Well, alright.. ONE more thing I disagree on.

You are a Gender Nazi. Your boundary-crossing
lifestyle inspires awe in your friends and
colleagues. Or maybe they're just scared you
will kick their asses for using gender-specific
language. Either way, the wife-beater helps.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla


These quizzes are all full of shit if you ask me.

Happy New Year !

Well, the last day of 2003 just started, and I just first of all wanted to tell anyone reading this collection of recent rantings Happy New Year !
And about that.. there sure are a lot of people I know that keep checking back on what crap I've written lately. It's definately getting awkward - especially after that lil' ear infection-inspired outburst of honesty, things are kind of weird with a few people. Definately not least of all my family who are all open and honest about everything now, which I'd kind of rather see not being the case. I know the whole 'My mom read my blog' thing was a hoax, but I'm kind of living it, and therefore still not telling a few things. I believe it's for the best: people wear masks around others and choose for themselves what to reveal to whom and what not to reveal. A blog makes it a fully public matter, and the only way to blog honestly is if you bear the illusion that nobody reads what you write. I guess that will always be the great thing about a 'real' diary as opposed to blogs: you can hide your diary so nobody reads it. You can even get a safe for it if you're truly paranoid. Of course, given this, how can anyone truly and honestly write everything about themselves in a (public) blog ? You've got the whole world potentially scrutinizing what you are all about, and if you're like me and don't even want to get NEAR to fame (I've got enough arguments of what it can do to your life without having - thankfully - experienced any of it) blogging can be a pretty scary thing to do.
Just a thought that crossed my mind as I watched a movie tonight while eating a pizza. The movie was High Fidelity, and it made me realise where I was, in the seemingly neverending sinus one of my deepest feelings keeps going through. Truth is, I've loved someone for a very long time now. She doesn't know it, and if it is up to me, she never will. A few rare people know who I'm talking about (and are probably sick of hearing about her after all these years). In a way, how I feel about her has been the cause of a lot of things in the past half a decade. But no matter what changes in my life, it seems I can't get rid of this constant yo-yo'ing feeling between loving her and hating her. Probably I never will. I've come to terms a long time ago that I'll never be with her and it's in fact most DEFINATELY for the best that I'm not going to. But feelings don't listen to reason, do they ? Head and Heart are a lot further apart than anatomy suggests - a saying I came up with soon after I first met her. In any case, the movie made me realise that once again I love her. Guess I'll just have to sit through that some more.
But as I said, you likely have no clue who I'm talking about, and if you do, you're likely sick of hearing about her, so let me just update you all on the ever exciting events of my life, after which I'll post this message, break out some booze and down it gracefully, and sleep like a rock.
Monday was unexpectedly still a bit stressful, even more so since there are a few issues that I took responsibility for to fix, that I am at a loss with now. I thought I had found the answer on how to fix them, but I was definately mistaken, and I just had to forward it to colleagues that hopefully resolved it on Tuesday. Then on my way home I drew half of a new Grim DotCom page, which I finished later that evening. My brother and his girlfriend graced me and Viktor with a visit (due to a certain cellphone from Philadelphia I promised to lend to an appreciated colleague who's going on vacation to the States, and I forgot to take with me when I visited them) and my kid brother proceeded to beat me at pool on my own pooltable. Stayed up wayyy too late finishing drawing that page and then scanning it, and right after that in my infinite wisdom decided that sleep was - FINALLY - perhaps a good choice of action.
I slept in till 4 in the afternoon and really wasn't ready to crawl out of that bed yet, but I remembered I had to get a few things while the stores were still open. Amongst which were a few picture frames to finally hang up some of the original drawings of various comic artists I happened to have lying around the house (the drawings, not the artists), and new calendars, since mine and Viktor's were gonna run out on Thursday. Just my luck: I tracked down about ten potential businesses that might have promotional calendars, and found that only one of them had any, and they were even down to their last few. So we have one calendar for next year - in the light of our, obviously, booming social lives *cough* I think it might be good to try and scrounge up another one tomorrow (or, I suppose by now, today) sometime during the half day.
I went downstairs to draw some more but found out that I've gotten to the part of my storyline-list where there's a greater and greater lack of readymade storyboards. Great.. this means I'll actually have time to DRAW and no storyboards ready. The good news is that I definately have over a 2 month backstash again now, so I just have about 14, 15 more pages to do (besides one every week in 'regular' production) and we're back in business with my half year stash. We're talking major luxery here: a half year backstash means I can spend more time on other projects or activities, or take vacations, etc., which is nice. It also allows me to put more thought in the developing storyline that I'll now soon get into with The Grim DotCom, where everything's taken up a notch. You'll see - again, I'm not getting into details, because it's just more fun to tease and get you all to keep an eye out for the new episodes.
So I only drew one figure and then decided I really should get more storyboards ready soon. Again the house was too quiet for this, but it was 11 30 by then and there was no sense in biking out to the Cul de Sac or another noisy atmosphere if I have to get up for work at the usual time again later this night. So I just continued to watch the movie (which, by the way, was ok) and, well, after that I decided to put some thoughts on digital paper. Which you are reading now.
So now that we've gotten to that point of my evening, I'll bid you all goodnight and fix myself a Dronken Vis or two to help me get to sleep. I doubt that I'll write anything anymore later today, so I'll see you all in 2004. *Bows* Later people !

Ambassador Of Krap

Holy Krap, this was one hell of a weekend (not really in a good way)... Let me see if I can describe most of it. Let's start with the remainder of that last Friday...
As you may have guessed, I was supposed to draw some more. So I did - and finished what I got so far, with time left so I figured I'd take up drawing another page and try to get TWO pages total done this week (considering the weekend I was in for, that was the absolute maximum I would have gotten down regardless of the effort involved). So I get out the storyboards 'plan' and look up the next page that was supposed to be done. Staring with nothing but sheer amazement on my face I read: "Another joke about the guy that keeps getting killed. No storyboard yet". CRAP !!
For anyone who's unfamiliar with my method of approach for the Grim DotCom, let me break it down for you like this: Once I *have* a storyboard (the rough-draft concept of a page) it takes me somewhere between one and five hours to draw the page, then at least five more to scan, edit, colour, layout and letter the page and get it to the smooth, finished result that ends up on the website. That's about ten hours per page, once I have a storyboard ready.
Storyboards are a different process altogether; Drawing I need to be doing in relative peace and calm, and the editing I need to be doing around a computer with most of my preferences, fonts, standard colour variations etc. in places where I can quickly retrieve them. Storyboarding however is the actual 'coming up with the joke', which I can NOT do in a quiet environment. Most of the storyboards so far have been written at work, or in the train/bus, or in the Cul de Sac. I need some distracting chaos around me to be able to figure out the exact 'beat' of the joke, as well as the text, what references I want to cram in there, the positions of the characters, their expressions, etc.
Since Viktor was off to his mother's for a Boxing Day dinner, and the cats were behaving rather well for once, it was definately not the right environment for the creative juices to start flowing. So I shoved a sheet of paper and a pen in my jacket pocket and headed out to the Cul de Sac.
When I arrived there it was pretty busy (which is good) but there were a LOT of familiar faces around. Consequently I got treated to a lot of Dronken Vis, despite my protests that I was 'at work - seriously !!'. And no Dutchman can refuse free drinks, in the end, so I drank a few more than I should have to come up with a good joke (though still way less than necessary to get to the 'drunken stupor' stage) and once I had the joke written down, I headed out to home. A lot of people who know me still don't know how I am when I'm focussing on a concept - I am not a very sociable guy when my mind's working its REAL magic, folks. If I'm somewhere and I'm working, I'll still talk and whatnot, but expect my mind to drift and for me to head out as soon as the work is done. I simply am not there for social reasons at times like that. So if anyone was offended with my suddenly heading out without so much as a goodbye, I'm sorry - that's me, deal with it.
Anyway, I went home, and went straight to sleep. Saturday was, after all, the first day again in this Catholic country, that I was able to get groceries again, and my supplies were running low. So that's what I did on Saturday - that, plus a few direly needed chores around the house. Then came the evening and I had to go to Breda, because my brother's girlfriend DID celebrate her birthday THIS Saturday. I didn't stay late, my dad drove me straight home (which, in retrospect, was a timesaver) and I went straight back to work, drew half of the page that I wrote just the previous night. Exhaustion set in and I went upstairs, but was foolish enough to check my mail and the status of Probeersel.com first.
Blink Blink.
There's no comic on the main page. WTF ??????
I was barely able to keep my eyes open but this definately was an issue that needed resolving asap, so I jumped straight into the code. I figured it probably had to do with the fact that this is week 1 of 2004, even though it's still 2003, and the code might not comprehend that. Sure enough, that was one bug, but there was something else wrong that caused for the code not even to figure THAT bug out... I'll boil it down to the simple cause that took me nearly three hours to track down: as a string, "week52_2003" is HIGHER than "week01_2004". So the code could only conclude that week 1 of 2004 was LESS new than week 52 of 2003... I had to turn a large part of the system and the text-based databases around to get that fixed, but hey, at least these two bugs are now permanently OUT of the system. Needless to say I went straight to bed after THAT - I think it was 5 or 6 or so...
Rolled out of bed at 1 30 to get straight back to drawing, then scanning and editing, and then it was evening: another family party lined up. ARGH.. So my brother dropped by to pick me up and off we went to another part of the country and one of those hell-hole family parties that show the corny, scary heart of Dutch main culture and will never cease to make me reconsider my country of residence. As I put it to my brother and his gf on our way back, if an angel came down from above right then and there and told me that hell was this, 24/7, I might just better my ways. Then again, all of my friends would be there so I'm sure we'd THEN be able to turn it into something cool instead.
Got home at around midnight, only to get straight back to colouring and the rest of the process. At 3, I was done (with both pages I set out to finish that week !!) and after uploading etc. I shaved, showered, hopped into bed at around 4, and MUST have fallen asleep at some point after 4 30. Of course, to get up again at 6 30...

