So March 1 will be the first Mondegreen Monday, starring Mindover Man, and the weekly strip will move to a Thursday morning release.

Let me know what you think!

- Jason

Now, as it’s the duty of all tech nerds to weigh in on the device, here’s my take: It’s exactly what I expected and hoped for. It’s a big iPod Touch, with extra attention paid to books and periodicals. I want a nicely portable device that will serve up anything I want to read, save me the trouble of having paper copies of any of them, allow me to surf the web, play music, fire off an email, tweet, and watch video (plenty of others will want games, but I personally hate almost all games of any kind). That’s what the iPad will do. Great. Just what I wanted. And I’ll never have to worry about a broken H key like I do with the laptop I’m typing on right now.

One thing I’m really expecting to see and enjoy is a way to never have to buy a print comic book again. I don’t live terribly close to a comic shop and frankly no longer care to have to store all those dead trees. Now I know some comic book fetishists are going to think that’s sacrilege, but I’m already past that argument. I’m a former newspaper journalist who knew it was time to get out of the business before it forced me out because of declining economics, mostly due to people moving to the internet for their information. For a long time, I resented that. I love newspapers and think there are few more noble professions that journalism. But I finally realized there was no point in fighting technological progress: The medium does not make the message. I haven’t subscribed to a daily newspaper for more than a year, and even though it still bothers me to say this, I don’t really miss newsprint. I’ll gladly embrace that same paradigm shift for my magazine subscriptions and comic books.

As for ease of use as pertains to the iPad, especially versus the laptop, I think that will prove to be a no-brainer. Think of how you sit, recline, lie, roll over, and repeat that process for an extended period of time on your couch while reading. Most of us change to all kinds of positions. Can our laptops adjust with us? Not all the time. But the iPad will. And the coup de grace, of course, is the ability to sit on the toilet with it. Guys, especially, know I’m right. Admitting it may not be our proudest moment, but we cannot deny this truth. Our iPhones broke that ground, and now the iPad will help us avoid eye strain (so we can focus on other kinds of straining, of course). Sorry. Had to say it.

Back to more socially acceptable uses, though, I have to think one of the biggest cash cows Steve Jobs is expecting to milk is the education market. Say goodbye to textbooks and the one, lonely, eight-year-old PC in the classroom, and say hello to a 30-unit charging station/cubby — which will free up lots of room in every class, too.

Is this iteration perfect? No. But, typical of Jobs-ware, it has room built in for “great new add-on features” to make everyone gasp at each of the next several semi-annual Apple events. Upcoming versions will get what was purposely left off this version so more people will buy and/or replace their old ones: a webcam for Skype, USB connectivity, a kickstand, an OLED screen, an even lower price, and probably most important of all — less weight. You know it’ll happen (just don’t expect removable memory or batteries); it’s part of the long-term, pre-planned product cycle.

And it’s why I’ll likely wait until iPad 2.0 to buy mine.

One more thing: I’m sick of hearing the tech press whine, whine, whine about AT&T. Here in Colorado, I hardly notice a difference in AT&T coverage versus what I used to have with Verizon. And Verizon is staffed 98 percent by jerks. Can’t say the same for AT&T, with its adequate customer service. I’m going to guess I’m not alone in this view, judging by the numbers of iPhones continually being sold. AT&T just needs to upgrade its service in San Francisco and New York, and all these pack-minded, echo-chamber dwelling tech journalists will stop 90 percent of the whining that’s going on about Ma Bell.

Great work, Apple. You had me at hello.

And also please stop by Ms. Innes’ site to check out her comic, The Dreamer. She put that fantastic work on hold for a month to run the CCA fundraiser. Let’s give her a hand by helping expand her fanbase!

Thanks to all, and God bless.

- Jason

Along with dozens of other webcomic creators, I’m asking my readers to take a minute to check out The Comic Creator’s Alliance and consider helping to fight human trafficking.

