I don’t know why, but I found myself scouring old hard drives and intertubes looking for old GitC articles. Call it wading into nostalgia, but I couldn’t help but share the very first “article” I ever wrote. Clearly, my outlook on many a thing has changed, while some are painfully the same. And, because I am a wonky film Geek, I can’t help but add in some “Directors Commentary” whenever I feel like it! It was February 2, 2004. Enjoy… Or not. Enjoy is preferred though. - AD.

THE FUTURE IS MIGHTY STRAIGHT…

So, I’ve told myself that I would keep my political opinions to myself when I write this here little column. For the most part I will, but with Dubya flapping his lips about altering the Constitution to prevent a group of people from marrying got me a little riled up. (This was back when Bush 42 said he would back a Constitutional Amendment making Man / Woman the only legal marriage in the US). So, let me get this out of the way and we can continue the “serious” writing (like how Picard is better then Kirk, stuff like that).

Bush is a tool. PERIOD.

I’m not some bleeding heart, nor am I hardcore conservative.

I’m just some ordinary schmo who thinks this should really be a non-issue. I don’t care who you marry. I can’t figure out why the hell someone would want to get married in the first place. What? You mean I can VOLUNTARILY enter a contract that INSTANTLY puts half of EVERYTHING I own at risk? Well hot damn, sign me up! (Can you tell I was listening to a lot of Tom Leykis back then? Well, clearly my outlook on marriage has changed. I love you Jenn)! Okay, I know it’s more then that, but still. If it was up to me (and people should thank their respected Gods and/or Goddess that it’s not), NO ONE would get a friggen thing for getting married; regardless of gender. Even worse, I’d also tax your ass for having little bastard clones of yourself too…but that’s a whole other thing. (Pretty sure I still feel that way, but this stems from a by choice childless home always covering crap “for the kids”). Anyway, amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage is lame and wrong. This creates a whole new group of people that count as “separate but equal”.

Remember where that got us last time we wrote those laws?

In sticking with the theme of my rant lets move on…

There aren’t many gay folks in the future. Or more specifically, Star Trek is mighty “homo-lite”. Unless of course you count the Mirror Universe in which EVERYONE is gay, or at the very least bi-sexual. Don’t get your Underoos in a bunch, this may sound incredibly hot, but try to imagine Worf getting it both ways (Not pretty…except for you Klingon Fetish folks…you know who you are. Freaks).

Hey - Look, pictures. I never used them back in the day either! - AD

This is a small consolation though, since the Mirror Universe is where all the evil and twisted people live and fight a never-ending civil war. They do know how to dress though (the Mirror Universe characters I mean). Take the lovely Lt. Uhura, she’s hot as hell them 1960’s mini-skirts, bloomers, and go-go books (God bless you Gene Roddenberry). But, in the Mirror Universe she has the above mentioned clothes with the added bonus of a belly shirt and carries a big ass knife. 

Used to have a LINK here - Better to show the hotness! - AD

You try telling me that isn’t hot as hell! They couldn’t show this on television, but remember the rules of the Mirror Universe… Oh yea, Lt. Uhura and Nurse Chapel playing “doctor”… Excuse me, be right back… Spock was also kinda’ hot with that dangerous goatee (oh yea, other Mirror Universe rule – Men have goatees and/or open chest shirts – Don’t know what Dr. Pulaski would look like, apart from hideous of course).

Things didn’t get any better during the Next Generation time either. In fact, the Mirror Universe didn’t even show up. Not once! And so Star Trek: TNG was a safe bet for folks that didn’t want to explain to little Timmy why Picard was kissing Data, (come on, all those “rehearsals” in the Holodeck…You know they hit it a few times, he’s British for God’s sake). When you think about it, Data is the perfect person to get your homo-curious on with.

FIRST: He doesn’t make moral judgments (except when it comes to using little robots as slaves).

SECOND: If you decide that it’s not for you and you don’t want folks to find out, just order him to never speak of it. He won’t.

THIRD: He is “Fully functional in multiple techniques”.

