And this week's winner is...

I'm ill and I'm - to sing a very familiar song - very busy on top of that, so I'm gonna just announce the word of the week and leave it at that for today.
First the round-up of all of this week's winners...

Monday: vrijetijdsnotaris
Tuesday: douane-unie
Wednesday: hypo-allergene poes
Thursday: crisisbedrijven
Friday: woonextremist
Saturday: borstenreportage

And the winner is... crisisbedrijven !

Saturday Search.

Ok, I didn't get to put much effort into the search for the Word of today, but I found one nonetheless, with thanks to the Metro: "borstenreportage". A 'reportage' means a news article or news report, and 'borsten' means breasts. This has to do with the American 'nipplegate' (Janet Jackson) and the Dutch 'boobsgate' (Georgina Verbaan, the question of wether 'they' are 'real' or not occupied the minds of many of my countrymen for a sad, long time..) and now a new similar event: a soap-actress got a boobjob, from a reportedly already rather pleasant size to D-cup, and this was paid for by a radio DJ who told her he'd pick up the bill if she had the logo of the radio station tattood on her body somewhere as well, which she agreed to.
Yeah.. folks, not only is it sad that these things make it into the news, it's also three completely unrelated and unsimilar items, except that they have 'something' to do with celebrities' breasts. I really don't think we need this word. Begone, Useless Label !

Will return at some time tomorrow with the definitive pick of the Word of the Week :)

Crayyy-zee.

Yet another busy day, ughhh... I need some sleep, man. And there's not a single day this weekend that I'll get to REALLY sleep in ! I suppose today wasn't half bad though, because I got to go gift shopping for the two (female) friends that are celebrating their birthday in my house tomorrow night, and I got to do that efficiently, meaning: with a girl (shopping for females with female company is always easier, they can help you pick out women-friendly presents and steer clear from the terrible ones, no matter how awesome they might seem to YOU). The girlfriend of one of my best friends, who was also at a loss what to get 'em. That was cool, she's always friendly and fun to hang out with and we actually did - miraculously - manage to find some half-decent presents that'll do the trick methinks.
Course, after that, I had to hurry to get all the other things done I needed to do, and I'm currently still doing them. Brrrr. I could do with a little rest. Honestly.

Anyway, on to the word of the day, because I haven't forgotten about what I pledged... thank you Volkskrant, who wrote about problematic tenants. Every municupality has 'em, apparently, and they're constantly causing ruckus. Needless to say the article first has to lable these people 'woonextremisten' (woon means to live somewhere, and we all know all too well by now what extremists are), and then asks the question: where should housing agencies relocate these people to ? So the idea is suggested that there should be special 'asshole houses', 'hufterhuizen'. These two gems, in ONE alinea, in the same article ! Can you believe it ?? Wow.. and it's hard to choose between these two as well.
I'm gonna go with 'woonextremisten', since the proposed solution is a new concept and will probably be discussed a lot. So it needs a name and yes, I suppose it *will* be called that as the unofficial name in casual conversation. However, when are we ever gonna talk about 'woonextremisten', and more importantly, isn't that word just way too confusing ? How can you live somewhere *extremely* ?! "Yeah, I live here, but lemme tell ya, my wife lives here EXTREMELY."
*rolls his eyes*

So the winner of today: 'woonextremist' !!

No, no, no, no.

Two nominees already, and both just got me shaking my head. Come on, journalist folk, be reasonable (agreed that some journalists simply can't seem to, but try, at least)... do we need the word 'Nintendospelcomputer' ? Why can't you just say 'Nintendo game console' or some other combination of loose words ?
And when you write an article about one fifth of all small and middle sized companies in the Netherlands being in seperate financial crises, why on earth are you introducing the word 'crisisbedrijven' (crisis companies) there ? I mean, the way that word is built, you'd either expect that such a company *produces* crises, or produces something *against* crises, but not that they *are* in crisis. This word is just wrong, wrong, wrong - it will lead to misunderstandings if it enters commonly spoken Dutch, which will cause discussions that use terms that both speakers are using differently, it will make foreigners who are trying to integrate pull out more of their hairs in frustration, it's WRONG.

