15-V-1997.
About this time of year the Technic fair is held in Belgrade. We didn't bother to put up a stand, it's too much hassle and the cost isn't small, and the business was running fine anyway, didn't need advertising.
Now whether this was this year or the next... I guess this one, because in december Go just bought a Jethro Tull (the best of) CD, and said „now you see how do we play this“. And so it lay and gathered dust for a while. She perhaps bought a couple more, yet I still didn't manage to audify my box. The seedee drive I'd perhaps manage to squeeze out of Avai, though with some back'n'forth, as most of installs still came on floppies. But Vanji was trying to become a m$ dealer, and all their installs now came on CDs, so he relented and we started having the drives in our office (and home) boxes. The sound card was, ahem, more of a problem, I guess I eventually bought one.
And then we went for that fair. I negotiated the date to be the one when the gang from sezam gathers. Had a stroll with the guys (Brlja and Pali), from stand to stand. Go was with us, and was trying to get some speakers for the PC, and did find some. The package boasted of some incredible 120W power or some such ludicrous number, or just 40, which was still too much for such puny sandbuckets.
Then we split and scheduled to meet at certain time at the parking lot. We made the meeting with the gang right on time - of the faces present, I remember there was Stinge, Stajčević brothers, Ridonli (girl!), perhaps ajVar and Škrba, don't remember others. The introduction protocol was simple - handshake, username. Now we know how we look, but still pretend not to know each other's names, even though the BBS software made it easy to find out - just command show user so-and-so and it's all there. It may be possible to find in archives who was there then, but it's a small needle and the haystack is huge. Still assuming I got the year right.
And so Go shows the boxes to the brothers, or just tells them about it... and they laugh her away (we probably didn't buy it, I'd remember the hassle of getting a refund). „Oh yeah, the 120 watts can surely be measured, on a certain frequency, of duration not more than two milliseconds, provided no other frequencies are played at the time, we know how these tests are set up“. There it is, they are electronic engineers, or the younger one is just close to graduation. Go's spirits sank, but at least she bought the school, don't trust everything that's written on the box.
We didn't take the office car, rather Brlja took his red stojadin. I remember that on the way there he had to go to the skriptarnica* to buy some book for his wife, who was specializing then (gynaecology, so he'd often tell her to stick her nose into her work). He didn't quite know the way, so when we were in the area, he didn't know exactly where to turn, so he parked with two wheels on the curb (and the tram tracks); I opened the window and shouted at those waiting the tram, „where is the medIcinski fakultet?“, „policijska akademija?“, „no, medIcinski fakultet“, „policijska akademija you go straight...“ and then I remembered where I was, „I mean mEdicinski fakultet“, „ah, mEdicinski, turn left on second light“. When the difference in accent means understanding or not, in all that traffic and noise.
The question of sounding out the box was solved later by taking out the speakers from the old tape recorder, majstor Jova soldered the leads to a 3,5mm banana, and I made enclosures out of food boxes. Cut out a neat round hole in each lid, using a compass (the type with two needles) to carve a proper smooth groove first, then finished it with a box cutter, even covered the membranes with some patterned cloth. Served fine a few years. It looked really neat, specially as the boxes were translucent, which soon became a fashion when translucent Macs came. In the following years they started making pretty much anything out of translucent plastic, even ironing irons, pocket calculators and whatnot.
Around this year Tereza brought someone's upright piano for safekeeping, knowing how our house is perfectly dry. We didn't move it much, first it was by the hall door, then in the corner by the terrace window. We didn't play it much either, we mostly don't know how, and nobody had the will to practice. Eventually, less than a year later, she found a better place (and possibly use) for it, came with two guys and carried it away.
This is the only photograph where the silly telephone I brought from Hungary can be seen, where the headpiece is shaped as a bent tube, inside of which is a plastic grid with rungs fitting exactly between the rows of buttons on the deskpiece. Looks insane, the design of it is completely nuts, resembles, of all things, a sneaker mostly. At first it somehow doesn't sit in the palm of a hand until you get used to it, which comes quickly. Too bad that it vanished later, I consider this our prettiest phone.
The television set is now obviously small, but when we bought it it was too large, it had to fit on the dining table and leave space for at least two to sit and eat. On the television set there is a radio alarm clock, which she got from one of aunts back in 1972. We called it „kvin meri“ (queen mary) because when it sounds its 50 hertz, you dream of a ship entering a harbour. The chair on which the television set is, as well as the pillows for the Simpić* armchairs are dressed in some cloth, I guess last year, because the original one didn't quite hold. She sewn me some bermudas** of the same cloth, which I remember wearing during that vacation in Sutomore in 1993. There was a nice laugh when Števa came with his wife, and she recognized the cloth immediately, and right from the door exclaimed „Look, Paće's pants!“.
On the piano, the stack of magazines is probably a couple of years of Burda, she sewed a lot, four ladies live in the house, there is the need. Tha vase is of copper, that she brought from China in 1990. The twocassetteer transistor radio is also from 1990, the year when we were rich, and keeps fine, the cassette doors still open smoothly, probably a shock absorber with a piston and a small air hole.
The telephone sits on the knitting machine's stand. The machine still saw some periodic use.
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* The manufacturer is Simpo, but then other things have nicknames, so why not this, fits a sentence better.
** knee long trousers, actually slightly above the knees. Both sexes wore them. They came into fashion in 1971 and stayed. Popular nickname: „bezmude“ (ballless, bez- being -less, and muda the balls). Also heard a „belmude“ from someone who didn't hear it right.
Mentions: 06-I-1998., Avai, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Goran Staković (Brlja), Gradivoj Sredljević, Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Majkrosoft (m$), majstor, Pali Bodor, sezam, Stevan Garaj (Števa), Stinge, Tereza Mazek, Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), in serbian
9-VIII-2022 - 30-VI-2024