Come on, can’t beat that! Seeing the Mirror Universe in Next Generation would have been fun. Makes it easier for me to visualize the whole “Crusher/Troi/Me” fun. (Yes, I mean Dr. Crusher. Little Wil couldn’t handle me)! (Um, I was all kinds of homo-erotically charged in this old school article. Best to not dwell on it. Or do, I don’t care. Just saying). - AD. As a side note, there was a time when the writers wanted to make Geordi a gay character. Watch the few episodes when he had a beard, that was when he was supposed to be “outted”. They must have panicked and backed off. Truthfully, I’m glad they did. Geordi was damn PC to begin with. I don’t think I could handle a black, blind, AND gay character, can you say overkill?

Deep Space Nine did give us some interesting ideas. A Trills’ sexuality all depends on the gender of the little worm thing in their belly. But, the producers backed off that one. They did bring back the Mirror Universe. Everyone was still evil, but they wore more leather. And Voyager? Hell if I know. Voyager sucks! Then there is Enterprise. I haven’t really watched it enough. They ended up on the cover of Just Out a few months ago, but I can’t get into the show so I don’t know why the show made the cover.  (Turns out one of the actors is gay, but even now, too lazy to remember who. Not that it matters, no one cared about Enterprise until Season 4 anyway) - AD.

So where does that leave us? I don’t know. Maybe that amendment DOES get passed. (Clearly, it never happened, but it was not a good year for equal rights. Things are better, but not perfect. To me at least) - AD. Then, not happy with making them second class citizens the President hires scientists to solve the “gay problem”. Not able to “cure” them they create a dimensional portal and ship them to the…Mirror Universe! And I think I’ll go with them…A goatee and leather looks good on me… (As it turns out, a full beard looks even better on me. Leather? Not so much, not with this arse) - AD.

Well, there you go. The very first Geek in the City article. I opened with Star Trek and if the day ever comes that I pull the plug on this site… I’ll probably find a way to end it with Star Trek.

On a more serious note. This site, in one form or another, has been around for over 6 years. It absolutely would not exist without the Lovely Jenn, all the great writers that pitch their work, but mainly you. Simply the greatest audience of all time. Ever. Your support never goes unappreciated. I thank you from the deepest of my heart.

Thank you.

A little over 20 years ago, the weekend before Christmas my father, grandfather, and I were shopping. I remember because it was that classic time in modern American life. The time where men all over the country scramble to find that gift that says how much their love their spouse, but still remind themselves that they lack the time or desire to step foot in a temple of consumerism; unless it’s a classic mercantile. (Stuffed with live bait, ammo, and salted meat products). We were not at such a place. Indeed, we stood inside what some might consider the antitheses of such places. Waldenbooks. At the time, my mother had a fascination with Gnomes. Not the cheeky garden variety. No. Those Swedish or Nordic ones. You know, the ones that eventually became a badly animated Saturday morning cartoon starring the dad from Happy Days. She was into those and Waldenbooks was the place to find over-sized tomes chronicling the life cycle of the pot-bellied people. I, being only 14, was bored out of my mind. Not that I didn’t love books. I did, truly.

However, by this time in my life, all things D&D were forbidden so I dare not wander to the hobby section of the store. Really, for two reasons. One, my dad and grandpa might catch me flipping through the Forgotten Realms book (which had just hit the shelves) or catch me causally looking at a model train book and thus assume I’d found a proper boys hobby. (Not that I ever had anything against model trains, but I was always more interested in the murder mystery that was so clearly happening inside those trains than the machines themselves). So, I went to the only section where I could wait for my male family members to find their gifts without raising too much ire. The newly budding Graphic Novel section, though at the time they still just crammed them into the Art Books – Looking back, I see nothing wrong with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko being lumped in the same area as Raphael or Salvador Dali; but that is for another time. I had time to kill. There it sat, a book I still own. One I will probably keep forever, merely out of sentiment. The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told.

