Microserfs

At a glance around the Habitrail 2, there are Post-it notes, photocopies, junk mail, newspapers, corporate reports, specs, printouts, and litter, plus thumbed-to-exhaustion copies of Microprocessor Report, California Technology Stock Letter, Red Herring, Soft•Letter, Multimedia Business Report, People, and The National Enquirer. You get the feeling that if you only reached into this paperstorm you could withdraw a strand of six pulsating rubbery pink gerbil babies. Paperless office . . . ha!

There is a billiard table covered with SGIs, MultiSync monitors, coding manuals, printouts, take-out food boxes, coils, cables, dry-erase pens, and calculators. Over by "The Dad Bar" (diamond tufted leatherette; "Tee Many Martoonies"-style knickknacks) there are compiler manuals, more monitors, and an EPROM chip toaster stacked alongside cases of Price-Costco diet Cokes and fruit leather whips. (My workspace, I am pleased to say, is spotless, and my barely scratched Microsoft Ship-It Award rests proudly underneath a Pan-Am 747 plastic model.)

Needless to say, Far Side cartoons are taped everywhere. I think techies are an intricate part of the life cycle of The Far Side cartoon, the way viruses can only propagate in the presence of host organisms. Susan says, "We are only devices for the replication of Far Side cartoons." Now that's one way of looking at humanity.

And of course there are two long couches for those flights to Australia.

Mom is happy to have our pittance of rent money, and my commuting time is ninety seconds, as I live with Karla in one of the guest bedrooms.

The main drawback about the Habitrail 2 is the ventilation, which could be better. Todd calls it "hamper fresh." We'd keep the sliding door leading into the backyard open more often, but Ethan doesn't want dust and insects infecting our technology. Or Mom's golden retriever, Misty.

Habitrail 2 also features:

• 4-fingered cartoon gloves

• ubiquitous Nerfiana

• 24 Donna Karan coffee mugs (long story)

• a decaf coffee tin labeled "666"

• GoBot transformer-type toys

• Glass beads at the door, like the ones Rhoda Morgenstern had

• herbal tea packets and tea-making apparatus

• several Game Boys

• three 4'-x-8' dry-erase wall boards

• a diet 7-UP pyramid

• an extensive manga collection

• T2 spin-off merchandise

• one Flipper thermos

We inhabit our workstations daily for a minimum of 12 hours. We use brown and white plastic folding patio chairs, so our backs are completely shot. So much for ergonomics. (Thank God for shiatsu.) There's the occasional Homer Simpson "doh!" punctuating the air when someone's cursor bleeps, or the occasionally muttered piss and crap. No one can agree on music, so we play none. Or use Walkmans.

* * *

We're doing a Windows version and a Mac version of Oop!. And Michael's drafted the coolest ERS for the graphics, AI, interface, and maybe sound. Just killer stuff, all patentable. Michael needs us to bring his vision to life. Our jobs are:

Michael: Chief Architect. He has the overall vision. He also writes the code engine that drives the graphics and modeling algorithms. He rules the engineers - us.

Ethan: President, CEO, and Director of Operations. His job is to find investors to fund us, find a company to publish and distribute our products, and to run the business day-to-day. Most companies have a CFO, but we can't afford one, so Ethan does the bill-paying, accounting, taxes, equipment-buying, and all that stuff.

Bug: In charge of database and file IO (Input/Output). It's how Oop! stores information to and from the hard drive; it's really complicated, and the kind of thing Bug loves.

Todd: He is "Ditherman" - working on the graphics engine and printer driver. All of the graphics need to be converted into an output format in order to be printed by a printer.

Me and Karla: We're working on the cross-platform class library so Oop! will run on both Mac and Windows. I'm Windows lead, she's the Mac lead.

Susan: She's the User-Interface Designer; in charge of the look-and-feel, the graphics, all that. She's the U-I police keeping me and Karla's code in sync.

* * *

Mom has a collection of rocks. This sounds weird, and it really is weird. She has this small pile of rocks on the patio that just sits there. I ask Mom why she likes them, and she says, "I don't know, they just seem special."

So is this something that might lead to her requiring medication? I mean, they're not even nice-looking rocks. I keep looking at them and try and see what she sees, and I can't.

* * *

As stated, Karla and I are working on the same things, just in different formats. She's Mac, I'm Windows.

"Entirely appropriate," says Karla, "because Windows is more male, and Mac is more female."

I felt defensive. "How so?"