Elena: David
David: Elena…
Elena: You are a livestock
David: You are a noob, Elena!
Elena: You bug bag!
David: And you’re a wobbleroid android, that’s you.
Elena: What?
David: Why am I a livestock?
Elena: That’s what I decided today. You are a livestock with childhood trauma.
David: Are you talking about the Tour de France?
Elena: Of course, and about the pool, you lied about the dog.
David: If I had won, you would have been glad to know me, and I was first for a long time.
Elena: Well, when you should have won, you fell off your bike, that’s why you’re a livestock, and you’re asking why.
David: I didn’t lose the race because I fell off my bike, I got up in less than a minute and continued. You really are a noob. You don’t know what happened. I was far ahead of everyone, I was about to win that stage, I was close to the finish. Then a train came, it stopped me. I had to wait for it to pass. It was 150 wagons long. It didn’t pass for ages. And then everyone started catching up, stopped next to me and waited, and my lead was ruined. That’s how I lost the win in the Tour de France. How stupid it turned out!
Elena: Nonsense, but I dreamed that you were wearing a yellow shirt, after I saw you in town with Momo and Max.
David: Where were you today, you weren’t at university?
Elena: I had a job interview. I couldn’t move it. Did I miss anything?
David: A job interview, meaning not relaxing for even three days, so after you finish your last semester, your work experience can start ticking. 🙂
Elena: Yeah, you probably can’t understand that because you like wasting time playing games on your computer, as if you’re going to live for a thousand years, you, Max, Yanko, you all play the same game…
David: We don’t play the same game. It’s totally different. Max doesn’t even consider that game his first choice. He plays it casually, even when he drinks. I never play when I am distracted, I couldn’t afford to mess up months of work on that file. It’s fine for him. Yanko saves his position, then steps back if it’s not going well, replays the game, that’s a completely different approach to playing than mine, like we’re not even playing the same game.
Elena: Something’s been worrying me, I have to ask you, when you say months, do you mean man/month, how do you calculate that time, how many hours is that, is it eight hours every day? I mean, it seems like it could be, but surely you’re not…???
David: The game itself tracks the effective time spent playing. You don’t have to think about it. It even shows you a message when you log into the game. Right now I’m on “Remember there is an outside world,” and when I sum up the files, I’ve got over a year of effective gameplay, more than 7000 hours.
Elena: I was afraid of that. Do you think it’s a problem? That’s what happens with kids from the republic who promote sulfur emissions into the atmosphere.1
David: Well, it’s not a problem, you just lose some time, sometimes other activities suffer, but I feel good. Sometimes I know I shouldn’t install a game when I’ve got a lot to do, but I go ahead and install it, and I get this feeling that I really shouldn’t be doing this now, but I have to, and then it turns out that the CD is bad, the file’s corrupted, the operating system doesn’t support the game, and then it’s like, okay, I got through this time. But when I have time, there’s no better way to spend it, you just don’t get it. 🙂
Elena: Are you managing your Partizan in the game?
David: No, our league is not there in the versions I play. There are ways to add it, but I think it wouldn’t be a genuine simulation, it would be a bad experience, and it’d be a huge responsibility to lead Partizan, I have to get better first, then.
Elena: What’s up with this Partizan thing? Why is it so important, why is it different from other clubs?
David: I don’t know… I only dream in black and white. When I watch other clubs, I just see the players running on the field with the ball, it has no meaning. My heart doesn’t stop when the ball heads toward our goal, like I told you before.
Elena: You didn’t tell me if I missed anything at the university today.
David: Nothing. There were exercises in the computer lab. Max was drawing on the computer. Ian didn’t see me when I came in, he was sitting in front of the computer, staring at the monitor, speaking to it in a serious, somewhat annoyed voice: “Spit it out, spit it out…” like he was speaking to some kid who put some toy in their mouth and now needs to get it out, so I left him to solve that problem. Nothing special. Tasks were posted on Moodle. And then Max got annoyed too.
Elena: What annoyed Max so much, it must be some big problem, is the right flipper stick not working or something, and I dreamed about him last night…
David: And not me?
Elena: There is someone else who dreams about you, and you have someone to dream about… in black and white or however, in color… VGA… SVGA… and you even appear a bit in my dreams… but you just stay quiet and do nothing, like always when something important is happening.
Elena: Last night you, me, Max, Obradović, and Ian were making a subway in Novi Sad… and everything was going the way it goes, it was progressing somehow. Then a problem came up… Max often suggested changes… and we had already dug half of the tunnel… but he changed the project… and wouldn’t give up on his new idea. We were arguing and explaining all the problems that came up… but it didn’t help, and that’s where I woke up… we didn’t convince him.
David: I can totally imagine that situation.
Elena: They ask such stupid things at job interviews… like, what do I think was the greatest invention of the 20th century.
David: What, antibiotics, computers, pizza delivery?
Elena: Well, there’s no correct answer. What do you think?
David: Computers, going to the moon… but there wouldn’t be computers without pizza delivery. There wouldn’t be anything.
Elena: Going to the moon isn’t an invention.
David: Okay… I meant like an achievement.
Elena: I didn’t tell you something at the beginning so I wouldn’t ruin your mood.
David: Really?
Elena: The game doesn’t work in Internet Explorer, and that’s what most people use.
David: Let me try…
David: Wow, it really doesn’t work. That’s my part.
Elena: Yeah, Explorer sends parameters to Flash differently, I think. Or something like that. Also, the Javascript on the page has an error, check the console.
David: I’ll check that now.
Elena: You can do it, David. People went to the moon. You’ll make Flash accept parameters in Explorer. This happened because you enjoyed hearing about issues about Max’s new graphic designs.
David: I think it happened before that. 🙂
1In former Yugoslavia, Bosnian coat of arms featured factory chimneys.
