Microserfs

us — was it? Ever?”

I don’t think it ever was. We lay around and were silent while Bug pulled himself together. I put on an old Bessie Smith CD and we sat, alcohol scrambling our codes, our thoughts, our lives, if only for the remaining darkness, until work made its claim upon us once more.

MONDAY

Today was one of those days where I was snapped awake by a bad dream and a hangover. Beware of those layered Eurodrinks — they’re made with scary, bee-sting-filled liqueurs!

All of us received an e-mail from Bug:

Hi kids. Me here.

Remember back in high school, there were always those peple who were in relationhips starting in eighth grade, and they’re still in relationships today? They know all the logical sequnce of the way things are supposed to happen. Like in the third week, they have a spat, and they say, “Oh, well this is just the Third Week Spat,” and it passes. Never having had a relationship, I don’t know how all the steps in a relationship are suppossed to go. I have to learn all the steps, decades later. But I’ll do it.

Sorry I lost it last night. I’m off to a B&B in Napa for a few days to think things through. Leisure and all of that. Freaky but necessary. Live and love. Bye kids.

It appears we might be getting a publishing deal lined up — with Maxis, the Sim City people. Apparently the fish are biting at the bait: Broderbund, Adobe, and Alias have also shown a bit of interest, too. So I guess we’re doing something worthwhile, or more to the point, possibly profitable. Uh oh! Am I losing my integrity, my One- Point-Oh sensibility?

I drove with Abe and Ethan to Electronic Arts up the 101 in San Mateo, on Fashion Island Boulevard — a geek party friend of ours was going to let us beta-play a new game — and we got to drive the Highway 92-101 cloverleaf I like so much.

Like most Silicon Valley buildings, EA’s headquarters, the Century Two complex, are sleek and clean, a Sony-based aesthetic, where a sleek, machine-shaped object contains magic components on the inside that do cool shit. Susan says it’s a “male” aesthetic. “If men could have their way, every building on earth would resemble a Trinitron.”

EA’s parking lot was so odd — entirely composed of brand-new cars. I felt like I was in the lot at Alamo. In the fountain out front there was a big plaza sculpture plus a bunch of rubber float toys in water crested with Joy dishwashing liquid bubbles.

“I smell nerds,” said Abe.

The lobby had a vitrine containing a football signed by John Madden and a basketball signed by Michael Jordan, game licensees, both.

Played their new game all afternoon. It was almost completely bug-free and they’ll be shipping within weeks.

Fashion Island, BTW, is really great — it’s all these huge dead department stores that got marooned by new freeway ramp construction.

After we drove back down the 101 from San Mateo, I checked my answering machine at the office. Michael left a message to phone him, so I did — even though he was sitting in his own office just a spit away. No matter. I got his machine’s message, cobbled together from old Learn how to speak Japanese tapes:

[Resonant Berlitzian voice:]

Japanese at a glance

[Befuddled U.S. tourist:]

I can’t find my luggage

[Japanese bimbette voice:]

Nimotsu ga mitsukarimasen

[Candice Bergen-type female:]

My luggage is here

[Studly Toho Studios leading male voice:]

Nimotsu wa, koko desu

[Game show host voice:]

Is there a good disco nearby?

[Japanese nerdy male voice:]

Chikaku ni, ii disco ga arimasu ka?

[Game show host:]

I have cramps

[Candice:]

I have diarrhea

[Studly male:]

There’s something wrong with this camera

[Bimbette:]

Cauliflower

[Game show host]

Eggplant

[Candice:]

Prosciutto with melon

[Studly guy:]

Shrimp cocktail

BEEP …

I told Todd to dial Michael’s number and he did, and we had to agree that Michael’s messages always indeed rocked the Free World.

Todd, I should add, like many 1990s people, equates his self-worth with the number of messages on his phone answering machine. If the red light’s not blinking … YOU ARE A LOSER. Todd’s almost cybernetic relationship with his answering machine (who am I fooling — this goes for all of us) seems a precursor of some not-too-distant future where human beings are appended by nozzles, diodes, buzzers, thwumpers, and dingles that inform us of the time and temperature in the Kerguelen Archipelago and whether Fergie is, or is not, sipping tea at that exact moment.

Todd says that at least with e-mail you have a “loser backup system” so if you didn’t get a phone message, you can at least have text.

Anyway, three minutes later my phone rang and it was Michael, asking if he could take me out for a late afternoon snack, but his voice was so hesitant in an un-Michael-ish way. He was stuttering and I began to freak out, the way you do when you pass a customs guard at a border, even though you’re not hiding anything. I said yes and braced myself for what seemed could only be terrible news.

We drove up the 101 to Burlingame, driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and I realized that in the Valley, the formula really is, NO CAR = NO LIFE. We arrived at the SFO Airport Hyatt Regency of all places, and I asked him why on earth we were there.

“Daniel, I love this building. It resembles the world’s most piss-elegant nuclear power plant — look at the copper-oxide-colored roof, turret-like center structures, and the delightful Bayside location providing cooling waters for all those toasty transuranic fuel rods.” His expression never changed during this ode.

We talked about the games at Electronic Arts, but in the back of my mind, I was trying to remember if I was pulling my weight with Oop!. Everybody’s been doing such amazing work lately — the freedom and freefloat of intellectual Darwinism is bringing out the best in all of us — and maybe Michael doesn’t think my work is as amazing as everybody else’s. But I think it is. I mean, not only am I