Fuck babysteps.

Never been the type for taking less than ambitious measures about things I believed in. So those who know me well enough will not be too surprised at news I'll be sending out later this week. It's been a while in the works, but I've finally figured out how I'm going to clean up my life again and return to drawing more. It's a direly needed step, for myself, my sanity, my art, and for the big projects involved. It's just so damn hard to admit I've finally bitten off more than I can chew. And the final drop, nay, the final FLOOD that ran the bucket over (and then some) was, well, ClickBurg.
Since nearly no one and their dog reads this blog, I suppose I can talk about it already here. I'm going to semi-renounce my presidency of the ClickBurg foundation. It's been a tough decision but a wise and adult one (which aren't usually my forte). I'll still remain heavily involved with the goals and PR of ClickBurg, but I'm through organizing events. All this has a lot to do with the fact that, put in a realistic perspective, there really is no way we'll get ClickBurg 2006 organised in time by now. Especially considering which direction my life is currently heading - I simply lack all time that is required to organise this event properly.
We're currently figuring out the consequences of this decision before really making it public. But a lot has already been discussed with other people involved and everyone's fine with it.
So, that's that. I've given a full year of my life and a big chunk of my money to ClickBurg, and now I'm done. It's been a great year - we've set up the webcomics manifestation itself, we've drawn live comics and cartoons about the Tilburg fair at the event itself, we've had two successful comic convention appearances, we started a special comics blog, an appreciated newsletter, relatively big names have joined most of these events as well as very promising young artists.. I can look back with a lot of pride. But the time has simply come to recognize that I have to let this go.

Time to start taking my life back again. And draw. Good grief, do I need to draw. The ideas and projects have been piling up, and let me tell ya, I'm gonna be doing some things that you probably wouldn't have seen coming.

It's been a good year, this past one. Time for a completely different good year to arrive.

What If.

After returning from a week-long training course in London, I found the second season DVD of Dead Like Me in my mailbox. Still have a few episodes left to go, but I can say this much: the quality of the episodes is still very high, in humour, special effects, writing, everything. The only real difference with the first season is that more continuing plots have been introduced, which means that one or two episodes actually feature a 'previous episode summary' for those who have missed it.

This is to be expected. Because all you do as a writer is play with the big 'What If's. Let me explain... every bit of storytelling, no matter how big or small, wether it's for TV, movie, a play or even a comic, that is: every GOOD bit of storytelling, basically consists of having certain stable elements and then introducing a 'what if' scenario. Most stories are about a situation, which in itself is usually a big 'what if' - after all, you have a cast of chacarters but without a situation to place them in, there's no story.
I'll take The Grim DotCom as an example here. The main characters at the beginning, of course, are the Grim Reaper and John, a young geek. It doesn't really get interesting until the premise is introduced: 'what if John and the Reaper together start a company to provide IT services on top of death ?'
Then, at some point, this premise becomes a stable situation in itself. The Grim DotCom is founded, there's even a supporting cast, and all is well. There's a few antics (very small 'what if's) but other than that, the audience knows this situation by now and has accepted this. That's when you want to spice things up, and the only way to do that is to explore the deeper relationships and further developments that can arise from this situation. What if the dotcom became a multinational, employing thousands of people and involved in the stock market ? What if an ambitious blogger found out the truth behind this business ? What if the devil decided to stir trouble by starting a competing business ? What if John started dating the Reaper's daughter, Eileet ? These are the kinds of situations that take people to more extremes, which means they'll show more of themselves. After all, I'm writing this comic deliberately from an office environment approach, where - as all office slaves know - colleagues don't often show much interest in one another and may not get to know each other too well. Unless there's trouble and everyone's forced to work more closely together.
That's what corporate retreats are all about - what if this uncooperative bunch of cubicle dwellers are thrown in a survival situation and have to team up to perform tasks they may have never faced before ? - you get to know each other better in extreme situations. Personalities and personal strengths and weaknesses are revealed more clearly, and you can find great advantages in those.

As a writer, you of course want the audience to care about your characters as much as you do. But they don't know them the way you know them - after all, they weren't part of the creation process, unlike yourself. So you have to really showcase the character's personalities, and the best way to do that is introduce these more extreme 'what if'-scenarios, so the audience and the characters can find character traits that share a common ground. So the audience can identify with these characters, which means they'll seem more alive, closer, more real. It'll show the inner workings of your characters and their relationships, and of the world you've created around them.

This occurred to me while watching the episode of Dead Like Me where Mason kills this guy without there being a post-it. (Quick background explanation: the premise is that death is one big bureaucratic process where deceased souls might actually sometimes become a Reaper, like Mason and the rest of the crew are, and every day they get post-its which state the name, time and location where a soul they have to take will die. In other words, the guy that got killed wasn't supposed to die.) The 'what if' there is of course, what if a Reaper kills someone outside of the system ? The series had established the stable situation that this weird bureaucratic system controlled nearly everything, and that there was little to no escape from it. So that is the only loophole: what if a Reaper, after all a person with their own freedoms, killed outside the system ? Would there be punishment, and if so, what kind ? What happens to the soul of the dead guy ? What other mayhem would come from this ? How would the system that we thought we knew so far, respond to this ? Would this world be prepared for the unforseen loophole, is it something that has happened before and knows how to handle this ? Has it anticipated this ? Or will everything spin out of control ?
I won't spoil this for anyone who still wants to see this series, but another question that was never really answered about the inner workings of the world of Dead Like Me, is answered in the consequences. And a stressful situation has been created where a few characters involved are really put to the test and we get to see them under pressure. We get to see what they are really like and how they respond to this situation - we get to know them better.
Real life is made up of the weirdest situations one could ever think of. So all these plot lines and stories are doing is help us come to grips with the turbulent world that we live in. That is why we enjoy stories so much - we can identify with characters and situations, even if they're not like us but like something or someone we would like to be. This is the role that 'entertainment' plays in our lives - it helps us come to terms with our own identities, events in our lives, troubles, relationships, happiness, death, everything. Because everything's about changing situations. There's no such thing as a stable premise in real life. And there are always buttons of which you don't know what will happen if you push them. And you don't always get to cleanly choose what happens - sometimes you find yourself knee-deep in unexpected trouble. Stories tell us this, and stories teach us how to handle that, in the end, life is as unpredictable and scary as these situations can be. They teach us to cope with that, to know that this happens to everyone. And that, through unexpected developments, we get to know the world we live in and the people around us better.

I just wrote this to point out that all storytelling entertainment, in a way, is art. It makes us think about the world and ourselves, it dares to question reality as a status quo. It helps us learn.
So what if I have actual readers of this blog ? And what if they would actually respond if I asked them to ?
What if I asked you to contemplate your favourite bit of entertainment and its inner workings ? What if you told me if all I've typed above applies to you ? What if your favourite book, show, play, movie, comic, indeed helped you cope with this world, and you decided to share it in this posting's comments ?

Webcomic Animation Battle

On the ClickBurg forum, Rob van Barneveld started a topic where only drawings would be allowed. In other words, you can only respond to one another in drawn form. It's a big hit and everyone has enthousiastically participated so far. Just a few days ago I threw a few suggestions on there (of course, in drawn form) and in lack of quick responses I made a little animation of a rolling bit of tumbleweed to emphasize that the forum topic was so silent.

Then Matt Baay threw in a BunBun. I threw in a boob hiding behind the cow skull. And before we knew it, it had turned into the madness you can see below:



There's more loose bits based on the same setting, made by several animators on there, and I doubt it's the last we'll see of this freaky bit of desert. But I thought I'd share. Things have been so crazy this past week that this was one of the very few good elements in it - a little insane collaborative animation that seems to grow and grow and never ceases to make me laugh.

Some Things Don't Change.

This is one of those inane ponderings that really should only be interesting to myself, but hey, this is my blog, and if you don't like me writing about myself you wouldn't be reading this.
It's just - I like change. I'm one of those people who get nerveous when things seem to get too routine. The kind of person who, when he has to take the same route somewhere every day, he'll take new routes from time to time just to get some variation and to try new things. The kind who'll shake up things around the office and other things he's involved in from time to time, just for the hell of it.
But even in my little world there are constants and I enjoy those.

Like eating kibbeling for lunch every monday and thursday if I'm at work. It's always a nice walk to the market, and since I've been getting kibbeling (for those of you who don't know what this is, it's a deep-fried kind of balls of cod, marinated - it's really good and a well-known snack in the Netherlands) at that fish stand for five years now, they basically only ask me anymore how much I want. I always get them on buns, with the same sauce. I know the price, too, and it hasn't changed (much) in that time. It's a nice constant. People in the office look surprised if I skip one of those days and ask me what's wrong. It's a reassuring kind of part of my personality, my life, now.

Or like getting home, no matter how late, and cat Satan running up to the door to greet me and claw the hell out of my legs while I check my snail mail and phone messages. Or going to my favourite bar which also hasn't changed too much in six years' time. It's little elements in your life that you know will be there, you know what to expect, you can relax, switch on cruise control, and sit back and enjoy it.

Or seeing the same people at the bus stop every morning and evening. Sure, they get older, and there are visible signs which life phases they are going through, but they're still the same faces. They're sort of in it together with you, you know ? These routine people and things sort of reassure you that you're not really alone and if all else falls apart, these things will probably still always be there.

