Elena: Hey, Mr. Mojo Falling…
David: Hi, witch!
Elena: Are you studying?
David: No, nothing.
Elena: Are you working on the game?
David: Well… not really. There were some unforeseen events.
Elena: What happened?
David: We were at Grbavica, at Uncle Boshko’s, on Monday…
David: Maxim and I.
David: We helped move some stuff out of the auxiliary building, the one behind the atelier.
David: And we found a treasure. The man who sold him the house still keeps his stuff in that building. On Monday, he was taking them out. And this man had an arcade, one of the first in town. There was one old game in a big box.
David: Chelnov. He’s some kind of beginner alien. I mean… he’s a beginner scientist fighting aliens, and there’s some radiation influence from a nuclear disaster.
Elena: Very original, I see…
David: The game is great. We both played it as kids. But there’s this Bob. He holds the record, signed up back in ’96, and now we’re struggling to beat him.
Elena: Great, so Maxim isn’t working either.
David: We’ve overcome the initial problems. The machine doesn’t take dinars, so we bought five German marks in coins from Boshko… imagine, he still has some. The machine is now ours.
Elena: How much did you pay?
David: Very little, considering the huge value we got.
Elena: So you paid a lot.
David: No, not at all.
Elena: How much?
David: Eh… you wouldn’t understand, it’s not important. We paid something small.
David: So what are you doing?
David: What’s new? Are you studying or working on the game?
Elena: Not right now. But my break did not start on Monday.
Elena: I see you’re changing the topic, I won’t ask you anymore. But to answer your question – I’m thinking about doing something. I could underline one chapter from that exam… our favorite… theoretical. But if I start now, I’ll finish around 2am. I’m thinking whether I should do it today or leave it for tomorrow.
David: Just underline it today… One life. 🙂
Elena: I didn’t ask how your weekend at home was. Did you connect with your ancestors, bond with nature, talk to the tree, ride a comet through the universe?
David: None of that, Marko isn’t there. 🙂
David: Nothing interesting. My high school friend’s computer broke down. So, I went to fix it… to install illegal Windows. That’s the most interesting thing that happened, I hadn’t seen him in a long time. He used to have a computer in the first year of high school with a small and large diskette. I had the game “Dave” on the large diskette and went to him to transfer it to the small one. But the “empty” diskette had a virus, I realized that later. Ever since, I’ve felt guilty about that. His computer probably got blocked, I didn’t dare ask back then. So, this weekend, I went again by bike to his place, he lives in Lauš… just like seven years ago, and I said to myself, this injustice will be fixed, I was the one responsible for the computer breaking, but now I’ll fix his computer and I felt happy, and a bit of strange nostalgia. But when I got there, his computer had the physical failure, the disk doesn’t work, my illegal Windows doesn’t help. No karma at all.
Elena: You often go home. You’re a real mama’s boy… Yeah, mama’s boy and a beginner alien. Does your conscience hurt for neglecting me? And our joint projects too. You put me in the git ignore file.
David: How did I neglect you? Maxim and I are taking you to the theater tomorrow, you just don’t know it yet.
Elena: Why don’t I know yet?
David: I just got a message. But we’ll be sitting in the back rows. Chelnov is at his place. His eyes hurt a bit, so now he wants to change focus, look at things far away.
Elena: Does your conscience hurt for installing illegal Windows?
David: No. It seems my conscience is already completely hurt and destroyed, there’s nothing left. So many reasons to feel guilty.
Elena: Now you’ll live from selling software. Imagine how you’d feel if someone copies your software and doesn’t pay you. As a developer, you should have respect for your colleagues.
David: What are you talking about?
Elena: And your Championship Manager, you’ve probably played it for a thousand hours by now. And it costs maybe twenty euros. That’s maybe 2 cents per hour. For Chelnov, you put in a coin for 5 minutes. Is there any fun for that money?
David: Maybe there is. I recently made a website for a guy from Texas… he has a saying… wait, let me find the email…
David: “I will ride them like a 25 cent whore on a Saturday night till it’s up.”
David: That’s the dark age before the internet, and those machines can be fooled… Wait, how much does Windows cost, and did you pay for it?
Elena: I didn’t pay anything. I’m using Linux.
David: You’re writing from Linux now?
Elena: Yes.
David: Who would’ve thought, it doesn’t even feel different, I thought it was the same Elena.
Elena: Hahaha… I’m also in the Linux Serbia group.
David: Where’s that group?
Elena: For now, only online. Try Linux, it’s better for development.
David: I’ll see if there’s CM for Linux. If there is, I’ll join you, but I don’t think there is.
Elena: Go now. I’m going now to underline.
Elena: Oh, wait… and who’s your client riding for 25 cents?
David: He found high school kids to copy text from old to new websites. He’s gonna ride them.
Elena: Wait, let me find an email to send you something. Some kind of colorful language from our clients too. The site is for a lawyer, you’ll understand.
Elena: “I would love to be a search result in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Bloomington, Indiana, for criminal law and personal injuries. Is that possible? There are 2 towns about an hour east of me. Bloomington is a college town (Indiana University) where there’s a ton of business to be gotten from drunk college kids.”
David: Hahahahaha. Business is business.
Elena: Well, see you…
David: Bye. See you.
Elena: Go now… 🙂
David: I’m going, yes.
Before going to sleep, I set it so that when I start the computer I can also choose Linux. Windows remains for gaming only.