Now, this morning was REALLY interesting. When I woke up I did not hear my alarm clock as such, but it suddenly was a radio alarm clock that was very, VERY loudly playing an interview with me telling the interviewer how hard it can be to get up in the morning. I sat up groggy after switching it up with a slightly embarassed panic ('Nooo, not THAT interview, I hope my roommate didn't hear that'), then looked at my alarm clock in amazement and realised it *is* just a simple 'beeeeep-beeeeep-beeeeep-beeeeep' machine. I concluded that I was not awake enough to deal with this world yet so I set the time for 6 50, 20 minutes later and curled back up under the covers.
A strange déjá vu-like feeling creeped upon me as I sat up and tried to set the alarm clock at 6 50 and it wouldn't coorporate. It wasn't until the time switched to 6 51 that I realised that AGAIN it had gone off and AGAIN it hadn't registered in my mind as having done so. Now, tell me - to be that asleep (or psychotic ?), tell me that does NOT make an interesting morning.
Bumped into Jaap and his object d'amour in Tilburg Central, at which time I spouted a few anecdotes from the collection you just read, since that was all I was mentally capable of at the time. Jaap can't make it to the New Year's party (He is 'claimed' by the other party just mentioned) so I have an extra ticket for anyone who hasn't got any yet.
... could be time to run into that Mystery Lady again ;)
Anyway, I'm now at the office with nothing but caffeine in my veins, and we'll see what the rest of this day will bring. Oooers, look, gnomes. And goblins.

Show Me The Comics !

Well, darn - I haven't gotten round to finishing the comics page I've been working on the first half of the week, yet. I suck. But I have my reasons.
On Wednesday, I became unexpectedly busy with something that might just mean I get to combine my non-paying job with my paying one, in a way. We'll see. I won't go into further detail right now because nothing is quite sure yet, but it's worth mentioning at the least.
Then that evening me, Viktor and Jaap all went out. I was drop dead tired to begin with so by the time we got home I just poured Liptonice into my body until there wasn't anything but caffeeine running through my veins. Then I went into a rather weird night of sleep that didn't end till about 8 the next EVENING. I got up, and after a while of lazying about I cooked, ate my meal at the TV with Vik, and then felt tired again and went back to bed. I slept in till 1 30, today, too.
But really, I'm INTENT on finishing at least that one page, and if in any way possible (and I think it will be) finishing more of them, AND editing them on Sunday. The only problem there is... well, remember last weekend ? That I thought I was overbooked ? Yeah.. that's THIS weekend. Yay...

So I'm afraid I probably won't blog anymore till Monday, folks - See yas then.

Thar She Blows ! Thar, Thar ! Tha-haar.. No, Thar. Look !

I was mistaken. The Weekend From Hell is NEXT weekend.
Yes, that's when my brother's gf's celebrating her bday, and that's when the sunday thing hijacks most of my Sunday. I found all this out much to my surprise.
Let me quickly run this by you slowly - there's some aspects to my life involved in these tales that I might not have gotten into before, so I really should tell you more.
Friday evening I spent editing and editing and editing some more, because I finally finished the character design on the new character. The episode will appear online somewhere halfway February and you should really keep an eye out for it - the new character will be interesting, AND it's definately someone you know.
In any case, I'm very glad I got that done - the next step is that in the next page, this new character *is* the only character starring in it. That's gonna be interesting to do when I've only drawn this person successfully once so far.
Having said that, I retired early on Friday night (didn't end up going out) because I was quite tired, slept quite long, and got up at a very reasonable hour on Saturday to go to 's Hertogenbosch and try to find a good present. There I heard there was a big signing session with a lot of well-known comic authors the next day, which of course I really should have gone to because I know like half of them and it would have been fun to just chill. But I'll get to that.
I missed two opportunities to go to Breda (where my brother and his gf live) and by the time I would have been able to go it would have been 9 30, which means I wouldn't have been at their place until about 10 30, and then I'd probably have to hurry straight back to catch the last train back to Tilburg, so I figured it wasn't worth the trouble anymore and called them to explain I wasn't going - they replied, oh, but it's NEXT week, man. ARGH.
So after thinking 'DAMNIT' I suddenly realised I had an unexpected evening completely to MYSELF. I spent the first part of it watching some stupid movie (I think it was Dungeons & Dragons or some other lame-ass Star Wars / Lord Of The Rings / Indiana Jones-combo ripoff crap flic) and when he decided to turn in for the day I made an impulsive decision to go to the Cul de Sac.
Right - I'm wondering now, how much have I ever posted here about this bar ? You have to understand that in the past decade I've gone through about a gazillion Great Changes. There are people in the world that have been through a lot more but I've definately had more than my share of life-altering situations and choices. And from the moment I went to Tilburg - well, technically, from the third day I ever spent in Tilburg - the Cul de Sac was there as a sort of home base for the turbulence that my life was otherwise. It was called ZOAP back in those days, but half a year later it became Cul de Sac and in the end, nothing much has changed except the name. It's a rock version of Cheers really - in the sense that everyone knows everyone (and sometimes they're glad I came).
I hung out there for a while - thought I recognized the Mystery Girl there, but she looked different, so I wasn't sure; I ended up asking this girl if she studied Philosophy, and her shaking her head pretty much verified that it wasn't her.
I have the usual anecdotes from that evening - my favourite is that I walked into the bathroom, two guys were occupying the peeing section and one guy was very busy looking into the mirror. He pulled me next to him and told me to look. I was like, ummm ok - what are we looking at ? as he pulled expression after expression. So he replies "I'm trying to impress this girl, which look works best for me ?" --- you can't make stuff like this up, man. THIS IS MY LIFE.
Then there was an employee 'afterparty' which is always fun. I got to hang out as well which was cool - got home at about 7 30.
That caused most of my Sunday to be spent asleep - then I caught up with some Worst Case Scenario because Joep's been slacking on the Lord of the Rings theme week (as semi-expected) and ended up doing some site management work (with aid of Sionnain I might mention) and I concluded my weekend with some sleep.
So now I'm sitting in the office with only half a week ahead of me (Xmas and all, you know) and I don't even feel like THAT. But at least you're all caught up with the eternal nonsense again that my life is made up from.

I Hate Family Holidays !

Ok - let me start off by making a strange statement here.
I am glad I haven't bumped into the mysterious train girl again yet - why ? Because I'd have likely asked her out, not realising how overbooked I am right now.
Let's see.. I just got back from Amsterdam a few hours ago, where I spent the night on Wolfgang's couch (which, by the way, is quite comfortable compared to some of the other couches I've ever slept on) after going out with people from work for that Christmas dinner/drink.
I have to cram as much of trying-to-draw-the-new-character-right in as possible, because tonight I have people who want to go out, then tomorrow it's my brother's gf's birthday, and if I'm not mistaken I'm booked on Sunday, too - also a family thing. Though THAT I might have gotten confused with next week --- in any case, I hate this time of year, because you can never keep decent track of all the things you're supposed to do, let alone that you have any time to yourself, or for other social gatherings n such.
Really, folks, I'm starting to feel like the Hilton in this season - I'm overbooked. Think I need to throw some guests out so I can actually get some drawing done, too.

Most Unexpected Turn Of Events.

Perhaps I am an incouragable pessimist, but I really did not expect most of the issues at work to be resolved anytime soon anymore - not before the weekend, and perhaps not even before the fireworks go up and it's 2004. Especially because we seemed to have little to no influence on getting them solved.
HOWEVER - once again, things within ING managed to surprise me: Three of the major issues that were causing loads of problems, have been SOLVED. It started with an issue that we didn't even expect to be able to solve anytime soon, when suddenly a colleague of mine told me we could now solve this, sometime this afternoon. As we went ahead and solved this for a small bulk of users, about an hour later we receive news that another major issue - which had been dragging on for two weeks - had been solved as well. And then the third.
I'm writing this at the office but I'm off work right now - we're having our annual christmas dinner in the department, but due to late booking we can't get a table in the restaurant till 9. It's 6 30 right now - I'm basically waiting for some colleagues to drop their work for the day and join me in heading out to that place and get semi-drunk before dinner.
I don't know if I can make it home tonight though - latest time I'll have to be at the station is just before 11. We'll see. In any case, it's the weekend, and it started off quite well, at least work-wise. I guess that's all I needed to say here. Later, folks !

Why Do People Allow Companies To Do This To Them ?

As I'm standing here, bent over, twelve or so different roles crammed up my ass, with a mediocre-at-best paycheck, marinated in some fresh dose of stress, I can't help but wonder...
Who the hell made it acceptable for bosses / companies to pull all this crap on us ???
I mean, really, folks. Look around you at your place of employment, let it truly sink in what you're doing, then ask yourself - what FOR ??
If you have an answer you honestly feel you believe in, please let me know what yours is. I sure am starting to lack the answer here.

Anyway, I've definately not finished the new Grim DotCom page that introduces our mysterious new character, yet - I can't get his likeness right yet. It only adds more annoyance to being behind on schedule - but I'll get it right.
I'm also starting to give the Probeersel CMS more thought - to be honest, I still feel we might not have to switch to PHPnuke but can salvage the situation by developing the original application I had up, further. Perhaps I'm deluding myself, but I think PHPnuke is just waaaaayyy too general in setup - Probeersel.com is such a specific environment that we'll likely be developing a shitload of new plugins to accomodate anyway, so why not just go for a more specifically designed (though plugin-enabled is nice, might want to look into incorporating that) application that meets our needs more exactly ?
Ahwell. I'm no developer, when it comes down to it, and I *have* put the matter in Gregory's and Tom's hands, so I really should just trust their judgement. But I personally would be sad to see the current setup completely gone. I think it works in many, many ways, and quite well - if you'll pardon the bugs that are still in there.
Who knows. Maybe I'll strap on my coding shoes once more and give it another go. It couldn't hurt, I suppose. But FIRST, René, FIRST catch up with your damn comic.

And Now For Someone Completely Different.

