Thanks to my wife Celeste and her staff appreciation dinner, as of three days ago we are now proud owners of the coolest door prize imaginable, an iPad, which as you can imagine has been consuming much of my time this week (I’ll start posting more frequently soon, I promise). Although I consider myself an early adopter and heavy tech user (Apple products especially), I hadn’t anticipated getting this device anytime in the near future. Now that we have one, though, I don’t think I can live without it. It’s already completely changed how I browse the internet / check email and I actually look forward to reading the newspaper every day now which is something I could never say before. Here’s my 10 favorite apps so far on the iPad.
Netflix (watch movies on the go)
USA Today (very colorful, great layout, navigation)
Harbor Master HD (most addicting game ever)
Alice in Wonderland (for showing off the graphics / interactive capabilities)
iBooks (So far I have Sh*t My Dad Says, The Wire: Truth Be Told, and Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter)
ABC Player (for my LOST fix)
Magic Piano (really cool, uniquely designed piano app)
Twitterrific (I’m used to Echofon and Tweetie, but this one’s growing on me)
Maps (for pretending you’re a CNN anchor)
Peggle (iPhone version but works fantastically on iPad)
Also, have to mention the WordPress app which I’m using to write this very post!
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With all the great leaks in the past couple of weeks, it’s been hard to listen to anything that isn’t called High Violet, This Is Happening, Together, Heaven Is Whenever, or Forgiveness Rock Record. But I did get the chance to check out the a couple tracks from The Lodger’s upcoming album, Flashbacks. The Lodger is one of the UK’s catchiest guitar pop bands (“The Good Old Days” was one of 2008’s best jams) and their new stuff looks like it’s just as fun and jangly. I especially love the 60’s soul-influenced horn section and the cheerful boy/girl harmonies in “Have A Little Faith In People”. You can purchase Flashbacks soon from This Is Fake DIY Records.
MP3 The Lodger – Have A Little Faith In People
MP3 The Lodger – The Back Of My Mind
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I really enjoyed this video for The xx’s “Islands” directed by Saam Farahmand which premiered on my friends at mtvU. Really cool concept and the ending is brilliant.
Speaking of The xx, I’ll be posting my review of their Chicago show with Hot Chip early next week. You can check out the photos early at the musicforants.com flickr page.
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I’m super glad that Thursday TV is back, the Goodfellas / Godfather parody on Community made for probably the funniest episode of the night, but my favorite clip had to be this one from 30 Rock:
Happy Birthday, Bitches!
Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good 
Could not agree with you more about Thursday night television being funny again (a month was way too long of a break!). The brilliance of the Community episode and the hilarious Bitch Hunter scene from 30 Rock were highlights for me as well.
Very nice blogging.
Have you found a good app for rss feeds. I want a good reader for the iPad but haven’t found one I like yet. Other cool apps – adobe ideas for drawing fun, dragon diction will type up what you say with very good accuracy, and epicurious if you ever cook.
I’ve been using Feeddler, it’s a pretty simple rss reader, syncs up with your google feeds. I have epicurious / adobe ideas. Thanks!