FeedlerPro: occasionally a bit wonky, but it’s a caching feedreader that connects to my google reader account. Sync while you’re on wifi for the times you’re not. There’s a free version you can try.
Kindle: It’s free, and while an iPad screen mightn’t be as good for reading as an e-ink display, it’s still super-handy to have a couple of books with you.
Wordpress: I’ve a couple of blogging apps, and to be honest neither of them are what I’d call great — I tend to write in Pages and copy and paste. The WordPress app does let you sort out comments and the like, which I’d imagine might be handy for you
Spotify: irrelevant if you already have a compatible smartphone (I don’t) and extra-good for me as I’m a subscriber.
Plants vs. Zombies: if you’re not already sick of it, grab it.

Also look out for the appadvice.com app, and an app called PandoraBox. Appadvice will suggest a bunch of apps in various categories, and taking a trawl through that and downloading free versions of anything which looks interesting is a good start. PandoraBox is a way to see which apps on the store have been discounted or temporarily made free — mostly you’ll see junk apps you would never want or need, but there are occasional bargains: the big games publishers (EA etc) frequently have sales, for example, so you can stock up all of your ’11 games for <$1 each, should that be of interest.

If you take a lot of pics/movie clips with a pocket camera or cameraphone, check to see whether the clips produced are importable into iMovie for iOS. If so, the camera connection kit might be worth picking up. I find I actually *do something* with the odd little clips I take now, rather than planning to edit them later only to give up because it's too much like being at work.

Did you get the wifi only laptop or the 3g one? For apps, I love Backdrops HD, Read It Later, Taptalk (if you visit forums that have the plugin), Stanza for ebooks that aren’t on Kindle, and imdb. I use Echofon for Twitter but it’s changing and I’m not happy, so I’m looking for something else to replace it.