Sionnain took some more tests

Sionnain has the (cute) habit of constantly taking all kinds of online tests - which makes me suspect she is still actively trying to figure out who she is, though I personally think living life (to an extreme) is a better way of finding out than some test based on other people's impressions. Tests are made by people, life - in the end - is a lot more objective. But I can't help but take the occasional test she takes as well, just out of curiosity to see what *I* would get. (Most times to try and figure out how accurate the result is, because I have a pretty good idea of what I am, what I can do, and what I want)
So she found a few new ones, and these kind of look scientific and psychological. I'm a bit more open to actual science, so I took them, naturally.

So yeah. In case anyone was wondering... the results are below.
I'll leave it up to you to figure out how accurate this is n stuff. I'm leaving my own opinions to myself this time, sorry ;)

Personality Disorder Test Results Paranoid |||||| 26% Schizoid |||||||||||||||| 62% Schizotypal |||||||||||||| 54% Antisocial |||||||||||||| 54% Borderline |||||| 30% Histrionic |||||||||||| 42% Narcissistic |||||||||||| 46% Avoidant |||||||||||||| 54% Dependent |||||||||| 38% Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||||||||| 62%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test

ENFP - "Journalist". Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||||| 54% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Type 3 Ambition |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 4 Sensitivity |||||||||||| 50% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||| 66% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||| 38% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||||||||| 74% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||| 46% Your Conscious-Surface type is 2w3 Your Unconscious-Overall type is 2w1

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

It's Official...

So yeah... this will be REALLY interesting on Sunday the 29th... Considering I usually take a very long time to draw, even at top speed. 24 pages, and a full story (or a SERIES of gags, which might be even worse)... I'm dreading this. But I'm gonna do it nonetheless. For the very same reason someone would climb Mount Everest. Sure, it's insane, but let's face it: You'll have DONE it. And you learn a lot about yourself in a challenge like this. So I'm excited - despite that I dread it.

I've had to cancel quite a lot of evenings out and stuff with people lately, and cut back on a lot of other social activities. I'm simply too damn busy. This upcoming month I have 29 days (until beforementioned event) to code a solution so the participating artists can create and upload their own NEW comic. Which is a huge step up from the 'upload images for existing comics which all have automatic names so the script can figure out when they should be published etc' temporary scripts I've set up so far. It's gonna be a pain in the neck. I *wish* the entire Probeersel.com new setup and new CMS would be ready by then, but that's naïve to assume. Instead, I think it's even naïve to assume coding a temporary solution to the above is going to be rough, too.

A friend of ours, Marieke, had her birthday a few weeks back. She still hasn't received her present from me, nor the card from Vik and me. My father's birthday was the 29th - I still have a present for HIM lying around as well. What can I say ? The path I've chosen comes with responsibilities to my 'mission'. If I don't take the progress of Probeersel.com seriously, nobody else will. Don't get me wrong, we have a staff now and I'm incredibly grateful for their contributions, but as it is right now, I'm still pulling the cart. So if I stop putting work into this, it will no doubt die a quick death into oblivion and everyone will forget about what could have otherwise become a great initiative which can add a lot to the comics world and the emancipation of the 'Ninth art'. I'm dedicated to it, so my own life and my social responsibilities can, at most, only come second. I'm sometimes sorry for it, but in the end, I have my priorities straight. I know this is what I have to do, so I'm doing it.
Doesn't mean it doesn't get lonely, though.

Cigarettes are about to become quite a lot more expensive - an 80 eurocents increase in price, on packs of an average price of 3,80 euros. I'd call that hefty. So today I stacked up 4 cartons. Sure, my bank account doesn't love me right now, and sure, these cigs will last me a mere 4 months if not less, but that's a 32 euro saving, damnit. Calculated back to what guilders were worth, one could have had a very nice time out on the town some mere six years ago. I'm making good money from my job, but I'm not about to forget what a buck is worth. I see too many constantly-on-the-verge-of-being-broke people around me to forget that.
It's also confusing when I think about it. Ok, when they introduced the euro, things were suddenly extremely expensive. First they didn't quite seem so, because, let's face it, the euro's worth 2,20 times as much as the guilder, so it SEEMED like everything was cheap. Then prices rose quickly, and nearly everything became its old price again, except now in euros. The initial excuse was the period of adjustment. Then it was that our economy was bad - people were even urged by the government to spend more. While a large part of the country is going poor at incredible speed !
Now, everything's STILL getting more expensive, and what's the excuse now ? THE ECONOMY IS DOING WELL. Can you believe it ? Apparently our economy is doing well, at least in comparison to the US, so compared to the dollar, the euro is strog, but this is BAD for us ???
Can someone please explain to me, WHAT Europe has to do to make sure prices drop again and this wretched, ugly new coin stabilises ? Because I'm confused as hell.
Anyway. The blog's called Rants 'n Ravez so I was entitled to this little rant, but still. I'll leave it at this.