It's the same reason people will like your comic, most of the time. Because they sort of know what to expect and they know that they'll probably like it. Because it comes from you, it's in a certain style with a certain kind of humour that has proven entertaining and/or interesting in the past and they can be pretty sure that as long as you're working on this comic, it will remain something along these lines. A reassuring, nice, routine stop on their internet walk. It's the 'secret' of the webcomics and newspaper comics etc. that have been around forever and are highly succesful: they have their appeal and they treasure this appeal. They try to be that good old friend that'll always be there if you need them. They're like big old mighty oaks you see on a late evening walk that have always been there your entire life and will be there for many more generations to come.

Being 'on the road' (well, rail road) for four days a week for years now also means I often have breakfast at the train station. Unhealthy and expensive, perhaps, but it means I get to sleep in some fifteen minutes longer than if I'd have breakfast at home. And I don't really have to put effort into my food that way, which is good, because that early in the morning I'm in full zombie mode. For years I went to the same place and had a tuna salad ciabatta with a small bottle of milk. Every morning. The people working there knew my face and often could guess my order. I have that impact on places I frequent a lot, apparently - people recognize my face and remember my routine orders. I like that.

And then they changed something. They took the tuna salad ciabatta off the menu and replaced with egg salad ciabatta.
I tried it a few times. After all, change can be good and I'll always be the first one to try out something new, no matter how small. Even in zombie mode early in the morning. But I didn't like the egg salad. I tried it and I really just didn't like it. And I stopped going there. They lost a regular client. This was, I think, about a year ago.
Some time last week I passed the place by and I saw an image on their menu of the tuna salad ciabatta. And the thought lingered in the back of my head since then 'hmm - I wonder if it's back or if it's just an old image they forgot to replace'.
So this morning I went back there. And saw the tuna salad ciabatta on the display. My heart rejoiced a bit and I got in line. And sure enough, I ordered a tuna salad ciabatta with milk. Early morning, so I half mumbled my order, but the girl behind the counter already knew what I wanted to order. She recognized me. She was glad to see me again. And as I ate my tasty, tasty ciabatta (apologies to Eric Burns here) on the perron this morning, I realised that where the ciabatta was a routine reassurement for me, my order was the same routine reassurement for her. And so my routine orders elsewhere are the nice, routine, reassuring element for other people and that's why they remember me.
And also, I left and after a while they changed the menu back. I'm not egotistical enough to think they changed it just because of me, because this is a national chain of food places, but I'm one of the people who made them change it back. My simply not going there enough contributed to its return.

I guess what I'm trying to say, sappy as it may seem, is.. treasure your routine, reassuring elements. And if they're people, perhaps let them know you like the routine, from time to time. That you appreciate them. And if they're comics, let their creator know how much you appreciate their work. Because if you don't, who knows - things might change. And that change may not be for the better.
Just a thought. Treasure the unchanging elements in your life. You might miss them when they're gone.
(And hey, I know I often say I don't care about my audience, but that only means I'm doing my own thing and not actively catering my readers. However, if you feel like my work is such a routine element for you, feel free to let me know. Appreciation, in whatever form, is always nice - I don't care who you are, if you say you don't want any appreciation for the things you do, you're lying.)

Tuna salad ciabatta. Hmmmmmmm, life is good.

René Talks About Death - What Else Is New ?

I have a reputation for being comfortable with the macabre - well, I guess that's what you get for being the guy behind a weekly comic starring the Grim Reaper and a bunch of dead folk. But still.
A colleague's brother-in-law keeled over at his job, pretty much dead on the spot, age 48. Now, I'm not afraid to die. I haven't been since about age 8. It happens, it's a part of life, and I'm damn glad that the idea is that at some point there's an end to all of this. Not that I dislike my life, but I've long ago accepted my death and I'm constantly trying to limit the amount of loose ends in my life because I know it can happen at any time. It's hard to understand for a lot of people, but to me death is just... death.
What *does* spook me, though, is... 9 hours a day (sometimes more), four days a week, I'm in the office. That's a pretty big chunk of my life. Statistically, the odds of dying while on the job are fairly realistic. And when I heard about that guy dying there, that *did* seem weird to me.
It's not that it would scare my colleagues or that it would get in the way of my work or any such kind of consideration. I mean, I could die in a bar, or on a train, or at home, and in each of those situations similar stuff would probably happen right after. It's the thought that I could die AT WORK. It's the idea that my last thought COULD be 'now to reboot that server' or 'I wonder if I've notified that user yet'. Too much of my time and energy is already being wasted at work, I don't want to DIE here as well. To be honest.
So yeah, that's my thought for the day. Think about it. You work to live, as they say. But what if you fail at that motto and work only to die while doing so ? Terrifying.

Entertaining Like Me.

Last week my Dead Like Me Series 1 DVD came in, and I'm almost through watching all the episodes. Turns out there's one I missed ! And so far - I can't sleep too well this evening so I'm watching some episodes this very moment - it seems to be the obligatory compilation episode, where the plot facilitates the reusage of scenes from past episodes. You know the drill. It's done in a good way though.

Dead Like Me is a lot like the Grim DotCom, but I've already handled that in the past of this blog. (Mental note: the image is dead - ironic, no ? Should fix that.) So now my mind is rambling on wether or not I should do a flashback episode as well, or a series of them. Then again, Clerks (the animated series, that is) already did that in a way more funny style than I would. And it's a six panel comic strip. I'd have to pull some pretty acrobatic stunts to facilitate a plot requiring flashbacks, plus flashbacks, in six panels.

The idea intrigues me now.

And I want my series 2 DVD as well. But it's special import so it'll take longer. Dead Like Me is such a well-written show, they shouldn't have pulled the plug. But then, the trend of recent years is that every good, insightful show gets pulled, so I'll try to just be glad there's two seasons.

I need some sleep. This is a weird week - I guess it's the good kind of weird - and it'll only get weirder. More about that later. For now I'll post this, then shut off the computer and watch the rest of this episode from bed.

John Fowles, 31/3/1926 - 5/11/2005

Writer John Fowles dies aged 79

"The French Lieutenant's Woman author John Fowles has died aged 79.
Fowles died at his home in Lyme Regis, Dorset on Saturday after battling a long illness, his publisher said."

I'm fairly saddened by this news. Fowles has been of great influence on me, both personally and in my writing. As you can read at the linked page (BBC news), I'm far from alone in that. And many people have written their thoughts there much more eloquently than I have.

So I'll limit myself to notifying you all that a man I greatly admired has passed away - before I could ever let him know that I did, I might add. I always hoped to have archieved a slight bit of greatness myself before doing so, to perhaps make it slightly more honorable. My own fault for waiting, I guess.
Nevertheless, the Probeersel books, the books that started me off in more serious comic writing, that still encapsulate most of my views on humanity, the world, and everything, that took five years of my life to complete and that some still say is my best work to date, those five books were heavily influenced by Fowles. I even paid direct tribute to the man in some of the panels in Book 5, and therefor, instead of writing things that others have also written, I quote from my own work below to pay tribute to a great man once more.

Mr. Fowles, you will be missed.

Life is pacin'

I just spent most of the past week being ill at home. Horrible. The past couple of years I seem to physically have become a more normal mortal human being, the kind that can get ill for MORE than one day. I can't say I've gotten used to it yet - it's a big drain on my productivity. Colleagues and friends say it's the body shouting a 'halt' to me with all the stuff I'm doing. Well, that's all fine, but my body better know who the boss is here. The mind wants to go on, I know that much.
I was barely better and already sitting behind my computer again cramming out text I was supposed to write, standing under the shower and coming up with new material for my comics, and pacing around the house while the brain just keeps going. Can't say that what I wrote was entirely flawless, but considering I was still ill, the flaws were all minor.

It's the pacing that's starting to worry me, though. I've noticed lately that when I really get on a writing / concept development spree, I pace. I even mumble a bit. I don't notice that I'm doing it because I'm deep in thought, fitting things together, throwing away ideas I can't use, looking at different angles, etcetera. But the past few days I've started noticing that I do this now. I pace. Not entirely like a madman yet, but I pace. Like you see crazy scientists and musicians do in the movies. Pacing around in my bedroom, which is easy to do because around my bed there's an exact U-shaped path to walk back and forth in.
I'm wondering if I should worry. I know one thing, though: I've been cooked up in this house for nearly a week, I've done all my chores and all my writing and drawing, and right now I'm biking into town and going to the bar. I need to get out of this house and mingle with less-obsessed people again for a bit. Even if just for a few hours and even if it's not the smartest thing to do to my body right now, just having been 98% recovered from this illness. The alternative is going to sleep with even more rambling and crazy ideas in my head. No, no, I need to be amongst people.

Going out on the town for a few hours, folks. I think I need to.

A message from deep within the valley

Survived another comics convention but I'm broken. Exhausted. I like conventions, but I don't like the organisational part. Contrary to what some claim, I'm a poor organizer and have to work very hard to keep things on track. Plus, I tend to take up most of the work that needs to be done myself because I hate bossing other people around, so to speak. So the past few conventions, where I was more in charge of the ClickBurg stand itself, I've grown more and more tired. To the point that I'm now considering never going to a comics convention again for the rest of my life.

It's just a temporary depression, I'm sure. But I have nothing but dark, sad, nihilistic, even angry thoughts in my head now - a serious dark streak. Result of working my ass off for quite a while again and going through the 'payoff' - the end result of all that work... and then afterwards being stuck with the inevitable wonder wether or not it was all worth it. Happens every time, I'm sure I had this thought after ClickBurg 2005 last May, and after the other conventions as well, but I'm too tired to remember.

I'm also growing more and more lonely right now. I can still stand it because I can handle loneliness well, but occasionally I break down and the actual emotion overflows me. I'm sure I'll get awesome creative material out of all this, but I don't even really have much time to sit down and express it all on paper. No outlet - that could be bad.

