Silicon Valley Season 1 Review

One of the benefits of having access to HBO Now is the ability to stream HBO's previously aired shows. That meant that I was able to share the entirety of Season 1 of Silicon Valley with my family before Season 2 began. Silicon Valley follows the trials and successes of a small tech start up as they try to bring their new software to market. Incubated in the house of Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller), Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) is joined by Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) when his compression algorithm is shown to be revolutionary.

Together the four work with "Jared" (Zach Woods), who has an understanding of business organization the others lack, and Monica (Amanda Crew), the lead from the venture capital firm that has given them seed money. They fight to develop the algorithm into a suite of products before a large tech firm, Hooli, can beat them to the punch. Season 1 ends with a major showdown between Hendricks' company, Pied Piper, and Hooli.

This is a mature audiences-focused half-hour comedy. One of Gilfoyle's lines in the premiere regarding the liquid shrimp he has just eaten nearly made my wife spit-take her mouthful of water across the room and she was hooked. Silicon Valley is the brain child of Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. In this case, the show probably is more reminiscent of Judge's Office Space than Beavis and Butthead, but there are shades of both in the humor and character interplay (especially Dinesh and Gilfoyle). Overall this is a show about young brilliant people who struggle to handle the success and opportunity they have earned.

Thomas Middleditch, who I thought was one of the best parts of the movie Fun Size, is great as the incredibly smart but socially inept Richard Hendricks dealing with situations he just isn't equipped to handle. Probably the funniest characters in the show are Jared (Woods) who is completely straight-laced compared to the others and Martin Starr is very good as he delivers the deadpan and dry humor as Gilfoyle. Season 1 is 8 episodes long and the first four episodes are very funny and while there is a bit of a lull during episodes 5, 6 and 7, stick with it. The season finale is some of the funniest television I have ever seen. We were all struggling for breath by the time it ended. Luckily, Silicon Valley has already been picked up for season 3 so Richard and the team will be working together for quite a while.

If you are looking for a mature comedy about twenty-somethings trying to make it as entrepreneurs, give Silicon Valley a shot. At times the show is some of the funniest television out there and overall is extremely good. Silicon Valley gets 4.5 Mick Happies. Can't wait for another episode to air tonight.

In Real Life Review

Like many gamers, I have played Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) at some point in my past. For me it was Multi-User Dungeons like Valhalla (now rebuilt as Asgard's Honor) and Genocide. I never got into the World of Warcraft (WoW) and Everquest games. My daughter did play around in WoW a little and that always made me smile a bit. Now I do play Path of Exile which falls nicely into this genre. I do know that there are a lot of problems that have evolved with the MMORPG format. Not the least is bullying of players and real-money economies building up around the game where those with time sell the fruits of their efforts to those with little time and lots of money. I was then pleasantly surprised to find out that Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang had combined to develop a young adult focused graphic novel, In Real Life,  that explored these subjects all with a girl protagonist.

The story focuses on Anda, a young girl who's family has just moved to a new town. There she hears about an online game, Coarsegold Online, and convinces her parents to let her play. After that we follow the story as Anda meets other players and learns a lot about the world of Coarsegold Online, our world and the impact of one's actions.

The artwork by Jen Wang is vibrant and fully enhances the story being told. This is a great book for anyone with children that are getting ready to play online games. It broaches the subjects I mentioned before as well as opens up the opportunity to talk about those topics with your kids. Along the way they can learn for themselves the best way to interact with other people online where doing what is right or wrong is sometimes more than just a choice of following the rules or not.

Pick up a copy of In Real Life, read it and share it with someone else. You will be glad that you did. Written with a young adult audience in mind, there is still enough depth and story here for adult readers and, again, I think it is best when thought of as a story you read together with a teenager for the dialogue it will raise. Once you finish In Real Life, there is a short story on Tor.com called Con/Game with the same characters. Due to the short length of Con/Game, I don't recommend reading it first as you will not have an understanding of the characters or backstory and thus Con/Game will not be as entertaining as it could be. In Real Life, 4 Mick Happies, is available digitally and in paper form at all booksellers. Enjoy.

HBO Now Review

The family and I have been sans cable TV for nearly 4 years now. One of the things we have always said is that we have no problem paying for the content we want to see. We just don't want to be paying $60 - $100 a month for a bunch of channels we will never watch. Don't even get me started on commercials as well. We bought 3 apple TV boxes for our televisions and started streaming Netflix (we already were paying for Netflix on top of our monthly cable TV bill). We supplemented Netflix by buying season passes through iTunes to any TV shows we wanted to watch. Upside was access to shows the day after they aired without any commercials. It even felt like we were saving money when we used credit card points to get iTunes cards. Since then we have purchased replacement apple TV boxes twice but overall we probably have saved a few thousand dollars by not having cable TV. On thing that always bothered me was that we couldn't access shows like Game of Thrones because a) HBO wouldn't allow season passes for the show on iTunes and b) they wouldn't allow viewing of their content without a cable subscription, until now.

This past week saw the rollout of HBO Now, a standalone HBO streaming service available without cable subscription. For $14.99 a month, you have unlimited access to HBO series and whatever movies they are currently offering. Though a bit pricey over all when compared to Netflix's streaming service, HBO Now does offer some things Netflix can't.

With HBO Now, you get access to content like Game of Thrones, Sex in the City, The Sopranos and Entourage (along with others). All available right after they originally air (no waiting for the season to end or the DVDs to be released a year later). You also get access to a mix of older and recently released movies, most of which are not available on Netflix. There are also the sports (mainly boxing), comedy and documentary specials that HBO has produced. HBO Now is accessible by computer, an app on Apple TV as well as a mobile device app (I have been using it on my iPad Mini). There is also one feature in the app that is unique compared to Netflix, the +10 button, allowing you to fast forward 10 seconds, which is so much better than trying to track forward using the scrolling bar - which always leads to buffering delays on Netflix.

HBO Now interface

As with any new service, there are some drawbacks that you should be aware of. The first movie we streamed on our Apple TV, The Heat, had a lot of stuttering in the video playback - no problems with the sound. The user interface on the mobile app is a little limited on the home screen when you first open the app, I find using the menu button the best way to navigate. The other drawback compared to Netflix is that content rotates on and off the service much faster than with Netflix (not including HBO-specific shows and specials). The monthly cost is also a little on the high side for the total amount of content provided, but the free first month helped mitigate some of that cost.

Main front screen for HBO Now - the 3 menu button upper left is your friend

I was able to sign up and register my device quickly through the iPad app using my iTunes account. This means I can pay the monthly fee through iTunes and not worry about my credit card being hit (as long as I keep an iTunes balance up). You can stop the subscription renewal at any time, it only renews one month at a time. Want to see all of a given show, sign up for a month after it has aired and stream it all then let the subscription lapse.

HBO Now is exactly what all content providers should be moving toward. There is no need for a "middle man" cable provider curating a large number of channels - we want and will pay for access to specific content we want to watch. It is cheaper for the viewer and directly benefits content providers who offer what we want to see. Is the service perfect, no, is it a good start, yes. Especially with the free first month, you should jump in and give it a try. HBO Now gets 4 Mick Happies. Now back to watching The Grand Budapest Hotel.