Gregory's started a blog, now, too. I like that. I've already taken into account for the new setup (which I'm afraid I'll be coding, likely) that the artists should be able to have their own blogs - ON probeersel.com, of course. And forums, we should have that, as well. And all single-signon. So only one username and password required for artists to control their comics, their own information, news posting, blogging, email, etc.

Anyway, I should leave it at this. It's late and I have sleep to catch up on.
Sorry about the perhaps not too cheerful tone in this post, but I'm kind of down right now. Perhaps it's just the loneliness - if I know my emotional cycles well enough, it would be very good if that's it, because this is usually followed by more emotional times, and then a sudden surge of creativity again. I'd like to be drawing again. I really would.

So, goodnight folks. René out.

A Narcolepsy-induced Dilemma

Once again, I stayed up wayyy too late last night. This resurfacing of my 'night owl' biological clock is getting very tiresome - literally. I have more and more trouble pulling myself out of bed in the morning, and I can't seem to beat it. I'm simply NOT tired late at night, no matter how little sleep I get. But the morning - well, that's a whole different matter.
It's funny, too, how you see the world when you're headed to work all groggy and half-asleep. Time passes insanely quickly and everything seems to go much faster than you can process it. This lasts pretty much until my first cup of coffee at work.
So there I was, getting on the train at Tilburg Central. And I sit down right across a very gorgeous girl. And I really mean gorgeous - and my type, if there is such a thing. No rings, earrings or anything, a very natural beauty, beautiful blue eyes, dark dyed shoulder-length hair (that showed signs that it was originally red), a really beautiful face... a few people who know me really well can probably filter out of these descriptions who she sort of resembled, which really bothered me a bit. Not the person I really wanted to be reminded of, that early in the morning.. but this girl was definately a sight for sore eyes other than that. So there I was, my body SCREAMING for an additional train-ride nap, but my eyes trying to get as long a view as possible. It really was a dilemma - I know this probably sounds like whining, but I thought it was interesting how much of a struggle this actually felt to be. After all, if you narrow it down to the basics, it's biology (sleep deprivation) against biology (libido) - how much of a struggle could that be ?
But yeah, she kind of reminded me too much of someone, and I was also way too busy trying to stay awake, so I never really tried to talk with her or anything. Life should really not attempt to challenge me this heavily so early in the morning. It's not fair. If it had been on the way back home, especially if the train company was giving all passengers loads of delays and other trouble, I haven't the slightest doubt I would have returned home with her phone number after some very great talks. But for now I guess I had to settle for just having looked at her sleeping as much as my tired eyes would allow.
Early mornings suck.

Damnit.

I be bored ! Work is slow (again - same happened second half of yesterday, me for hours wondering why the hell I didn't go home) and all the cool forums are quiet right now and there are no topics I feel I have much to contribute to, running right now.
So I'm just browsing around and wasting my time.


You are most like Johnny.


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And Now Something About Drawing

I've been receiving some comments lately from a few of you that, for a comic artist, I write wefully little about drawing in my blog. THIS IS NOT TRUE - but hey, if you don't have the patience for reading the rest of the posts and filtering out the precious gems about how I go about creating episodes of The Grim DotCom and other projects, here's a little thought for you. You lazy bastards :P
There's a discussion on the Stripliefhebbers forum right now about scenarists (writers) and artists getting on each other's nerves - for instance, when writers deliberately pen down a scene where the artist has to draw a stadium full of people or such. So the question popped up to all writers and artists present there: what do you get into fights about ? Which evolved into artists complaining about what they hate to draw...
Well, here's mine. I hate drawing women. I tend to make my characters look quite comical, and well, in all honesty (and as with all my other fits of honesty, I'll probably receive some hatemail responses about this) there's fairly little to mock about women.
They're too big a joke by themselves already.

