Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

WARNING: It turns out that I had quite a lot to say about the Penny Arcade Expo. This is easily the longest single piece I’ve ever written for this website. I had considered splitting this into three separate posts, which certainly would have inflated my posting frequency, but it just didn’t feel right. An event as monumental as PAX deserves some monumental friggin’ writing. Also keep in mind that this is nothing more or less than my own personal perspective on a truly massive event. So, buckle up.

On Sunday night I was in bed by 10:30 and asleep—dead asleep—by 11:00. I literally cannot remember the last time this happened. Even when stricken with things like H1N1 and norovirus, both of which I’ve actually had this year, I’m still up past midnight. So what happened? PAX happened. That is to say, the Penny Arcade Expo happened, storming into Boston like a bat out of…well, Seattle, technically. The point is that 50,000 people descended upon the Hynes Convention Center this past weekend, and my life will never be the same. The whole thing is a fantastical blur of pure geek joy. Where do I even begin?

Friday

Apparently I begin on Friday, which makes a certain amount of sense, chronologically speaking. I arrived at the Hynes along with two friends, whom I’ll call Chris and Sheera, for these are their names. The doors were set to open at 2:00PM, but we arrived early, because we are wise enough to know that when a convention with an attendance cap of 50,000 sells out several weeks ahead of time there are going to be lines, and it’s important to be in those lines as early as possible. Not that these lines are bad, mind you. If I had to stand in line anywhere on Earth, I’d like to stand in line at PAX. This turned out to be a fortunate attitude, as over the next three days lines would prove to be a recurring problem.

So what made standing in a line so great? One, at PAX it’s easy to make Line Buddies. Two, the convention organizers wisely included decks of Magic cards in every swag bag. Yes, Magic: the Gathering, a game I have not played in at least a decade. I got out of the game when every valuable card I owned was stolen at a convention. There I was, fifteen, maybe sixteen years old, having a great time watching two players engage in a brutal Type I game, and some lowlife lifts my entire bag. What kind of contemptible little monster steals from a teenager like that? Not the sort of people who come to PAX, I assure you. PAX is a real anomaly as conventions go, where the attendees are uncommonly courteous and friendly, the atmosphere is incredibly welcoming, and it’s a very safe place for women. In short, PAX spoils its attendees not just with an abundance of games, entertainment, and intellectual stimuli, but with the sheer quality of your fellow attendees.

Where was I? Right. Magic cards. Wizards of the Coast had an almost overwhelming presence at PAX, not that I can fault them for paying a lot of money to advertise, as this is how advertising works. The inclusion of starter decks in the swag bags was a real stroke of genius, since it guaranteed you’d have something to do while you waited. As I walked Chris through a game and we got into the swing of it, I suddenly remembered that, hey, I really like Magic. This, dear reader, is an important point in the insane narrative you are reading, because I think it perfectly encapsulates what PAX is about. Please recall from the previous paragraph that I left the hobby when a terrible person stole all my cards. That was a bad day, but aside from the theft, Magic had other problems that had gradually diminished my enthusiasm. The endless quest to buy the powerful cards, games that became more about humiliating our opponents (read: friends) with meticulously crafted decks rather than maximizing our enjoyment, and the endless money sink that this hobby can become, to name a few. But sitting in that line, playing a simple game with a friend, I suddenly remembered how much fun the game could be. An hour and a half flew by like nothing.

PAX is an unreserved celebration of all the things we geeks love, games in particular. That this was apparent from the line is a testament to how excellent this convention is.

At 2:00PM sharp the doors were flung open, and my friends and I headed into the main theater to hear the keynote address by one Wil Wheaton, writer, actor, Starfleet ensign, and evil mastermind. We may also add to this list, as one person suggested at Sunday’s Q&A, “Prince of PAX”. Wheaton’s keynote was a true tour de force, a master class in how to tell a story, make a point, and connect with an audience. I highly recommend checking out the whole thing, but if you’re pressed for time I’ll let you slide with an excerpt of his thesis. Celebrating games? Reveling in the sheer joy of it? What’s funny is that at the time I had no idea just how right he was (but I do now, see above).