It's funny - get a rather drastic change in haircut and people suddenly seem to think you're a COMPLETELY different person. I had my hair cut rather short on an impulse on Saturday, and people are STUNNED when they see me like this for the first time. Blinking, looking again, not quite being sure who this person before them is despite the fact they've been working with him for over three years. It's funny but it gets old really quick. I'm still the same person, folks, get over it. I should just throw a tennis ball at anyone who stares, that'd remind them of who I am.
So yeah. Not much to report - there's no Worst Case Scenario since Sunday, this is all Joep's fault. He's emailed them to me too late (on Sunday, when the first one should have gone online) and this never even arrived, then on Monday evening (around 11 !!) he was supposed to email them again but instead he - on my advice - tried to upload them himself but of course didn't follow any naming standards, so they never got uploaded. Don't blame me, therefore, because I've reminded him countless times. If there aren't any episodes this week, it's all him. It was supposed to be Lord of the Rings-theme week, and he's not quite doing a great job so far. Ohwell - I don't care, it was agreed that I'd have this week off it.
In any case, I have work to do for now, so perhaps I'll update more later. Cya folks.

Stereo:=- -=:oeretS

You guessed it.. they cleaned my ear and it worked.
The other one's still a bit messy (they couldn't get that one clean) but I can hear great again so I don't care one single bit.
I don't want to be online long so I'll keep this brief. I think I direly need a nap, then I need to get started on editing those comics (yes, I've been procrastinating) and perhaps eat something, because Joost and Viktor are interested in going out tonight.
And I don't think I would really mind, either. So I guess this might very well be the last you'll hear from me today.

Later folks !

Whoa, Where Have I Been ?!

Yes, I haven't blogged yesterday and even today it's getting kind of late. It's not that nothing has been happening, I just haven't gotten round to it, really.
I've been starting to edit and colour the four new Grim DotCom pages on Tuesday night, until quite late in fact, but I didn't get as far as I'd hoped. So I'm gonna take another stab at them tonight, since everything's set and ready on my laptop now to resume working on them (so I don't have to scan anything anymore right now etc.). Other than that, I've printed out some pictures off the Web because I'm about to introduce a new character into the series, which is a semi-contemporary historic figure. Since it's very much a public figure I better make sure my drawn version resembles him a bit. You'll see (if you read the comic, at least) eventually - I'd rather keep to myself who it is, right now.
On Wednesday work was crazy again, but there was a light starting to come into view at the end of the tunnel - which is shining brightly into my eyes today since most of the crap is starting to be resolved finally. Good stuff !! Sure makes my work a lot easier now :)
In other news: The plugged-up ear is starting to make noises - meaning that whatever's plugging it up is definately softening up and has room to move around. Since I'm having my doc's appointment tomorrow to have it cleaned, it'll either come out tonight in the shower or tomorrow in Waspik, I expect. So perhaps by tomorrow night I'll actually have stereo audio in my head again ! I can't wait !
Although Í'll admit two things: my left ear has adapted valliantly to work for two, and that'll be weird when the right ear clears up; and secondly, I had just started to find enjoyment in the fact that I could shut the world out by sleeping on my left ear. I'll miss the peace and quiet, I think. But I think it's really time I got round to hearing things again.
That about sums everything up.. didn't do much drawing or editing last night because I kind of wanted to take one night off the stuff, so I popped in my new Bruce Allmighty dvd and chuckled the night away.

Back to sitting here and barely being able to wait to start the weekend, folks - see ya later !

And I Met Her At A Full Moon

Wow, do I have a story to tell this time - forget all the crap about how it goes at the office, even though there was plenty more where that came from. I'll start today's story off at the fact that I've been drawing again.
That's right, I've been focussing on The Grim DotCom again, and in fact I've done most of my drawing in the train the past two days. I've got four episodes fully drawn, which (after scanning, editing, colouring and lettering) constitute a month's worth of episodes. Not too bad for two days - the only two reasons I'm not drawing more right now is that one, I need to do some research before I continue into the next two episode because a rather special character will be introduced (and besides, I kinda want to scan etc. these and put them online so I'll have comics lined up until halfway FEBRuary instead of Jan) and two, as I said, I've got a story to tell.
So I'd just finished the fourth page in the train when it arrived in 's Hertogenbosch where I have to transfer to get back to Tilburg. After a few minutes the train arrived, and as I walked to the first coupé (I exit on station Tilburg-West and the first coupé always stops right near the steps, so it saves me a little bit of time and walking) I walked past this girl who was sitting inside. She had a pretty interesting look in her eyes, not quite focussed but not completely dreamy either. Cute, definately. She looked quite interesting as well, so the thought crossed my mind to get one of the three seats near her, as I walked into the coupé. Of course I figured with my luck, three people would steal those seats rightaway before I could get to them, but amazingly enough, nobody sat down there. So I did - of course.
My original plan was to first draw some more (I have an 'org chart' to do for the revision of The Grim DotCom's 'about' page) and then perhaps start a bit of a conversation with her. I took out my drawing folder and scribbled down 'The Grim DotCom' and immediately a voice spoke from behind me: "So, you're still drawing comics, huh ?"
I'm thinking "Oh fuck, who's THIS ??"
Turning around I did recognize him, but anyone who knows me well enough can guess that after some seven years of not seeing this fella, I semi-forgot his name. "Rob, right ?" "Rolf, close enough." "Riiiiight... how are you ?"
We exchanged a few sentences like that before I figured, ohwell, forget drawing or talking to that girl, I guess I'm screwed now anyway. So I told him to change seats, and sit in the group of seats next to ours, to make talking a bit easier. As he moved there, the girl voluntarily cleared her bag off the seat across from me so he could go sit there - and had a bit of a mysterious smile on her face.
So we chatted for the remainder of the ride, he's working in the medical field now, and he was bold enough to enquire what I'd been doing the past six years. Yeah - that's definately a 20 minute story, even if I stick to the most minute summary version of it. Meanwhile she keeps grinning from time to time (which a semi-empath like me can't help noticing).
We arrive in Tilburg, and Rolf asks if I was still planning to move out of Holland and to the States (as I was around the time he knew me). I said no, Tilburg's definately my home now, and went on a small summary of what's so wonderful about this city. Of course I also brought up the bar Cul de Sac and all its wonderful characteristics. Again, she smiled, which gave me a clue she might actually know the place.
So we get out at West, and so does she. Course, I still figure I'm screwed and never ever get the chance to talk to her again. So Rolf bids me farewell and heads off to the bicycle stands as I make my way to the steps to the bus stop. Barely even noticed she was walking right along side of me. Then she suddenly says "I'm sorry, but I just HAVE to say this. The contrast between him and you was hilarious !"
To cut the rest of the story a bit short (sorry, people *grin*) she and I talked for a while until my bus arrived. Turns out she's a Philosophy student in Nijmegen (Nijmegen Uni's philosophy faculty always shared some of its resources and professors with Tilburg Uni and vice versa, so "small world" applies here), she's quite interesting, outspoken, seems to have a great sense of humour (and observation), so I said "would you mind if we continued this discussion sometime perhaps ?"
"Sure - I go to the Cul quite regularly too, so I'm sure I'll see you there !" --- mind you, without any empathic or other signal that indicates an "I wonder if that's ok with my boyfriend"-kind of hesitation.

Somehow I don't think this'll be the end of this story. In any case, it sure made my day, and as I left the bus around the corner of my house, I noticed the bright full moon and grinned. Then I realised she never told me her name and grinned wider. I may no longer be able to fall in love anymore, but I still have it.

Testing, One Two...

Nope, still no audio on the right side of my head. Going on ten days by now, yay... Ahwell. At least there's no swollen, throbbing burning infection there anymore squeezing the ear shut. Only a large plug on the inside anymore that'll no doubt eventually come out. It'll be strange, being able to hear again. Especially now that my left ear is getting used to processing large amounts of data to compensate for the loss of one ear - I can 'hear' to my right and even locate most sounds, but it's all my left ear doing the hearing. It's truly bizarre, once again I've adjusted.
And as for other testing, there's some interesting stuff going on with that server at work, it doesn't quite work well yet. This'll prove to be another interesting week.
Anywho, I spent a large part of this weekend working on The Grim DotCom for once again, it was good to dive back in there but I've only done two pages, really, and they haven't even been edited, coloured and lettered yet, so all I've done is draw and scan, really, which is only half of the work. I figure I'll try to catch up with as many pages as possible as far as drawing is done for a while, then edit the whole lot and kick it online. That should see me over for a while again. Who knows, maybe that way I'll be able to rebuild my half year of backstash. That'd be sweet :)
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After all, I also have a daily comic to tend to and whatnot.
Oh, and there's been a baby born in the Royal family here yesterday. So now it's a miracle if the newspapers and TV news can get any actual NEWS in anymore, since it's all baby, baby, baby, mom, mom, dad, government, etc. that we hear. As much as I hate babies to begin with, this one I already hate even more. So, hi new princess, please fuck off and give me my TV programmes back. I mean, you're born, big deal. The Dutch Royalty is just a big puppet show if you ask me, anyway. And we tax payers (yes, I pay taxes, though for the love of me I can't figure out exactly why anymore.. it's kind of like watching TV and wondering why you still pay for cable) PAY for their maintainance and shit, too. Ahwell - I guess most of this country must really like puppet shows. I for once could go without.
OK, I've ranted, now let's start off the week. Later folks.

Now Bow And Kiss My Feet

The funniest part about third line technical support, especially when your job mainly involves knowing the organisation and what's going on reasonably well and being able to explain it to even the biggest nitwits amongst your clients, is the amounts of 'Thank you' responses you get. If I had a buck for every Thank You email I've received in the past three years, I bet I could spring for a bowling night for our department. It's kind of bizarre, too - people thanking you for their patience with them, or praising your knowledge, or thanking you for a completely clear explenation, etc. whereas all I really apply is a healthy dose of common sense. I mean, realistically, I'd easily claim anyone could do my job. However, as I explained before, the amounts of people that lack any common sense (not just in technology, but even in general) in a corporate environment can be mind boggling. And with every praising email I have to suppress the urge to email back "Yes, yes, many people have told me before but it never hurts to point out yet again that I am amazing and Great with a capital G. You may praise me some more now. Feel free to do so. I'm framing your reply for my Hall of Praise."
Seriously, all my job requires is a minimal knowledge of some graphical programs, user knowledge of our applications (the rare moments that I get to do any admin work at all are usually very unchallenging), a healthy, down-to-earth common sense, a certain readiness to do your best to figure out what a client is talking about, and a large amount of knowledge of who is who and what's going on, which you can acquire easily just by paying attention to the things discussed around you and on the Intranet. To me this is basically how everyone normally runs their own life, right ? But hey, it pays the bills and gets me Thank You emails. I'm not really complaining, just felt like writing down how strange my job really is when you really think about it. Most of the time I'm merely sort of a traffic cop, making sure things that arrive in my inbox end up with the right people who'll take care of it.
Anywho, back to getting praised. Later folks.