XPulp

Just a little insight now that my brain has had its heavy-dose-of-caffeine-kickstart finally: it's amazing what long periods of working with the likes of Window XP (and its little help buddies that I feel like shooting by now - what can I say ? I'm not a dog person) and ethernet can do to your brain. I have been exposed to so much Windows, file copying, program installing, network configuration etc. crap that there was nothing but mushy pulp up there. How do I know this ? Because on Sunday, the movies 'Dick' and 'My Favourite Martian' were on TV, and I found myself actually thinking these were GREAT movies. The only way predictable plots can get by me is if my brain oozes out of every facial crevice, so I rest my case there.
I also found myself, while in this questionable mental state, 'ooh'ing and 'aah'ing at copy progress 'time left' estimations shifting up and down, and the progress bar moving millimeter by millimeter. Then I got to thinking, if you're paid a monthly fee, you can apply the 'glass half empty / half full' view to that: one month you get paid less than you would if you were paid by the hour, another month you'd get paid more. Because the salary is the same every month, and is paid on the same day, but you may be working more days one month, or less another. I pictured that you could judge your employer by his/her response to this thought - "damnit, my employees are more expensive this month because it's shorter" would be a pessimist boss, whereas "woohoo, are my employees ever cheap this long month !" is an optimist boss. Can't you just see your employer 'ooh'ing and 'aah'ing in his office about this marvellous thought ?
Yeah. Pulp. Useless goo, just sitting there, with barely any brain activity present. But now there's caffeine and it all seems to work again. Which is when all that suddenly becomes very amusing.
Just thought I'd share. It also explains why I got so giddy about my laptop switching back on when I kicked it.

There's Life In The Old Lady Yet !

Oh My GOD this is too weird. I just HAVE to share this. I'm serious.
I kicked my laptop a few times, then for the heck of it tried just ONCE more if it would switch on. AND. IT. DID.

SHE LIVES !!!!!

This is so damn fucking amazing ! It's the middle of the night and in a few hours I have to go to work but I'm copying files like crazy from the P133 to the laptop (network connection still works THERE) and then from the laptop to this new desktop (with a little work I got THAT network to work as well - wow !!) because who KNOWS how shortlived this revival might be. Better make the most of it and at least get as many files as possible transferred, right ?!

Wowsah.. this is too fucking amazing. I swear.
I'm gonna go to sleep really happy. My two babies still work and now I have a new one that will soon be enforcing the whole studio by a LOT !! I hope I can sleep at all, now that I think of it.
It's funny - when they don't work, computers and other technology make me want to go back to hammers and saws and other tools that are SIMPLE and easy to fix or replace when they're broken. But when they DO work, sometimes these big clumsy tools can really get to me.

Anyway, just to let you all know this weekend ended really well, in the end :)

The Joys Of Ethernet

So yeah, yesterday my laptop died after three years of reasonably loyal service. Sure, the screen was broken, de modem wouldn't dial in anymore and it's seen its share of repairs, but it was a reasonably powerful and reliable machine for running graphical applications that my P133 desktop just couldn't run at the same tour de force. So I was stuck without a machine to work on The Grim DotCom with - luckily, this bad luck coincided with pay day, so there went my 13th month..
Now I have this P4 with XP and it's already been a huge pain in the ass. Most importantly, I can't seem to get it to talk with my other desktop, which sucks, because like HELL am I gonna copy a few gigs worth of graphical files and the entire Probeersel site on disks.
I'm fairly confident that I'll get it to work at some point, but for now I can't do jack shit on this machine to be honest.. though at least it dials in. On 56k, which is an improvement on my desktop's 33k modem. So I guess that's something.

This is gonna set me back quite a bit. I just know it.
Anyway, thought I'd share with y'all.