I'm keeping an eye on you all, and if I spot any more of such abborations today, I'm nominating it here rightaway. Consider yourselves warned.

Some Words on Wednesday

Incredibly busy day so I don't have long here. Good things are happening and I'll update someday soon, but for now I can only leave you with the word of the day:

Hypo-allergene poes. Yes, these are two words. But really, when the government is having a sincere debate about wether or not genetic manipulation of pets would be allowed, and the argument that if you can create a cat whose hairs won't cause allergic reactions, they'd see the added value for the public's health in that and actually approve of it, but in many other cases they consider it a bad thing, and this poor imaginary kitty is labeled 'hypo-allergene poes' when it doesn't even exist yet, how can I *not* nominate this ???

More tomorrow, I'm sure.

The Tuesday Roundup

Well, yesterday was disappointing for us in search of the Word of the Day. I had better hopes for today since the news is interesting in its diversity today, but unfortunately, Metro and Spits are a major letdown today. A colleague suggested the word "buschauffeursontmoetingen" from the Metro column, but that was just a stylistically chosen word and as such a more ironically intended label. When you try to do this deliberately and without intention of the word entering the Dutch language, it's a weak pick, folks.

I also would like to point out to what extreme (for me) I'm going to provide you all the Word of the Day. I mean, I wade through hundreds of articles, scrutinizing them closely, when I could be sleeping during my train ride, and when I could be looking at much more interesting things online. I hope you all appreciate it. Thanks to my new 'hobby', I now have to read about how "women can't drive because of too little exposure to testosteron while in the womb" with all kind of sexist captions underneath the picture (albeit they're humerous and made me chuckle). I had to read about two vietnamese men who caught the bird flu virus from eating raw duck blood pudding (yeah, that made me want to take another bite out of my breakfast, as you can imagine..). I had to read about how this government is planning more and more regulations to control our every move under the flag of 'war against terrorism' (I wonder where they got that idea from ?). About how January 24th apparently is now scientifically proven to be the most depressing day of the year (no explanation given how this was proven, based on what). And lord knows what other bollocks they print in these rags. And it wouldn't have been too bad, if only the articles were FILLED with redundant labels and words, but they weren't - it's almost as if the journalists in question are reading this blog !

So what do we have for today ?

"Speekselen". Apparently from the manual of an anti-flea medicine for cats that a colleague uses (on her cats, obviously). It means 'to salivate' but normally the word 'slijmen' or such would be used - the verb 'speekselen' is made up here to make it sound less gross. It means that if your cat somehow licks this stuff off his own neck, he'll foam like a rabid dog and it's only fair they warn you for this using such a pleasant word. A weak choice for the WotD but considering the context, worth the nomination.

From the articles in 'de Telegraaf' about our country applying the American 'homeland security' plans here (including the colour codes, restrictions on the liberties of 'suspected terrorists', increased security measures in airports, etc.) these measures have been labelled both 'terreurmaatregelen' and 'terreuraanpak'. This could have easily been put in a few words, and the only reason these labels have a very clear meaning right now is because of terrorism having been in the news for so long. I mean, 'terror actions' and 'terror measures' can also easily be applyed to the actions the terrorists themselves are using. Why not just discribe it as 'countermeasures to prevent terrorism' ? Are we really that afraid to tie our tongues in a knot ?
It's my damn blog so I'm nominating both.

Continuing the search. Will be updated later today, possibly with more words, and in any case I'll pick a winner.

Update: I think I hit the jackpot with an article about the current discussion in our government wether or not the European Union should also include Ukraine. The people opposing it are, and I'm translating this pretty much literally, of the opinion that the EU should be a community of common values based on christian/jewish ideals, and that by allowing so many diverse countries with different values, we'd be growing into a community only united by the borders around it. The common values community got labelled 'waardengemeenschap' and the bordered community was labelled, without quotes, as a douane-unie.
Not only is this an odd discussion, where their standpoint seems to border on fascism by wanting to impose one (or, in all honesty, two, but closely related) religions on an entire population, or at least its values, instead of forming one legal system that should allow for any religious beliefs but regulates norms and values we should all hold true to regardless of our convictions.. not only that, but the two labels chosen are perfect examples of the kind of word I'm looking for.
Four nominees. I'll be back later today in this post to pick a winner, if I don't return before then to add some more nominees.

