I’ve stumbled into executing a cunning plan in the time of Covid19. I had to stay out of UK and Schengen region for three weeks before April 5th. I decided to book three weeks in the off-season in an inconveniently located sea-side resort in Croatia.
There is almost nobody here.
There is almost nobody here.
It’s OK apart from the eerie feeling that I am in a 70s dystopian <last person alive in futuristic city that provides everything you need> vibe. Actually, not going to lie, I think this may be my aesthetic because I’m loving sitting *alone* in clean spacious surroundings.
I talked myself into being upgraded into a suite from a room cheaper than a London serviced apartment. It has a long work table and the kind of internet that makes my work easier.
The staff are very friendly. Like Poe@The Raven starved of guests from “Altered Carbon” kind of friendly. Made some friends already.
So in these times of self-isolation and “working from home” I seem to have lucked out. Bonus: this hotel appears to have apocalypse proof stockpiles of toilet paper and breakfast food. All this for me.
If London gets bad then I am going to stay on here longer than three weeks. I don’t think many people will be going on holiday here and they bring me all toilet paper and hand sanitiser I could ever need.
Day 1: I’ve established a routine and source of cheap food. Lab established. I do need to take time to go out walking though. Getting plenty of sun in room. Thought that a pandemic declaration or travel ban announcement would be at least a week or two away. Waiting on UK update.
Day 2:
Seems I just made it by a few days.
”On 12 March the Croatian government announced that it will introduce with immediate effect a compulsory 14 day period of self-isolation for all foreign nationals arriving from the following destinations: the United Kingdom......”
Seems I just made it by a few days.
”On 12 March the Croatian government announced that it will introduce with immediate effect a compulsory 14 day period of self-isolation for all foreign nationals arriving from the following destinations: the United Kingdom......”
Day 3: Made friends with a lovely loud elderly very New York woman (80yo "Fran Drescher/The Nanny"). I'm looking out for her. Should the shit hit the fan here I have plans to take the hotel and rule it "Max Max" style. I'm favouring Fury Road obvs. Stocking up on chrome paint.
Most productive day. Re-networked the hotel room. Theoretical fix for some issues. Not walking enough. Not drinking enough water. Enjoying the bed getting so much sun at 2pm. Keep finding empty nooks in which to inhabit.
Just learned from the local news that the borders in Croatia will be closed tomorrow. Still no cases in the Split-Dalmatia region so
.

Day 4: A small avian visited for breakfast who then pooped on the table next door. Either this is a sign of good luck or a portent that the world is done with us and bird flu is now being hand delivered by nature’s little murder-birds.
This morning, venturing out to a coastal town, that they forgot to close down Armageddon, come Armageddon come. https://open.spotify.com/track/35QqYVFvCYED2PmgvJtCpy?si=xmmKNTIcRaioXZ7Gergn_Q
I have this access to this huge bath so I just bought a dozen assorted bath bombs from @lushcosmetics. I’ve always been a bit iffy about them as a fad but put them on my bucket list. I guess now is as good a time as any to kick the bucket list.
Day 5: The lovely old lady is now “terrified” of me, didn’t want me to approach at breakfast. It was a bit of a shock but I can’t say I blame her. The day was spent mostly in bed. I cooled some sweet white wine in the bathtub by filling a shopping bag with ice. Absorbed the sun.
Day 6: I’ve extended here for two more weeks. Possibility that government may close all hotels except one but will cross that bridge before it burns down and collapses.
The birds are closing in. Not enough people have been feeding them.
In a conference call the last person to sign off with “bye” was someone’s little girl. There was an adorable little breathy “byeee” then silence. My heart melted.
In a conference call the last person to sign off with “bye” was someone’s little girl. There was an adorable little breathy “byeee” then silence. My heart melted.
Day 7: Cutbacks in hotel breakfast. No more full buffet. Instead, being forced to use the chef who only serves freshly cooked meals of whatever I ask. The bastard.
Day 8:
Day 9: Hotel looks like it will be staying open by law but it depends on the union here. Have a lovely Airbnb lined up otherwise because picket lines are not to be crossed. Most hotel services are closed but the room is good, the weather is getting warmer on the balcony.
Did some shopping. Bought water, Baileys, Pringles and Bananas (don’t @ me). Only one person allowed in store at a time. They pour alcohol on your hands before entry.
Excuse me while I lose myself in this capitalist nightmare as the world evolves through needs towards a socialist utopia. #AnimalCrossingNewHorizon
Moving to a serviced apartment tomorrow. The hotel has really let me down by setting a day then changing it with less than 24 hours notice. Found a beautiful place. Had to spend too much of the weekend adulting.
Day 12: In the quest for a place to live with reliable internet and the right kind of TV that I can develop with I have stumbled upon a bargain. Penthouse apartment in the palace of Diocletian for a fraction of the normal price.
Oh, these bells are definitely not here to fuck spiders.
Woke to news of earthquake in Zagreb. People on way here seeking sanctuary. If city goes to hell they will need to get up all the floors through at least one suspected Russian mobster and the Danish embassy, so, good luck to them. The Danes don’t mess around, and those Russians.
6pm bells. 8pm bells.

