Surprisingly, the biggest threat to the pristine nature of my iPad’s beautiful screen isn’t chicken wing grease or barbecue sauce – it’s skin oils. I’m not sure if the screen protector i put on the device is amplifying the issue or if my hands have just been extra greasy lately, but the screen gets oily pretty fast. The good thing is that you can’t see the fingerprints when the screen is on, the bad is that the smears are totally obvious when the screen’s off. I keep a little cloth tucked away in the case now, to wipe the screen down after almost every use. It also doesn’t help that I’m a bit obsessive about keeping the screen looking like new, so needless to say, Michael (the Cornfather’s counterpart in real life) only gets supervised, brief encounters with the iPad for now.

Today’s strip isn’t entirely true: The iPad is hella sexy, but it does have some practicality to go along with it. I normally don’t power up my laptop in the morning or late at night before going to bed, but I’ll turn on my iPad to check my email, Twitter, or the JEFbot site, at all hours, since it powers up almost instantly, like an iPhone, and I don’t have to worry about wear and tear on a hard drive. I’ll also watch a video via Netflix or iTunes when i have 20-30 minutes to spare, something I’ve rarely done with my home computer.

As mentioned in the strip, my biggest concern was the touchscreen keyboard, and that really hasn’t been much of a problem. Most of the iPad’s apps make good use of the touchscreen, and when I need to type, the onscreen keyboard is simple to use. I’m a fast typist, so when I need to type in a lot of text, my bluetooth keyboard syncs to the iPad easily and works just fine. While I’d like to type on the touchscreen keyboard as fast as I do with a real keyboard, I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.

Who knows? I may still want a netbook down the line for completely different purposes than I use the iPad for, but for now, the sexiness of my new gadget feels pretty good.

Check it out! The FANart page is up, showcasing some great illustrations from the artists among you JEFbot readers. I totally get a thrill out of seeing different takes on the characters (and animals!) from the strip, so if you feel inclined to sketch one up, do it and send it over, as i’ll be adding new art to the FANart page regularly. Big thanks to this first batch of artists!

Today’s strip was totally me 5-10 years ago. When some new gadget or console would come out, I’d have to buy it, even if I couldn’t exactly afford it at the time. The original XBOX, Gamecube, PS2 and Gameboy Advance all went on my credit cards upon their release, along with a few games for each – and it wasn’t until several years later that I would pay those cards off, not to mention the interest they accrued. I’m much better about spending money (or credit) these days and am debt free now, I’m happy to say.

That said, I did buy an iPad recently, but it was after much consideration, saving of money and the pending expiration of a gift certificate I had. I’m loving the device, but I’m sure you’ll hear all about it in future strips.

Lying to one’s parents is a terrible thing and should be reserved only for occasions involving the blaming of siblings. That the Cornfather got thrown under the bus in this strip can only be attributed to the fact that jefbot panicked, for which he’ll surely get a comeuppance later.

In the real world: After buying a new television a few weeks ago, I ended up giving my dad back the TV he lent me. Fortunately, there’s no remote control sticking out of it, but it does still have the dead pixel problem, so hopefully that won’t be too much of a distraction should my dad decide to watch anything on it (which I hope won’t be anytime soon, the reason for which should be apparent in this strip from a few months back.)

If the studios want 3D to be more than just a fad (and the electronics companies want to sell more 3D TVs, Blu-ray players and discs), they better start making the experience more compelling in the theaters. I hear more and more people becoming discouraged paying a premium to see movies in 3D like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, which were converted to 3D after they had been filmed in 2D, with varying (but mostly negative) results. And after the discussion in the comments of the previous strip, it seems a lot of us are pretty apathetic or hostile toward 3D in the first place.