Mario Crossover. Play as your favorite NES character in Mario’s world. You’ll be entertained for at least a couple of minutes. And I’m guessing you’ll pick the guy from Contra first.

Montage of idiots, as seen on TV! If you’re familiar with infomercials, a lot of them have a clip of someone doing something idiotic to justify why everyone needs this product right away. “Does your cat make too much noise?”

Note: I wrote this April 5th, just a couple of days after buying the iPad. I’ll have some updated thoughts. Also, I got a 16GB Wi-Fi only unit.

There are a lot of in-depth iPad reviews better than anything I’d be able to write, so I’ll just think of questions and answer them based on my first two days with it.

How’s the hardware?

The screen is beautiful. Typing on the keyboard is a mixed bag for me. Awkward describes it best. Vertically, typing is comfortable but slow. Horizontally, typing is fast but uncomfortable. The speaker is mono, which doesn’t bother me, but I wish it could get louder. And, yes, this thing is begging for front-facing camera.

So there’s no Flash?

No. And it hasn’t bothered me so far, especially because a lot of sites prepared for the iPad. And YouTube works and its the host for most videos that I come across day-to-day. The only time I ran into the you-need-Flash alert was when I tried to view a video on the NBA site that was linked from their Twitter feed that I saw on the NBA Courtside iPad app. (Which looks cool in the previews I’ve seen online but is useless until the playoffs.)

How’s web browsing?

It’s fantastic, but I miss having keyboard shortcuts. Right now I’d like a four-finger swipe in Safari to open up your tabs. And maybe left and right swipes to go to your next and previous tabs.

There’s no multitasking?

Not for third-party apps. Mail still checks email, Safari keeps your tabs and pages where you left them, and iPod can play music and podcasts while you do other stuff. But acccidentally hitting the home button ends my Geometry Wars session and forgets where I was browsing in NetFlix. Without multitasking, I’ve been annoyed a few times but never frustrated.

What free apps did you try?

Adobe Ideas, NetFlix, Twitterrific, TweetDeck.

Adobe Ideas lets you draw. It seems to be vector-based so you can zoom in as far as you want without losing quality. Since it’s vector-based it cleans up the lines you draw. Lots of fun.

NetFlix lets you watch their selection of streamable content on your iPad. Simple as that, and probably how you imagine it would work. Scrubbing through the timeline isn’t as good as on the desktop version (no thumbnailed previews). The online selection isn’t great for movies, but the TV show selection is very good. Seeing as how I have the WiFi iPad, though, I’ll primarily be using it at home and would rather watch a movie on a TV.

Twitterific and TweetDeck are Twitter apps. I’m not a Twitter power-user and Twitterific’s simpler.

What apps have you bought?

Flight Control ($5), Geometry Wars ($10), SketchBook Pro ($8), Instapaper Pro ($5). I’ve never bought anything off of the iTunes store, so this is my first time having a store account seamlessly linked to my bank account. I get flashbacks to my dorm food account when buying apps—I’m spending real money but it doesn’t feel like it.

Right now I would fully recommend Flight Control. You have an overview of a map and you direct planes and helicopters to their landing strip by drawing their paths—game over if two crash into each other. Once the screen starts to fill with planes and helicopters it’s a lot of fun. But each game starts out so easy that the the first couple minutes feel like a waste of time. It’d be great if there were a higher fast-forward speed than currently available.

Geometry Wars is the same Geometry Wars available on gaming consoles. I’ve never played those, but it was pretty fun on the iPad. It’s a top-down shooter, and you place your thumb anywhere on the left side of the screen to create a vehicle motion joystick and your other thumb on the right side of the screen to create a gun motion joystick. Think Smash TV. I never regretted buying $10 of candy and Thomas Kemper the same way I regret paying $10 for Geometry Wars. Again, it’s fun, but $10 just feels like too much. I think $5 is going to be the sweet spot for most iPad games.

SketchBook Pro is fun to use. And it reminds me of the day I bought a Wacom tablet in high school. But I’m not that serious about drawing, and it seems like serious artists could take SketchBook Pro a long way. You’ve got a lot of brush settings and layers to work with. Adobe Ideas satisfies any urge I have to draw and I’d recommend trying that out first before shelling out $8 for SketchBook Pro.

Instapaper Pro converts web pages to more reader-friendly versions and keeps track of things you want to read later. I haven’t used it much yet, and so far I’ve found that I’ve just been reading things on the original sites. But I think it’ll be good to have a queue of things to read whenever there’s free time. If you read a lot of long articles it might be worth it (still deciding if I’m included in that group).

Those app descriptions were too long just sum this thing up

I woke up Sunday, grabbed my iPad, and lied in bed for an hour using checking my usual sites. That was awesome. It’s only going to get better as more apps are released and app pricing settles down. I’ll be using my laptop a lot less, and as often as it’s connected to my external monitor it could really just be a Mac Mini at this point. The iPad is changing things, just look at all the major sites that were prepped for the release. Serious work will continue to be done on traditional systems. But the iPad has everything necessary for entertainment.

Hulu announces Hulu Plus. LA Times:

Under the proposal, Hulu would continue to provide for free the five most recent episodes of shows like Fox’s “Glee,” “ABC’s “Lost” or NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” But viewers who want to see additional episodes would pay $9.95 a month to access a more comprehensive selection, called Hulu Plus, these people said.