First off, for those that think it took Alan Moore or Health Ledger to make the Joker look truly menacing, you need to study your comic history. Bill Finger created a frigging horrific and menacing Joker. In those first few pages, I understood why this villain endured for as long as his nemesis. But again, that is for another time. Within a few minutes, my father was standing over me and telling me it was time to go. With the best puppy dog eyes a pubescent boy can muster, I asked for the book. Clearly understanding my unease with shopping with both he and my grandfather. (By then he had long since come to acceptance with his artistic son). He grabbed the book and made me swear that I better “look goddamn surprised when you open it on Christmas Day”! Grinning, we made our way to the counter. I had a 90 mile drive ahead of me. One filled with polite tension. Even then, my dad and grandpa didn’t see eye-to-eye when it came to road tunes. One wanted Joe Cocker or Alice Cooper, the other wanted all such tapes taken out back and fed to the Doberman. (Which indeed happened on more than one occasion).

So, as you can imagine, a utterly silent 90 mile drive back home was not the most enjoyable of experiences. Particularly when the few conversations they would have either entailed them talking about work. (And, you don’t know ear stabbing boredom until you listen to two prison guards speak in code) Or, and this was even worse, when they hell I was going to start acting like a man and doing manly things. To this day, I don’t know what those things were. I mean, hell, I pretended to be a ninja at the drop of a hat. I loved shooting guns (hated hunting, entirely too much work), but loved pulling that trigger. Sure, I stayed in my room a lot to read books, but in between novels I was building epic battles with Lego figures. That is to say, I thought I was plenty manly for being 14. Then again, maybe it was the fact that I’d rather watch Fiddler on the Roof than join a football team that had them concerned. Now that I think about it, yea, that was probably it. Again, in my defense, my favorite part is the dream. You know, the one where Tevye uses the Undead to get himself out of a jam. See. Manly! Anyway, this is just an incredibly long way of saying I really needed something to distract me on that 90 mile drive home. In a move of quasi-villainy, I stole the Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told from the trunk and sat in the backseat and read.

For about 15 miles – Curse the lure of the truck-stop to two mall-weary mean. Five minutes and three big gulps later, my grandpa asks what I’m reading. Seeing it he proclaims “This isn’t reading, this is a joke”! (A belief he maintains to this day when it comes to comics in all forms). Upon seeing the book, my dad takes it from me and sticks it back into the trunk. “Dammit boy, you need to look surprised and if you read the whole damn thing before Christmas… You ain’t that good of a liar”. So, for all my sneakiness, a long and tense drive awaited me. Though not before my grandfather got in one last comment that I’ve kept with me to this very day. “When are you gonna’ outgrow that crap. That’s what those books are you know. Crap. You need to grow up”. I’m 34 now and a frightening realization is starting to creep up on me. No. I’m not grown up. No. I didn’t outgrow comics. But.

I’m starting to think they’re outgrowing me.

I read comics for good escapism stories. Sure, from time to time I like introspective personal tales. Still, I rather read the adventures of heroes doing heroic things. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the characters that live in moral gray area of heroics. Gail Simone and her band of outlaws doing semi-good within the pages of Secret Six? Gold. Jeff Parker’s glorious group of Marvel misfits taking on the jobs no one else can can in Atlas? That’s some wonderful work as well. Both teams have no problem opening fire on some of their enemies or just cutting loose. The books are mean. The books are snarky. The books are great. So, I don’t need everyone acting like Captain Marvel and saying “golly” every few pages.

But, when I read a title like Atlas or Secret Six, I know what I’m getting and I welcome it. That isn’t what made me wonder if comics have outgrown me. No. It happens when a fan boy tells me “I friggen hate Batman now that they stopped letting him blow away his enemies”. (I know, Batman never did that, but it is his follow up comment that made me wonder). “That’s why I only read Marvel books. That shit is real. Captain America or Wolverine fucking kill the bad guys and ask for more”. Without giving away more, let us just say, this fan boy clearly looked like a reject of the X-Treme Comix era from the 1990s. Let him have his Carnage and Doktor Fate books. Those books died for a reasons.