This stirring keynote led directly to the day’s Q&A session with Mike and Jerry, the creators of Penny Arcade, but before I get to that I need to go a little meta. Within the Penny Arcade community there’s some confusion over whether to refer to the authors as Mike and Jerry (their actual names) or Gabe and Tycho (their characters’ names). I’m now firmly on the Mike/Jerry side of the debate. While Gabe and Tycho are closely aligned with Mike and Jerry, respectively, they are not mere stand-ins. The characters are, for example, alcoholic, violent, and a little gay, whereas the authors are personable, even-tempered, and let’s say erudite. Though Mike and Jerry seem perfectly comfortable being referred to as their alter egos, I just don’t want to be the guy who conflates a creator with his creation (HI WIL WHEATON, CAN YOU IDENTIFY?). To say nothing of the difficulties inherent in writing about both the characters and the authors when they share the same names.

That’s an awfully big build up, especially since I have very little to say about the Q&A, other than that it was highly entertaining and a good use of an hour. Particularly the Action Castle—or should I say, Aaaaaaaaaccctiooon Caaaaaaaaaassssstle!—incident. I was going to write up the whole weird, hilarious exchange, but thankfully someone uploaded it to Youtube. For reference, Jerry is on the right, and Mike, who obviously never played text-based adventure games, is the increasingly agitated man on the left.

From there, I headed off to a panel about Child’s Play, which got me thinking that I might try to host a modest fundraiser this year. Hmm. Regardless of my future plans, the panel got me thinking about Child’s Play in general, which would become important later in the weekend. FORESHADOWING.

Which brings us, almost unbelievably, to 6:00PM. The three of us meandered about the Expo Hall, taking note of various companies and vendors that interested us. Somehow we missed the Starcraft II games being played at the NVIDIA booth, but in a few days’ time we would rectify that oversight. But Friday was drawing to a close. Another friend of ours was driving into town from a frozen wasteland (Buffalo), and we had to meet him in another part of the city by 8:00. So ends the day!

Saturday

Saturday started at 6:00AM. This is not a sentence I ever wanted to type. What would move me to rise so early on a weekend, especially when the day’s activities wouldn’t start until 10:00 and the line wouldn’t officially form until 8:00? Were the lines that bad? No, but the first 4,000 people in the line would receive wristbands allowing them to attend Saturday night’s concert event, which I very much wanted to do. I was joined in this mad quest by Ben of Buffalo. We were in line by 6:45, experiencing sunrise temperatures of about twenty-five degrees. Fahrenheit. I was wearing a t-shirt and a hoodie, because the previous week’s spring-like weather had made me way too optimistic. Still, we managed to auto-generate a new group of Line Buddies, and the time eventually passed, our wristbands secure upon our frail appendages. See?

Waking up at 6:00 and nearly freezing to death to gain access to the concert would turn out to be the absolute best decision I have ever made, about anything. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made lots of good decisions in life, but few have ever led to such unambiguously fantastic rewards as this one. MORESHADOWING.

At 10:00 we returned to the Expo Hall and got to know the place better. I picked up a deck of We Didn’t Playtest This At All, because no home in this great nation of ours should go without one. We played a five-way game of Magic at the Wizards of the Coast booth using ridiculously oversized cards, bothered the good people at Wacom, gawked at the craftsmanship on display over at Geek Chic, and thoroughly lost our minds when we finally noticed the four computers running Starcraft II. Gonna need a montage!