And the winner is... *drum roll*... douane-unie.

Monday Morning in Cubicle Land

Well, searching for the Word of the Day proved incredibly difficult today. I spelled out the Metro and Spits word by word but no dice. Even Volkskrant and the Telegraaf let me down. Kranten.nl also didn't link to any articles that offered us something new.
In internal news, my company mentions the word "vrijetijdsnotaris", which doesn't exist. The main problem I have with it is that it has a function: it's a notary who, er, notarises, in his spare time. In other words, someone in an official function who, however, for such matters as contests etc., performs his function as a formality. I am fairly certain that at some point today, I'll find something better. Bear with me folks...

No Word Yet.

Well, I did try today, but I don't think it's realistic in a catholic country such as this to expect to find a real gem for the Word of the Day on Sunday. So instead, on Sundays I'll be reviewing the Words of the Day and pick the Word of the Week from them. Sound fair ? No ? Ef you, I think it does.

Monday: Slaviertje.
Tuesday: Kraanwaterdrinkers.
Wednesday: Gewetensvrijheid.
Thursday: Tsunamidoden.
Friday: Overreactie.
Saturday: 'tussen twee banen in'.

And the winner of this first week is: Tsunamidoden. The other five candidates make a tough case for themselves, but really, how can you top a word that will statistically probably not be used again for a century or so ??

Sad (I Nekad)urday Update.

Today's word of the day is another unusual one. I'll just tell you the news and what's going on. It's an odd one out from the list so far, because it's slightly less about the linguistic quality of the Dutch language and a lot more about our politics and society. Our prime minister Jan-Peter "I wonder how many ways I can screw my people over" Balkenende has decided that the socialistic care-state that Holland, thank god, is, is out of date. He claims that citizens are now much more able to take care of their own business. "Our country is in need of a new ordening of society" he claimed today. He wants to get rid of the word werkeloos, which means unemployed. Instead, he wants to introduce "tussen twee banen in", which means in between jobs. Yes, this may sound old to you Americans and conjure up a sort of 'so what ?'-response, but here it's a big deal. The unemployment - and I will not stop using this word no matter how badly prime minister Harry Potter wants it to magically vanish - rate has been rising and rising, our economy is still going down the drain no matter what has been claimed (I should know, I work in the financial world, folks) and when he says that people without jobs should somehow arrange their own schooling so they can re-enter the job market on their own as soon as possible, I really get the feeling he thinks he's running the United States of Holland, instead of the lovely country that we call The Netherlands.
The spin-doctoring: he wants to fiscally stimulate people to do this, so in other words, the version he tries to bring across is that he wants everyone to work and to help our country. Sure, that's the 'nice' version. The other interpretation of what he's saying is that he wants the government to consider people who are without jobs as being fully to blame for that themselves, and say 'tough luck, now get some god damn schooling, get your thumb out of your ass and git ta work damnit !'. Now, perhaps it's the case for some, but you can't just take that attitude to all of them. It's simply not true. I've known too many people who got royally screwed over and are trying everything they can just to keep the tip of their nose above water, and this country is already not doing too damn much to help them out. The agencies that are supposed to help these people are majorly bureaucratic AND get subjected to all kinds of conflicting regulations that make it impossible for them, in most cases, to even properly pay unemployment fees to the registered unemployed or handle their cases, let alone handle their complaints, or pay advances where necessary. Again, I should know because my roommate and my brother both work actively in two of the major organisations that do this and I hear their debates on just how royally the unemployed get fucked up the ass due to the chaos in which this country is run.
So, here's my response to prime minister head-up-his-ass: if it is even slightly up to me, your 'new' term will be a completely useless label and the unemployed will remain the unemployed, and get your priorities straight, first make sure they might actually have justabout enough money for a roof over their heads and some food. Because a lot of people don't even have that anymore.
The least I can do is proclaim 'tussen twee banen in' as the Word of the Day and pray the term dies the useless death it should.

You know me, of course I'll update.