According to current estimates, there are more people in slavery now than at any time in the 1700s or 1800s. Most of these slaves are girls in Southeast Asia who are forced into vile prostitution rings. Many end up in this situation by being kidnapped. Obviously, they never get the chance for anything resembling a free, happy life.

According to the anti-trafficking organization Love146:

• 2 children per minute are sold into this sick form of slavery
• 1.2 million children are trafficked annually
• 27 million people are enslaved worldwide
• $32 billion is generated annually by human trafficking

But it’s not just a sick problem halfway around the world. Take a look at the Gracehaven website to find out how bad things are in the U.S.

After an incident that hit too close to home for her, Lora Innes, the creator of the web-and-print comic The Dreamer put together a project to seek the help of webcomickers in raising money and awareness. I found out about the project after hearing an interview with her on the Comic Geek Speak podcast and wanted to help in any way I could. Lora’s project is to enlist creators to submit an original drawing of one of their female characters for inclusion in a special-edition jam piece, which will be sold as a computer wallpaper with all proceeds to be donated to charity. Even though this is a young comic with a slight following, Lora was gracious enough to allow me to participate in her project, and I sent an image of my character Aerobat in flight.

I ask — no, beg — you to get involved in some way to help combat this scourge that our detached, uninvolved society blithely ignores. As a husband, a father, and relation to someone who was raped, I am vehemently opposed to any and all human slime who would so enslave, violate and destroy. Get informed. Get involved. Literally millions of people need help.

You can contribute by purchasing the webcomic wallpaper when it’s ready, and you can support Love146 and/or Gracehaven as they help fight traffickers directly. Another suggestion is to sponsor a child through Compassion International. The Love146 website says that organization does not offer child sponsorship because they see that as not much different from the “commoditization” of humans that they battle. While I can understand and respect that view, I know from my family’s sponsorship of a girl in Indonesia, this is an organization that works to feed, clothe, educate and nurture children in the third world. These children are treated as valued individual creations of a loving God. We trade correspondence with our sponsored child in a carefully managed, transparent and respectful way. In a part of the world where darkness and evil make it dangerous to be a child, our sponsored friend and her friends are shown a better, brighter, more hopeful path. Compassion gives us the opportunity to share goodness (full disclosure, I have a close relative who works for Compassion).

However you see fit to help stop the soul-crushing evil of human trafficking, please find a way to contribute.

One of my Google News custom categories is “Superman” (yeah, yeah … I know …), and tonight the first headline I encountered said, “Marvel Comics could soon own the copyright to Superman.” Yeah, and I could be commissioned to resurrect “Calvin and Hobbes.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen the word “could” so over-inflated.

The catch is that the headline is from Examiner.com (I’m intentionally not bothering to link to it; read on). After reading this tripe, I had to post my disgust in the comments section:

This article is a weak, idiotic attempt at journalism. The fallacious, inflammatory headline alone is enough to remove any doubt I may have had that examiner.com is anything other than a slick, SEO-driven, traffic hog of a website. It pretends to be a “news” site but is filled with speculative writing that makes fan fiction look credible. This site exists purely to entice people to click on ads, not inform. Wise web surfers will avoid it all costs as long as it counts affiliates such as this hack (factual errors, leaps in logic, willful ignorance of copyright law, unsubstantiated claims, thin sourcing — what little there is comes from press releases — and spelling errors) to write for it.

Please don’t bother to go to Examiner.com. It’s a waste of time and boil on the backside of journalism.

OK, I feel better now for sharing … .

Yours truly, while avoiding work on my master’s degree no doubt, posted a comment earlier this week on Wired.com’s Gadget Lab and, out of the blue, won a cool Leatherman tool. The page detailing the commentary about a Apple tablet, my two cents’ worth about its potential, and Wired’s cool Leatherman giveaway, can be found here.

Thanks to Wired (my favorite magazine even before today) and Leatherman Tools.

Any and all geeks reading this comic (which is likely all of you) should check out the Gadget Lab for great content and thoughtful, useful — and well-maintained — commentary.