Last weekend I was around several women I like rather well. This morning in the train I was also surrounded by a few very attractive and interesting-seeming women.. but all I could think was how I feel like giving up. Ironically, as I type this, Portishead pops up on the playlist with 'Glorybox'. The weather outside completes the picture with dark grey clouds and bursts of rain.
I didn't want to try to solve the loneliness, despite having opportunity to do so. I don't want to chase anyone, I don't want to pretend I'm more interesting than I am. I just want to give in. I want to collapse on a bed, sleep, cry, I want to punch things, I want to scream -- I feel so damn... full. And restricted. Like I have a gazillion feelings, stories, images, and they all want out but the world forbids me to express them. That's how I feel. It's all self-inflicted of course, my damn sense of responsibility is the only thing in the way. Nothing really stops me from taking a vacation, or quit my job, or let Probeersel.com and ClickBurg fall to pieces. Except that. That there's a part of me that wouldn't be able to live with failing those responsibilities. They're my responsibilities and I take them seriously. But in doing so, I'm locking too much inside that otherwise could flow freely.

I wish I could just sit down and draw this. I don't want to be at work. I don't want to be part of the comics world anymore. I don't want to be 'someone' in the webcomics scene anymore either.
I just wanna be... someone who draws. I want that feeling back from when I was slaving away, creating things without deadline or audience. I want to pour my soul out on paper again without trying to fit it in a storyline or hide it in between lines of text - I want to breathe out. I'm short on breath. I want to come up for air. That's what it is. I can't breathe. I desperately need to catch my breath.

Play A Game While You Wait !

Made this today. There's 33 seperate entities that you can identify. Try and find them all :)

We're Not Gonna Make It, No No...

It wasn't just Monday morning grumpiness that caused me to write my last post. It was something much, much more substantial. I've come to the conclusion that it's time for me to make some drastic changes. I need to lose ballast and spice things up with completely new challenges and directions, or I'll go nuts. That's the short version. Now follows the long version for anyone who cares to read about it. Which, most likely, is just me. But hey, at least I always like reading back what I wrote. So that's fine.

My past, especially my childhood, left me with a very specific kind of personality. My strengths have always been in stubbornly overcoming the worst kinds of odds. I can't become a comic artist or webdesigner because of colourblindness ? Watch me. I can't pour a glass of milk because of no depth perception ? I practice until I can. I walk around with the firm knowledge that if someone else has archieved something, I can archieve that same thing. When I draw, I don't sketch, I just jot everything straight onto paper. And when people tell me that something (like, say, a webcomics convention) is a bad idea or would never work and would never be able to be set up, well... let's just say I'll be the first to attach wings to pigs and to turn up the AC in hell if necessary.
It turns out I'm fairly good at getting the right people together and enthousiastic about the things I truly believe in. And my stubbornness gives me plenty of strength to pull the cart when things are facing impossible odds and it seems like too much needs to be done. I'm the right kind of guy when things need to start up and there's just no way it'll make it.
That said, there's a downside to these traits. A huge one. I can't handle success and I suck at maintaining things. I always need to go up, further, bigger, more, or different, change, move forward in that direction. I can't handle things when there's no current to fight against and all that is required is to maintain the status quo. It's a very serious flaw - I'll lose all focus, I'll become sloppy, I get insecure about the whole project, I very slowly start to lose interest, or worse, I start considering destroying it all and seeing wether or not I could rebuild it again. I can't seem to overcome this effect. It works like that everywhere in my life, down to the smallest things.

Over the past half a decade, I started two huge projects. Huge for me, at least. Probeersel.com and ClickBurg. Both have grown to a fairly stable, successful position where a better leader than myself should take over, given the previous section of this posting. I'm trying. Honestly, I am. I'm doing my best to maintain everything, and to ignore all the effects my personality traits are unleashing on it. With ClickBurg, I still have a big fight left to go, so that's easier to maintain. But Probeersel.com is starting to suffer from my sloppiness. There are a few links here and there that don't work. For four months already, there hasn't been a half year report yet. Staff members' verdicts on new members auditioning aren't being chased up by me with the same vigour anymore as I used to. It may all be fairly small, but the signs, to me, are very clearly there. To make matters worse, I'm growing exhausted. Trying to maintain these projects takes more and more effort, and the fact that their successes makes them grow more also increases the work load.

Thing is - I never wanted to be the head honcho of Probeersel.com or the president of the ClickBurg foundation. I'm an artist. Several people in remote and recent past have claimed otherwise, but it's who I am. I need to create. I can't help creating. When my last relationship ended, I returned to creating, which I'd partially sacrificed for the sake of the relationship. It felt like coming up for air. No matter what people feel about what I create, I need to create it. And exactly the way it comes out.
My biggest fear of recent times, with all the effort that the two projects take, is that they will come in between me and my comics. That at some point, I'll have to really choose between drawing or organising. And that if I'm not careful, the only way to opt for drawing comics is to utterly destroy the things I'll otherwise have to organise. A nearly impossible choice: either give up on drawing and focus entirely on organising, or focus on drawing and let the things I put so much organisational effort into fall to peaces and be for naught. I know several people who've had to make this decision at some point in their lives and I see the very scary road ahead through them.

And I know what I'd choose. I'd choose drawing. Always. There is no doubt in my mind that I would. I need it. Without it, I'd whither away. But I don't want the things I've built over the years to just fall apart either.
Which is why I need to start taking a bit of action now. Start letting go of some things. Start saying 'no' to new things. Focus more on drawing, and make sure to have more time available for that than just the weekly Grim DotCom episode. For experimental projects like The Artificial Real, or just drawing and doodling and coming up with things. Because I already lack the time for that and it's eating me up. It's one of many things contributing to my becoming overworked: I don't have the time anymore to do the thing that got me into all this in the first place.

I've taken several steps lately to work on this. Today I took a bigger one. It's still no final step, but it'll help me resolve what I should be doing and why. So I can take well-considered though drastic steps. And avoid that big dillemma for now. Because I'm still much too young to be faced with such a dangerous fork in the road. Rather take a few steps back and avoid as much as possible having to choose a direction. It should still be possible to have some of my cake and eat it.

Poof!

You know the feeling you get when you've spent a lot of time and energy on something and it just -poof !- explodes into nothingness ? I kind of have that now. It's not entirely fair that I'm writing this, but it's how I feel right now.

I wanted to write that I'd had a pretty good weekend. Yes, it was also my birthday (I know all two people who read this blog) but I got to avoid celebrating that as much as possible. I'm talking about being interviewed by le Figaro first thing after work on Thursday, about webcomics and ClickBurg. Then installing Probeersel.com's fourteenth member. Then taking care of a few semi-urgent things on Friday, after which I went out with friends in a city where they don't know me. Despite the hangover the next day (not to mention the fatigue from barely sleeping for two weeks straight) I managed to produce a Grim DotCom episode and to only be an hour late publishing it online. After which I also helped launch Michiel van de Pol's new website, CartoonDiarree. The latter despite Space1 having moved servers on Saturday, thus throwing ClickBurg and CartoonDiarree offline all day. All in all, this would have been a good weekend.

Except ClickBurg and CartoonDiarree are offline again. And the whole 'drawing comics live at the fair' thing isn't getting picked up by the media nearly at all. Some media have picked up the story of us slaving away, and those media mostly write about fairs, so that's a nice big, completely different audience, who have been alerted to the existence of webcomics. Yay for us there ! But the other media, especially the (web)comics media, are mostly ignoring the story. And that ticks me off. Both the sites being down and the complete ignoring of the press release. Makes me wonder why I put in the effort at all.

It's just Monday morning grumpiness, I'm sure. Probably also due to being congratulated with my birthday a lot this morning n stuff. I did get more sleep than usual, so my morning mood isn't so bad, but still. Hrmph.
Webcomics media, I know the wussy webcomics drama in the States are great soap writing material, but god damnit, here in the Netherlands we slaved away, live, for 11 days, produced 233 comics in that time, and introduced the phenomenon of webcomics to a new audience over 1 million people in size. Notice that ! And Space1, get off your ass and get that server back online.

Slackers.

Commerce lacks the element of taste... CLEARLY.

This is going to be a short and bitter post.
What is wrong with the companies that release DVDs ?! They have a reputation for releasing the most obscure movies and series on DVD with little care for the commercial success, and don't even get me started on all the contemporary pulp that fills up the shelves. But god damnit, there's some quality stuff out there that isn't being released, even though enough people are calling out for it. And I know of at least two, which means that if a barely-cultured schmuck like myself knows of two, there must be thousands !
I know this blog is read by nobody and their dog, but hey, it's one of the very few places where I get to send this message out and by Jonathan Livingston Seagull's wings, I'm gonna do it. I can only hope the message reaches someone who can do something about it.

I'm talking, first of all, about Harrison Bergeron. Yes, Harrison Bergeron (different link). It's a TV movie from 1996 based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, and definately one of the most accessible and thought-provoking movies in the collection. But is it out on DVD, despite a worldwide cry out for 'why not ?!' ? Nope. Just on VHS, and only within the US territory. I've seen the movie, it was done great, and practically everyone I know, from philosopher friends to barely-educated friends, will greatly enjoy it or have already greatly enjoyed it.
Why the hell is this not out on DVD ??

And the second.. Manchild. A series still broadcasted on quality (often public) channels here in Europe. BBC released the first series on DVD but now even that is gone. And series 2, which was a lot better still, never even saw DVD daylight.

