I’ve always had trouble holding those paper books open while reading in bed. Now I can curl up with a nice warm slab of aluminium before bed and blind myself reading iBooks. That is of course after repurchasing every book I already own in digital format. Now I have no need for all those paper books given to me by friends and relatives. So I donated them all to a local charity which distributes books to needy children whose parents can’t afford an iPad, or can only afford a Kindle – it’s good to know I can make a difference.

I’ve always wanted an excuse to try out Apple’s sleek and super-comfortable keyboard and mouse peripherals. Now I can purchase these to go with my iPad because I am totally conditioned and cannot conceive of how a touchscreen would work.

I’m sick of my iPhone rattling around in the huge pockets of my homie cargo pants. Expecially when I’m jumping and dive-rolling all over buildings during my parkour practice sessions. I need something that’s a better fit and the iPad is the perfect size.

I’m always losing or tearing those pesky paper maps especially when I go on walkabout in remote parts of the Northern Territory. I can throw away my clunky compass which was always jamming up and getting me lost (it was embarrassing). With the iPad’s built in magnetometer, I’ll always be able to find myself.

I like to watch TV while I eat but I get a sore neck from constantly looking back and forth between the TV and my dinner. Finally, there’s a placemat that plays and streams high quality videos.

I used to need multiple calendars, spread throughout my house which was such a nuisance. Now, I’ve replaced them all with a single device. It’s such a breeze to load up the calendar app, navigate to the right day and type into each of the time, title and location fields so I don’t forget my next pilates appointment.

I was always spilling flour and milk and various sauces all over my recipe books, and later I lost one MacBook in a hideous tofu-making incident. Now, with the iPad, and a neat little stand I picked up for only $129, I can sit the iPad right next to my stove while trying out the latest recipe from my Planet Saver Organic Vegan recipe book I downloaded from the iBookstore. I don’t mind that I have to tap the screen every 60 seconds when the backlight dims to conserve battery life. The shiny toughened glass display means my greasy mince meat and oyster sauce fingerprints just wipe straight off.

I used to have hundreds of photo albums clogging up the bookshelves in my apartment. As soon as I got the iPad, I spent hours scanning in and captioning thousands of my photos. Now I can flick through each album one at a time using the iPad’s intuitive touch screen interface. When I’m not using it, I plug it into an outlet, disable the screen backlight timer and leave it sitting on the mantle as a sleek digital photo frame.

Finally — and this was the clincher — with the new Scrabble app, I can play my friends over WiFi when they bring their iPads over. We all sit hunched over, staring at our glowing slabs occasionally talking but mostly just secretly using the Scrabble suggest website. It’s much more fun and way shinier!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7XwboOx98

Why I love it:

• The contrast between, and wide variety of reactions: surprised, amused, completely oblivious, total deadpan, somewhat concerned, “I’m way to stressed to care about that”. Priceless!
• That occasional pause of uncertainty where people’s brains decide how they are going to react.
• The film (intentionally or not) has great dramatic structure. She sat at just the right location to have the dramatic climax at that sweet spot in time. Nice long build-up lures the viewer into a false sense of security, then BAM! Unexpected-Event-desu! Followed by nice quick resolution.
• My brain is now going crazy thinking of weird and wonderful places to put my camera (NO, not THOSE kind of places, geez!)

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! I can feel a new reality TV genre emerging…

Wednesday nights on ABC or download from the website.

But now there’s a new comedy currently in its third week on SBS that’s got me cacking myself sensless at its uncanny accuracy and hilarious one-liners. Bogan Pride is the brainchild of Rebel Wilson, who readers may recognise from The Wedge and Pizza. As well as writing the show, Wilson stars as the lead protagnist, Jenny Cragg, a less-than-popular high school student whom the Skanks lovingly refer to as a “fugly bush pig”.

A simplistic description of Bogan Pride would be Summer Heights High meets Kath & Kim meets that episode of Buffy where everyone bursts into song. Yes it’s a musical. Characters sing about the usual teenage stuff. You know, like how much they love hanging out in the library, or cramming for the Maths Olympiad. Or perhaps the local christian group called “God’s Love Society” performs an intervention on Jenny’s obese mother (my personal favourite, so far).

Most of the characters are exaggerated and borderline stereotypical. And yes, there are similarities with Summer Heights High and Kath & Kim, but the show still manages to stand out as original Aussie satire that definitely warrants interest. Wilson will be one to watch.

The entire show is an absolute crack up loaded with double entendre and subtle punch lines that could easily be missed by the complacent viewer. If you’re a fan of Aussie satire, this won’t dissapoint. I’ve uploaded the opening scene to Vimeo so check it out below.

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I’ll chuck some more clips up assuming they aren’t going to delete them on me.

Mandatory disclaimer: Warning! This video may offend… people who don’t realise this is satire.

EDIT: Fixed broken video