, Hannah New, Zach McGowan
Production: Film Afrika Worldwide, Platinum Dunes, Quaker Moving Pictures
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Rated: TV-14
Overall Rating: 5 of 5