But that wasn’t want messed with my outlook.

No. It was a few days later. There was an 8 year-old boy, in the shop with his mom. Shopping for comics for the first time, using money he proudly clutched in his hand. Money, no doubt, procured from hours of back-breaking chores of trash removal and room cleaning. It was a real joy seeing the world of comics through his eyes. Wanting to roam on his own when his mom let him free. I don’t have kids. I don’t know what it feels like to send your kid to school for the first time. Or, how it feels to see them walk for the first time. But, to an old school comic book fan like myself, seeing a kid wander a comic book shop for the very first time is pretty friggen cool. It really is one of the best reasons to work in a shop. His mom looked at me, I gave her the nod. The nod that any good store manager and parent understand. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your little dude or girl away from the bad books”. I directed him to the all-ages section. Books that are okay for any and all to read. Not just Archie. I mean some fun books like Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Marvel Adventures, Superhero Squad, and Supergirl – Adventures in the 8^th Grade. These really are great books. Don’t let the “simple art” or “simple stories” fool you. There is some still some fun superhero stories in those books. Even better, they bring more kids into comics, and ask anyone that works in the industry, we need that now more than ever. He found his book. Superhero Squad. All his favorite heroes, The Avengers, kicking butt against the threat of the month. Ran to his mom. She nodded. This book was okay. Together they walked to the counter. Raising his body as high as the tip of his toes would allow, he slapped his book and three bucks on the counter. His face one massive smile and talking about how everything he saw was completely awesome. Then, as I rang up his book he glanced down at our statues. His smile faded. His eyes narrowed. Then, all the wonder seemed to leave his body when he pointed at a statue and asked his mom a question.

“Mom, why does Captain American have a gun”?

She looked at me and asked if I knew. Now, in an article stacked with with sidebars, here is another. I don’t have anything against guns. I own many myself. I love them. Love to shoot them. But, I also understand they are a tool and the power comes with responsibility. (To steal a phrase). That being said… Here is where many a modern comic book reader rolls their eyes at me.

Superheroes don’t kill. They don’t. Period.

What did I tell the kid? Simple. I lied. “That was when he served in the Army and he had to carry a gun… But we all know he only uses the shield, right”? His mom looked at me with thanks as the kid’s grin returned and nodded at me with total understanding. Rather non-infinite crisis averted, but I still felt uneasy. It still felt like it was a question a small kid never should have had to ask. At least, not by looking at his favorite character. They left and I started flipping through my order book. That’s when it hit me. A lot of the current superheroes, or at least their modern incarnations, are packing a lot of heat.

The Avengers looks like a small army now, and for some reason DC thought it was a good idea to bring back the pistol packing, mind controlling Maxwell Lord. Even characters receiving the “re-imagining” treatment in books like First Wave are packing heat. See Batman in the previously mentioned book. Look, I know that in the true history of comics as a format, Batman, Superman, Captain America, etc. used to dole out the final punishment to their opponents. We all know that many of these heroes, and their editors, drafted a “no kill” policy to keep Congress and Fredric Wertham off their back. However, over time it really worked into the fabric of these characters. All life is sacred and superheroes will do everything they can to protect life. Even completely amoral killers like the Joker or Red Skull. Again, this is an incredibly naïve reason for the no kill rule.

Writers and creators again worked the issue into the stories. These are powerful, some even god-like characters. Characters that could potentially rule the world, and so they make a contract with the mundies living in the comic book world. It goes like this: “We’ll fight the bad guys, but we’ll never take away your right to determine your own fate. Even if that means these dill-holes escape a bazillion times”. (Which is a rant for another time). As readers, we’ve accepted this contract as well. Certain characters do not kill. We’ve come to accept this. We’ve come to like this. Or, at least I have.

Which brings me back to comics outgrowing me.

