* Ryan Block: The iPad may change computing, but not your life. And that’s ok.

* Paul Ingrassia on the nation’s public pension crisis: The difference between General Motors and California is that California hasn’t gone bankrupt. Yet.

* The Economist on why there are so few Japanese private equity deals, despite a plethora of homegrown private equity firms. Same question could be asked about Japanese venture capital…

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, European shares dip, the Nikkei rebounds and China shares hit three-week high.

* The perks of being Goldman Sachs spawn

* Why @ is held in such high design esteem

* SpeakerText founder Matt Mireles: How I judge venture capitalists

* Justin Smith: Which media giant will pull the social gaming trigger first?

* Fred Wilson disagrees with Ben Horowitz: Being fat is not healthy (we’re talking startup euphemisms here). As an aside, good to see Wilson point out that his comments are specific to software startups, not VC-backed companies in general. Too many other VCs take an ego/sector-centric view on this topic, presuming either: (a) What’s good for my type of startups is good for all types of startups; or (b) My types of startups are the only ones worth discussing.

* Mozilla engineer writes an open letter to Steve Ballmer. Then he apologizes.

* Tweet of the Day: @sacca Welcome back, America. We missed us.

* Phil Angelides may have a problem

* We’ve now sold more than 800 tickets to our upcoming shindigs in Boston (3/31) and San Francisco (4/15). They cost just $10 each, with ticket proceeds going to a local charity that will be selected by event attendees. Get Boston tickets here, and get San Francisco tickets here.