Whew. Ben, Sheera, Chris, and I then headed into the main theater for the Draw a Strip panel. While waiting in line (again), I caught sight of Graham Stark and Kathleen De Vere, and I yelled, “Hey! You’re the Desert Bus guys!!” Luckily for me, they totally were. For those of you who don’t know, they are members of Loading Ready Run and co-founders of the Desert Bus For Hope Child’s Play marathon (again, if you’ve never read the description of Desert Bus, you really should). I got my picture taken with them, because they are my comedic and philanthropic heroes. The panel turned out to be another Q&A with Jerry and Mike, done as Mike drew Monday’s comic in the background. His mastery of comic illustration is remarkable, and watching him create a strip live was downright mesmerizing, when it was not hilarious. At one point Jerry was challenged to draw Tycho, and the results were…characteristic, to put it politely.

It was also during this panel, at least in my memory, that someone went up to the microphone and pointed out that Child’s Play had a surprisingly small presence at PAX. Jerry and Mike agreed to rectify this in the future. I realized that this was the first time anyone had taken an opportunity to bring up Child’s Play, specifically. EVENMORESHADOWING.

At this point in the day everything started blurring together. We grabbed lunch and devoted the remainder of the afternoon to playing several boardgames. Ben of Buffalo soundly thrashed an exhibitor at a game of “Ticket to Ride“. Keep in mind that Ben had never before played the game, and one of the people at the table had playtested the game. Such is Ben. Do not mess with Ben. Also, Pentago is neat. Just thought I’d put that out there.

Before we knew it, it was time for Ben and I to get in line (yet again) for the concert. Again, we made some Line Buddies, again games of Magic were played, and again the wait evaporated amidst the fun. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was playing on the queue room’s speakers just as they opened the doors. I only mention it because we—and by “we”, I mean the couple thousand people who were in that room—spontaneously broke into song, carrying the strains of Freddie Mercury’s ballad through the corridors of the Hynes and into the main theater, entirely without Queen’s back-up. Magical!

So now we’re waiting for the concert to start. Three acts are on the bill: the Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton. I only know of the Video Game Orchestra because a colleague of mine happens to play soccer with the conductor. Paul and Storm, I’d never heard of. But Jonathan Coulton is about as famous as you can get in geek circles without inventing some kind of new proton.

Believe me when I tell you that everyone was there for JoCo. Believe me when I tell you that we were about to have our priorities seriously reconfigured.

The Video Game Orchestra is, in a word, awesome. This is not a word I use lightly. In fact, since the rampant use of the word has watered down its meaning from “something inspiring awe” to “something I like,” I’ve made an effort to avoid using it entirely. I am here to tell you that the Video Game Orchestra inspires awe. They are an incredibly talented group of musicians who bring amazing levels of professional acumen, enthusiasm, and creativity to their work. Their “Final Fantasy VII Battle Medley” had me literally screaming for more, nearly up out of my seat in excitement (this is more impressive if you take into consideration that not ten minutes earlier I had been feeling a little queasy from a way-too-sugary snack). My only regret is that I have to share it with you on Youtube. I hope to God that they release a clearer recording. I also thoroughly enjoyed “Metal Castlevania“. I don’t know who that guitarist is, but his ferocious licks will melt your face off. And these are just the two numbers I, personally, enjoyed the most. By all means, check Youtube for more.

Up next was a surprise intermission, featuring Paul, Storm, and special guest Wil “Prince of PAX” Wheaton doing probably the only entertaining rendition of “Trololololo” you’ll ever see.

Then came Paul and Storm’s real act. I’m always a little uneasy when it comes to comedy musicians. They’re either brilliant (see Weird Al Yankovic, Jonathan Coulton, and in his day, Allan Sherman), or complete train wrecks. Nothing, nothing is worse than a bad musical comedian. Both the songs and the jokes have to be good, and if not, the result is at best annoying and at worst a disaster. Color me pleasantly surprised, then, by Paul and Storm. Aside from being two seriously funny, talented dudes, they really know how to work a room. It was a true pleasure to have them on stage, and though I suspect they’re better in person than on a recording, you should still check them out and buy their stuff. Especially “Nun Fight“.

