Jonathan Dobres

I work as a researcher at a hospital. Prior to starting work there I assumed, as I think many do, that doctors simply materialize in these places to diagnose and treat the patients. Either that or they live there. As a former patient, I’d never quite realized that doctors commute and hospitals have human resources departments (trust me, they’re just as misguided as anywhere else). These mundane, workaday facts are very far from the minds of the patient and family. For them, the hospital is not part of the daily routine, but instead an unwelcome disruption of “real life”. Patients understandably want to be done with the hospital, and its bland food, and its medications, and its small beds, and its beeps and bells, and its lonely nights, as quickly as possible. In the best case the patients are able to tolerate the disruption with good humor and frequent visits from family members. In the worst case, the patients feel trapped by the hospital, resent the healthy staff, and refuse to participate in the healing process.

This is, by the way, in a rehabilitation hospital, where the focus is on long term recovery, the initial health crisis having passed. Imagine how much worse all of this is in the acute facilities, where the chemotherapy has just begun, the blood clot is still a time bomb, the wounds from the accident are still bleeding, and the surgery is tomorrow. Now imagine that you are a child in this place, surrounded by monitors and needles, forced to undergo all kinds of unpleasant daily routines, forced to spend nights without mom and dad. Everything is uncertain, and as a child you may not really understand the reason for any of it. Though the fear is terrible, the boredom can often be just as bad. Hospitals, despite the greatest efforts, just aren’t kid friendly places.

When I had my surgeries at the age of six I experienced all these things. It was 1988. Winter, I think, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to remember anything detailed from my multiple operations and long hospital stays. Most of the memories I’ve retained have to do with the rare fun moments. The ceramic bunny I painted alongside the kid with spina bifida. A brief flash of riding a tricycle down a corridor in rehab. The heated therapy pool that was run by a physical therapist who, I learned later, was blind. The weird little doll I made out of the same material they use for casts. The thing I remember most clearly? That would be the day someone on staff wheeled in a little TV, connected to a Nintendo Entertainment System. It was my first experience with Super Mario Brothers, but not the last. We got a Nintendo for my recovery at home. The music drove my mother insane but she put up with it. Family friends all bought me games for my birthday, despite the protests of my parents over what was then perceived to be the outrageous cost of cartridges. Mario made the hospital bearable for a few brief nights, and made my long-term recovery–trapped in full leg casts that were molded like a pair of inflexible pants–much, much easier.

Where did videogames begin for you? After all this time, after a literal lifetime of Final Fantasy, Mario, and Doom, I’d nearly forgotten that for me, videogames began in a hospital. My life is so much better for it.

All of this is a long-winded way of telling you that you should donate a little money or Amazon toys to Child’s Play, the annual charity drive started by the heroes at Penny Arcade. It can be as simple as Play-Do, which usually has to thrown out after each individual use in the hospital. So donate. Even something small will make a huge difference to the kids. Trust me.

So there was a series of amazing iTunes/iPod announcements this week. Movies on tap at the store. The Nano has mated with the Mini. The Shuffle finally looks cool. Also, iTunes got a slew of new features, including Cover Flow.

Cover Flow might seem like a piece of superfluous fluff added to an already bloated program, but it’s so much more. Its primary purpose is, I think, to draw attention to the fact that Apple isn’t just in the business of sound anymore. Album art is one way of reminding us that Apple traffics in photos, TV shows, and soon, feature films. More importantly, however, Cover Flow adds a certain tactile charm that’s been missing from the mp3 experience for as long as there have been mp3s. Using Cover Flow is almost, almost, like flipping through a rack of LPs or CDs.

I didn’t think much of it until I successfully added the album art for all of my Jethro Tull. Staring at the old covers, I was instantly taken back to my family’s basement in Jersey. My dad loves Tull. In fact, in the early days of the Interweb, he went by the username jtull. He had all of their old records, and I used to love looking at them whenever he pulled them out. Every so often he’d take out his flute and use some Jethro Tull to practice (Jethro Tull bears the odd distinction of being one of the few rock ensembles to feature a lead flautist).

I’ve been in Boston for over five years now, but as long as I have the music that my dad introduced me to, I feel like I’m not that far from home. Thanks, Cover Flow, for reminding me of that.