Day 13: 7am bells. 
Reminded of the weird looks I got when I ever mentioned or showed these that I bought two years ago and put them in my travel kit “in case of another SARS”.

Reminded of the weird looks I got when I ever mentioned or showed these that I bought two years ago and put them in my travel kit “in case of another SARS”.
So much of the culture here seems to be the surrounding Balkan states doing acts of kindness to each other with the undertone of “Look! We are not killing each other any more!”
On Friday had the team meeting from a beach, today I shifted it up a peg. – at The Basement Halls of Diocletian’s Palace
Want to know something novel? Being a white Australian male in a foreign country and having people look at you with clear fear and suspicion when they hear your voice and accent.
Day 14: Went out to get food and have a walk and have team meeting in another empty location. Back in the warmth working.
Did my morning exercise and team meeting in which I mostly stalked a squirrel, put flowers in my beard while convincing people not to do bad things with DRM.
Day 16: Early morning walk in wilderness and videoconference. Today I attended the day team call perched on a tree jutting over cliff. I think the rest of the team have given up.
Team member just sent me this from the meeting this morning. In consideration for extra points - I was perched there above a 10m sheer drop.
Day 17: Held my team video call at the statue of Saint Girgor. It’s a tradition to rub his lucky toe. You normally have to queue for ages to rub the toe. Not today, but as I observed, some people are still rubbing the toe. RIP them.
A nice cat!

Day 18: Very domestic day. Cleaning, laundry and a visit to the pet-store. Coding. Watching BBC News and The Swamp Thing.
Day 19: So very lazy,
8 pm. Croatians doing something patriotic from windows.
Day 20: Hey team, I don’t have a cat but I like cats and everyone likes to see cats on Zoom meetings because cats! Cats! CATS!
Yes. I have taken to seducing the local cats and corralling them into my team meetings.
Organising a TV to be delivered so I can support a new platform.
From the number of pissed off cats I am seeing in videos I believe they are completely over it at this point and firmly wishing we all went the fuck to work so they could chill or get back to secret cat business.
Day 22: Busy busy day. Team meeting by the sea. Long walk. Met nice cats. Shopping. Intense work day. The sweet release of sleep.
Apparently, the government here is going to increase taxes on alcohol to incentivise people to make healthy decisions while locked down, so I made a rational decision.
Day 24: Realised that we are probably going to lose Žižek to COVID-19.
The unit of face touching frequency should be named the ”Žižek”, for reasons that should be obvious and so on and so on.
Day 25: Slept in. Woke very late. Now being domestic and cleaning.
Slept most of day. Feeling run down. Taking all the naps.
Day 27: Getting up to this view of the world is keeping me sane. The bells, less so. Deliveries this week of new equipment for TV lab. Making progress on my project at night and early in the morning. Wish I had all my R-Pi’s that I left in Prague.
My day began with being on the phone catching up with someone and then starting to get messages that TV was broken on a platform for an entire nation. Luckily I had a device in my lab kit. One of those days... swapping between firmware to find when and how they broke it.
Then I learned that the landlord had given me the wrong street address on the contract... which I have used for deliveries. Lucky I received notification of a failed delivery. Drivers refuse to call a foreign number. Been on phone fixing that mess up.
Day 29: Morning contained some traces of possible super-science. https://twitter.com/DrMiaow/status/1247803226373545998
Went for a walk. Met some cats. Saw an accusing octopus. What did the little turtle do? What did she do?
Day 30: This week can go to hell.
I gave it an instruction that will give it float PI but it still prefers to evolve its own constants.... cos(x)=
Giving it a hard task to do while I disappear from the world. Not feeling the best. Time to curl up into a ball.
It’s that time again. #AlienMovie
Ash is now suggesting that Ripley should read more.

Only just noticed that Ash dies with the smirk of his last line before Ripley pulls the plug.
This is the example candidate for an idea I had around this time last year that I failed to explain to someone because there was beer and a cat.
Fed Conway's Game of Life data into my thing and it made a thing which I will take a look at later. (isAlive,neighbourCount) => isAliveNextGen
Watched #4. I always see something different in it. Sometimes good, often bad.... and now Prometheus. David in isolation in the ship is an inspiration to all of us.