At last came the evening’s headliner, Jonathan Coulton, which turned out to be a bit of a letdown compared with the previous two acts. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some JoCo, but he doesn’t deviate much from his prerecorded stuff. If you’ve heard his music already, you know what you’re getting. He had none of the awe-inspiring wonder of the VGO or the excellent crowd work of Paul and Storm. Still, I must admit that it was fun to be part of the zombie horde on “Re: Your Brains,” and I thoroughly enjoyed when he was joined onstage by Paul and Storm and some members of Metroid Metal to become Coultron. If nothing else, his Distract-o-tron remix of “Mr. Fancy Pants” (hang on for the Beyonce cameo) was definitely worth seeing live. I also have a new appreciation for “The Future Soon“.

And that was Saturday. Jesus. Ben and I caught a cab home and passed out at 2:00AM, ending roughly twenty hours of nonstop craziness.

Sunday

Sunday started a little late on account of Saturday (see above). Still, we were back at the Hynes by 11:00, where we added a new member to our party: the Tall One, who had been able to procure only a Sunday pass. I made a mad dash to the Expo Hall, hoping to get my turn at Starcraft II. Sheera and the Tall One, however, insisted than I join them for Aaaaaaaaction Caaaaaastle, which was just about to start. When the event’s organizers said that “everyone who comes will get to play,” I wondered how they intended to pull that off. Answer: arrange everyone in a moving line and give them each a turn at the microphone. Here’s why it was entertaining:

ACTION CASTLE: You arrive at the drawbridge of Aaaaaaction Caaaaaastle! There is an angry-looking troll here.

EVERYONE: SAVE!

PERSON AT THE MIC: Give rose to troll.

ACTION CASTLE: The troll eats the rose and knocks your head off with a mighty blow. You have died. Would you like to load your last game?

EVERYONE: Awww! Damnit!

Good times.

After we left Action Castle, Sheera spotted Jerry and Mike in the hallway. It was at this moment that she, as we say, “won PAX”:

And then I went ahead and got a partial win. I also got both of them to sign a copy of their recently released book. This should count for extra points, I think.

Perhaps because we were a little starstruck after getting autographs from Mike and Jerry, perhaps because the Tall One had missed the other Q&A sessions, or perhaps because I felt I needed to say something (WE’RE-NEARLY-THERE-SHADOWING), we decided to attend Sunday’s Q&A. Sunday’s attendance was markedly reduced from the craziness of the previous day and getting in was relatively easy.

I waited my turn in front of one of the two balcony microphones. Still, no one had said what I felt needed to be said. Before I knew it, it was my turn to speak. I began, “I’ve been to both of the other Q&A panels, and I’m really surprised this hasn’t come up. I want to thank you guys for Child’s Play.”

Now, let us pause here momentarily. I’d been thinking about this throughout PAX, and I had this whole thing that I wanted to say about how grateful I am to everyone at Penny Arcade for making Child’s Play possible; the sort of thing that would be worth saying in front of approximately 2,000 people. What I didn’t count on was my personal history. Suddenly this tidal wave of emotion came surging up from my past, and I could barely get the gist of what I wanted to say out of my mouth. I realized that I’m not just intellectually thankful for Child’s Play, in the way that I might be thankful for other important things, like the United States’s high standard of living or for my university’s relatively generous living stipends. Rather, I’m thankful on this emotional, visceral level, and exposing that to an auditorium of listeners without bursting into tears was proving extremely difficult.

Interestingly, the Boston Phoenix was recording the whole session. You can see see me expressing my gratitude here, around the 4:30 mark. I was terrified when I found this clip, because in the moment I honestly thought that I sounded like an incoherent, stumbling wreck of a human being. It turns out that a third person perspective is helpful. Though I’m only managing to croak out the barest outline of what I had intended to say—which I suppose says something about what I consider to be a normal rate of speech—at least you can’t tell that I am completely losing my shit up there. Maybe it’ll be more apparent on the free community DVDs. Who knows? Not me, obviously.