At the end of July, I took a trip down to Washington to see my long-lost best friend, Allison. The trip was great, and she is, as always, incredible. I’m sure she’s been wondering why it’s taken me so long to write anything about it (answer: the GRE). Since Allison and I are so closely bonded, I can feel her impatience building like an indignant fire under my pot of lazy water. The time has come to act.

Looking over the pictures I’ve brought back from DC I can only think to myself, “Wow, I am terrible at taking pictures.” Here we go, though. In widescreen.

Here she is, the lady herself. Note the too-cool-for-school shades she’s got on. Allison is, indeed, too cool for school. That’s how we were able to survive it until graduation in 2001.

She’s sitting in front of the Scientology building. Here in Boston, the Scientology folks are usually represented by groups of neatly dressed people who sit around Boston Common with electrically conductive tin cans (the “Stress Test”, they call it). In DC, they have this gorgeous edifice. Try to guess which city has the bigger following. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the black triangle represents Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but since we’re talking Scientology here, it probably represents an alien pyramid scheme.

Allison made me stop off in front of the gorgeous Scientology building so that she could “tell the world about true faith.” Maybe not.

Here’s me in front of the Iraqi embassy, wearing my Communist Party t-shirt for maximum irony. Standing close to buildings that are in some way connected to our current political milieu makes me feel more intellectual.

OYA! I’m sure it’s a delicious restaurant, but Allison and I didn’t eat there. I include the picture solely because, as we walked by the sign, we yelled, “OYA!” simultaneously. It’s good to know that the psychic link is still intact.

Me: Hey, the sidewalk is under construction, how do we get around?

Allison: Oh, we’ll just walk along this pedestrian detour.

Me: Are you sure? Kinda looks like it doesn’t go anywhere.

Allison: No no, we’re fine, trust me. I live here.

I made her turn her around and stand in front of the solid gate that very firmly blocked our path, fully embracing her shame. Her sense of direction is just as good in a car, let me tell you.

This is a picture of Allison reacting to the new Mastercard logo, and it is one of the primary reasons that we are still friends. Allison is an immensely talented graphic designer, a woman destined for fame and fortune, a talent on the order of Chip Kidd (seriously, woman, get that book published). I believe her comment on the logo was, “How many fing GRADIENTS do you fing NEED?”

Lastly, I present photographic evidence that Allison and I were in the same place at the same time. In this picture you can see us huddling under a bus stop to avoid the rain as Allison cradles some delicious Indian food. Yes, we are both wearing Threadless t-shirts, because we are trendy design dorks who spend a disproportionate amount of our incomes on well-designed cotton. It’s about the process, people.

There are a number of things not pictured above. For instance, our trip to the International Spy Museum (which I have taken to calling the “ism”) would have made for some great photos, if only they allowed photography in there. It’s a massive experience. You can easily spend four hours on the self-guided tour. We just barely made it out in time to shuttle me back to the airport (but not before Allison had a chance to climb through the fake duct work they have in an early section of the museum, simulating the very common punk-spy).

Also not pictured is the bizarre doorknob nipple thing that acts as the handle to the front door of Allison’s apartment. You know I’ve got a picture of it, but I felt that posting it online would be somehow naughty.

As I look over the pictures I took of my trip to DC, I’m struck by the fact that most of them are of Allison, pure and simple. Sure, there’s one or two of the Masonic Temple in there, but mostly it’s all about her. It had been such a long time since I’d last seen her that I was afraid that we both might have changed too much to appreciate each other, travelled down roads too separate and too far apart to ever reconnect. Luckily, my fears were unfounded. Despite five years and 600 miles of distance, when I touched down in DC it was as though I’d only just left her. Granted, we had to fill each other in on things like pregnancies and car accidents, but at the core, she’s still Allison and I’m still Jon and we’re still friends, and I’m glad that this simple fact will always be true.

A few weeks ago, my old employers at the George Sherman Union held the annual George Sherman Union Gala, a nifty little reunion/awards show/free food event. It gave me the opportunity to catch up with my friends and of course, eat free food. The Gala featured an award ceremony (dubbed “The Shermies” by troublemaking employees), featuring honors like Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Employee, Office Hobbit, and my personal favorite, Most Likely to Become a Full-Timer.