.. And There Was Much Rejoicing.

So yeah, on Tuesday I went to the doctor to have my ear checked. Naturally noone bought that it was an ear infection, no matter how much I insisted that I was sure it was one. So the assistant was trying to wash my ear out ,then looked into it, then called the doctor after all. She comes in, looks, and says, 'yep, thats an ear infection' NOOOOO -- REALLLLLY ?!
Sorry, but I hate how sure these doctors are of themselves as opposed to what my body tells me. They think their own consult much more valuable than direct signals - after all, a judgement made on the other side of the phone is infinately more clearly to be true than the actual signal that the right side of your head is hot, burns, throbs and aches like hell. Ear infection ? Oh come on, surely it's merely that your ear is plugged up. Come on in and we'll flush it out, no big deal.
Anywho. I got a neat little bottle with ear drops that are supposed to be some kind of very light acid and smells suspiciously much like vinegar. And I got it on Tuesday, when really the worst of the pain and swelling clearly were over already. So I don't know how much good this'll do me that my body wasn't already working on, but what the hell. It's three vinegar-smelly drops a day and I suppose it can't hurt.
Still can only hear on one side though. It bugs me - my left ear is trying desperately to compensate by attempting to get twice the information it usually gets, so it feels like I'm having a huge traffic jam of info on that side. Also, it's been compensating with my sense of audio direction - I can actually tell again when a sound is on my right, but my brain fools me into thinking I actually hear it with that ear, which I don't. It's my left ear figuring it out and sendin the signal ! Truly bizarre experience, man, I tell you. Try it sometime, being deaf on one side for a week when you're someone who adapts to new circumstances fast. It's mindboggling.
Anywho, today's an interesting day. The next few days we're shutting down one of our major servers. So clients will be on the phone by the dozens today I'm sure, because even though we sent out an email explaining that for two days services would be down, nobody of course actually READS their email, when it's so much more fun to act surprised about this and get really indignant with us.
So that'll be loads of fun, and the fact that I won't likely be doing most of my usual work since that requires that server. We'll see what to do today. I now have to run off to a meeting with a client, though. So talk with you later.

Stupid Machines.

So I'm still amongst the living, though the maintainance these bodies require is pissing me off. I'm in a reasonably annoying amount of pain in my right ear due to what I now pretty much know for certain to be an ear infection, and I've made a doc's appointment for tomorrow. Until then, I'm drugging my body with heaps of aspirins and nicotine until I get home and can break open some booze.
Yes, I'm in the office, and yes, I'm insane. But my direct colleague is never in on Mondays so someone has to take care of this crap. Besides, if you don't count the agony in my right ear and the fact that I'm now completely deaf on that side, I don't feel ill. Staying home would drive me nuts !
Oh, for those who are interested, Probeersel.com artist Satan is still alive, as well ! He emailed me yesterday to let me know, and it was good to know because I've grown fond of the ol' bastard, as I have of all Probeersel artists. Besides that, his comic took off to a promising start and I want to see more ;)
Alright, back to being in pain now. Later folks.

Time For Some Desperate Bullshit.

OK, here's a definate first for me. I'm gonna reveal some truths.
Truths I've kept from people, to keep my contact with them nice and easy. Efficient. Avoid uncomfortable situations. After all, who wants that ? Who really wants that ?
I'll start with my parents. I know by now they know where to find this blog, and that they read it from time to time. So here goes, mom, dad. Some of the things I'll say will not be a big surprise to you. Some might be.
I do not feel like I've been raised by you. I've been blessed with a group of friends that acted like a family when I needed one, a family where I do fit in. A family that understands, and supports. Especially you, dad - you have never understood a single thing about me, and somewhere along the lines that ruined things between us for good. You don't understand that, in the end, all I am is an artist. You wanted me to be a good civilian, and a well-adjusted young man, with a steady job, and the works. Well, I'm sorry. I do have a steady job - at least for the time being - and I do appear reasonably well-adjusted. But I really am not. I am an artist. My 'comics', my deep, reasonably skillfully drawn confessions, observations and beliefs poured on paper, are what matters to me most. Especially the Probeersel books. This is something you've never been able to understand. And the things I get myself into, and the things I choose to do, these are things you've never understood and I don't believe anymore that you ever will. I'm an eccentric, apparently, and I always will be, because I simply have to be myself. I can only follow my own rules in life, because I refuse to follow anyone else's. After all, I grew up following your rules, and they didn't work for me, despite your efforts to show me they supposedly are The Way. They are not. Not for me.
So here it is: I'm an unmotivated worker for ING who gets away with the strangest things simply because apparently they value the work I do. Still, I hate the company, and I hate most of the work. I smoke. That's right, I smoke, and have been for two years. I'm not a heavy smoker, I can go to any family gathering without a pack on me. I can go for a weekend, or even a week, without them. But they keep me calm. That's because my head is always full of ideas and keeps running, like a speeding freight train. I've always longed for peace in my head and never got it. Until my first cigarette. And they've kept me calm. That's how I can keep up the appearance of a well-adjusted youngster. I also drink - you keep asking me, and I always deny it, but there you have it. I drink. I've been drinking since I was 18, and I've had a period where I drank very heavily. That was when I was 19 and gave up the direction I was heading, when I dropped out of university and knew, and finally admitted to myself, that the life I was living wasn't for me. I've been looking for the right life ever since. Haven't quite found it yet, but I've been on a better track than I was.
I never tell you these things, simply because the fights we always get in wear me out. I see your point of view, as I've always done, because I share your talent for empathy, but you fail to see mine. So we got stuck somewhere, and I never bothered to snap us out of it anymore. I like the pretense that I'm the good son that's doing reasonably well, and you the secretly proud father that brags to friends and family about my slightest accomplishments, but who yet picks fight after fight with me and never agrees on anything. Break my balls till the end of time, but please, don't ever pretend to know me. You don't, and the more you DO know about me, the more painful your fights are. So please, let it all be. Pretend I'm the good son. You seem to like me best that way, even though you know I lie to your face.
My friends. To you I only have a few small things to confess, really. I pretend to have so damn many one night stands, right ? Well, truth is, since my last relationship I haven't REALLY been with anyone. Sure, I've shared the bed with a few people, but I'm not sure wether I can define that as that anything happened. I killed something inside myself - I killed that I can feel. I can't feel anymore. I don't fall in love anymore. I haven't cried in three years. Except perhaps at a movie, or for someone else - the joys of empathy: I can't feel anything of my own, but I can always tap into other people's emotions and live that. So I steal other people's tears sometimes. It's not the same though. So I tell these wild tales - most semi-based on truth, I'll have to admit though - of women wanting me, and me being quite content with my one-night-stand lifestyle. I'm not. Because I'm dead lonely. That's why there's a stronger and stronger stench of despair when you're around me. It's me. I don't want to be with anyone anymore, and I don't feel anything anymore, but I still get lonely. And empty. And I then search any kind of companionship - I don't need much, just people around me. They don't even need to talk with me, I just need their emotions. To feel SOMETHING. Because I can't, anymore. Not really.
And finally.. I'm really nothing in comics. I try my damnest, and I have archieved some kind of clever style, and I sure put everything I have into my work, but really, I'm nothing. There's so much great talent out there, and even much better ideas than mine. I merely screw around as best I can. Somehow it seems to work, but I always make it look like it's more. A talent that runs in my family. Watch 'Death of a Salesman', and you have a blueprint of that part of my psyche. It sickens me, but hey, people want the pretense, don't they ? The show must go on, to be successful one has to keep up the appearance of success, isn't that all exactly how it is ?
Truth is, I admire all of you. Each and every one of you - even my parents. You are all doing so well in this reality, and I've never really been in it. I'm an escapist. I've never accepted this reality as my own. I just do things that seem about right, but it's all just some kind of.. act. Or a game. I try stuff, but the risks never seem real to me. I just freewheel through life and I'm still waiting for the crash. That moment when everything's supposed to finally appear real. When you hit the wall. But I don't know if I ever really will.

So why this lengthy confession ? Because this ear thing isn't going away. My other ear is joining in. My entire body feels sickly. And there's some kind of definite feel to it. Like this is it, the credits set in, the end theme is playing. I dunno. Perhaps I'm just depressed or something, and happen to be a bit ill at the same time. I sure seem to be in good shape otherwise. But in case this is the curtains call, I just wanted to make amends. Finally drop the masks. Fuck it all. Wether I live to see the new year or anything else or not, I needed to do this. I'm sure people will want to talk with me about all this, but please, don't. There's a reason I wear these masks. It made it bearable to talk with you all. But if any of you ever wondered what the real me is like, here you have it. All my cards are on the table. Now let's see how this game ends, and wether or not there's time for another round.

Cough cough.

Yeah.. I'm having a great Friday and Saturday so far :( Most of Friday I was too beat to get out of bed, I stayed in until somewhere after 6 PM, and around 9 or so my right ear suddenly jammed shut. I've been trying to get it unplugged since, and it's 6 AM on Saturday now. Why am I not in bed ? Because I seem to have caught some kind of cold in the process too and between the coughing and the awkward shut-down ear, I'm having trouble catching my sleep.. so I got up for a short bit to check online for some things. One of which is the RWWR crossover, and it's not here yet.. I sent an email to Matt because, well, if things this weekend continue to go as they do now, it's gonna be a VERY close call and I really need to be up to it :(
With my luck, I'll merely have a shitty weekend like this, with one good ear and coughing fits, and be back in good shape again Monday morning to go to work. *sighs*.
Anyway, gonna go retry that sleep thing now. Later folks.