After my turn at the microphone it seemed that a notably higher proportion of question askers were taking a moment to express their thanks for Child’s Play. As a scientist, I’m trained to be wary about misattributing causation, but you’ve got to admit that there’s a bit of a correlation there, I think. I am particularly grateful to the woman who spoke after me (around 2:50) and said almost exactly what I had meant to say. It’s good to know that there are other people out there who feel the same way I do, and even approach Child’s Play from the same perspective. For me, that knowledge alone made PAX worth the price of admission.

As for what I would have said had I not been overcome with emotion, I think I’ll save it for December.

Afterward, most of us returned to the Expo Hall. Ben and I were dead set on getting some time with Starcraft II, and lo, after waiting in line for a little over an hour, it did come to pass. And it was good. Very, very good. Any other company in the world would easily deem this a finished product and get it on the shelves, but Blizzard demands more of itself. I hope to buy a copy before Thanksgiving. Also, Battle.net is still brimming with childish jerks, some of whom, I realize, are literally children. Having been beaten into submission by what I assume is a fourteen year-old, I typed “gg” and exited the game. He seemed confused by my surrender despite his brutal decimation of my meager forces, his stranglehold on my resources, and the armada of alien hardware he had perched just outside my base, ready to destroy me. Frankly I find it more confusing that he didn’t move in for the kill, given that he had remained utterly untouched throughout this ordeal. Ah well. He had no way of knowing that there was a line of people behind me waiting for the same experience.

From there my friends and I decided to wait in one Final Line for the closing ceremonies. By “closing ceremonies,” I of course mean the final round of the Omegathon, the video game tournament with the fabulous prize that had been going on throughout PAX. So what would the omeganaughts have to do in this, the final round? It was a difficult series of trials, or as Jerry put it, “completely insane bullshit that we have concocted to torment these people, for your amusement.” It was a varied four-game relay: collect 50 coins in Super Mario Brothers, obtain 1,500 points in Rad Racer, clear ten lines in Tetris, and lastly, most cruelly, defeat the first boss in Contra. Luckily players would have the benefit of the Konami Code for this final game, without which the Contra task would have been utterly impossible.

Unfortunately, the code came with a few bugs and forced one restart of the relay. It was then that the one, the only, the Robert Khoo appeared on stage. At PAX Khoo was as ethereal as he was omnipresent, like some kind of highly efficient breeze. Just before Saturday’s concert, he stepped directly over me in the queue line (or perhaps through me) as he rapidly counted up the attendance. He had all the focus of a sentient laser beam. Are you looking for Robert Khoo? Just say his name and he will manifest before you in his customary three-piece suit. The aura that emanates from him can solve problems, be they mathematical or otherwise, and heal the sick. Given the technical limitations of the Konami Code, it became Robert’s sole duty to enter it at precisely the right moment. Because if you’re putting on a video game relay in front of 8,000 people and you want to make sure the code works right the first time, you get Khoo.

KHOO. THERE IS NOTHING HE CANNOT DO.

With the Omegathon concluded, PAX was officially over. The spell was broken, the reality distortion field collapsed, and the Hynes Convention Center was eerily calm.

Closing Thoughts

Congratulations on making it this far. Have you blinked in the last fifteen minutes? Perhaps you’d like to use the bathroom? I’m nearly done here. Hold it in.

I have very few complaints about PAX. I wish the lines had been a little more reasonable, and I also wish I could have been in four places at once. Both of these issues could be alleviated to some extent by holding the next PAX East in a larger venue. Mike and Jerry readily acknowledge this, and from what they said over the weekend it’s likely that next year PAX East will be held in the BCEC, which is nearly twice the size of the Hynes. Thus, attendance at PAX East should easily eclipse that of PAX Prime, and the dominance of the True Coast shall be asserted. We have the original thirteen colonies, we have all the best baseball teams, and soon, very soon, we shall have the largest gaming convention in the world. Enjoy your wine vineyards and your earthquakes, hippies.