Shocking News Day

So yeah.. had a very weird day. Got good news and bad news - I'll start with the bad. Before you get too worried, it's not really directly involving me, let me start with saying that first.
On the Dutch comics forum Stripliefhebbersforum, where I've been posting rather enthousiastically the past few days, a message was posted about the comics in the Dutch edition of free news paper Metro. Seems the chief editor has some fascist ideas about its comics.. he first made sure the right technology has been implemented to enable Metro readers to vote away columnists they don't like. Doesn't sound too unreasonable at first glance, but it's in a columnist's nature to provoke and challenge, and usually that riles up the audience. This should be a good thing ! But of course, any bored person with a cellphone who takes the slightest offense in the collumn of today can get the author kicked out.
Now, whereas columnists in general write their columns freelance and don't rely too heavily on the money they make off it, this wonderful man now wants to tackle getting the same idea installed for the comics. Did that ever go down the wrong way with Dutch comics enthousiasts - he got quite a heated response in that forum. But what's worse is that he put on an arrogant attitude and wrote ON HIS PUBLIC FORUM that he would of course first let the artists know about this in a face to face talk. Yeah - nice going, dork, you just posted it ONLINE for the WORLD to read. A call to comic artist friend Jean-Paul Arends (responsible for the Scribbly cartoons in Metro) proved that he - and therefore likely the other comic artists either - had NO idea that this would be implemented. Way to go, mr. Dijkgraaf.
For four years Scribbly's been a popular (and, as always with popular things, equally hated) presence in this news paper and Arends, in sharp contrast to the collumnists, DOES heavily rely on his income for this. The Scribbly comics take quite a lot of his time and effort, and now he might suddenly find himself in an 'Idols' kind of situation. Imagine going to work but not knowing wether you have one tomorrow and that anyone on the street with a cellphone can just SMS a message to get you voted out of it.
Needless to say I'm very aggravated about this idea. So was JP by the way - he was heavily shook up.

At nearly the same time I got completely different news: seems I won the lottery. Which is good news but, needless to say, in the light of the above I wasn't immediately very enthousiastic about it. But it turns out I won a 3-day return trip, hotel stay, breakfasts and a little pocket money included, to my choice of the lottery's selected European cities. And there's a few interesting ones amongst them. I do have to go on this trip before March 1st, though, so I really have to consider this and decide on it soon - after all, you don't win something like this every day..

There was plenty more to today but I'll leave it at this since these were the major updates.. I'm tired now. I have to shower, shave, and sleep, because I have another working day ahead of me tomorrow and from the sounds of Gregory having tested the upload script on the site again, it looks like I have a few more headaches with the site's server migration ahead of me this weekend. Oh, the joy..

So yeah. Catch you later folks.

I don't like comics too much right now.

Remember (if I mentioned it at all) that cute little idea I'd been walking around with for a year and a half and put a teenie bit of time into on the last day of previous year (in other words, a few weeks ago) ? Yeah.. Our department wants a full and ready research/business case ready within two months. Because I told my boss something about the current situation that could quite seriously harm the organisation and he's not allowed to ignore it.
So now he has me writing this stupid document on top of my other work, and even though the subject, technically, is comics, it's such BORRRRRRRRRRRRRRINGGGGGG work. I never thought I could loathe working with comics, professionally, this much. Beugh.
Anyway, I have about 50 minutes to finish the last 3 pages of the first version of the draft - after that I have a meeting with a colleague who's gonna help me out a bit because I don't have the first idea on how to write a friggin' business case. It's not like I've done this shit before...

Down With The Human Race.

Ok, can I just ask - what the fuck is up with us humans that makes us turn into assholes out of the blue ??
I'm typing this very shortly after longtime buddy Dave has gone out with me and a colleague of his, Wendy, and it appears he got lucky at the end of the night because he was making out with some girl in the middle of the street while I and Wendy were both VERY ready to go home. After our fourth (!) reminder to him that we really would like to go home he got into some kind of drunk sulk, walked a completely different direction than where our bikes were and gave us both some shit about 'responsibility my ass'. Then he biked home at a crazy speed and only JUST not kicked me in my own direction when we got near to his home. I'm sorry, but despite the fact that I enjoyed Dave's company for as long as I've been in Tilburg, I am not altogether too sure that I like this immature, asshole person that he turned into this last part of the night. I'm pretty sure he ruined Wendy's night and in all honesty he's ruined some of mine, and I'm not at all sure I want to know him anymore if the person I biked home with is part of his real self.
The main problem here is that I've seen plenty of people turn into assholes lately, which means the question automatically rises in my head that maybe it's me. Am I causing hate and disgust in all of you ? If so, please, get the fuck out of my life and leave me alone, because I don't need this kind of shit. I liked Wendy for all it's worth, not in that way but just as a friendly, ok-kind of person, and she didn't deserve the treatment she got at the end of the night. I'm sorry, but that's how I feel. And I normally don't care how you treat ME, but if you're truly an asshole to me, just come out and say you don't like me around, and stop wasting mine and your time. Don't pull shit like this on me.
Anyway, that's I guess all I wanted to say right now. I'm a bit intoxicated but it's straight from the heart. As far as I'm concerned all assholes can just go crawl in a hole in the ground because if you treat me like shit, I don't want you around. It's not what I'm here for. So fuck off.
Needless to say this isn't going out to the few of you all that haven't treated me like shit yet, but to you few it goes as well: if you don't want me around, just fucking say so. If you do, please NEVER act like you don't, or I'll just quit talking to ya. Simple as that.