We Can't Stop Here, This Is Bat Country !

An insane road trip, that'd be a good way to describe my week so far. It's been crazy and quite busy and a lot of issues that were quietly seething thusfar are now definately erupting. It's good though, in more than one way - to speak in "Office Space"-references: this is good for the company. It's also kind of envigorating to return from a very mentally cleansing vacation to dive head-on in things that have been ignored for too long - and contrary to what I wrote before my vacation, things have gone to a level where my input actually matters as well, so it's not like there are loads of issues that influence my work but I can't do anything about. I like it, but it *is* a lot like an insane road trip on 'mind-expanding' drugs. As corporate environments go, I'll have to admit once more that my department is a pretty interesting place to be, and has been from the start.
I took another step in evolving into the protagonist from Office Space: I already had few qualms left about doing most of what he does in the movie, but now I've directly told my boss the full, honest, blatant truth about the issues that our clients and ourselves have with our application and have had for over a year, and the way I phrased it, I basically expected that if anything was going to get me fired, it'd be that. However, my email (ok, so perhaps it wasn't TOO directly) has by now been praised and dubbed 'a very good analysis' (I still consider it as nothing more or less than honest, harsh criticism, of the kind that in my previous department I got reprimanded for) and people (including my boss) are glad someone finally adressed it completely and are now very intent on tackling the issues for real. I've also witnessed another first: my boss told one of our clients honestly everything that was going on (he even read my email out loud to her) instead of depicting the application as the answer to all their prayers. I'm truly amazed. I know, anyone outside any corporate environment can't possibly think much of all of this, but if you spend a long enough time in places like these you get too used to things not changing and people only looking out for their own best interest, and serious issues simply being ignored. It sounds absurd, but this is the truth about how the governments and large companies serve you, folks. I work for a huge banking/insurance firm and have definately kept my eyes open as to how everything is run. Trust me, I know these things. You wouldn't believe how much of your money is wasted all over the place, and how little these people REALLY serve you.
Ok, that's my rant about that subject.. not really a rant, I suppose, because I'm actually hopeful again that things will start changing for the better. But still.
Other than that, the amount of things going on this week are also towards the absurd. Work has tired me out most of this week (even to the point that all I did yesterday, when I actually arrived ON TIME at home, instead of working late and suffering public transport mismanagement, was upload one episode of Worst Case Scenario, and head straight to bed to sleep a blissful full 8 hours) and tonight I have a retirement celebration of a valued client, then I have to hurry to Tilburg to make good on a promise to watch Liesbet's performance in the Cul de Sac, and then I really need to catch some quick sleep because tomorrow morning I (probably) will be visited by my old friend Jack Didden. Then later that day I have some personal matters that really need to be looked into, that I'm not going to write about just yet. Don't worry folks, I'll enlighten you when I feel it's all definate enough to talk about. Then of course the rest of the weekend there's a lot of drawing to be done, I also have to keep my eye out to RWWR's Matt Frankenfield sending in the crossover for next Sunday's The Grim DotCom - he is used to this kind of short notice, but I'm used to having comics up at least half a week in advance, if not months. So I'm getting nerveous, to be honest - though I'm sure it'll be ok. He is a semi-pro, like me, after all.
Ok, as I type this about five people have dropped by with all sorts of questions and issues again, so I guess I really should focus on my job again. Catch you later folks.

First Day Back In The Office

*Grumbles* Ok, I'm tired, my clients are bugging me, and I want to go home and sleep. I think I need a vacation.
Actually, it's not that bad - I just wrote this for the irony of it all. In any case, my day is long and it's crammed again with stupid clients and unnecessarily-much-time-consuming activities. I would have kicked some ass at work today if the infrastructure woulda let me. But nooooo, a simple change takes half of the day already. Then some more such activities and a completely redundant meetings. Sometimes I wonder how people can stand working when there's so much life that could be lived instead.

Sloth In 100% Pure Form.

I've been slacking off everything because I've felt too tired - or lazy, not sure which of the two. In any case, I sent of three t-shirts with original, handwritten letters and original drawings again today (boy will I be glad when the last 8 t-shirts are gone) and I ran one load of laundry. That's when I was too tired to do anything else anymore. I watched Citizen Kane instead of drawing anything else anymore or cleaning the house. And if it wasn't for the facts that 1) there is NOTHING good on Dutch tv, and 2) Joris, my 'sponsor' for avoiding the Cul de Sac (my fav bar that I for undisclosed reasons try to avoid going to lately) actually had to work there tonight, I would have just gone to bed early. Instead, I went out, had a reasonable time, and now I'm intoxicated and tired. So if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with my bed. See yas later folks. René out.

Man, blogging is dangerous...

How to not get fired because of your blog is Blogspot's latest masterpiece... damn... I'm glad I never have to censor what I write !
So yeah, I went to Utrecht yesterday and I ended up becoming very marshmellow (ha ha ha ha). Then the last train to 's Hertogenbosch left me stranded because it missed its connection with the train to Tilburg, and things in this country have become so bad that cabs will NOT bring you 30 km further for 45 Euros. Dude, show me ANYONE who can't drive that distance for that price if he was HONEST about how much it cost, you know, the driver's pay per hour, the amount of time, the gas price, etc.
I'd have stayed in 's Hertogenbosch and just slept till the first train if it wasn't for various bums keeping on sneaking by the bench I was sleeping on, eyeing me, trying to figure out if I was worth robbing and stabbing to death. So I ended up taking a cab after all and just getting my bank account into the red numbers. Then I had it drop me off somewhere I was sure was close to my home, and in retrospect it was, but I had NO clue where I was once I got out of the cab and it drove off. So I stumbled around for about an hour in the cold night before I finally had tracked down the Hyssopstraat, and basically stayed in bed the entire day today. I would have gone for longer, but as my vacations always seem to go, I have a lot of stuff to do. In this case, I need to send off more Probeersel.com t-shirts. I should also really draw some Grim DotCom episodes n stuff, but I'm damn near spent for the day just having gotten up, so I don't know if perhaps sleeping a good night first might in fact help a whole lot more. In any case, it's now time for me to get offline and write a few t-shirt accompanying letters. Later folks. Wish me luck.

About that 'Mom Discovers Blog' thing...

About this news item... you dolt, if you're so worried about the fact that your mom found your blog through google, why allow this interview where you reveal all your vices in snack-ready bitesizes ? If she indeed hadn't found these things in your blog yet, she will surely find them in this news article. DORK !! Ok, just had to say that.
Blogspot by the way updated their 'we have no stance on what to do when your mom finds your blog' message with the following FAQ... for anyone who's interested.
Ok, René, so it's 5 15 in the damn morning and you're up. WHY ?? Well, first off, I've been sleeping too much (yes, there is such a thing). I've also fallen asleep at 10 last night, and considering I usually sleep from about 2 or 3 AM to 6 30 AM on a (working) weekday, I'd say I've done well on the catching-up-on-my-sleep thing. Secondly, I realised the Worst Case Scenario backstash was only ready up until and including today. So I quickly made one for tomorrow. Thirdly, I have to get up in about 15 minutes anyway and get ready to head out to Waspik, my home village where I wasted the better part of my life away getting held back in my development. Why would I want to return to this Dutch version of a redneck town ? Well, here's the one redeeming quality about Waspik: they have a few awesome dentists there. I've tried some of the dentists in Tilburg and just HAD to switch back because I realised how spoiled I'd been all these years. My own dentist is a helluvaguy, with excellent service, where visits never take longer than five minutes, and the bill makes you laugh out loud and go to work whistling a tune. Sufficient to say my dentistry experiences in Tilburg, otherwise one of the greatest cities on this planet, were less satisfactory. So twice a year I go to the dentist in Waspik.
Then I have to actually start drawing soon - there's backstashes to be rebuilt for Worst Case Scenario as well as The Grim DotCom, damnit ! Plus, there's a few ideas that have crystallized into storyboards while I was in Philly that I should start working on as well. And by 6 I have to be in Utrecht because we're giving our colleague (I mentioned him somewhere near the beginning, around the time I started considering going to Philadelphia) a proper goodbye. So we'll be drinking like there's no tomorrow ;) ;)
Sooooo... yeah, you could say I have a busy day ahead of me. One that started early and ends late, no doubt. Just when I thought the Philly craziness was over, the Tilburg madness starts. I have a feeling this will be another one of those vacations which you need a vacation from right afterwards...
As to how I'm doing, I've been stammering around the house all day yesterday, feeling really out of it. Reality didn't quite seem to register, everything was just signals like someone was TELLING me what I was experiencing, instead of direct data processing in the head. Wonder how long this Philly Swoon will last, because I'm still sort of in it. Then again, perhaps it's just narcolepsy.
Eeek, my alarm went off. Ok, guess I'm not crawling back under the covers before heading out. *shivers* Talk with you later folks. If I have the time for it.

Good Morning, Good Morning, To You...

God, I hate Singing In The Rain. Don't know why I remembered that song all of a sudden - it must all be Seth's fault. Seth is one of the managers of the Bank Street Hostel, and he made me watch Singing In The Rain :P~
I slept like a log !!! I can go for more, but I guess I really should get out of the house for at least a short while. I fell asleep sometime at 6 or so last evening, hauled my ass upstairs some bit later, and went out like a light till pretty much 11. Guess I had jet lag after all - either that, or this is the 'only sleeping for a few hours every day for over a week' finally catching up with me. In either case, I was TIRED.
So yeah, just to let you guys know, I landed safe, and the Cool People hung out on Friday and Saturday some more, which is when the group got some new members. We all had breakfast n stuff, and a picture was taken of the entire group (minus Jack, though, since he was in New Jersey for the weekend). Ahh, enough babbling. I need to get something to eat. And get out of the house. Talk with you guys later !!

René out.