I ask you, where's the justice in this world ?

One Last Doodle.

Well, there's a fair chance that you won't see any new doodles here for a few weeks. I know, I only started doing these this week, but once my work day ends today, I'm off for a two week vacation - during which, ironically, I'll probably be very busy.

Ironic, isn't it, that my paying job is less busy than my personal life ? And that only during my working day I actually have time to doodle ?

TimeWaster.

Feeling like crap.

I pulled an all-nighter last night, to no avail because it turned out to be completely pointless. I'm exhausted now and I feel like crap, and it served no purpose whatsoever because all that work turned out to be unneccessary. To top it all off, I seem to have screwed up some other things pretty badly.
I'm having a pretty bad day. And it just doesn't seem to pick up at all.

I doodled an appropriate drawing - pretty much what was in my head the first few hours of my working day - but I forgot to bring my camera with me so I can't 'scan' it. Add that to my shit-that-happened-today list. It's a tiny item, but it counts.

I'll add it tonight. When I'll also attempt to fix a few things that went horribly wrong today. And after that I'm crawling under the covers. If I didn't still have three working days left to this week, I'd stay there for a very, very long time.
I thought I'd throw in this little bout of honesty for anyone who's actually looking UP at me. I'm just as useless a piece of shit as any of you, folks. No better, no worse. Just someone who's trying to do the right things and who fumbles once in a while.

Edit: update: here's the image after all.

'Xcuse Me While I Doodle The Day Away.

Ok, I figured this picture posting thing out: it doesn't accept GIF files, just JPEGs. Sheesh.

Bang Bang.

Well, apparently there has been a subway bomb explosion in London just now. This on the same day that the newspapers everywhere in Europe posted the big photos of the cheerful London folk and the depressed Paris folk when the locations for the 2012 Olympics was announced. If I was Scotland Yard, I'd be asking the French where they were this morning.

Music-inspired doodle...

Quiz for slow-witted people.. Guess what song I was listening to ?

(and again, the Blogger image function is a letdown)

Sumpin' New That's Been Done Before.

It seems more and more (comic) artists are starting to publish doodles and random artwork on blogs. Or maybe that's just my own perception. And since this blog is once again slowly dying, and once again I think it's a shame that it is, I'm gonna publish the occasional doodle as well. After all, with the amount of mind-numbing meetings and phone conversations I have at work, I produce piles of this stuff. So I'll grace you all with the occasional sample.
It'll be irregular, in contrast with the daily attempt at the Word of the Day, because I don't want to feel obligated to publish anything. So don't complain if for a while there's no new doodles. Also don't complain if they're crap, I never said they'd be any good ;)

Besides, this is a nice opportunity to play around with the Blogger image upload feature. Which, so far, doesn't seem to work so well.

Edit: I give up, for now. I uploaded the image to PhotoBucket, which worked fine and had the image online within seconds. Blogger will of course get another few chances from me in the near future but so far I'm disappointed.

Push The Buttons.

Ooers - pwetty shiney buttons ! I gots me buttons ! Grim DotCom buttons, look !
(And yes, I really need to clean my keyboard, and yes, I should stop drawing when using big black markers, on the wood of my computer table. I know these things, don't tell me that).
They'll be for sale at, well, any next con appearance I'll make. One euro each - which is the standard price, it seems, and thus puts me in a long line of 'hip' Dutch 'new' comic artists who are whoring out their art for one inch buttons that kids nowadays seem to love so much.
Still.. shiney ! Pwetty ! Look ! LOOK !

Becoming a Con Artist.

So this Sunday was the open-air convention in Dordrecht, where I had a fairly good time. And in the week leading up to it, I sudddenly realised I'd have nothing to show if A) people would ask me what I drew, and B) fans would show up. I know the people from option B exist. They email me. Sometimes. And they're good folk as far as I can tell, so I wouldn't want to disappoint them.
So in the week heading up to the con I stressed to get some cute 1-inch buttons printed. But no one could deliver them on time, even though I pulled a nigh-allnighter making eight really cool designs with four days to spare to print'em, and even though I also offered to come fetch them myself, so the snailmail delay wouldn't be a factor. No one could deliver ! No buttons !
Bummed out about that, I had - naturally, being me - prepared for this eventuality by quickly also having put together a plan B. I threw all three finished Artificial Real stories together in a little booklet, which I knew would still be perfectly feasable to get printed on time.
However, in order to get it printed at my usual copyshop, I'd have to leave the office early to get back to Tilburg before its closing time. Which would mean the trains needed to co-operate as well. And this would be my only shot, because it was Thursday by then and they're not open on Saturday or Sunday, so I had to get it in THAT day to have the booklets on Friday. And that's only if they're not overbooked, which they are sometimes. So... That's a lot of ifs. Not my style when this close to a convention, it turns out, so instead I tried to locate the copyshop closest to my office. I found one, with a lot of trouble (it was fairly difficult to find, geographically and on foot) but they took the CD in and said no problem, I could come get them Friday. That's right - haul my ass back to Amsterdam for the booklets on my day off, and then back to Tilburg. That's how far I was willing to go not to disappoint people who might want to buy something from just me. And I did it.

And they looked like crap. I found out underway back home. And they cost me friggin' 150 euros. Which is dead expensive - I'm never using that copyshop again. Awful quality for a huge price. Bad business.

So that set me back a bit, but there were 100 of them, so the cost price was 1, 50. Since I knew I wouldn't be selling all of them, and also would (kind of have to) give away a few for free to fellow comic artists and the like, the only way I might get my money back out of this bad decision would be if I got about 100% profit per booklet. So I charged 3 euros last Sunday.

And now I feel bad. Awful. I mean, they really do look like crap. This printing quality is inexcusable. It's not actually my fault, but I feel guilty. I feel like I stole from the people who I sold this to. And there were only five of them, anyway, so I'm still stuck with some eighty or so of these things.

I know at least two of the people I sold these to. I'm seriously considering giving them their money back. The problem is, there's three more that these have been sold to that I didn't get to meet (I was elsewhere, the other people at the stand sold 'em). I have no clue who THOSE people are, and it wouldn't be fair to give the first two their money back if I didn't also reimburse the other three.

Now, I know it probably doesn't matter to the people who bought these. I signed the damn things, so they got SOMETHING. And they clearly were willing to pay three god damn euros (!) for these things. But it's my own conscience that's bugging me. I feel like I'm going to hell. I don't mind cursing, swearing, drinking without bounds, smoking, fornicating (hell, no), blaspheming (HELL, no), putting people's faith through the test, and lord (ha ha) knows what other things that most serious catholics would abhor about me. But I do mind the thought that I'm stealing. Off nice folks, no less. I had trouble sleeping last night, I don't mind telling you.

So I'm willing to do this. I mean, we're talking a lousy fifteen bucks here. I'll just somehow have to find out who those three people were, and that's the problem. This was an open air convention, anyone could go there. No entrance fee, you just had to visit the city it was held at.
I have no other starting point than this blog. If any of you reading this happen to be one of the three people who bought my "Artificial Real, Prereleased" booklet (or one of the two I know by name - you know who you are) on Sunday, June 5th, 2005, please, contact me through Probeersel.com (there's a 'send email to this artist' link somewhere there). I'll send you an email back and will probably ask for a picture of you with the booklet to make sure I'm not being had (because if I wouldn't, I bet about sixteen million people would be emailing me, demanding their three euros back....) but I promise that if you're one of those three people, and you ask nicely, I'll return you your three euros.

Please. Contact me. Ease my conscience. I honestly feel like a bad guy now and I want it to stop.

God, I hate working for print. Free webcomics are so much less complicated and easier on my conscience...

Phhhhhew.

Well, the ten-page story is finally done. And good grief, what a lot of work this was. I'm mostly content with how it turned out, except the last page I drew, where I feel I did a rather hasty composition. But perhaps I'm just being paranoid and it works fine, I don't know, It's hard to be objective about it after having worked on this for some half a year or so. I keep obsessing about the details. I swear, most of the pages have had retouched details that caused me to have to re-scan the entire page again.

But it's done and I'm not touching it any further. I just need to burn it on CD now and get it to Rutger Ockhorst, who I'll be meeting tomorrow anyway when I'm in Rotterdam. I also need to do another illustration for that same magazine but I have other pressing priorities: The Grim DotCom for this Sunday still hasn't been written nor drawn, and I could also go for some sleep before tomorrow. So that illustration will have to happen on Sunday, I guess. There goes my planned day off for this weekend...

I'm exhausted. I better not oversleep tomorrow.
Anyway, I thought I'd let you all know that the story (titled "Reaper, Baby") is done. You'll also see it appearing on Probeersel.com as of Sunday, 29th of May.

G'night !

Another Fine Mess.

Heh, just as I stopped tracking the Word of the Day, last Tuesday (so the first newspaper day after officially stopping) the papers featured the word 'relbelust' - let's just say I'd gladly have nominated it if I hadn't quit. But I need the time - especially this week, since I've got the "Reaper, Baby" project on my hands. That's a ten page story I'm doing for a new magazine set up by some befriended comic artists, and considering who are writing and drawing for the first (or actually zero) issue, it's an honor that they asked me. It also provided me, when I started on this, with a great opportunity to expand my possibilities as an artist int his story, as well as give The Grim DotCom an extra dimension (as the title suggests, it ties into my weekly webcomic series - I'm currently trying my best to synchronize that with the official appearance of the story !), but with ClickBurg and other challenges on my path, this project has been in the freezer for way too long. So now the deadline was last Monday - whoops - with three pages left to go and this upcoming weekend as ultimate deadline expansion. And just yesterday I decided that what I planned to do in those remaining three pages needs to be completely changed.... Good lord, how do I get myself into these situations, TIME AND TIME AGAIN ?! Times like these, I hate being an artist who can't compromise and won't settle for anything less than making the best he can make at that moment. *Groan*...