The pictures that accompany this post show me receiving the George Sherman Union Distinguished Alumni Award, which is the only trophy that takes the form of an obelisk. Obelisks are, as you know, presented only to the great people of history – Cleopatra (one name, like Madonna), Akhenaten (one made-up name, like Prince), and George Washington (two names, like a little girl) to name a few.

What I’m saying here is that having my own obelisk puts me one step closer to godhood. You don’t need to fall to your knees in worship per se, but it’s good exercise and really, who is it hurting?

The next time someone tries, futilely, to point out one of my flaws I will simply look into their cloudy eyes ask, “Do you have an obelisk?” and the argument shall be extinguished then and there. I’ve also recently noticed the rarity of obelisk-shaped objects in our modern society, and I think something needs to be done about it. I’ve been considering opening a boutique that caters to this niche. I’ll call it Obelesque.

Cower in terror at Retrievr, a super cool applet that searches a set of Flickr images based on what you draw. The doodle that accompanies this entry returned this landscape as the top result. Not too shabby. Retrievr’s visual acuity is still worse than any animal that possesses more than an eye spot, but it’s a nice start.

As computers become our personal media hubs and our image collections grow ever larger, keywords and categories may become insufficient to handle all the data. Drawing a smudge of color that resembles the picture you’re looking for strikes me as a great way to get the job done. Of course, then you get into all the problems that humans have remembering things accurately, but that’s a whole other issue. I, for one, welcome our visuo-droid overlords.

Have you ever played Magic: the Gathering? M:tG is what we call a “Collectable Card Game,” like Pokemon or YuGiOh! M:tG just happenned to be the first of its kind, and is still going strong. I bought the cards and played the game obsessively until all my possessions were stolen at a Magic tournament. That kind of thing can really sour an experience for a young boy.

Around the same time that I was obsessed with Magic: the Gathering, I discovered the Internet. I found a great chat channel on IRC dedicated to the game, where some of the regulars were developing a simple program that would allow them to play games online. This program is none other than Apprentice32. The 32 appended to the name is something of a historical stamp, indicating that the program was best run on a 32-bit operating system like Windows 95, as opposed to Windows 3.11, which was still popular at the time. Apprentice32’s card databases are still kept current, and though the program may take a while to start up due to its archiac programming, she still runs.

I’d nearly forgotten this, but I created the game’s original set of button graphics, as well as the five pointed star that the program still uses as its logo. These elements have now been incorporated into the program’s “Chocolate” theme. I’m still listed as a beta tester in the program’s credits. I couldn’t have been older than fifteen, quite possibly younger.

I created the graphics using a remarkable suite of programs called Visual Reality 2.0. Well, at least it was remarkable in 1996. Check out those system requirements! Visual Reality came packaged on five floppy disks, and was comprised of several different programs: Visual Font, Visual Model, Renderize Live, Visual Catalogue, and Visual Image. Nowadays, it is of course unthinkable to split the components of a 3D imaging package in this way, but back in 1996, a 486 computer just couldn’t handle it all put together. Of all the separate programs, Visual Catalogue was the most useless, as you’d never create a scene complex enough to warrant its use. Visual Image was by far the most useful, as it was a light weight image editor that offered such advanced functions as layers, image masks, and some basic blending modes. Visual Image was way ahead of its time, and in retrospect I’m amazed at the things I was able to do with it.

The Apprentice32 buttons bring back memories. I remember opening up Visual Model to create their wireframes, outputting the images in Renderize Live, and polishing them up in Visual Image. I probably used Visual Font to make most of the “stage” buttons (with the big white letters). Looking at the buttons today, they don’t seem very 3D, but I swear they are. I remember making them. I remember the oppressively cold basement that housed my family’s computer, and that my hands were practically numb by the time I was finished with my latest project. Most of all, I remember how excited I was to be contributing to something so cool. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people would use this program. That’s a lot of people to a fifteen year-old, and the thought of so many people seeing something that I had helped to create was utterly thrilling.

Strange how I could have forgotten that.