I don’t think I like a lot of the books coming down the pipeline. Or, at least I don’t like how they’re being pitched to me. Be it the Brightest Day or a Heroic Age, both are starting to feel like a false bill of goods. Heroes have become killers, granted many in their deepest and darkest of hours, but instead of remorse and redemption; they seek validation. Perhaps it is me, not the books. Wolverine has always “been that best at what I do, and what I do ain’t pretty”, and Wonder Woman has always known that “in a war, soldiers die.” Still, something just feels off with the current stories weaving in and out of my favorite heroes. A line crossed that we can never return from. Captain America carries a sidearm now. DC is launching a new line (assuming it takes off) where Batman has a pistol in his utility belt. One is a modern evolution of a war-time hero, while the other is a pulp era re-booting of a man orphaned by a pistol. (To put it in the simplest of terms).

Maybe, deep down within me. Deeper past all the fan boy ranting. Past the adult cynicism. Past the self-admitted annoyance of “I could write a better story”, you find the truth. Deep, deep within my core is that boy buying his first comic book. That boy that wanted to read the adventures of heroes doing heroic things. The innocent are saved. The guilty are locked up. The future is bright.

Superman.

Captain America.

Batman.

Spider-Man.

The Justice League.

The Fantastic Four.

Truth, justice, and the childhood way.

There are “capes ‘n tights” books out there for all ages. As we grow older we seek out the X-Men, The Outsiders, The Punisher, The Secret Six, and Atlas. As our tastes mature, we even seek out comics that don’t come within a mile of super powers or masks.

Still, I believe we still need the heroes that never cross the line. The final line. The do not kill line. But, something tells me that every Editor-in-Chief at every major comic book company believes I am wrong.

So now I wonder… Did comics outgrow me?

Did you know that in 2009, an average of 75,000 children per month ate meals from an emergency food box in Oregon and Clark County, Washington? That’s why Things From Another World and GeekintheCity.com is organizing a food drive this March benefiting Oregon Food Bank.

Our goal is to collect at least 500 pounds of food this March: as an incentive, for every canned or non-perishable food item you bring in to our stores, you’ll receive a raffle ticket. The prize: a $500 gift certificate to Things From Another World! There is no limit–bring as much food as you can carry to our three Oregon locations! Yes, that means exactly what you think it means. You bring in 50 cans. You get 50 raffle tickets!

Here are some guidelines from Oregon Food Bank:

Most-Needed Foods:
• Canned meats (tuna, chicken, and salmon, etc.)
• Canned vegetables
• Canned fruits
• Canned and boxed meals (soup, macaroni & cheese, etc.)
• Peanut butter
• Canned or dried beans and peas (black, pinto, lentils, etc.)
• Pasta, rice, cereal
• 100% fruit juice (canned, plastic, or boxed)

Oregon Food Bank Cannot Use:
• Rusty or unlabeled cans
• Perishable items
• Homemade items
• Non-commercial canned or packaged items
• Alcoholic beverages, mixes, or soda
• Open or used items

We all know the economy still makes the pocketbook a little tight. Even if you aren’t able to buy a graphic novel or two, please don’t let that stop you from bringing in some food for those that need it the most.

Remember when you first read comics. Remember how often you dreamed of being a superhero. Fighting evil. Saving the innocent. Sometimes evil isn’t a cackling villain or alien horde. Sometimes evil is perfectly mundane, but no less insidious. Sometimes evil is an empty plate and a hungry child or elderly citizen. We claim they are our future. We claim they are the “greatest generation”. If comics taught us anything, it is that heroes need to protect. Be that hero. Please donate. As much as you can, or as little as you can. It all helps.

Oregon’s most vulnerable residents are often the hungriest, including the elderly and children, so be a hero today!

Please check through your cabinets–every last item helps–and bring it to our three Oregon locations today!

Thank you!

First, what the hell is wrong with you people? Girlfriend dismemberment, headless blood humping, & tree rape is no laughing matter. Especially you ladies. You guys need some serious help!

Second, bless you all! You glorious bastards! When I first looked into bringing Evil Dead to Portland, I just wanted a chance to see a flick I love on the big screen for the first time in my life.