"We Have No Official Standing On What Happens When Your Mom Finds Your Blog"

Hehe.. that's literally one of the 'internal headlines' in Blogspot. That's funny.
So yeah.. they watched Barfly in the hostel yesterday and enjoyed it as I have last (which was also first) time I saw it. So glad I found that movie and can take that home, 'cause it's awesome. So yeah, after that Tremaine, L.C. and I went to Molly's and had a blast of a great time. That about sums up my evening, except that it was the seventh evening in a row that I was up late because I was talking with a girl in the hostel - this time, however, it wasn't so much social as about ethics and philosophy, me after all HAVING studied those subjects and given them more thought over the years. Interesting conversation though, I'll have to admit. But once again, I'm pretty tired today. However, coffee is not COMPLETELY a requirement this morning, so that's ok.
I'll likely have more stories for ya, but really, I want to find the phone number to call here in Philly to reach US Airways, because I need to reconfirm my flight (ugh, I hate this part) and I have trouble finding it online, so talk to you guys later. Seeyaz !

Morning... Too Early... Coffee...

Ugh, I'm getting some serious sleep deprivation - I keep staying up late in the hostel, drinking, and then sleeping until 9 when the process of kicking the guests out for the day starts. I dragged myself to the ING Direct café today and just walked in saying 'coffee... please...' - small or large ? - 'um, coffee... anything.. yeah, large' - do you want it in a mug or a cup ? - 'ummm... *brain creaks and croaks* cup, please... sorry.. not awake...'
Apparently it was amusing to witness, though. So it's all good. My brain's kicking into gear now but it's still sluggish - I could go for a couple more hours of napping or so. Anywho.
Do I have some stories to tell !! Stories about the Academy of the Fine Arts. About the yearly fundraiser auction at the Print Centre. About going out to celebrate Jack's birthday, which included trying to find a malasian restaurant, and chatting with a cute greek girl (Maria) at Molly's. About going to Buck County to visit Kristen, that artist I mentioned before. About danzels in distress at the hostel. About L.C. and Tremaine. About the Robot Lady, the Bear Cave, the Bird Cage, the Whistling Man, Ms. IHaveAnotherQuestion, Maïté, Janene, Deborah, and many other interesting guests that I encountered at the hostel so far. But I ain't gonna.
It's odd - I usually adjust to my surroundings pretty quick, but each day has been so eventful it feels like I've been here 11 months, not 11 days. I feel right at home and accepted everything around me as reality. Returning home is going to be very, very odd, indeed. I still recall Viktor, the posse, Satan and Damien, my colleagues, and everyone, but somehow it seems like all that is ages away. I am a bit homesick, though. I think the time's starting to get ripe for returning - which is good, because that's in another few days.
In any case, it's a great day today, and I have no clue what I'll do. I do want to finally finish reading Blackwood Farm, and I have some more books lined up. So I think I'm just going to chill, try not to do anything eventful anymore, and that'll be it. Just take it easy on my last few days in Philly, ya know ?
I'm gonna miss this place. It's going to be odd. Ahwell - at least I'll never be able to say that I regretted going back to here.

Great - Now I'm Homesick !!

The PA Academy of the Fine Arts turned out to be closed to visitors today. So instead, I turned my full roll of film in with a Rite Aid 1 Hour photo service and went back to the ING Direct café to read for an hour. Then I picked up the pictures - some of them really came out rather nice despite the extremely cheap camera, but then I got to the last (or rather, the first) pictures, and found three I'd forgotten about, that I'd shot at home to see if the camera would work ok. There's one where Viktor (my roommate) and Satan (Satan's my cat) are playing with each other on our pool table, and now I'm all homesick. I miss Satan and Damien... I hope my cats are alright. They're awesome.
That's about all I have to say about that.. also, tomorrow apparently is Veteran's Day, which is a banking holiday, so I might not be updating my blog that day. This is sort of an announcement to those of you who've come to expect a daily update on my vacation - I'm sorry, it's kind of beyond my power. It'll likely also be a busy day, since Jack has his birthday to celebrate, I have an art gallery opening party to go to, and RWWR's Matt & Justin were thinking about hanging out that day, too. At this rate, I may need to plan in a trip to that artist's place or I'll never get round to it, what with all the events that keep crossing my path.
So, I'm now heading back into my adventurous vacation, if you'll excuse me. Catch ya later down the trail, hombre. Say friend, do you have any more of that good sasparilla ?

Me Again, It's The Cat In The Hat...

Well, I do wear a hat. And I am a bit of a cool cat, right ? No ? Not even a bit --> <-- ? Hrm. Ok. Nevermind then.
We did go to Amishville yesterday (Lancaster, PA) and it was pretty cool. We went to Valley Forge first, though, a big forest park near Philly where the Americans hid and licked their wounds after the Brits had kicked their hineys. Then they trained heavily, got their act together, and laid some asswhoopin' on them Brits. It's all Rocky, man. I swear.
So, ok, question: If you had to be on a train to Boston from a Philadelphia train station in the middle of a heavy-traffic area, at six, so at traffic hour, would you rent a car and drive sixty miles out of the city and not head back into the city until you had about an hour to go, and leave your bags on the OTHER side of the city as well ? Greg would.. if it wasn't for the combined efforts of Jack (guiding him back TO Philly) and me (guiding him through the quickest routes within Philly - stuff you'd normally never realise unless you drive a bicycle around) he would NEVER have made it. But, as far as I know, he made it. He should - his solution of bypassing any trouble with the car rental company was: parking the car in a paid spot and handing me the keys and the parking ticket before running to catch his train just in time - I didn't mind, hell, I just hope he made it, because they kept me there for twenty minutes because there was only one desk girl and noone who could drive the car to the rental company's garage (just a couple of feet away from it) because I don't drive. Yay !!
Ahwell. Had a good evening: Seth, our more spiteful manager in the Bank Street Hostel, decided to lay Singing In The Rain on us for the evening movie (every evening at 9 they play a movie). Now, I've seen this movie some 11 times in my life, and more than once was already enough for it to get on my nerves every time again. It's not a BAD movie, but it's so damn cheesy, poorly acted, ADHD-hyper, and the actual good jokes are rare with large chunks of pulp in between. It definately is NOT a classic in my book, and I wasn't afraid of telling the truth about it while I was semi-forced to watch it, anyway *grins* So Seth, spiteful little man as he is, played the song (Singing In The Rain) over and over and over the remainder of the evening, and after an otherwise very nice night of sleep, at 9 we all awoke in room 3 to that very song again. I'll admit it made me chuckle but damn, what a spiteful little mind. I definately have to lay some more button-pushing on him, I bet it's fun. *grins* Ahhhh how I love tormenting people who get angry or spiteful over nothing.
So what's on the agenda for today ? Well, for one, my prepaid card is almost spent, I discovered last night to my major surprise. I checked it Friday and it said I spent only four of thirty bucks, with over 45 minutes of calling. Two days of barely any calling later and it's some three bucks ?! T Mobile, man... I'm starting to suspect I'm bent over and they're using me for storage. So anyway, I need to go pay them some more mulah so I can stay in business with this stupid cell phone. Then I have no plans, I might go to the Academy of the Fine Arts, since I landed some free tix to there, and it sounds interesting enough to check out. Then again, if it does get some warmer today, I might just as well just bike around and enjoy one of the last sunny days we might get for all I know.
In any case, my typing time is about up again, so it's time to go bother my colleagues (ING, after all) at the little coffee bar to my left, again. See ya folks.

René out.

[witty title I didn't feel like coming up with]

Again it's gorgeous weather, but, like yesterday, it's pretty cold. I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art yesterday with Jack, and we saw pretty much EVERYTHING. Which, as anyone who's ever been in that museum, is an ARCHIEVEMENT. We did have a visual information overload towards the end, though, so we left quickly. And it took us over four hours to make the rounds - and I kind of cheated, since I still recalled the museum rather well from five years ago, when I went to it two or three times. So anyone pulling that off in under four hours has my respect.
Then I went back to the hostel, but not before quickly checking out Borders (books, music and movies) and finding American Beauty - Sionnain reads this journal from time to time, so I'd just like to say to her: I've by now found Chasing Amy and this one, so you don't have to try and find these two movies for me anymore. I might, however, come up with some other titles if they're hard to find ;)
Then I fell asleep after reading a few chapters of Anne Rice's Blackwood Farm in the hostel, and just as I was napping, my incredibly loud cellphone woke me up. It was the family I'd stayed with on my last visit, they were going to a movie, if I'd like to go as well ? The movie was "Km.0" and it was pretty cool. It was a Spanish movie, and despite being a foreign movie in a rather cultural city, it was not anywhere near philosophical or important: it was just a delightfully entertaining and sweet little fairytale and mostly it was light, feel-good nonsense. It was cute and everyone left the theatre having had a good time. I guess that can count as a good movie, under the right circumstances, too, then - right ?
I'm back at the ING Direct café again, which is turning out to be my morning livingroom - I have yet to start the day off somewhere else. I didn't have any plans today, but Greg (Greg's an Aussie who checked in a few days ago and we've been hanging out with him a lot) is renting a car and Jack called me to tell me they're gonna go see Amish people, if I'd like to go as well ?
Um, sure, why not ? So I guess that's what I'm doing today. Should be fun.
So, I guess I'll talk with y'all later !

7 Days And Counting.

Saturday - nearly been here a week now. Too much has been going on, it's great. Yesterday was a pretty interesting day. Decided to head out to the University City part and see the museum that a fellow hostel guest, Jack, is doing his research at for his phD. It was pretty interesting (the museum of archeology and anthropology) but I couldn't help thinking during my visit 'Why on earth am I inside this reasonably warm museum when it's GORGEOUS weather outside ?!' and it was, too. Haven't seen it that hot yet since I got here. And today's looking to be pretty nice, as well, just for the record.
Anyway, met some very interesting places here and there. Some American guy who was so heavily influenced by his Australian father that he sounded and even somehow looked incredibly Australian; a female artist at the First Friday event (I'll get to that); and a workshops-consultant-type of comedian who's staying at the hostel, and she's awesome as well :)
Other than that, I've been hanging out at Rittenhouse Square park, then at Barnes&Noble (great collection of books and you can just take a not-purchased book into the café part and read it there) and then I hurried back to the hostel because much to my surprise it was 4 30 already and Jack and I were gonna go to the First Friday stuff.
Now, First Friday is, as far as I know, pretty unique to Philly. It's every first friday of the month (hence the name) and they open up all the art galleries n stuff, and artists mingle with the crowd, there's musicians playing live music in the streets, etc. etc. - I saw it five years ago when I first came to Philly and I was looking forward to seeing it again if it happened to occur in this vacation. And it did, but get this - WE MISSED IT !!! We ended up not leaving the hostel (you know how you can sometimes just get delay heaped on delay upon excuse upon delay etc.) till 9, only to hear at 2nd street that it was a 5-9 event. That just.. sucked. Ohwell. We still jumped into a few galleries that were open longer and even one gallery/bar where we had a great time. That's where I met the artist, and she apparently owns a barn about an hour (by car or train) away from here and invited me to come visit for a day or two if I wanted. I'll think about it - if any of the days of next week are slow, I'll make sure to go. She had some interesting ideas and everything, so yeah :)
Anyway, I'm sure there's loads more I could tell you about, but I'm simply not gonna. The short version is, I'm having a blast and it doesn't look like it's gonna get boring anytime soon. So excuse me while I kiss the sky.