Wil Wheaton’s keynote address was like a prophecy of how the weekend would unfold. He is a geek sage, a pillar of our community, a good sport and all-around great guy. If he was short, wrinkled, green, and carried a lightsaber, I’d call him Yoda. He truly deserves the title of Prince of PAX. So let it be written, so let it be done!

Wheaton described PAX with the words “Welcome home.” At the time I thought he was overselling it, but you know what? He’s right. There’s no place like PAX. In three days at PAX I played more Magic: the Gathering than in the previous ten years, and it felt very much like I had traveled back in time to a happy place. You might have noticed that in every picture I’ve posted here my mouth is agape in a cartoonish smile. I felt that this was the best way to express my almost constant joy. I ended up paying a total of $90 for my passes to PAX, because I was too stupid to take my own advice and the cheaper 3-day passes sold out before I could buy one. Was it worth ninety bucks? Every day individually was worth at least $90. The keynote, the Q&A panels, the concert, the Expo Hall, the Omegathon, the people, the endless fun; dear God, was it ever worth the money.

Thanks to PAX I got to play great games, hear amazing live music, appreciate my friends in whole new ways, connect with a whole new segment of my community, and meet several of my heroes. It’s hard to believe that all of this happened in a single weekend. I’ve written it down here not so much for my audience (such as you are), but for me, so that I never forget the feeling of these three days.

If you have anything to add about PAX, please, by all means, leave a comment.

Why is it that after a prolonged silence on my site I inevitably come back by writing about something incredibly contentious and controversial? I suppose it’s because of all the talking I do. I’m a talker, as any of my friends will tell you. Always making with the word noise and the subjects and the predicates. Always. When it comes to something as culturally omnipresent as the healthcare bill, eventually I’ll reach a point where I’ve done so much talking that I’ll think, You know, I really wish I had some kind of public platform where I could OH WAIT I PAY FOR A WEBSITE.

The Healthcare Reform Bill passed in the House 219-212 and was signed by President Obama the very next day. It is law. The Republicans in the Senate will do what they can to obstruct the reconciliation phase of it, not that it will matter. This thing is huge, and it is here to stay, and I couldn’t be happier. I think Joe Biden nailed the appropriate reaction, but then, reactions do vary.

On the conservative end of the spectrum, I hear a lot of people saying that the Obama administration has variously rammed, crammed, jammed, and slammed this thing down America’s throat. I don’t really see how any of those metaphors are appropriate. Two years of public discussion, a year of legislative debate, endless opinion polling, and a truly unprecedented seven hour, televised bipartisan discussion of the bill don’t feel much like a cramming or ramming to me. But I can understand why a conservative might feel the way, if for no other reason than change is hard. But this is a change that was long overdue, and it’s clear that, had Republicans truly gotten what they wanted, we’d have no reform at all. I have to agree with Stephen Colbert. If Republicans really cared about healthcare reform, they’d have done something, anything about it in the sixteen years they ruled Congress.

But no, the Republicans produced no real healthcare reform in all that time, even when they had absolute control over both the executive and the legislature. They could not, would not, in the west wing. They  would not, could not, because the free market’s the thing. They could not, would not in the House. They would not, could not for your same-sex spouse. They could not, would not, in the Senate. They would not, could not, even though they said they meant it. They did not like healthcare reform, not for the old, or those still in a dorm.

See? Us liberals can rhyme, too.

Speaking of liberals, I hear a lot of grousing on that side of the fence as well. Something about how the bill isn’t progressive enough, but it’s probably the best we could get. Well, yes. Let’s stop and think about this for a second. Isn’t this how the legislature is supposed to work? One party comes forward with its idea, the other side disagrees, and a compromise is debated and (hopefully) signed into law. Democrats came forward with Obama’s aggressively progressive proposal and then whittled it down until they got something they could actually pass. The bill passed, by the way, with roughly the slimmest margin allowable. If just four more representatives had decided to vote against it—four out of four hundred and thirty-one—the bill would be dead. The bill that the Democrats passed was literally the best bill they could have gotten at this moment in history.