I am consistently humbled at just how fantastic you, the listening / reading audience truly are. Seeing a theater full of fellow Deadites put the biggest of grins on my face. I thank you all from the deepest (and nerdiest) areas of my heart! None of this would have happened without you and I thank you! (And, for providing my wife’s first exposure to Evil Dead - and her telling me later “now I get why you are the way you are”). Groovy.

Also, a huge thanks to my fellow podcasters at Cort and Fatboy, PDX.fm, and Funemployment Radio for getting the word out. (And, for allowing us on GeekintheCity to continually whore out dorky wares)! Also, big thanks to Rick Emerson, Erik & Allison at The Portland Mercury, as well as Daria (you’ll never miss a Batman shipment again, promise) on The Buzz, and Lord Bozyk on The Brew for helping get the word out. Huge thanks to Things From Another World, Big Ass Sandwiches, Cosmic Monkey Comics, and Guardian Games for helping GeekintheCity bring Evil Dead to Portland.

Finally - thank you to Grindhouse Releasing for supplying Sam Raimi’s stunning print (seriously, that print was glorious) and the Bagdad Theater for hosting and helping to make sure Evil Dead stays “The Ultimate Experience In Grueling (and drunken) Terror”.

Everyone at GeekintheCity and GeekintheCity Radio extends our deepest thanks. You are truly the greatest audience ever.

Hm, what to show next? (Apart from about 12 hours of sleep).

or How Apple gave us everything we wanted, but we’re still bitching.

By: Thomas E. Gill
teg24601@gmail.com

To begin with, I will say that I am an Apple user, and have been exclusively Mac since 2002, at least in my personal life. That being said, I have mixed emotions about the iPad. While it is true that it is for the most part what most people wanted, an Apple version of a PADD from Star Trek, but I still expected, and wanted, more.

The iPad is impressive in its marriage of form and function. The design seems to come directly out of the lab of Herman Zimmerman or Doug Drexler, but via Cupertino and Jonathan Ive. The screen looks vibrant and crisp, and the bezel appears to be just the right size to allow one to hold onto the device without activating the touch screen. The ability to use the device at any angle certainly makes it a bit more versatile than its smaller siblings, neither of which allows you to use the screen in the upside-down mode.

I however am not all that impressed with the OS. I was expecting something closer to full-blown OS X, not the iPhone OS. I had visions of playing SimCity 4: Deluxe on the tablet, or shooting Borg in Elite Forces, or maybe finally completing a raid in World of Warcraft. None of which is possible on this tablet. On the other hand, I have learned firsthand that desktop metaphor operating systems to no translate well to fingers, styluses, or gestures. The Tablet versions of Windows have been complete and total disasters and Windows Mobile has shown other companies how not to build a mobile operating system. While the iPhone OS is a somewhat logical choice, I feel that it hampers some of the power the iPad has, at least for the time being.

Other people will scream and yell because the iPad doesn’t support multi-tasking, I however will take a more rational stance. Yes, there is no multi-tasking as of now, unless you include the ability for alarms to appear in any app, the ability to listen to and control music in any app, the ability to receive e-mail regardless of what you are doing, the ability for push notifications to function, and the ability to stream music via Safari or any app that supports CoreAudio. So what people are really complaining about is the inability for them to kill the battery life of a primarily battery powered device, by running multiple applications at the same time that cannot easily be monitored through conventional means. I don’t find the lack of multi-tasking to be a deal breaker, because after almost 3 years with an iPhone EDGE, I have yet to see any need for it, aside from those functions listed above, all of which the iPad supports.