"Hey, do we serve water in this place ?!"

To all you movie fans: apparently there ARE Coyote Ugly saloons in the States. In fact, Philadelphia has one, and yes, the cleavage there is as impressive and tightly packaged as in the movie - if not worse. *grins* However, it's a kind of sad place to be on a Thursday night, because I've seen funerals with a more festive spirit than it was in there last night. Maybe I should check it out again on a busier day or somethin'. Who knows ;) Nobody even got on the damn bar or anything !
I guess that oficially makes my 'quiet day' a failed attempt, so perhaps I should just stop trying. However, it's gorgeous weather again today, so perhaps I'll just hang out at one of the two rivers again. The Mütter Museum was good to revisit yesterday, though I seem to recall a reall 'hall of death', a hall with nothing but skeletons, there, and I saw no such impressive thing there yesterday. So I dunno, perhaps they got rid of part of their collection or closed a hall due to it being the off-season. Got some cool drawings done there though.
Today's the day of the First Friday events, which is a monthly recurring event in Philly (on, big surprise, the first Friday of the month), where all the art galleries open for free and artists go out in the street and there's music and everything, and as I recall from five years ago, it's pretty cool. So I'll be checking it out, especially if it's going to be the weather it looks it will be.
So I'm sure today will be an entertaining day. I'll talk with you guys some other time !!

Please, just ONE quiet day.

I'm really in the mood for a nice quiet, rather uneventful day. And so is my wallet, to be frank. I'm currently hanging out again in the ING Direct café and I'm considering just staying put till 4 30. I've got some books I can read, and I've got my drawing materials with me, and the people who work here are reasonably entertaining to talk with (as are the visitors) so I just might stay put, too.
I have a load of things I could tell you guys but I really just don't want to, to be honest *evil grin* it's nothing spectacular, just, things I've encountered here. Glad the mayor election craziness is over, that was just flat-out bizarre. People here take their elections extremely seriously, man - I've seen candidates driving around spouting messages through megaphones that their opponents are nazis and fascists, and people holding up signs next to the road with 'honk for [candidate]' and stuff like that. It's so very different from Holland.. I've never seen supporters of opposing political camps beat on each other, literally. Supporters of opposing soccer teams, sure, but never political supporters. Eerie stuff.
Alright, guess I'll go back to sitting at either the bar or a table, we'll see. René out.

Revolutionary.

Obviously I'm referring to The Matrix: Revolutions in the title. And can I just say: WOW.
I went to the first show here in Philly, 12 45 in the afternoon, and it blew my mind. It's exactly as I suspected: there's a pattern to the third movie too, and it ties the other two storytelling blocks together. I'm not entirely sure how aware the Wachowsky brothers are of this, but I see patterns in their epic tale that I'm not even sure anyone else has spotted yet. And I was patiently awaiting this third movie because if my suspicions were right, people would be discussing these very patterns still ten years from now. And they will. Or if they won't, they should, because it's insanely genious.
A short summary of my perception to explain the above: The first movie is about, well, obviously, the Matrix, and the thinking of the machine world in ones and zeros, yes and no, choices, either this OR that, never another option. Neo, of course, represents the human psyche that simply doesn't reason as coldly logically as that but always sees more potentials and options. But look at the movie closely and observe that the plotlines twist in a 1-0 style, too - I kid you not ! It's constantly the following of options until, of course, Neo revives and becomes a big surprising third option.
Second movie: everyone's been critisizing that this movie's scenes are unneccessary longwinded, seemingly randomly staged after each other, etc. --- well, what's the movie's point ? CAUSALITY. The seemingly random sequence of events - ahhhhh... you beginning to see patterns now, too ?
And so the third movie.. I'll admit, I was well beyond the first half hour of the movie before I finally caught the pattern, though it was so obvious and - in a non-cliché way, in a BRILLIANT way - predictable. I really should have predicted it, because it was too damn inevitable that that would tie the two earlier patterns together: BALANCE. It's yin and yang, man, seriously. The scenes follow Neo, then Smith, or the machines, then the humans, etc. etc. the entire movie through. And what does the Oracle say ? Balance and imbalance. And watch the epic final fighting sequence between Smith and Neo, when they twirl through the air - if there ever was a more perfect human depiction of Yin and Yang, I haven't heard of it.
I'm sorry if people disagree with all this or don't see it, because it's there. I'm not imagining it, this trilogy is built like no other trilogy I've ever seen anywhere. It's art. Even beyond the incredible rollercoaster ride it is to begin with.

Oh, and I fixed my bike n stuff. And had a good day. But I didn't bother to go see anything else anymore after Revolutions, I just think it would have paled in comparison. Tomorrow the rest of the city, the museums, and whatever crosses my path, will get another chance.

Later folks ! Go watch Revolutions. Don't be afraid to email me your own thoughts on it, either. René out.

It was about time for a Good-Time-hangover.

So yeah, I spent a bundle on comics yesterday, when I finally found Craig Thompson's critically acclaimed earlier masterpiece Goodbye, Chunky Rice, as well as several other really nice books and a few awesome JTHM t-shirts. Then I had some really greasy chinese food (ewww) that was too much for me (even though I'm quite the big eater normally) and in the evening, me and the RWWR crew (Matt, Justin, Daemonlord) hung out for a while which was awesome.
However, my vacation budget has been FLYING out of my wallet so I really need to tone down on some things for a few days or else I'll be taking out more than I was planning on. Not that that would result in problems anytime soon, but you just kind of want to avoid that and reserve that for real emergencies, yaknow ? So yeah, the next few days I'm on a low budget. Which sucks because the free bike is having issues with its hind wheel. I've been looking for a good wrench to fix it - I grew up in bicycle country, after all, so I know a thing or two about fixing bike messes, but without even a wrench there's really fairly little I can do. So I've been looking for a wrench again this morning, and being in such a situation gives you a whole new perspective on a city like this. You walk around thinking 'OK, I need a wrench' and there's like NO hardware stores anywhere. Seriously. It's all barber shops, museums, diners, restaurants, bars, clothing stores, nail salons, phone shops, bookstores, cd stores, etc. etc. and you find yourself thinking "What kind of sissy mommy's boys city IS this ??"
Not to detract from the charm of the city to me, because I still think Philly is a great place to be, but in all frankness, I NEED A WRENCH. NOW.
I'm resourceful though, so I'm sure I'll dig up a place where they actually sell them. I'll be fine.

Ended up spending most of the day at the Schuylkill river yesterday, because of the awesome weather. Lots of gorgeous women jogging there, by the way ;) It's quite bit more dreary today so I'm thinking museum or movie or something. Matrix Revolutions is coming out today so I'm gonna try and catch that. From what I gathered online there's also day shows of it, so I'm gonna try and beat the big run to the ticket office by waiving the 'nothing to do during the day' privilige. *grins*
Anywho, talk with you later folks, my half hour here is almost up again. Laterz !

Again, too little time to get into detail.

Sorry folks, again I can't tell you EVERYTHING that's happened because there's just too much to tell again. Who knows, perhaps someday I'll regurgitate all the events, but not right now - too busy living my vacation to stop and recite it ;) Besides, you're only allowed on a pc in this cafe for half an hour...
However, I'll give you a few highlights and just leave ya curious for more..
I've bought a prepaid cellphone to be more readily available to a few people I intend to meet around these parts. I got an australian hat to protect myself a little bit from the gorgeous weather it's over here.. it's hot !! it's like mild summer weather, it's amazing.. in November !!
I got a free bicycle - yes, really. I won't tell the story now but it's funny :)
Got to browse the local comic book store but couldn't quite find what I was looking for, however, they might know more later in the week. And yesterday evening I hooked up with an australian and a british guy and we went barhopping - it was loads of fun :)
So, don't worry about me, I'm getting set up for a good and convenient time around these parts (after all, a bike and a cellphone, I can already pass for a local), and I'm having a blast.
Thinking about going by the museums today, but then again, it might be another gorgeous day, so I might also just opt for going to one of the two rivers and sit there in the sun and draw, while there still is gorgeous weather like this shining down on us.
I love Philly !! René out ;)

Wow ! Just.. wow.

I have too much to tell already, but I also noticed that Blogspot suddenly changed its setup, which also made things way cooler. Awesome !
I'm in Philly, spent my first night there n stuff. It was good, I love this city and it's still an amazing place. Already been off to a good start: the people I stayed with last time still live here and they took me out for dinner. Then, back in the hostel, around 10 the jetlag finally hit me (some straight 30 hours of daylight, yeah...) and I rushed upstairs for a fairly okish night sleep. I can't stand the snorers though, so if in four more nights I still can't, I'll be checking out the prices at nearby cheap hotels.
Anywho.. there's poetic justice to the following: I am on vacation from ING, right ? In my favourite city ? Well, there's only one Internet café in this city, and guess what ? It's the ING Direct Café ! Internet free, compliments of ING - isn't that awesome ? :)
It's a bit of a walk, but I'll be looking into getting a bicycle and a cellphone today to improve my abilities of getting around town and getting in touch with some people.
I can't type much right now because I want to go and see some more of the city n stuff. But I'll be sure to check back again ! See ya folks !

