• In our first piece of breaking news from Newsday since our $5-a-week paywall infiltration subscription began, we’re informed that a redhead who likes science and his classmates are going to compete for some national award sponsored by Intel. The kids are up for awards of up to $100,000, which is cool. Good luck, guys, but we’re seriously spending $5 a week on this crap? How is this even remotely breaking? There’s nothing heady about it. (BTW, if you want to read the story, you’ll have to subscribe. Them’s the breaks of a paywall.) source

• We have lots more written up about Obama’s SOTU speech, but we’re saving that for later. Simply put: It was a good speech but we have no clue if it’ll change anything. Here are some more thoughts:

• Biggest shot in the arm His reminder to Senate Democrats not to back down after losing their 60th vote in Scott Brown’s surprise Massachusetts win. After a week and a half of crying in locked rooms and saying “woe is me,” it was exactly what was needed.
• Biggest disappointment Obama admitted that the three-year partial budget freeze wouldn’t take place until 2011, which drew big boos from many. “It’s the way budgets work,” he claimed. He wasn’t upfront about this in his speech, which was pretty bad form.
• Most amusing moments There were two – Obama’s bringing up of the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance reform to utter blankness on the part of the Court, and Michelle Obama’s obvious desire to not be there. You could totally read her face! source

• What is this fatal attraction between Apple and AT&T? Pretty much everybody I talked to really expected Verizon.
• MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen • Regarding the unexpected decision for Apple to stick with AT&T for data access on the iPad. Despite the controversy the phone company’s facing for its crappy service, Apple is sticking with them, at least for now. (On the plus side, it’s not mandatory.) It’s creating the kind of head-scratching which is causing some analysts to break skin. They bloody don’t know what’s going on. source

• On the scale of one to awesome, the iPad is pretty cool. The $499 starting price is reasonable, as is the data plan. The high-end of the scale is admittedly pretty high, but it is just a giant iPod Touch. Let’s not kid ourselves. But really, isn’t that what we wanted? source

• When we read yesterday that Newsday had a total of 35 subscribers to its paywall-riddled Web site, we wondered how this could be. How could only 35 people who weren’t subscribed to Cablevision or the print product say, “I’m paying Newsday $5 a week for some of the best damn journalism to be found on Long Island!” So, we decided to find out why. ShortFormBlog is now Customer No. 36.

Subscription notes:

• one They don’t bill you right away or ask for your credit card. Instead, Newsday.com staff contacts you afterwards. This is stupid.
• two You have to give them your phone number. And the registration thing is written as if you live in New York state. We live in D.C., dudes.
• three Newsday gives you a huge list of ways you can receive news from them. This includes e-mail and SMS alerts. We signed up; hey, we paid for it!

Review of Newsday’s signup process:

• C- it clearly doesn’t understand how online commerce works source

• 3.9% decline in overall worldwide passenger loads in 2009
• 10.1% decline in overall worldwide cargo
  loads in 2009
• no this story has nothing to do with the Apple Tablet at all source

• We acted because the consequences of AIG failing at that time, in those circumstances, would have been catastrophic for our economy and for American families and businesses.
• Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner • In remarks prepared before a meeting in front of a House committee today. The AIG bailout, and the TARP program, have been the subject of a watchdog probe. Today’s hearing, which also features Geithner’s predecessor Henry Paulson, was called after documents from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (led by Geithner when Paulson was Treasury secretary) suggested that information was withheld from the public on the AIG bailout. source

• Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write ‘tablet’ on this little strip of masking tape here and I’m golden. Oh, come on, you piece of #&*#! Just stick already!
• “Steve Jobs” • In a pitch-perfect Onion article titled “Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet.” Wouldn’t it be awesome if Steve Jobs promised unbelievable things then only worked on them the night before, like he was the world’s worst procrastinator? We’d still buy his stuff. source