This is officially the last print project I get myself involved with for quite some time.. at least with webcomics, I can expand the deadline right until the moment of publishing, and I can even expand THAT. But this magazine *has* to be printed and ready by Sunday, June 5th, so there's no escaping: I have to finish this in the next few days.. on top of a new Grim DotCom episode, and delivering another one of the ClickBurg Webcomic Awards ('Clickies') to its winner.

This upcoming Sunday, I hope to have everything done and will be resting. Bigtime. Don't call or email me that day or drop by, I'll be either in bed or in my hammock. Do not disturb.

The Final Countdown.

So here it is: the final roundup for the Word of the Day. The date was Saturday, May 14, and I discovered during that day (I had to travel a lot by train that day) that there in fact also is a Rotterdam edition of Metro, next to the Amsterdam one. Good grief, how many more are there ?? And they're all different ! So many editors, so many new words slipped through their fingers.. or even worse: invented by them !

So what do we have in the net for that date ?
- 'OV-tuig' (public transportation scum). Media hype word created for a catchy headline. Of a tiny article. What a waste.
- 'internetdata' (no translation required). I'm sorry folks, but 'internet data' does not differ any from other kinds of computer data. No, it doesn't. It's all just files, database results, etc.
- 'pinkpopweekend'. Pinkpop is a festival held during Pinksteren (Whitsuntide). Whitsuntide is *always* in a weekend, because the second day of that counts as another Sunday. Linguistically, this could not be a much more redundant word.
- 'papatax' (daddy tax). This is about men who knock women up and a new plan to force those men pay for the costs involved with the child, because currently young mothers simply apply for welfare and let's face fact, our government doesn't like the idea of taking care of its citizens anymore.

And the winner.. the final Word of the Day.. is: 'papatax' !!

And since I was late with this - not my fault, I had to be places and none of those places had internet access - I'll also pick the Word of the Week now. And then I'll do a happy dance because this is over. I'll be free ! FREE !!

The roundup for this week:

Monday: 'makelarees'
Tuesday: 'kruimelcriminelen'
Wednesday: 'flatscreenschermen'
Thursday: 'bonnetjesaffaire'
Friday: '25-jarigregeringsjubileumtour'
Saturday: 'papatax'

And the final, absolutely final, Word of the Week is: '25-jarigregeringsjubileumtour' !!!

Alright. This is now finally over. But I hope I made a point here: especially the media throw brand new and fairly useless words at us on a daily basis like it's popcorn from a big bowl. You should not let that go by unnoticed - some of these words very, very quickly rooted into everyday language ! And not too many people bother to stop and think about them ! So please, do the language a favor and ignore any word that doesn't actually add to it. If you all ignore them, I promise they will go away.

René's Rantz 'n Ravez will return at some point in the near future, with other things to report. Until then, and remember: don't do drugs.

This Mission Sucks.

Just felt like a Lost In Space quote.
Well, today was Friday the 13th, and albeit a busy day, it was an interesting one so far and I wouldn't call it unlucky. For one, I got to meet with Han Hoogerbrugge today to hand him his ClickBurg Webcomic Award (or "Clickie"). A friendly and intelligent man with very clear ideas about his art and his life. Interesting afternoon, to say the least. Although it cost me precious time, it was well worth it, and I feel priviliged that the whole ClickBurg ordeal came with this little bonus.
Other than that, I've been running around getting some stuff around the house done that I won't have time for this weekend, as well as made some important calls etcetera. It may not sound like a busy day when I put it like that, but sufficient to say that I'm only getting round to blogging today's Word of the Day now. And then I have to write, draw, edit and upload sunday's Grim DotCom episode because I'll be on the road and busy tomorrow. And if I get drawing time at all that day, first of all I won't have my useful Grim DotCom sourcefiles handy, and secondly, my 'secret' project, a ten page contribution to a new magazine called De Lijn, called "Reaper, Baby", still requires a lot of work that I didn't get to do lately. So my evening is pretty much booked as well, even after blogging this.

So let's dive in and get this over with, shall we ?
Today's candidates are:
- 'artsenconflict' (doctors' conflict). This is not about doctors fighting amongst each other, it's the doctors being disgruntled with government stuff. Media hype word, in other words - and I recall nominating at least one other word about this particular matter before. What, everytime there's a change in this situation, the media get to invent another word ? Is this a drinking game or something ?
- '25-jarigregeringsjubileumtour' (25 year governing anniversary tour). Our queen is queen for 25 years now and she's going on a national tour to celebrate. Oh-kayyyyy... we definately needed this word.
- 'hormonenzwendel' (hormones fraud). Just think about this word for a while. Nono, I'm not mentioning the context yet. Think. Ok, now I'm bringing up the context: it's about farmers who are suspected of dealing in forbidden hormones. Media hype word !

And the Word of the day is: '25-jarigregeringsjubileumtour' !

I'll try to get to an internet connection some time tomorrow and blog the last Word of the Day, as well as pick a Word of the Week. And as said: then all this madness is finally over. Honestly. Ok, if you'll excuse me, I have to write and draw now.

Realisation.

Warning beforehand: this will be a very long post once it's done. Not that you're not used to those from me, but just saying. I'll also be writing it in parts, spanning several days, so unless it actually ends with 'and that's the end of this long post', you might want to check back later to read the rest. If you're actually interested. Again, just saying.

I've come to an important realisation on Monday night. And it's one that, when I'll utter it here, will no doubt insult several people close to me. I don't intend to, but I'm going to be brutally honest. I figured out what's wrong with me. Or rather, with life. And why it and I don't get along too well most of the time.

I hate being bored.

I've always hated it. No matter what my report cards used to look like otherwise when I grew up, one element was a constant: a little foot-note from the teacher that says 'is easily distracted'. I get bored easily. I'm all for exciting new things. As long as I'm exposed to those, I'm happy. I'm productive. I'm enthousiastic. I have the energy of ten men or more.
But then it wears down. This is why, when I used to run, I was mainly a sprinter. I can get excited and energetic about running for a short bit, after that, I get bored. Major energy drain. Slow down - stop. Done.

And I've come to realise that there's nothing as boring as adult life. Good grief !
I mean, to some of you this may not come as a surprise. I'll assume that anyone reading this is pretty much an adult. So how do you all do it ? Because I'm not exaggerating -- I can't stand being bored. I don't just hate it, I can't stand it. It breaks me. And more and more it seems that everything is becoming boring. People strive so damn much for mediocricy and safety. I want to see pioneers, I want to see people going to their limits and beyond, I want to see energy, passion, creation. I want people to amaze me, instead of being surrounded by millions and millions of painstakingly predictable humans.

And no one really amazes me much anymore.
Want to hear the two times this year that I felt alive ? One was during the 24 Hour Comic Day marathon in Lambiek, Amsterdam, two weeks ago. Seven artists pushing their limits AND creating amazing work, that surpasses what they usually do by far, despite the stressful deadline of having to create a complete 24 page story in 24 hours. You could FEEL the creative energy there. You could see it on the pages, and you could touch it. And I remembered doing that the year before. And I was excited.
The other time was during ClickBurg. When I finally *saw* the convention I wanted to see. Because that's the only reason I put half a year's worth of effort and time into this - I loved the idea of a webcomics convention and wanted to *see* it. It seemed exciting, and no one else was setting it up. And I'm not the type to sit around waiting 'till someone gets their thumb out of their damn ass and follows up on such a great idea, when it's such an exciting idea. I want excitement and I want it now, damnit.

But that's just it. The only two exciting things so far this year were things that, in some way, were pioneered by myself. Last year I was - to my knowledge - the first Dutch (successful - sorry Greg, I realise your effort counts for a lot more than mine that year, considering your circumstances, but a 12 Hour Comic still isn't like a 24 Hour one.. you need to have passed that 18 hour limit to understand, honestly) comic artist to participate in a 24 Hour Comic attempt. I didn't actually *know* anyone who'd done it, and I wanted to know what it was like. No one could tell me. So I had to go ahead and do it myself. Which was a fascinating experience, and it was great to see seven others try their hand at it this year, and to see other Dutch comic artists suddenly get excited as well and exclaim that they want to do one too. But *I* had to do it, and *I* had to report on it.
Same with ClickBurg - I just want someone else to do something grand, pioneering, dazzling, daring, to just go ahead on a crazy idea and turn it into something spectacular. Not a repeat-act of something done before, no, something new, big, scary, ... something magnificent ! Don't you people want to do magnificent things ?? Don't you want to BE magnificent ? Don't you want to know you HAVE done something magnificent ?

I'm getting bored with being a part of such things. As said, I get bored quickly, because I really haven't been part of MANY such things yet. I'll quickly and honestly admit that ! But see... with ClickBurg, part of my job was to decide EXACTLY what it would be like. So on the day itself, it.. pretty much was like the idea I'd been working on for half a year. It wasn't until a few people there were doing strange and exciting new things that I myself got excited. Everything else was just.. as expected. As intended. Boring. To me. The only thing exciting about that was that to the audience and the artists there, it was new and exciting, and it was exciting to see how they would like it.