OK, now I'm getting nervous.

This is it.. I think I've made all necessary preparations, but you always forget something, don't you ? So I'll just have to see what it turns out to be once I get there, because this time tomorrow I'll be watching the last movie on the plane before landing sometime soon.
You won't believe how stressful these past few days have turned out to be after all.. setting up a quick upload solution so Joep can update Worst Case Scenario while I'm not there and still see what has and hasn't been done resulted in me coding till two thirty on thursday night, during which coding an infinite loop slipped into the code that crippled the server for a few hours. It later turned out also to make the error logs grow nearly exponentially, resulting in a 150+ Mb error log, whereas I still only had some 90 Mbs left of server space. So of course, Protagonist gave me shit about it, but then again, I couldn't delete these logs because I don't have access !
They and I figured it out, but all this took place early this morning, while I was trying to stay awake enough to finish the half year report, so yeah.. I had a great morning. Wonderful. Must do that again sometime.
And then there was the wonderful experience of Satan peeing into my only still useful suitcase while I was hanging up laundry. I love my cats !!!! So I had to go out today and get myself a new suitcase. Did get a really good Samsonite, though - figured, if I'm getting a new suitcase anyway, might as well get one that'll last me a long time, right ? And it's a nice one, too. So it's all good, except that these habits of both our cats of peeing on everything except their own kitty litter really should be stopped somehow. It's getting bloody annoying. And then the shower drain was clogged up yesterday while I was taking a really late shower and that was loads of fun as well.. But it's none of my concern for the next two weeks: I'm gonna leave the entire household behind me. I'm sure I'll miss the cats (especially at night, no nice warm heavy lumps of fur slumped over my sleeping body anymore) and who knows, maybe I'll even miss Viktor. But I truly think it'll be REALLY good for me to be out of there for a while.

So this is it: I'm going to Philadelphia. Don't know if I'll be posting anything at all while I'll be there, but rest assured, as long as I'm not posting, I'll make sure I'm safe and having a grand time. So if you don't hear from me for a while, check back after the 16th.

René out. Tom's coming over tonight, and he's agreed to look after probeersel.com while I'm gone. Poor bugger - the whole deal with the logs should give him an idea of the crap he could be getting himself into.. Later folks !!

The Vultures Have Landed

So, as of today, Carlo is no longer a direct colleague in our department anymore. And as soon as he left, Wolfgang decided to take his luxery chair. The corpse has barely turned cold and already the vultures are landing !!
I took his mouse. Hey, it's black. And I put my grey one back on his own computer.
NOBODY wants his computer. It's a piece of shit. So yeah, we'll still have a work station available to any new employees.

It's funny how corporate environments work when it comes to office supplies etc. - People can be obsessive about their staplers. Or practically RUN towards the new supplies when they come in because they ordered a phone headset. Some people collect binder clips that they hang up in their cubicle as decoration. Others proudly display a 'screen raising set' which is some kind of Lego-like thing that you assemble and it raises your screen a bit higher. Once someone leaves, everyone JUMPS to his supplies like broke, dead-beat heirs after their great-great-uncle dies. People will bash each others heads in for an audio cable, man ! I kid you not !!
And this doesn't just limit itself to geeks, either. My dad (who's not a geek - he may be a dork, but he definately lacks the level of technical skill to be a proper geek) once proudly brought a whole box of office supplies home once when the office he was working at closed and he was transferred to a different building. He even unpacked it to show us what he'd obtained in the apparent chaos run for supplies, and decked out our kitchen table with rolls of scotch tape, little padlocks with keys, rulers, pens, tons of pens in fact, paperclips, even a big inkpad with a stamp. The stamp was useless now because it displayed a text unique to his now defunct department, but he claimed that that could always be replaced by something useful, it's the stamp itself and the ink pad that were useful. Of course he never replaced the text. The ink went dry and everything. He never used most of the other stuff, either. Kind of like some other time when he brought home an intercom system that his office was going to throw out. He was going to install it. I guess, in the end, he was happy enough just with the fact that he HAD it, because it just sat in our hallway closet and collected dust for years.

Perhaps that's what they mean when people say it's the little things that make life worthwhile.

Alright, three and a half more days (at work).

Turns out most of the things that will cause the upcoming hellish period for our department are being escalated and perhaps even fixed on time, so I'm feeling a lot less guilty about bailing out for three weeks. Contrary to the belief of some of my coworkers we're still not quite the Titanic, then. Good to know. I'd like to come back to something that's still afloat.
Postponed my dentist appointment by a week since I'll be in Philly. Notified my folks that I won't be home. Told Vik so he'd remember to take care of the cats n stuff. Asked Tom to be the technical backup for Probeersel in case something crashes or whatever in my absence. Put up a backstash of Worst Case Scenario that lasts right up to and including the day of my return, and just had an idea for one for the next day, so that should be fine. Grim DotCom is still taken care of until the second week of the new year. Notified people online. Matt & Justin from RWWR might come and hang out with me while I'm there, which could be fun. Sionnain is looking into visiting Philly, too. Then again, her journal states she also wants to go to Holland. She's gonna sell rocks to fund all this. 'People like rocks'. *chuckles*
We even brainstormed about naming the concept the I-rock. You know, like rocks that say 'I rock'. It's genius, man. (writing it here to prove we thought of it first !! Don't even try to steal the concept !)
So yeah.. it's starting to look like I'm all set. Just need to finish the half year report for Probeersel.com and upload it on the 1st, buy a scarf (since my old and very good one was flea-infested a few months ago and I threw it out, and it will still be reasonably cold there, as it is over here), I have to pack, I have to code a temporary solution so all the other artists can update news and Joep can manage the Worst Case Scenario episodes, and that should be about it.
Wow.
Vacation.
I can barely believe it, myself ;)

René out - I have some actual work to do, and in between I want to muse some more about actually going on vacation. Later folks.

And as for the Fokke&Sukke parody...

since I'm probably not posting anything interesting today (I will be sleeping in, then confirming my flight and probably paying for the damn thing, then I'm going to have to send off some cheques that'll transfer money from my savings account into my checkings account in order for it to be available to me once I'm in Philly, I'll be drawing some more on the backstash for Worst Case Scenario for the time I'll be gone, and in the evening I'll be attending Joris' birthday) I decided to put up the previously mentioned Worst Case Scenario episode, for those who were interested.

Title Left Intentionally Blank

What can I say ? I just want to see this again.
So I leave Nov 02, 2003 and am planned to go back home again the 15th (arrival in the Netherlands the 16th). Which'll leave me another week to do whatever I want at home before having to get back to work..
Special thanks to Kelly who found me a relatively cheap hostel there, because otherwise I might have very seriously reconsidered this idea and probably never followed up on it. In case anyone out there mistakenly thinks I'm being brave or whatever.

It's Official..

I asked my boss flat-out if my request for time off was approved - especially after seeing how many of our important projects are currently going to hell. I expect all hell to break loose around the time that I would be out of the office, and there'd be little to nothing I would be able to do about it, so it would only make me very miserable to be in the office around that time.
Guess what ?

HE SAID YES.

I guess that makes it official: if I don't at least try to find out if going to Philly is pheasable, tomorrow, I am a complete chickenshit who wallows in self misery without doing something about it.
Guess I better set my alarm clock tonight.

Thank God For Libraries

Today's 'Worst Case Scenario' showed a broken image. I didn't discover this until I was at work - and the proxies here don't allow me to update the storage files system I built for probeersel.com. So I wouldn't be able to fix the problem until I got home, which would be at 8 o'clock tonight... needless to say, I spent every moment I could spare trying to come up with a solution - including pestering Joep who brought his laptop with him. However, his modem wouldn't dial in so that didn't work either. It suddenly hit me, when I couldn't find any nearby internet cafés in the phonebook, that libaries often have internet services too. So I found one that's practically around the corner, and in a total of ten minutes later (6 of which were for walking over to there and back) the problem was fixed. I am a happy camper again - the only one reporting the problem was my buddy Tom, so I don't think it bothered too many of our readers yet.

Anywho, back to work (yes, I've actually got a few things to do - though not too many).

You know it's a bad morning when...

So I wake up after sleeping on the train - you see, I sleep on the train as part of my being 'flexible'. My daily schedule conflicts with the amount of sleep I need since there's only 24 hours in a day, so I catch up with little naps on trains and such. My eyes open and there's this beautiful woman right across from me - I'm not talking 'just' sexy, cute or whatever, but 'supermodel-stunning'. Like, wowsah. The kind of woman that'll make your jaw hit the ground. Gorgeous long blond hair, face of an angel, well-dressed in a not TOO corporate way, and no rings.
So what's bad about this morning ? That the thing that woke me up was the conductor announcing over the speaker that we'd arrived at my office's station and I needed to get off the train.
Ahwell. Having a bad hair day anyway ;)
Drank several cups of coffee so far just to get my brain to start SOME chemical processes, and there's yet again ZILCH to do. I had ONE email - and the person who sent that also called immediately after to assure the news message would be pasted on his website as soon as possible. And since I'm pretty good at my job, two minutes later I sent off a message saying it was on his website and on its way to the live server. It's starting to look like that pretty much summed up the morning of my working day. Why do I even bother trying to get up on time ? I should indulge my tendency to oversleep, more often, really. Especially on weeks like these. Almost did, too - the alarm went off and I spent a few minutes debating internally to try and spur myself to leave the warm, comfy dreamworld of being under the covers and venture out into the cold, harsh reality yet again, and just as I was about to get up, my cat Damien jumps on my back and makes himself comfortable to sleep there. In case you don't have cats: it's a reasonably pleasant, warm feeling and your first impulse is to prefer falling asleep for another wile like that, instead of throwing the cat off and start walking zombie-style through the house, going through the routines of finding and putting on clothes and brushing your teeth and whatnot.
So after doing my full two minutes of work, I made my 'rounds' on the WWW, and found nothing much had been updated since last time I checked several of my favourite sites. So now I'm bored out of my wits. Hence the blogpost. What makes it even worse is that now that I've written all this, I can't think of anything more to write here, so that's that, too.
Think I might draw for a bit. We'll see. René out.