What I find funny (or appalling, depending on your mood) is that all of the aforementioned compromise took place within the Democratic caucus. No Republicans, not one out of the one hundred and seventy-eight in that chamber, voted for this bill. That can’t be right. Not a single Republican felt that this bill was passable? A bill that includes insurance exchange markets in lieu of a public healthcare option? A bill that passed with the blessing of the abortion-obsessed Bart Stupak? Party of No, indeed. David Frum is right to call this a Republican Waterloo, a crushing defeat made all the worse by the GOP’s absolute unwillingness to forge anything resembling a compromise. Perhaps John Boehner should take all those clean sheets of paper he was talking about and use them to draft some serious modifications to the Republican platform. You are not the majority party anymore, and the lockstep conformity that worked so well for you in the Bush era is going to do nothing now but march you off a cliff. But by all means, keep trying it.

The debate, at last, is over. Our government has made the hard decision; the decision to change. Only time will tell which party will be vindicated in the end (but guess which one I’m betting on!). Now, let’s all take the advice of the Republican governor of California and let off some steam.

Every Psychology 101 course will spend a week or two on the principles of learning. The larger question being addressed is: How can a person’s thoughts or behaviors be changed in an enduring way? In discussing how this question has been studied by psychologists, the lesson invariably starts with the example of Pavlov’s famous drooling dogs and ends with B. F. Skinner and his quirky pigeons. How quirky were they, you ask? Skinner successfully trained his birds to play ping-pong, and even secured military funding to see if he could train them to act as bomb guidance systems. Project Pigeon, as it was called, actually worked, to an extent. True story.

Students don’t have much trouble with the drooling dogs and bombardiering birds. Nor do they have much difficulty mastering the concepts of positive reinforcement, in which you are given something desirable (food, money, etc) to reinforce a target behavior, and punishment, in which you experience something unpleasant whenever you perform an undesired behavior. Confusion doesn’t set in until negative reinforcement is brought up. Negative reinforcement, just like positive reinforcement, increases the likelihood that a target behavior will occur (in contrast, punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior occurring, and isn’t very good at creating long-term behavior change). The difference is that while positive reinforcement introduces something pleasant to reinforce behavior, negative reinforcement works by removing something unpleasant. It’s a tricky concept to teach because it’s difficult to think of examples in which you’re removing something unpleasant without also introducing something pleasant. As it happens, I’m living just such an example right now.

I am not a morning person. I never have been, and I probably never will be. I am not one for whom the dawn is its own reward. It takes a supreme effort and an elaborate system of alarms to wrench myself out of bed every morning. During holidays my circadian rhythms inevitably slide toward the nocturnal. I eventually find myself falling asleep at 4:00AM and waking up at the crack of noon. Nevertheless, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve overslept for an early appointment. If I absolutely have to be somewhere at 7:00AM, I’ll be there. It’s just how I was raised.

For the past two weeks I’ve been arriving at the lab by 7:30AM. Initially I did this because I had to; a subject in an experiment I’m running could only come in at 8:00AM. But the subject in question finished up last week, and now I’m coming in early by choice. You may be wondering how I’ve managed to sustain such a miraculous change in my behavior, and believe me, “miraculous” is definitely the word here.

It has everything to do with the B Line. Anyone who lives in Boston knows what I’m talking about. The B Line is by far the slowest, most crowded, and least reliable subway line in the city. That it serves the most densely residential sections of the city but runs the fewest trains is a topic for another day. The end result is that rush hour on the B Line is a nightmare. Moreover, the B Line remains crowded for huge swathes of the day, even as the ridership on other branches of the Green Line thins to almost nothing. The thought of having to stuff myself into a B Line car for what is, all things considered, a short commute fills me with dread.

