If I understood correctly, Elena asked Ian on chat yesterday, “How are you?” Then she added, “Will you write something already? It says Ian is typing for five minutes now.” He replied with two pages. He touched on various topics, but the key points were that the remaining part of the Liberty Bridge, where we sometimes spend the night, sank to the bottom of the ocean (I don’t understand how it ended up in the ocean when the Danube is beneath it). Ian was responsible for that—a bug he created caused it. Luckily, Yanko used a winch to pull the bridge back to the surface. Then they had a beer there on the bridge, and one of his coworkers showed up. He thinks she came because he was there. He noticed she’s not indifferent to him. When they’re on break at the cafĂ© across from the office, if she notices him looking at her, she starts gesticulating exaggeratedly. Now, he’s starting to like her a bit too.
Next, he said that DNA is open source. Also, that everything we see doesn’t actually exist anymore because this instance is about to shut down. He thinks the solar system is a white-label product, instantiated hundreds of times.
In his dream, he saw the nurse who treated us when we crashed the car, but now she’s in some TV series about hospital workers in New York.
He also mentioned that the inflation numbers on the wall in Herceg Novi have started moving backward.
Yesterday, we met at Ivan’s dorm for a gathering where we planned to play Worms. Elena waited to comment in person.
“You’ve been smoking again.”
“Maybe a little.”
“You said you wouldn’t anymore.”
“I had to. It was the situation.”
“What kind of situation makes you have to?”
“We were at Yanko’s. Petar was there too. Everyone except Petar went out to smoke. I didn’t want to be alone with him for ten minutes and have to talk. So, there you go… practically a no-way-out situation.”
“Such a feeble character.”
Elena sometimes likes to take on a lecturing tone and criticize. Occasionally, it’s influenced by seemingly unrelated events, and I think this had to do with Ian hacking her scale.
Max chimed in, saying he was happy for the nurse and her success.
At Ivan’s, people were constantly knocking on the door. Some entered, others just came to ask something. He socializes with a lot of people—most of the dorm, everyone from the left wing, most of the students in his year, the dorm security guards, and his brother’s colleagues. Everyone knew they were welcome anytime, and he had up to twenty visitors a day. I remember this from the time I stayed there for a few days. Life in that room was an endless cycle of washing glasses from the juice we offered to guests. Ivan organized parties in cafés, and his lifestyle perfectly suited that job.
Organizing a party involved a student negotiating with a café owner to promote a certain drink, while the student ensured as many people as possible showed up. In return, the student got a small percentage of the drink sales. For successful parties, the percentage could be quite decent. These parties were held on nights when the cafés would otherwise be empty. Every generation had a few such students. One of the current visitors, my namesake David, was part of that odd guild. He talked about a bet he had with Ivan over the weekend. The winner was the one who organized the bigger party. It was quite a challenge since most students had gone home, and the city was pretty empty. David’s party didn’t succeed, so he came to the café where Ivan was hosting his.
“I walked into Ivan’s, and it was packed. Waiters were rushing around, overwhelmed. A hundred Koreans were dancing, the DJ was playing music…”
Ivan laughed and nodded contentedly. He had found some students on a summer exchange program and brought the entire group to the party.
Ivan and David were competitors, always trying to outdo each other in hosting larger parties. Ivan typically managed to persuade over fifty people to come; I wasn’t sure how David fared. He relied heavily on the dorm neighbors and classmates. There was always the fear that a party might flop. He openly asked us to come support him, not even bothering to praise the café.
At certain times, all this suited me well—the decadence and idling. The constant stream of new people and drunken parties fit perfectly after long stretches of programming and studying.
Currently, things were a bit different. The dorm was almost empty. Ivan was planning a big party when the students returned. He was urging everyone present to come. Max asked what kind of music would be played, hinting at the terrible quality of music at Ivan’s parties.
“House!” Ivan shouted confidently. Then, under his breath, he added, “At first.”
I think I was the only one who heard that part.
When I got home, I reflected on how it had been ten days since the allergic reaction that enlightened me about not overworking, about the need to read and experience the most beautiful parts of the world. Life can end easily, and it’s important to enjoy it as much as possible. I had spent the last ten days living like that and playing through eight seasons in a game. Still, now I’m thinking I should buy an amplifier and a racket. In general, I think I need more money. It’s time to start working more seriously, but not in teams like Tiquismiquis.
I opened oDesk; I’d had luck finding projects there before. I added a link to our game in my portfolio and wrote that I have experience developing multiplayer games. Tomorrow, I’ll apply for projects. Hopefully, something interesting will come up. So far, I’ve only worked on HTML and Flash websites, but now I’ve learned a lot from Ian and Elena. I’ll also offer game programming services.
Our game still gains about thirty players daily on average. It’s holding on but far from a success.