Now that my weekend has been thouroughly thrust in the dirt, I think I'll go sleep most of tomorrow. Bye.

I Really Should Update This

Hi folks - some of you are already sending me 'get well' e-cards so I guess I should mention that I'm doing better again.
I did do a lot of groceries-hauling today which kinda sucked, but I'm ok.
Got one of 'em 'universal' remote controls today because Vik's TV's remote sucks and has failed to work over the past half year or so. And guess what ? It's FAR from universal. It does NOT work properly !
Well, it works a bit, but the damn program + - buttons don't work. Neither do they on my own TV which is a rather standards-compliant one, so I can only conclude that the remote sucks.
Also, Probeersel.com seems to be down AGAIN. Fuck. it's really getting annoying, it's almost like Protagonist takes that server down every night sometime around midnight. I am not pleased.

When Cameron Was In Egypt's Land...

I was home ill today. I overslept majorly until Vik got up, then I tried to get up but soon noticed this was not a smart idea - i really AM ill. It's not TOO bad but it's the kind of bad-enough-not-to-be-able-to-focus-on-work-well-enough and travelling to Amsterdam and back today would likely only have made it worse. I have coughing fits, my nose's plugged up and my throat hurts - yes, it sounds like a common cold, and I'm sure that's what it is. However, normally I wouldn't feel a common cold, so this is a tough lil' bugger pestering me. Might even take more than just today to get this little germ out of my body, though I'm sure by Saturday I'll be healthy as anything that proverbially is in really good health, again.
So that's all I can report for today: I was ill. I was passed out most of the day, even. Wasn't as fun as it sounds, but at least I got some sleep, I guess. I'm pretty sure this cold has SOMETHING to do with the fact that for some three weeks now I've had to go take my smoke break outside the building (no matter what kind of weather), that the train stations are draughty pieces of shit and it's been VERY windy, cold and wet lately, and the fact that my body's been insisting on returning to my original biological clock: sleep during the day and don't really become awake until it's dark - at which time sleep is nearly impossible. Naturally, this is impossible to rhyme with working a day shift at work (unless your work involves sleep - mine doesn't, most of the time at least). I'm pretty sure all those factors, and the fact I've been slaving away at The Grim DotCom, did this to me. So I guess it's time again to take things a bit slow, even if just for today.

OK, folks, it's dark now so I'm gonna go slip on some clothes and take it easy downstairs. Catch ya later.

With Evenings Like These, Who Needs Bad Mornings...

Missed the train home so caught the next one, which left 15 minutes later and caused 20 minutes of transfer time in 's Hertogenbosch. Which was boring. Then I caught the train to Tilburg at the same hour I met that girl about a month ago. And who is in the train ?

No, not her - the guy that I also bumped in on that same previous train ride.
Don't get me wrong, he's not terribly annoying or anything, and I voluntarily sat down in the seat opposite of him, but of course I'd much rather have bumped into the mystery lady again. Guess predicting there will be more to that story made it a self-unfullfilling prophecy. I'm sure Murphy's Law has something on this kind of phenomenon. Anyway, he was in a far from cheerful mood because a patient of his might die tonight. Which is why he caught a later train home - makes you think, I guess, about having to catch a later train home because a portal wouldn't go live properly or shit like that. What's really important in this life, you know ? But hey, that's old stuff. I already ranted plenty about people having messed up priorities and taking the wrong things in life seriously. Anywho.
Vik was already off to bed before I got home, so I went straight to work on the last Grim DotCom page I've drawn so far. Coincidentally also the last one I have a storyboard ready for - ack ! Finished it sometime around half past midnight, logged on to upload it, bumped into Gregory (Cathalina, from God.inc) online, only to hear from him that for nearly seven hours now, Probeersel.com has mostly been down.
GREAT !!
Ahwell. Sent off an email to the helpdesk, since that's all I can do. Webmail, the site administrator, everything's offline, except for FTP access and the DNS itself (since I could ping it). I'd venture a guess and suggest that maybe Apache is offline. But hey, what do I know ? Besides, there's little I can do about it.
I'm going to do the only sensible thing I could do after such an evening (and day, by the way). I'm gonna drink some and then sleep.
Night folks.

Phuck Da Lizzard.

