Jonathan Dobres

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.

Spend enough time on the Internet, and eventually you’ll find some very cool things. Cool thing number one? Guess the sitcom character. Here’s how you play. Run through your pathetically pop-culture saturated brain and pick a TV character, like maybe Sophia Petrillo, or my childhood idol, Darkwing Duck. Then sit there and answer the continuing sequence of yes/no questions as if you are that character. There’s a frighteningly high chance that at the end of the questions, the computer will guess your identity correctly. Scary. What’s worse, if you stump the machine (and it verifies that you weren’t just answering questions wrong), it’ll ask you to help make it smarter by adding your own question to the database. Fight the power!