I realised this yesterday. On a long walk home. I was stranded in the centre of Tilburg around midnight, with no bike available to me and no public transport operational anymore at that hour, and I felt like some excitement. So I went to 'my' bar, the Cul de Sac, to see if I could encounter something or someone interesting enough to satisfy my little hunger for adventure.
Sure enough, there were some interesting people there. There was a guy who was there while his girlfriend was visiting a male friend of hers that he wasn't allowed to visit, since he's already beaten him up a few times. Then he proceeded to demonstrate on me how easily he could immobilize me by grabbing my throat. He also wanted to demonstrate how he could level me with one finger in between my ribs. As I said, an interesting fellow. I didn't think it wise to get immobilized on a working night, so I gave him a beer and moved on to other people.
There was a woman there, slightly older than me, not unpretty, semi-drunk, who was playing pool with some showoff from Eindhoven. While he was getting us some drinks, she told me she'd never met this showoff guy before but he just started acting like he'd known her for years as soon as he walked in. Even drank from her drink, took some of her cigarettes, etc. The Cul is always full of interesting folks, as I may have told you before.
When the showoff guy finally stayed away, she proceeded to challenge me with a game of pool. I didn't feel like playing to be honest, and I played crap. Deliberately. This may sound odd, but I had nothing to gain by playing well - there was another showoff guy there who tried difficult shots just because I was challenging him to do so, and when I was playing, he actually yanked my arm (he was drunk too) and said he wanted to see mee pull a few power shots. So I didn't - I mean, if he's stupid enough to feel challenged by a total stranger for no reason, that's fine for him, but I had nothing to gain by doing so. Besides, the girl I was playing against was, as said, drunk, so what kind of victory would I be going for ? It was much more interesting to observe her attitude and behavior changing while I was playing crap. She lost all interest in the game, and some in me. Which I enjoyed. I'm an odd fellow, I know.
I walked away having won two things by losing. I won that I got to really observe what the girl was like and what she's all about, and I walked away having lost people's interest. Which I've had way too much of during the past half year. I walked the streets home as an anonymous loser. And it was nice. A feeling without any pressure. A feeling that if I wanted to, I could leave all the fuss there had been, and still is, in the comic projects I am and was involved with, behind. Easily.
That's when I realised how few really interesting people I met anymore. And how desperately I want to meet someone interesting - even for art's sake, because I have two weeks to finish the ten page story I'm doing. Which is about a rather love-less character's life being turned up side down by a woman who manages to dazzle him. The problem is, I haven't been in love in some three, four years anymore. No one dazzles me anymore. I have to draw a (text-less) story about falling in love, and about a woman interesting enough to pull this off, while these things have no basis for me in reality anymore. I'm going to have to hack it, somehow, because odds are reality isn't going to help me out in the next week and a half that I have left for this story.

By the time I was nearly home, I realised how bored I was. In life. This may sound strange when you know how busy I am, but it's perfectly possible to be bored out of your wits despite being terribly busy. Think mind-numbing tasks, like working at an assembly line or other routine tasks, and you'll have an idea of what I mean. I have a lot to do, and it's not unimportant, not even completely uninteresting, that these things get done, but there's not much where I actually will amaze myself anymore. There's no thrill, no excitement, in all these activities. I'm just busy. With stuff that bores me.

That's not the best realisation to arrive home with. I proceeded to bed and overslept because all motivation to get up lacked me - I was also very tired.

I need something new. Something exciting. But I won't be able to do anything new or exciting in my current production schedule. So I have to get rid of some things, and finish a few others. The ten page story, I have a week and a half to finish. The loose projects and other things, I've planned into my spare time as near in the future as I could. And the Word of the Day, is stopping.

At first, it seemed like a great idea. It still is. But it was also mainly a discipline thing. I wanted to actively watch the media, and blog something intelligent every day about it. The Word of the Day was an easy task for this. But that's just it - while the first couple of weeks, the words that turned up actually amazed and thrilled me a bit, there's not much new and exciting in it anymore. Even worse: the news papers are written by numbed-down adults. I have to plough through all this CRAP that I normally would want to steer clear of, just to find words that are becoming more and more predictable. And it takes too much time that I could be spending on doing something amazing or new, or watching and inspiring others to do something amazing or new. I know the original idea was that I kept this up all year, and then at the end of the year would watch the actual additions to our dictionary (every year, new words are added, and they actually do report which ones and why) and see if any of the words I blogged made the cut. But it'd waste too much of my time and energy, and it doesn't interest me anymore.

So there you have it. The Word of the Day will be over soon. I invite anyone else to take it up instead if you want, because it actually is an interesting excercise, and I won't mind *reading* the continuation of this concept. But I won't be doing it myself. I feel I may have better things to do.

With a slight sense of duty I will finish the week that I broke off at, below. I still have the papers, and I've already scanned them and underlined the interesting words. I'll also blog the finds of this week. But after that, that's it. This mission is over, because I have nothing to gain and too much to lose by it. Spoken like a true Dutchman.

So, this post will, in the next few days, be expanded to include the Words of the Day for April 21, 22, 23, and May 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14. And two more picks of the Word of the Week. But then it's over, I'm done.

Check back for these words if it interests you. I'll be updating this post when I can, and it won't be over unless the post ends with that the post is over. It's not, yet.

I can't promise anything about what will be blogged after this week. Maybe this blog will die down altogether. At least it was an interesting run so far, and who knows, if I stumble upon something really new and exciting, either done by myself or someone else, I'll track it here for you all to read. But we'll have to see.

Candidates for Thursday April 21:

- 'migrantenvrouwen' (migrants' wives), 'gezinsvormers' (family builders) and 'gezinsherenigers' (people reuniting their family). All media hype words just created for this one article, and none actually useful.
- 'swifferdoekjes' (Swiffer rags). This is a brand name, folks. It's not uncommon to see brand names become so common that they enter the language, but I still find it troubling to see it happen with the Swiffer pads.
- 'Koranverbrander' (koran burner). Media hype word, that could easily have been split into two or three words !
- 'inflatievrees' (fear of inflation).
- 'chipmachinemaker' (producer of machines that make electronic chips).
- 'beloningsstijging' (reward increase - this is about top executives receiving higher and higher bonus pays and other benefits on top of their actual salaries).
- 'babybonus' (no translation necessary). I'm not sure if I should nominate this, because it's about Australia and I have no idea if the bonus that the government pays to people who become parents (in an attempt to actively increase the total population) is actually called this word, but in English it's usually not common to contract two words like this, so it looks like a Dutch version of the word. In other words, out the window with it. Media hype word !
- 'kinderhumor' (children's humour). Which, of course is so completely different from adult humour or any other kind of humour that it needed to become a seperate word. I disagree.
- 'inburgeraar' - migrants who have to adjust to Dutch culture to fit in. Media hype word, and majorly so !

And the Word of the Day for this date is: 'babybonus'.

Candidates for Friday April 22:

- 'Hollywoodkansen' (Hollywood opportunities). This is one article that encompasses three showbizz news items, and thus describes three completely different interpretations of 'opportunity'. It's justabout the lamest excuse I've ever seen for inventing a new word: not wanting to come up with three headline titels, so uniting three news items into one, without additional explanation, just this new word as the total headline. Down the drain with it !
- 'mobieltjessoap' (mobile phone soap opera). Offering a soap opera through multimedia on mobile phones apparently is so special that we require this media hype word.

I'm gonna go with 'Hollywoodkansen' as today's winner.

Candidates for Saturday April 23:

Today's only candidate and therefor the winner was 'drankmisbruikers' (alcohol abusers).

Word of the Week for that week:

Monday: 'probleemberen'
Tuesday: 'anti-piraterijmusketiers'
Wednesday: 'atoomspion'
Thursday: 'babybonus'
Friday: 'Hollywoodkansen'
Saturday: 'drankmisbruikers'

And the Word of the Week is: 'anti-piraterijmusketiers' !

Candidates for Monday May 9:

- 'marssonde' (mars probe). This word didn't need to exist, it could easily have been described as two separate words - I mean, surely the mars probe can be used for other planets as well ? Or is it that unique ? And if there's only one of them, do we need this word in our language ?
- 'belastingschandaal' (tax scandal). Media hype word, because it refers to a scandal surrounding an Amsterdam politician who actually just didn't do anything truly wrong, just didn't submit his expenses payments to taxes, and who has corrected this and even paid the full amount back. The article proceeds to invent the word 'belastingaffaire' (tax affair) as well.
- 'poptempel' (pop (music) temple). Er..... ? This is just a music hall, folks. There are no goats or children being sacrificed to pop music. Nor are there ceremonies being held, or are there pop priests attending these.
- 'misdaadsteden' (crime cities). I enjoyed nominating this one, because one of my favorite rant topics is the 'criminal' and 'dangerous' reputation 'my' city Tilburg has gotten over the years. This article invents the word 'misdaadsteden' but also proudly tells the reader that Amsterdam is no longer in the top 3 of them. So which are ? Well, one through four are Rotterdam, Arnhem, Eindhoven, and Amsterdam. At best, Tilburg could be fifth place, but isn't even mentioned in this article ! GO TILBURG !
- 'onbemiddelbaren' (unmediateables - yes, to translate this I had to invent a new English word). This is about people who end up in the welfare system and never get out of it anymore for the rest of their lives. The article calls them the unmediateables. The Unmediateables - starring Kevin Costner as a deadbeat, trailer park dad, Sean Connery as a hopeless drug addict, and Robert de Niro as the welfare agent trying to get the system to work. I couldn't work a joke into this about the baby carriage on the steps... Media hype word !
- 'misdaadpoliticus' (crime politician). This is about Peter R. de Vries, TV's self-labelled 'misdaadverslaggever' (crime reporter), who's trying to go for a career in politics. Media hype word !
- 'spijbelcafé's' (bars for skipping school). Media hype word for bars in Belgium under political fire for actually daring to cater kids who are already skipping school anyway, because their special breakfast-and-booze deals only inspire more skipping school.
- 'opknapwoning' (house that you have to fix up). This article is all about the home market and what you should buy, especially when you're starting out. The word apparently comes from the language 'makelarees' (real estate agent-ese). Glad someone speaks it...

