Every day is just the same for him. Vanja has no alarm clock – partly due to the fact that he’s unemployed and has been so for the last six years, and partly because he has no real need for one. He lives with his parents but isn’t regarded as a member of the family – he is like a ghost, never talked to and never interacted with.

He wakes up at or about 1 PM, with a few minor exceptions here and there, based on what he was doing the previous night. He never hurries with getting out of bed though, mainly because he has nothing else to do. He switches on the small Kenwood television set acquired from a local pawnshop for his birthday. Having scanned through all of the 48 channels the small machine is able to find from the illegal cable he stole from his neighbour, Vanja is usually rather dissatisfied because he can NEVER find any cartoons on the telly and he has already seen every episode of Ed, Edd and Eddy on Cartoon Network. He then, almost automatically grabs his pack of Kent Blue, slides one of the cigarettes out of the box and ignites it without even paying attention to the automatic movements of his hands. Burning yet another hole in the bed sheets along the way, Vanja is successful at inhaling yet another 0.9 grams of tar and nicotine – same old story every day.

Then, after having yawned a good 4 or 5 times, Vanja finally makes the tough decision to get out of bed. He lacks the need to even dress: being a Russian slacker automatically means you and your tracksuit are soulmates – everywhere you go, the suit goes, too. This includes parties, going to the beach and even to bed. The only time Vanja parts from his trusty Adidas suit is bathing time – once a week for 3 minutes is the ultimate maximum here. Having slipped into the size 46 Adidas Run DMC-s which had waited for him next to his bed, Vanja makes his way towards the computer – again a fine ware dating from 2001 which had been purchased from the pawnbroker a few months prior. It boasts an extremely fast Pentium 2 and an integrated graphics card with, mark my words, eight thousand kilobytes of memory! Our dear boy is rather proud of this beast – after all, he bought it for his own 100 kroons he saved on 2 packs of Kent. “What more could you wish for?” says our protagonist with a sleek grin on his face.

Hours pass at the speed of light, Vanja is nailed to the enormous 11-inch screen sporting the largest and hardest play-field of Minesweeper. As the clock nears 8 PM, Vanja leaps up from the machine, sprays three squirts of Adidas cologne on the tracksuit, never looks at the mirror and runs out. He sits in his rented BMW and, shifting into first gear, he starts speeding toward Club Hollywood, hoping to get there before midnight…