It turns out that if I can get myself onto the train by, say, 7:00AM, all of these problems go away. The trains haven’t had the chance to get backed up, seating is plentiful, and the ride is quantifiably faster. The whole experience is far less aversive, so much so that I’m actually willing to push against twenty-seven years of night owl habits to change my behavior. Negative reinforcement in action, ladies and gentlemen.

There are positive reinforcers as well, of course. There are more hours in my day and I’m more productive (the only other time in my life where I managed to maintain this schedule also happens to be the time I wrote daily). Since I’m in so early, I don’t feel bad about dodging the evening rush hour by leaving at 4:00. The positive reinforcers are obvious, but it’s the negative reinforcement of avoiding a horrible commute that gets me up in the morning. Skinner tends to get a bad rap these days, but there’s no denying that the man was on to something.

In my program I study something called psychophysics. It’s a cool-sounding if somewhat baffling term, and for me used to conjure images of the criminally insane on see-saws and rocket ships. Psycho physics, get it? I’m extremely funny. In reality, we call it psychophysics because we are interested in investigating the relationship between the physical properties of a stimulus and the psychological percept those properties create. Psychophysical investigations have helped us design interfaces, learn about the effects of aging, and—I’m not making this up—determine the absolute brightness thresholds of pigeons (which is actually very impressive, given that pigeons are very stupid, can’t talk about their experiences, and certainly have no idea what it is you want them to do).

Psychophysical experiments typically require a small, simple set of responses from participants. Yes/No, First/Second, Left/Right, Brighter/Darker, Pigeon Pecking/Pigeon Not Pecking, that kind of thing. So I’ve always thought it a bit strange that we (meaning my lab) record responses from a full Apple keyboard. If the subject only needs three keys to participate in the experiment, why present him with 109?

About a year ago, I volunteered to participate in an experiment at a lab where they specialize in eye tracking research. I could detail the hellish setup they employed to stabilize participants’ heads—which involved an eye patch, plastic rods, and dental impressions—but I won’t. I think it’s more fun to let you imagine how those three items fit together. Anyway, there I am, feeling like a pirate about to be fitted for braces, when into my hands is thrust a Playstation 2 controller. “What a brilliant idea,” I thought, trying not to drool into my lap.

I’d put the whole experience out of mind until the Mimeo thing got me thinking about video games and controllers. Should I purchase a USB gamepad for use in my experiment rooms? Something like this or this, perhaps? The ergonomic advantages are pretty clear. When you’re trying to confine yourself to a chin rest it’d be a lot easier to hold something in your hand, rather than peck awkwardly at the bottom of the numeric keypad. The reduced set of buttons might even reduce subject errors. Such advantages are well worth considering.

In my search for a good, simple USB controller, it became clear that they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are even made to mimic the peripherals of our youth, and the nostalgia is almost powerful enough to overcome the litany of reviews detailing these products’ shoddy workmanship, unreliable responses, and generally short lifespans (still, this slightly more expensive model looks more promising, and more faithful to the original hardware). The mere sight of those four purple buttons—the exact shape, size, and color of Smarties, I have always believed—is enough to set my brain on edge and fill me with vivid memories of Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Kart. Hours upon hours of them. I can almost feel my fingers reaching out to hit the SNES’s spring-loaded reset button before my Arwing explodes for the millionth time.

As my search for gamepads inevitably branched into unrelated areas (oh, internet), I was surprised to learn that you can actually get a workable NES or SNES on eBay for far less money than you might think. Then again, I think these things are priceless, and it’s downright shocking to see my childhood on sale for $65.82. You’d think that these venerable gaming systems, particularly something as old as the NES, would have begun to appreciate in value. Or at least I would think that. Perhaps normal people do not. In any case, even if I ponied up the piddling amount of cash necessary to buy a SNES, where would I put it? Is it really worth having the thing around? I’m still undecided. Am I genuinely interested in buying such a system, or just eager to distract myself from work? It’s hard for me to disambiguate the signal from the noise on this one.

Maybe I should collect some more data. With a gamepad.