And the Word of the Day for this date is: 'makelarees' !

Candidates for Tuesday May 9:

- 'koolstofexplosie' (carbon explosion). I thought I paid plenty of attention in chemistry class but that carbon causes such a unique explosion that it requires its own word, was unbeknownst to me.
- 'staatsexamen'. This is actually about a driving class and exam you can take when you've failed four times in regular driving tests, which is actually taught by a department of the government. Still, to call it a state exam.. it makes it sound like an immigrant's exam ! From the same article: 'rijbewijsbezitters' (driving permit owners).
- 'moederdagtaart' (Mother's Day cake). Yes, I saw the picture of our queen inspecting a very special cake on Mother's Day, but it was called a Mother's Day cake in general. So despite the fact that it refers to a very special cake, the word is clearly intended to just mean 'cake intended for consumption on Mother's Day'. I doubt we need this word, folks. Nominated !
- 'Europales' (Europe lesson). This is about a politician and a colourful frog mascotte teaching kids in grammar school about Europe. Once. Useless media hype word.
- 'olietapijt' (oil carpet). This is a big puddle of oil floating on the ocean. Most carpets don't float on the ocean, and most people don't make carpets out of oil. This word is a bit unclear to say the least, and makes a pretty useless addition to the Dutch language on the confusion argument alone.
- 'bestverkopende' (best selling).
- 'Gamesfanaten' (games fanatics). What's next, games fundamentalists ?
- 'antispywarebedrijf' (anti-spyware company).
- 'drinkgewoonten' (drinking habits). This is not about people addicted to alcohol, this is actually referring to 'drinking behavior', as observed by market research for beer companies.
- 'kruimelcriminelen' (petty criminals). I can accept that 'kruimeldief' (petty thief) exists, but do we need a subsection in the spectre of criminal activities just for everything petty now ? What does this include ? Petty drug dealers ? Petty rapists ? Petty murderers ? The fact that 'kruimel' actually means 'crumb' only makes the word sound more hilarious, by the way. And from the same article: 'evenementen-offensief' (events offensive). Before every big event, cops will go by known 'kruimelcriminelen' and hunt them down.
- 'voorbereidingshandelingen' (preparation actions). Before you can spell this word, you could have been ready with any preparations you needed to take.
- 'busconstructeurs' (bus constructors). People who design buses are mentioned in this article, because they have investigated ways to keep stupid people (read: drunk soccer hooligans, actually referred to in the article as 'jolly passengers') from being able to stick their heads out of emergency exits in the roof and thus getting themselves killed. I really don't see how that's the problem of the bus designer - anyone with two brain cells will know it's not just disallowed, but stupid and dangerous to stick your head out there. On the grounds of the article alone I'd nominate this word, but it also so closely resembles the Dutch word for bus conductor that I nearly missed it. Confusion alert ! Let's prevent it by keeping this word out of the Dutch language.
- 'concurrentievervalsing' (competition forgery). This word made me furrow my brow - it's about corrupt boat tour companies advertising online for cheaper tourist boat rides through Amsterdam in unsafe boats. But... how, then, are they 'forging the competition' ? I picture some guy shouting at a cardboard competitor, claiming he's real if anyone asks. Nono, this guy is real, honest. Tell him, tell him you are my fierce competitor ! Damnit, he tipped over again - look what you did !
- 'snoeprovers' (candy robbers) and 'snoeproof' (candy robbing). Because someone robbing your candy just as you exit the store differs a lot from being robbed from anything else.
- 'zonnesterkteindicator' (sunshine strength indicator). Alerts you when the sun is shining too strongly and you should put some sunblock on. Useful, but we really don't need this word - split it up, hussle it a bit, and you have a perfectly good alternative term to describe it, without having to introduce a new media hype word, obviously copied straight from the press release.
- 'gelukssensoren' (happiness sensors). This is an article about what is triggered in the brain by vanilla. Not about antennas sticking out of our heads telling us which way to go to find happiness.

And the Word of the Day for this date is: 'kruimelcriminelen' !

Candidates for Wednesday May 9:

- 'dinosauriërtijdperk' (dinosaur age).
- 'calorieverslindend' (calory devouring). We already have 'calorieverbrandend' (calory burning), and from what I gather from the article, the workout described is just a bit more effective in that than usual. But to invent a whole new word, just to say it's good ?
- 'gezondheidsvakantiegangers' (people who go on health holidays).
- 'wellnesshotels' (I doubt I need to translate this).
- 'ontstressingsbehandelingen' (de-stressing treatments).
- 'privé-oogziekenhuis' (private eye hospital). No, private eye is just a literal translation here, the Dutch combination does not mean detective. But the way this word is pieced together, it's like only your eyes are welcome for treatment in such a hospital - leave the rest of your body at the desk, please. And don't *use* your eyes during their stay here, what they might see is private after all !
- 'blubberbillen' (blubber butts).
- 'nieuwbouwcoach' (new building coach). What, this guy decides which construction guys to send into the construction of your new home, stands at the sidelines, shouts, switches, and cries frustratedly when the schedule isn't met ? Can't we just call him a foreman ? No wait, this is a services package for people who are stepping into the new building property market for the first time, to guide them.
- 'Euregionale' (Euregional - yes, that means 'European' and 'regional' pieced together).
- 'gezondheidsclaim' (health claim). "I am healthy." From the same article: 'probiotica', products with 'good' bacteria added to them.
- 'overnameprooi' (takeover prey). Wow, the world of multinationals really *must* be a jungle of dog eat dog and whatever other animal planet terms you can use here.
- 'ambtenarenactie' (civil servants action). We're talking protest action here, like say, a strike, before anyone starts making jokes about this being a paradox - civil servants doing anything ?? Ha ha ha ha.
- 'feta' (feta cheese). I nominated this because a court is close to ruling that only white, salt goats- or sheep-cheese from Greece is allowed to be called 'feta', thus possibly forcing Danish and German cheese manufacturors to come up with a new name for their own 'feta'...
- 'wijnleer' (wine education).
- 'homogeweld' (gay violence). Someone might get confused.. is this violence *by* gays ? Is this violence *amongst* gays ? Is this about violence being gay ? No, this is about violence *towards* gays...
- 'flatscreenschermen' (flat screen screens).
- 'hiphopproducer' (no need to translate this one).

And the Word of the Day for this date is: 'flatscreenschermen' !

Candidates for Thursday May 9:

- 'horrorvluchten' (horror flights).
- 'bonnetjesaffaire' (receipts affair). This is an afterwake article about the beforementioned tax affaire...
- 'tipnotering'. Don't ask, it's clearly a pop music list term, but I'm fairly sure it's new. Unless I've been really out of the loop.

And because I don't want to ignore the dumb Amsterdam tax 'scandal', the Word of the Day for this date is: 'bonnetjesaffaire' !

And now that I'm all caught up, this post has officially ended. In two more upcoming postings I'll pick the Word of the Day for Friday and Saturday, and the final Word of the Week. Then this little experiment is over, as described above. Hope you guys enjoyed the ride, and who knows, if I'm ever less busy with things that excite me, I might take this back up again.

I have a lot of work to do, plus some train travelling, tomorrow - Friday the thirteenth. Wish me luck. In any case, this long-ass post is finally at its end now.

Late Night Litter.

Well, today's search for the Word of the Day is a late one, but that's because I had a fairly nice and reasonably productive day without feeling I had to hurry. Read that again, please, if you're someone who knows me a bit: I didn't feel I had to hurry. That's right.. RENE TOOK IT EASY TODAY ! And Hell froze over. And pigs flew. No, really, I did take it easy today.

So now I'm taking it easy and bring you a few candidates for the Word of the Day. They're not spectacular, but they're notable. So I'm noting them for you.
- 'pausverkiezingen' (pope elections). Media label ! Easily solvable with a combination of two or three words, but no, it just sounds better this way and goes down smoother. Meanwhile there's another fairly useless and way too contemporary word added to the Dutch language. Nominated.
- 'leerplichtambtenaren' (civil servants who oversee compulsory education). I'm not entirely sure about this one: it's not in the dictionary but I can just see the type of man in this job who'd actually call himself that. Weak candidate, admitted. But still. Nominated.
- 'cannabismedicijn' (cannabis medicine). This is a medicine based on cannabis but it might as well mean it's a medicine FOR the PLANT cannabis. Unclear word, plus Sativex, the medicine discussed, is so far the only cannais medicine, as far as I understood the article. So it's a media label, to top it all off. Nominated.
- 'atoomspion' (atom spy). No, this isn't an atom dressed in a big hat, with sunglasses and a long coat, and a wrist watch that can burn through steel with a laser beam. This is apparently just an Israeli traitor who leaked information to a British newspaper about Israel's nuclear programme. Confusing word, medialabel, all the usual things pretty much apply here. To top it off, the article mentions that this fella was rendered 'paspoortloos' (passportless) which really isn't a word, folks. Just say he's not allowed to leave Israel. Geez. Is it that tough ? He in fact DOES still have his passport, it just doesn't allow him to cross any borders. Two nominations !
- and finally: the Amsterdam edition of Metro pays off.. a candidate from that edition that wasn't in the 'the rest of the Netherlands' edition. 'Wapendiner' (weapons dinner). This isn't a dinner where you munch on bullets and handgranates. Nor are there rifles and missiles sitting at the table devouring a nice hot meal. No, this was a special dinner which some institute had planned for some weapons experts. Media label !