I skimmed the comments and it took about two seconds to remind myself of why I try to stay in my RSS reader and away from comments. Here’s a sample with my snarky thoughts:

Talk about greed!

Talk about business!

Why would the majority of people pay for a service to watch shows they can download illegally for free?

iTunes is doing alright charging for things people can download illegally.

Who on Earth would pay $10 per month for old episodes of shows?

People who want to watch them.

P.S. I love that they chose an Arrested Development screenshot.

Marvel’s Chris Baker on selecting MvC3 characters:

“There are absolutely characters that will be much more relavent in the next few years and you want to get them in there, there are characters that have become a lot more popular since the last Marvel Vs. Capcom game, that weren’t in there that we wanted to get in there. There are characters that have been invented in the last ten years that we may want to get in there.”

My guesses: Thor is a sure thing and Whiplash is likely. More Avengers members will be in it, it’s just a matter of who, and Nick Fury seems possible since Chris Redfield is confirmed already.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Announced. Yes.

Dave Chappelle at the Laugh Factory. That links to a clip where he talks about Man rape. Here’s a clip from the same night where he talks about The Secret. These are from a five-hour performance this past fall. Can’t they just sell the whole thing for $100 or something?

On another note, Jerry reminded me that Dave Chappelle and Conan O’Brien have been good friends for a long time and that it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise if Chappelle showed up sometime during the tour. I think it’ll happen. In the meantime check out one of Dave’s many interviews with Conan O’Brien. His description of a trip to China at 3:37 killed me.

I was going to write something coherent but I had a hard time putting everything I remembered in order. Instead, here are some bullets.

• Reggie Watts from Portland opened for Conan. He did some live voice sampling, played piano, sang, and did some impersonations. The music sounded great but it wasn’t exactly a laugh riot. He’s obviously talented but things that started funny went too long.
• The Legally Prohibited band came out and did “Move On Up” to open. Live bands make everything better. They did songs throughout the show with Conan playing guitar. It’d be nice if Max Weinberg was with them on tour, but they’re great regardless.
• Video of Conan lazing around the house was good. The workout montage after it was better.
• Conan came out and said his goal was to have the crowd leave thinking that it was kind of sort of worth it. Then he opened with some of his thoughts about Seattle, which he loves. His wife is from here and his wedding was here so it’s nice to know that it’s not like the school principal saying “best class ever” during graduation.
• He shared a slideshow of people he’s angry about being on TV while he isn’t, including Snooki and the Kardashians. At some point I thought Jay Leno would flash on the screen, but he didn’t and Conan never mentioned him.
• Andy Richter came out and did what he does on Conan’s shows. But he also did a couple of fake commercials Dick’s Drive-In and the Fremont Troll.
• Conan came out for a few minutes in the leather suit from Eddie Murphy’s “Raw”. On to the next bullet point.
• A few elements from the old show made appearances. Masturbating Bear did his thing. Triumph made a video appearance. And Conan also brought out the Chuck Norris Rural Policeman Handle. I started watching Conan after seeing the Walker clips online, which puts me in the same light as the guy that started watching Chappelle’s Show after the Rick James skit, but I can live with that. I love these clips.
• At some point they inflated a giant plastic bat. There aren’t a lot of people that can make that funny, but Conan’s one of them.
• Deon Cole came out to do some stand-up and he killed. Great and unexpected. Would’ve been the best surprise of the night except, well, Conan brought out a musical guest.
• My friend Jerry went the night to the first Seattle show and said that Dave Matthews performed. I figured he’d have a different guest perform for the second showing, but I wouldn’t think it’d be a bigger deal than Dave Matthews. Eddie Vedder came out and did his “Rise” cover from the Into the Wild soundtrack. Mike McCready joined him and the Legally Prohibited Band and did the Pearl Jam cover of “Baba O’Riley”. Conan’s tweet sums it up:
  

  “Eddie Vedder’s set at my show in Seattle last night melted my eyeballs. Seriously, I’m going to sue Eddie for boiling my ocular-jelly.”

Absolutely kind of sort of worth it. Catch it if you can.

Update: Albert said I should have more pictures. Here’s the bat:

Here are some pictures I took with my phone, along with a couple sent by friends. Enjoy! Here’s the first one—a candid shot Dan took of me futuristically contemplating.

I was checking to see if I should wear shorts to the game and saw what doubles as my favorite temperature and the name of my boy band if I started one.

Jerry sent me this. He always keeps me up to date with hooded out headlines.

Here’s Donatello on SketchPad. I can’t draw legs well. Scratch that—I can’t draw well. Actually I kind of like the headband.

I wanted to make chicken teriyaki from a recipe and I needed to get some garlic. I hate peeling garlic so I went for the pre-minced stuff. I could choose between the small jar for $1.99 or the large for $2.99.

Or the lifetime supply version for $4.99.

Just when you thought Ross couldn’t amaze you anymore.

He fought with the Samurai?

He is Samurai.

Here’s what it looks like from my perspective when I’m crying so hard that I lose my breath.

The first dude bro ever. A guy in a shirt and hoodie in a sea of fedoras.