I'm sorry for anyone who uses Mozilla or Mozilla Firebird: I've been trying to adjust the template for this site (I've just now included the little tagger thingie on the right which was a pain in the neck to add properly, but at least now you guys can respond if you want) but it just won't come out quite right in Mozilla. So I'm sorry, go get IE like the majority of this world uses. I've seen too much of this damn XSL crap for today to bother trying anymore. Be glad it works at ALL :P
A little shout-out to the Opera users of this world: you should be set. It seems to work fine there *yay*
(Ahhhh... Opera... sweet wonderful Opera. The browser so nice, they never bothered to name it twice.)

Ok, back to work again I suppose. Later folks. And drop me a note ! (on the right -->)

If You're Bored Enough To Read This...

I can't say I have MUCH time to waste at work on a daily basis, but there are always realllly slow days. And there are always colleagues with really slow days. Since I have to run to catch my train in a minute, I decided to give the good people that take the time to read my crap something to do.
Have fun...

Poke Alex in the eye
Virtual Midgetgolf
Dancing Shit
Virtual Legos
Virtual Etch-a-sketch
Football Volley Challenge
Virtual Bubblewrap
Virtual Juggling
Church Sign Generator
Virtual Kickups
Picture Caption Device
Virtual Classroom Cheating
Evil Clown Generator
Virtual Snack Machine
Virtual Coin Flipping
Extreme Ironing
Monstor Sumo
Knife Throwing
Pingu Bashing
Clay Pigeon Shooting
Escape The Blue Blocks

There. Now this is a blog.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzennnnnnnnnnn

Ok.

I am calmer now.
I got quite a lot done even despite it being a relatively busy day at the office - even got to code some Perl in the line of duty, which remains my favourite programming language to date. So that's good.
Sitting at my office right now while waiting for a call back from London, and tossing a baseball up.
Don't ask, tis one of the things I do when I'm at work.

"Dante ?! It was horrible, people started coming in and buying stuff.."

WAAAAAAAGHHH... I think I officially hate people right now !!!
Well, not so much hate as having had an overdose of their presence when really I wanted to work on The Grim DotCom. It also doesn't help that I'm towards comatose from a nearly perfectly complete lack of sleep this past weekend.
I spent quite a lot of time working on TGD, but people were visiting on Friday and Saturday (and, of course, they were welcome and it was fun, but both times we continued late into the night watching movies and whatnot - which I'm going to have to admit to having caused - and I really was getting exhausted) and then Sunday I made good on part of my pact with 'Becks' and watched LOTR II (the Extended version....)..............
I HATE TOLKIEN !!! If I ever meet him (presumably in the afterlife since he's dead and all - hmmm, I should have him come back in TGD), I'm going to KICK his ASS ! I don't mind the story, but why does everything have to be so damn FUCKING LONG ?!!! Yadda Yadda Yadda they travel, yadda yadda yadda, they fight, yadda yadda yadda they travel, yadda yadda yadda they prepare for ANOTHER fight. JESUS ! And then there's flashbacks that you don't realise were flashbacks till they're over, and all these characters getting pulled into the story with their entire life told to us even if all they do is capture Frodo and then let him go again... I'm sorry, but after nearly four hours of the Two Towers, my patience with LOTR is definately waning. Fuck. And I thought the Hobbit was a piece of crap. I am so going to make Becks read ALL of the Bone series in retalliation.
And then my friend Dave had trouble with his computer and having given him several tips several times on the phone (which was one of the reasons I didn't really get to sleep in on Saturday) and I decided to drop over there and get it to reinstall because it would have taken him DAYS from the sound of it.. and I had to drop off our old vacuum cleaner at the store we bought a new one because Vik wrecked it (after a mere 20 or so years of loyal service) and I only saw the Cul de Sac for ten minutes on Sunday night while waiting for a bus and some nutcase there still managed to tell me the same damn story SEVENTEEN times and there were annoying people on the bus this morning and on the train and FUCK.
I just hate everyone right now and you'd best stay away from me. I have no patience with anyone, clients are calling me again with really STUPID questions, and I really don't want to be here. I want to be asleep, at home, for a few days, and then draw and draw and draw and scan and edit and upload because I want that fucking half-year backstash BACK UP. PEOPLE SHOULD LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE !!!

Ok, maybe I just need to go smoke the first cigarette of the day.

Small Fit Of Nostalgia.