This one is very hairy but gets it right. As prep it does a strange reliable dance to get the stack state it wants then seems to get down to it.
8 pm mass anyone?
Created some tooling for visualising the evolution of Game of Life algorithms.
Day 35: Watched so many Alien films in the last 4 days that when waking this morning it felt like I was coming out of hyper-sleep.
Day 36: ...
Not well today.
How am I socially isolating but somehow still catching things that are not the thing?
Day 40: Lazy Sunday. May hunt for burger ingredients. Likelihood of finding vegan burger patties in the Balkans?
We are all playing Mass Effect and we have all chosen the Tali romance option.
I’m playing the “if they drink whiskey you must drink whisky” game.
J.F Sebastian is the patron saint of Silicon Valley incels.
Roy should have been totally naked hunting Decker through Bradbury towers.
Walking out of in times of COVID is like playing a game of “Simon Says” but with a potential death penalty. Not today traffic light pedestrian crossing button. Not today.
I’m at the doctors and I’m not sitting on any of the seats. Hand sanitiser after signing using an electronic stylus. Walking and trying not to forget why I should not just sit. Worst game of “Simon Says” ever.
Day 45: My project did a thing and I'm still trying to figure it out. https://twitter.com/DrMiaow/status/1253586275417894912
This morning I woke up after the 7am church bells, lept into a frenzy of cleaning and then spent an hour on an analysis of why my thing might have done the thing. https://www.conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4458&p=95428#p95418 ping @fakevexorian @yip_pe
Day 50: Busy busy morning. Took delivery of portable USB-C display so I am back to two screens on my workstation and can conceivable get three screens on my laptop. Been surviving for the last 50 days with one display.
Actually it’s day 48. I seem to have lost the ability to count up by one.
Urghhhhhpht. I’m dysfunctional today. I am not feeling it world. I think I might give today a miss.
Day 49: I'm broken.
Day 50 (for reals this time): These trucks have been pumping something out of the drains for last three days and the noise is starting to wear me down.
The priests in the monastery my AirBnB looks down into exercise in isolation by crawling up this gap and walking up and down the flat roof section. I’ve taken to giving them a rating on mount and dismount.
Yesterday an old priest got up, walked into the middle, had a look on his face of “fuck this” then walked back and dismounted again in under a minute.
I feel you Father.
I feel you Father.
Day 53: Giant sleep in. Out of avocados. Very domestic day. Giant shopping day. Met another Australian stranded here and feel guilty that I didn’t grab their number so we can all look out for each other in a very Australian way. 
.. Then again possibility of 
.




I can see this abandoned monster from my room and keep wishing I had a wifi can... and a captains ticket.

Context: I really want to.... free this boat and.... evaluate it hard, all the way to Nassau. Also, I may have been watching far too much Black Sails recently. 
https://twitter.com/drmiaow/status/1253370534256979970?s=21 https://twitter.com/DrMiaow/status/1253370534256979970

https://twitter.com/drmiaow/status/1253370534256979970?s=21 https://twitter.com/DrMiaow/status/1253370534256979970
8pm and all is well.
This damage was not here a week ago. The local are restless and at least one of them, evidently, is anti-semitic.
I hear the crew here do a spectacular after-dinner surprise. – at Restaurant Nostromo
Day 56: Busy day. I forgot to update but I did meet a nice cat and then drank wine and sang along a little to @SoozUK singing Kate Bush on Twitch.
Day 57: Another crazy busy day.
Suffering from strange insomnia.
Day 59: Lazy public holiday day. Some self-care, grocery-shopping and now drinking single malt and rewatching Battlestar Galactica.
Day 62: So busy I forgot to report in. There was more BSG watching done and the cafes have opened here which I am absolutely positively staying the fuck away from.
Avoiding neck-strain with cardboard boxes. Been suffering for the last week with muscular aches and pains. Hoping this helps.
Date 64: There are no avocados left here in the stores, but there are cheap mangos for some reason. So....
Weekend task. Cleaning windows... obviously.
Day 66: Hard long day with a difficult decision. Now BSG and a food coma.
Day 67: Current status - Vacuuming a renaissance palace to the best of AC/DC spilling out the windows to the church below.
Day 68: Almost nice.
Day 69: Nice.
Another rainy day. Want to swim and get some exercise but the weather here has been stormy or overcast or both for the last two weeks.
The seagulls here are *huge* bastards.
Also this little guy
The church bells start a few minutes before mass all around here, but the tower next to me must be on some some kind of automation slaved to an accurate clock. The small bell spins up on the very second.
Yes, I'm excited by Windows Terminal updates. Don't @ me.
When your apartment has a picture of itself in itself. I’m not used to living in a place older than my own country.
Day 74: Domestic day with much cleaning and shopping. Got some internal revenge against the bell ringers.
Day 76: I know exactly where my towel is.