Still more people will cry because there is no Flash support. I would venture to guess that the most likely reason for that is that Apple chose not to share the iPad with most people until their announcement, mainly because when they have done it in the past, it is leaked out onto the Internet. Heck, they were very secretive this time around, and it was still everywhere. I would suspect that with the changes Apple had made in the SDK, most of which now allow for emulation or the execution of pre-compiled code (which is required for JAVA and Flash, and the change was made to allow a licensed Commadore64 Emulator onto the App Store), allows the door to be opened for Flash, and to a lesser extent JAVA. However, I don’ really see a need for Flash support. At present, there are few legitimate uses for Flash. One of which is video websites, most of which have or are planning Apps. Others are moving to HTML 5 which builds Flash-like video support into the building blocks of the browser, and will likely be included in the next revision of Safari. The next is games, and at present, there are very few Flash games that don’t have iPhone versions, and those that don’t can simply be exported via Flash Composer into an Apple Approved iPhone App. The other two real uses of Flash are for website design and advertising. Websites that rely on Flash are far behind the times. Any developer worth their salt abandoned Flash based designs years ago. Today most websites rely on CSS, and those that don’t are in the process of changing. Advertising that relies on Flash, bog down computers and are rarely of any value. I for one am glad that I don’t have to be subjected to them while browsing the Web. I don’t feel that the lack of Flash support is the stumbling block that many have painted it to be.

Considering the current trend of Apple putting a camera in the bezel of their computers, I was really surprised to not see one on the iPad. However, considering that the iPad could be used from any angle, it would make the placement of such a camera weird. I’m not all the concerned though, as some resourceful developer will create an attachment that will give you a camera for video chat, that you can place anywhere. Some people also make comments about an outward facing camera, and I have to ask, “Why?” Why would you use a device the size of a book to take a picture, when you likely have a camera or camera phone with better quality?

There is also some confusion regarding the relationship between the iPad and at&t. Experts and consumers alike continue to say that “The iPad is locked to at&t”.  This is a bald-faced lie.  There are two models of iPad… One is Wi-Fi only the other has GSM 3G (UTMS/HSPA) and Wi-Fi.  The former has no contract, and if you own an iPhone, Blackberry, live in urban Wi-Fi Zones, or plan to use it at home, in the office, or coffee shop, then that is all you need.  The latter, is an unlocked device, in which at&t made a special deal for data.  There is no contract to use the data plan, and you are not required to even have it.  If T-Mobile decides they want to support the microSIM that the iPad uses (which it likely will due to T-Mobile Germany likely supporting it like the iPhone), then you are fine.  The only drawback is that because T-Mobile USA is the only GSM provider in the world who uses the 1700Mhz frequency for their 3G, you would be stuck on EDGE (the opposite is true of the Nexus One GSM, which while unlocked, won’t work on at&t’s 3G network).  Now people will bitch because they can’t use the iPad on Verizon Wireless or Sprint, but in reality it is the fault of those companies for using the non-standard and inferior CDMA/EV-DO network.  Apple does not want to have multiple versions of the same product that are not virtually interchangeable, so supporting a network that is basically in the US and Canada only doesn’t make much business sense.  Perhaps when Verizon Wireless launches their LTE network (GSM 4G) then we will see iPhones and iPads available on that network, but definitely not before.

In all honesty, the real problem I have with the iPad is the form factor. I was expecting something a little longer, something closer to 16:9 or 16:10 instead of the 4:3 we got. I also think the resolution could be higher, that way it could support the viewing of 1080p content. I would have liked to see the iPad have Stereo Speakers and multiple headphone jacks, for easy sharing or for more comfortable placement. I would have been nice to have USB or an SDHC/SDXC slot on the iPad, but because the new SDK opens the dock connector for developers use, I don’t think it will be much of a problem. I would also hope that since the iPad had Bluetooth, and I have a Bluetooth keyboard that I would be able to use the two together at some point instead of having to purchase an iPad Dock/Keyboard combination.

All-in-all, I think the iPad is a step in the right direction. It has most of the features I would want in such a device, and if I had the money, I would likely invest in the Wi-Fi version, but right now I can’t justify the purchase. Perhaps as the OS matures and more applications are built that take advantage of the design, then I could justify it. For now, I’ll be happy with playing with it at the Apple Store, or wherever it becomes a ubiquitous product, and I’ll continue to hope that someone will design a LCARS interface for it so I can live the dream of being Geordi LaForge.