And the Word of the Day is: 'atoomspion' !

A Poor Catch...

Today's candidates were rare, despite the fact that since yesterday, Metro also has an Amsterdam edition (so even more odds in favour of finding the Word of the Day). However, I think they're very, very valid:

- 'rekenzwak' (calculation weak). This refers to kids who don't grasp their basic math skills too quickly by themselves (as the current educational system makes them figure out, I read in this article to my shock). Yeah... you force kids to solve calculation problems they've never seen before in their life by themselves, and some won't be able to - so let's call them 'weak'. And conclude that those 'weak' kids benefit most from the old-fashioned way of teaching math (hey now, that's the way I learnt it too, you assholes - and it worked fine for me and most people of my generation and before.. who do you think are working in IT and science right now ??) - nominated.
- 'anti-piraterijmusketiers' (anti piracy musketeers). This refers to BREIN, a foundation that attempts to hunt down and fine the people who up- and download illegal copywrited material such as games, music and movies. Two types of adventurous, heroic, outlawed ruffians thrown together in one word, with 'anti' in front of it.. a real beauty, this one is. If you wouldn't know the media context, this would be a very, very weird word indeed. Media label alert ! Nominated.
- 'grotestadsmarathons' (big city marathons). I'm not even going to explain why I nominated this. Just look at it.

And the Word of the Day is.... 'anti-piraterijmusketiers' !

Just Because He's Smarter Than The Average Bear...

Back in the office, and AGAIN confronted by a manager about the outlaw on reading papers at your desk. Well, I kindly informed her that management has done their job, I've been informed that I'm not allowed to read newspapers at my desk, and I'm going to do it anyway. Their communication came across fine, and I'm taking my own responsibility as an adult and individual in completely ignoring that rule. If they have a problem with it, they can put it on my performance review, and if they do, I'm going to escalate this so god damn high up that this dumb, ignorant, and in fact fascist rule is quickly scrapped. Fuck you when you say I can't read a friggin' newspaper when you give me jack shit to do. I'll decide that for myself, thank you, and I certainly won't bow to some rule that seems to intend to keep 'us employees' dumb. You get my labour during work hours, and as far as I'm concerned, that's where your control over me stops. That's what I signed up for. Not this crap. YOU'LL NEVER GET ME ALIVE !

So. That whole rant was already more energy than I intended to put into acknowledging the rule at all. I'm now simply going to continue with the first candidates for Word of the Day for this week. Let's see what we've got, shall we ?

- 'kerosinetax' (no need for a translation methinks). I'm nominating this word because it's in fact the 'solidariteitstax'-plan the French came up with weeks ago (I don't feel like looking back in my blog archives for it, but it's in there.) The plan from the French to raise taxes on kerosine and use the proceeds to solve some of the huge debt the Third World countries are in. The way the article of today was written, it looks like Zalm came up with this plan all by himself yesterday. Rrrrrrrrright. Nominated.
- 'gatekeepers' (no need for a translation methinks). This is a term used for secretaries. Secretaries. Now, don't get me wrong, I've known a lot of hard-working secretaries and I respect what they do, but come on: they're called secretaries. Not gatekeepers. They're not bearded warriors with heavy weapons holding enemies out of the city walls. They're secretaries ! Nominated.
- 'koopjeswalhalla's' (sales walhallas). This refers to online auction sites, specifically the ones where there's a lot of interesting stuff offered. Has capitalism grown so sad that we have to use this word now ? Nominated.
- 'zondagopenstelling' (sunday opening). This refers to shopping sundays (the Netherlands are a catholic country where saturday afternoon is the last time each weekend you can go into the shops - after five, there's a day and a half where nothing is open except the pub - but some sundays the stores *are* open, and this is treated as a very special kind of treat... after the previous nomination, I'm sure you can guess where I stand on this) and the way churches could join the trend by opening the church all day as a refuge from hectic modern times. I really don't think we need this word, it's a media label and an unclear one at that. I mean, would you, out of context, guess that this relates to churches ?
- 'buscatastrofe' (no translation needed). Which clearly is a wholly different kind of catastrofe from any other ones which don't have their own word.
- but, my colleague found this one before I did: 'probleemberen' (trouble bears). That's right: there are bears hanging out near busy roads, in the streets, up to no good, hanging out in gangs, shoplifting, riding their motorcycles, stealing cars, blowing up things.. well, sorta. These are former circus and carnival bears who are in very bad shape and which eventually end up with animal organisation Alertis. This organisation is trying to get them a section of wood where they can recover in relative freedom. But.. trouble bears ? I get a TV cartoon association here...

So the Word of the Day is 'probleemberen'. And just like the troublesome bear this made me think of, I'm going straight against stupid authority today. Especially since some stupid train conductor woke me up during the ride to check my ticket. While normally that wouldn't bother me, he had the nerve to tell me I should wake up because I have to work soon. FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE - I'll bloody sleep when I want to. And I'll bloody read a newspaper when I want to. Good grief, what is WRONG with people ??

Trying To Make Up.

Welp, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were again crazy, and I'm wiped. Seriously. I fell asleep during drawing The Grim DotCom - that's gotta be a bad sign.

And now I'm kind of guiltily trying to retrieve the news of these three days. Not an easy task - I can find Friday's, Sp!ts, I can retrieve the Metro of all three days, but the other newspapers limit their archives to one day, some with a searchable archive but not date-referenced, so I can't just search for all articles from these three days. At least not as far as I can tell.

Bear with me, I'm trying to find 'em. There won't be many and I won't be thorough. That much I can promise already...

Thursday:

- 'microfoongesprekken' (microphone conversations). This means 'conversations secretly recorded by hidden microphones'. How do they differ exactly from regular conversations ? In the fact that they were recorded ?? I don't think this justifies this word.
- 'verkeersveiligheidscampagne' (traffic safety campain). Do I even need to go into this one ?
- 'detailhandelsspecialist' (retail specialist). Is there really any non-Dutch speaking person who won't find this word long and confusing ? It can easily be solved in a much less confusing manner.

Ok, Word of the Day (since I'm done with Thursday) is 'microfoongesprekken'.

Friday:
- 'slaapkamerproducties' (bed room productions). This is from a producer/DJ who makes music on a G4 in his bedroom. But it's clear the word's supposed to mean 'music produced in a non-professional studio environment with non-professional studio equiptment'. Blegh.
- 'leer-werk-plicht' (study - work - duty). Our government is putting even more silly responsibility on the unemployed for their own situation: now a new law is proposed to make sure young people are officially forced to either study or work. Now.. it could just be me, but I can't think of a single young person (and I know a lot of young people) who isn't already forced to one of the two, if not friggin' both. In fact, way too many young people are already actively throwing their life away to make sure our government can pay off their debt, keep pensioners alive, and pay for Joint Strike Fighters for our American buddies. Isn't the whole point of being young that you have this time to be NON-grown up ? And don't you think the enourmous pressure the government keeps putting on the young people is what makes so many of them go to extremes in their opposition of society and government ?

Ok, worked up enough to know: the Word of the Day for Friday is: 'leer-werk-plicht'. No use looking any further.

Saturday:
'straatterroristen' (street terrorists). From what I gather from the article, this doesn't really differ from any other form of terrorism, so where the addition 'street' came from, I have no idea. Except that it involves 'foreign' youth. I'm fairly close to accusing the inventor of this word of racism. So I'm not looking further: this is today's winner.

And since it's techically Sunday: here's the Word of the Week ! (Good grief, what an efficient post, no ?)

- Monday: 'turbokapitalisme'
- Tuesday: 'exploronaut'
- Wednesday: 'sexwinkelcentra'
- Thursday: 'microfoongesprekken'
- Friday: 'leer-werk-plicht'
- Saturday: 'straatterroristen'

And the Word of the Week is: 'exploronaut'.

Goodnight !

And Crazier And Crazier.

So yesterday, after work, I had an interview together with ClickBurg-jury president Jeroen Mirck. After that, we both went to get something to eat and then I went home. What wasn't surprising was that I fell deep asleep on the train and overslept, which means I missed my stop. What *was* surprising was that when I got off at Eindhoven, the entire train station was a chaotic mess with drunk soccer hooligans, military police, trains departing from different perrons, entire perrons being blocked.. a mess ! I should have brought my digital camera, because you wouldn't believe the things I saw - from very closeby !

That's just some of the crazy things that have happened yesterday and today - there's a load more but a lot is work-specific and I can't get into detail on them (confidence agreements and whatnot). But today the department got the message from our team leader that we're not allowed to have / read newspapers at our desks. With a very clear look in my direction.
Now, I'm the kind of guy that responds to that 'thanks for telling me but I won't change my behaviour and if that's a problem I guess I'll hear about it on my performance review - where I'll gladly go into debate with you about the merits of keeping up with current events AND put it into perspective to some of my added values to this team'. Or, in short 'yeah, whatever.'

However, as I was rebelliously reading the two free train newspapers at my desk today, I couldn't find a SINGLE CANDIDATE FOR THE WORD OF THE DAY.
None ! None, I tell you, not a single one !

So now I'm going to have to resort to the online newspapers. Will be back in a while to update this.