I've had some time to play around with my friends' Apple iPads since it was released. My initial impression? It's gorgeous ... but limited. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing will depend on what you want it for.

Apple built the iPad as a consumption device, and it excels at that role. While some dismiss the iPad as little more than an oversized iPad touch, this misses its primary appeal: it's huge, glossy screen. Yes, I can look at PDFs and comic books on an iPod touch, but what I see is a tiny fraction of what appears on the iPad. On a tablet, comic books loaded using the Marvel app display full-screen and are easily readable. You can zoom in if you like, but it's not essential.

The same goes for PDFs -- while there are several different ways to get PDFs onto your iPad, once they're loaded they're far easier to read than on a phone or a smaller device, like the Kindle or Nook. It surprises me that the iPad doesn’t do this natively – PDF support has always been strong in OS X – but perhaps the Adobe Flash spat is carrying over to this as well.

Web sites look great ... unless they're dependent on Flash, but honestly I dislike Flash sites and I already knew it would do that. My favorite sites tend to be blogs and text-heavy sites, and all displayed beautifully on the iPad. I see it as a great platform for casual reading with one caveat: weight.

In recent months there have several major disasters involving superhumans. A cry has gone out amongst the people to hold the superhumans accountable for their actions. Congress answer that cry with the Superhuman Registration Act. The act requires anyone having or utilizing any form of superhuman abilities to register with the government as a "living weapon of mass destruction." Unfortunately this law splits the superhuman community.

Those for the act, lead by Iron Man, believe that this is the only way to show the people good faith that what they do is the right thing. Those against the act, lead by Captain America, believe it is against everything America stands for. The act is now law, and the lines have been drawn. Will you join Iron Man and the pro movement, or Captain America and the resistance movement? Regardless of what you choose prepare for a superhuman Civil War!

This is a brief background of Marvel Comics 2006 story-line entitled Civil War. It also serves as the background for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

When we were starting our Star Wars campaign and were kicking around where we wanted it to fall within the Knights of the Old Republic timeline, we struck up on the idea of the Mandalorian Interlude.

We knew we want to start the campaign in the Restoration Period -- a relatively quiet, calm time after the Great Sith Wars -- but at some point we'd enter the Mandalorian Wars, followed by the Jedi Civil War.

What we didn't want to do was slog through every era. The idea was to skip the campaign forward every few levels, allowing us to hit the high points of each era, but not get bogged down in none of them. At the same time though, we thought simply skipping forward 3-4 levels and five years would feel disjointed without some sort of transition.

Enter the Mandalorian Interlude.

For 6-8 self-contained adventures we're going to trade in our regular characters for Mandalorians from Clan Olan. They're old school, individualist Mandalorians who aren't sure what to make of the neocrusaders who are trying to establish order and conformity throughout the clans. The interlude gets everyone -- casual and diehard Star Wars fans -- up to speed on the Mandalorians and their culture while simultaneously showing everyone exactly what it is the Mandos are fighting for.

The Discovery Channel has Shark Week. That's all well and good -- sharks are equal parts terrifying and fascinating -- but why limit yourself to one species? This summer Nuketown is launching Monster Week -- one full week dedicated to the best in cinematic horror. We're going to have movie reviews, soundtrack reviews, blog and game posts inspired by said movies, and -- if I can swing it -- feature length audio commentary for a film.

The big question is ... what movies? I plan on featuring seven monster flicks, focusing on post-Jaws era. They don't need to be straight up horror movies -- in fact, I'm just as happy to review later day creature features. I'm also looking to come up with at least one monster per major environment (e.g. space, desert, arctic) so as to avoid overlap. The key is that they need to be realistic monsters; I'm not looking for supernatural horrors like Freddie and Jason.