Sudden bout of semi-nostalgia of Philly.. been soo busy since the beginning of November that it now seems YEARS ago that I was there (as opposed to less-than-two-months). I'll go back there again - someday. Not soon again though. And I intend to save up first this time - the Bank Street Hostel was an ok place to crash but I really want to be able to sleep in, and to be able to return to my room during the day if I want.
Ahwell. A little shout out to the cool people ! *raises coffee cup* To my friends !
Ok, back to work again now.

If You Assume, You Make An Ass Out Of You...rself.

Somehow it seems inevitable as of late that people I hardly know bring up how my lovelife is. Apparently, the better I get at drawing my comics or the better Probeersel.com is doing, the more curious people seem to become if there's a significant other in René's life to counterbalance all this hard work. And it's most commonly women, and not the 'available' kind, either - there's ALWAYS something wrong. They're already spoken for, or you're clearly not their type (and often vice versa) or ANY other reason you can think of why this question should NOT really interest them - I mean, come on, be realistic. It shouldn't, it's none of their concern. They're 'just asking'.
Well, here you go: my love life is the same it's been for two years. I'm off the market: married to my art, very occasionally cheating on her with a one-night-stand, otherwise not available and not looking. And as far as I'm concerned, that's going to stay that way for the rest of my life.
Women who dared ask the first question can't handle this answer. I still don't quite know what to make of the look they consistently give me - I'm actually starting to suspect it's a cloaked version of jealousy - but they ALWAYS, ALWAYS decide to contradict me. The all-too-familiar "you never know what life brings" stories, or "I was convinced of the same for a long time and then I met HIM", or "well, we all know how THIS story ends: you'll be married in a few months". Look, folks, I'm not joking around here. I am extremely serious about my art and in the past my relationships have shown me that ANY relationship causes me to put it on hold or at least on very low priority, or otherwise I am "impossible to be with". I can't do that anymore - when my last relationship ended and I leapt right back into my comic work, I felt like I'd come up for air after two years of suffocating restriction. And my ex-gf didn't even restrict me, it was simply necessary for me to BE in a relationship. So, no go. I need my art like you need air. You can now all consider me a bad shoe lace: impossible to tie down.
But they always laugh condescendingly, seem to repress the urge to pat me on the head and go 'there, there', and pretend to be oh so wise because they assume they're right after all. Well, news flash. You're not, and this kind of talk is simply annoying. And if you're vain enough to assume even more then no doubt you'll assume I'm annoyed "because you're right" - no, I'm annoyed because I have always HATED people who are consistently wrong about you because they don't bother to know you, they only want to know the image they have of you (which is, most commonly, a projection of their own selves). My beforementioned ex-gf transformed into one of these people within a year of our breaking up. And she still can't figure out why I don't want anything to do with her anymore.
People who assume are generally clueless. Get the point.

About Clients And Rikanopfruls.

More about Rikanopfruls later. First: Clients.

I've noticed quite a while back that some of our clients have mastered a certain game. It's usually clients who know they've asked too much of us. If you push anyone working 'for' you too far, they'll be a whole lot more reluctant to reply 'how high ?' when you ask them to jump. Our clients, in general, know this. Most of our clients pretty much don't push us too far: if we say we're working on it, we're working on it, and most of the stuff they can do themselves. But some push us far, and keep pushing limits like "I *know* you said no, but how 'no' is it REALLY ?" or "I know I only have 40 hours of total support and I've made you guys put in about 250 hours so far, but could you please handle this very, very urgent task that will only take 50 more hours ? And could you call me back in an hour and please tell me it's done ?"
These clients know that it helps to make it up to us. If you stay on someone's good side, you can push them VERY, VERY far. It's the difference between being a friendly drunk in a bar and an annoying drunk: both might vomit or knock things over, but the friendly one's likely to be semi-cared for where the annoying one will simply get thrown out and left in the street. Web developing isn't that much different. It's awfully easy to ignore someone's email for a while if you get hundreds a day and you're not too fond of that specific person.
In the past, clients who pushed us too far have sent us custom-made cake, or sent us jokes they received, or sent us champagne or small gifts related to their department, or just dropped by to 'finally meet', etc. It's actually a rather nasty game if you ask me, since it's completely manipulative: they pretend to suddenly be your friend so you'll go that extra mile for them ONLY because they NEED you to go that extra mile. And in our department's case, where we already go several miles further than we should for our clients, that's a long way's away.
So a client is taking me and another coworker out for dinner tonight. After all, it's cheaper than actually paying for the extra hours we put in on her request.

Oh, and you were wondering what a Rikanopfrul is ?

Oh, Before I Forget...

I would just like to thank all of you for the hundreds upon thousands of flowers I was sent, the cards, the emails, the enormous support I've received from all of you. Thank you, it means a lot to know that so many were concerned about the huge tragedy that unfolded in my life, but I come bearing good news: The situation has been resolved now - the nightmare is over !
Or, in plain English: thanks all of you for not giving a shit (I got exactly ONE email from a friend who was sorry to hear that I'd lost my coat) but it's all OK now because the friendly people at the Cul de Sac informed me (actually, a shout out to Jorg for this since, despite the fact that it were Cul employees that found it, HE was the one to actually call me) that they'd found my coat on Saturday night, so I biked over in the middle of Sunday night to go pick it up. I can't even BEGIN to describe how happy I am with this turn of events (even though I'd semi-expected it would turn up again, after all, the Cul de Sac's just not really THAT kind of bar where people steal other people's coats and don't care about address books or anything in them indicating whose coat it REALLY is) especially now that it's not just freezing cold but RAINING to top it off, too. My long coat (which was serving as a substitute winter coat so far) would NOT have sustained that too well - it always starts to smell up to high heaven when it gets in contact with even the SLIGHTEST bit of rain. Since rain decided to accompany me on my way home, it was very nicely timed that I'd retrieved my coat.
So everyone can rest easy again now - I have your phone numbers and everything again, and my treasured coat is once again returned to me. Goodnight, folks !

The Lost Word

So I vanished off the face of the planet a few days there - at least for anyone reading this. Same old excuse as always: I've been very, very busy (and very, very tired). I'm currently working out a major storyline for The Grim DotCom which'll mean I'll start drawing like mad soon, so don't expect to see me around too often anymore because I won't be for a while. See you when it's over.
Unless you found my coat in which case, return it already !
Later folks.

Update On That Last Post

So yeah, as luck would have it, in the Cul de Sac the owner of the coat I borrowed was there and very glad to have the coat back. Unfortunately my coat hasn't turned up.
Also, that damn bug resurfaced AGAIN in the Probeersel code, and this time I truly figured it out - it had to do with the substractions, well, I won't get into the details, but it would have produced the wrong weeknumber all year. Fixed it, and the fix I implemented actually makes that whole part of the code a lot more elegant. Took me nearly an hour to figure out, again, though. I hate programming.
Anyway, The Breakfast Club is on, and hey, who can object to Molly Ringwald ? So I'm gonna watch it for a while and then go to sleep. After all, today's another working day, I switched the Friday I usually have off with last Tuesday to benefit my direct colleague. So I'm off to Amsterdam in a couple of hours again, without my beloved coat. I hate this shit.

Papa's Got A Brand New... Coat.

OK, people, anyone who knows me and is in my address book, listen up. Some drunk took my coat after the Cul de Sac New Year's party and it had my address book (as well as my prescription sunglasses, but that's besides the point). I do not have an up to date copy of it, so I basically have lost contact info for a lot of you. If this coat will be returned to me anytime soon I cannot say (obviously it DOES have my own contact information in it, so if this person has half a brain, figures out it's not their coat, and searches the pockets in sincere effort to get this coat back to the real owner, they should be perfectly capable of tracking me down - they haven't yet) so please, PLEASE, email me your information if you were in that book so I can make a new copy.
In any case, I had a good time and most of the people I know from the bar were there. I did have to take a different leather coat that was left behind, which is slightly too small and doesn't quite cut it as well as the other one did as a winter coat. So I hate this shit and I want my coat back - it was a damn good coat and it's been all over the world with me as well, damnit ! So hey, if by any chance you're reading this and you accidentally took a pigskin black leather coat with some kind of cheap imitation italian brand name in it and it contains prescription sunglasses and my address book, or you have lost a coat that says Jack&Jones (with nothing in it, by the way), please contact me. I am now actually about to return to the Cul de Sac to at least return the coat I borrowed there, because after all, it's not mine, but please, PLEASE - I really want my coat and address book back.

Nothing else to report.. I am sore in several places due to sleeping bad and the fact that I biked home in too small a coat in unexpected cold weather, and I'm tired because first thing when I got up this *cough* late afternoon *cough* was fix yet another stupid date related bug in the Probeersel code. I hope I now finally have all the bugs I never tested the code on out, at least related to the date.

Anyway, I have to hop on my bike and head out to center city now. Wish me luck. René out.