Big thanks to the Volkskrant for the Word of the Day, or actually two words. Same article in fact, it deals with a maroccan purse-snatcher who tried to get away on his moped but the victim apparently pinned him down with a car, consequently - and accidentally, is the official version - killing him. This caused great uproar in the maroccan part of this country's population who feel it was an assault on them on racist grounds (instead of self defense during a theft, gone wrong). The victim was prosecuted for man slaughter, but currently set free (if I've got my fact straight), which also divides the community rather strongly.
The article deals with the politicians of course falling over one another trying to make a statement that will put them in the public eye, and it mentions two words that really leapt out: overreactie and noodweer-exces.
Overreactie is an anglocism, folks. There is no Dutch verb overreageren, and it means the same as the english 'to overreact' except as a noun. Noodweer-exces means an excessive self defense, and as far as I know they're both perfect examples of labels only created to fit a small media-hyped incident followed by political debate on the matter. Each of the two words stands a good chance of being accepted into the Dutch language however, since there's bound to be new laws following this incident, that somehow change the way things are now, and that no doubt will include one if not both of these words in the new law when it is added to the constitution.

I had an interesting discussion in Cul de Sac, where I found these words and explained to a few friends there why I took up the task of blogging the Word of the Day, and the mere fact that this discussion went on for a while made them admit these are interesting matters, labels entered into the language only to fit some current events in the media and public debate. I'm therefor going to do my best to find at least one word each day (except if Saturdays and Sundays prove to be too difficult) for the whole year, and then will follow with great interest the developments with our dictionaries, which include at least a few of such new words every year. I agree that a language needs to develop to avoid becoming antiquated, but you can also overdo it, and I will try to scrounge up the words that are good examples of unnecessary labelling by media and in public discussions. Especially considering the gems that turned up in just one week of keeping track of this.

Another update: A very drunk source told me in a bar tonight that "noodweer-exces" is an existing term from legal origins, but I still think it's a ridiculous one. I'm not changing my nomination. However, "overreactie" is now proclaimed today's winner.

Now for something else: I've got a LOT I could be telling you all, especially involving the organisation of the big ClickBurg event on May 1st, but not only am I too busy to bother updating about that, a lot of this information is not certain yet, or semi-confidential, and since all this is taking up most of my non-working time, there's your explanation why my blog is so silent lately - except, of course, for the Word of the Day.

Desperately Seeking Sad I Nekad

I feared as much: the way I spend my Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (my weekend), is so different from the four days of my paid working week that I'm having trouble finding the Word of the Day. I did already read the digital PDF version of the Metro, but it didn't make matters easy on me, since it didn't introduce any new words worth noticing. Spits uses all loose articles that take a while to load, which is a major drawback from reading it on paper. I guess I can see people's points when they still prefer paper to computer screens when it comes to the media: reading everyting in a relatively short time is still rather difficult.

In any case, I have a lot to do today but WILL attempt to keep my eye on the media, so who knows, perhaps I'll update this later. Saturday and Sunday will be even more difficult since there are only a few newspapers that come out that day. Teletext also isn't too helpful. So it's perfectly possible, if this proves too difficult, that I'll limit the Word of the Day to working days. We'll see. Update later today, probably.

Never Work After A Party.

Feeling ok-ish today even though I was in Breda, downing a reasonable amount of wine for a Wednesday night, straight out of work, until about eleven thirty. I was there at the "Fighting Humor" evening which featured, amongst others, Probeersel.com cartoonist Argibald, slightly more famous cartoonist Djanko, Tilburger Jeroen de Leijer (in the Netherlands well-known by now from Eefje Wentelteefje), and a former classmate of mine who appears to have moved on to near-fame and about to make a transition into fame as a cabaretier (Dutch genre which is sort of a stand-up comedy / folksinging / performance art mixture). In other words, I had a good time, and it was time well-spent, but honestly, to have to get up early again the next day (not to mention to perform some webmaster duties after that, in the middle of the night), and to work for 9 hours that day, is a major pain in the neck. I hereby vow to try to avoid events that fall in the working week area. Sorry, folks - just try to organize your event on evenings that allow me to sleep in the next day, instead, please.

Anyway, that explains I'm a bit sluggish today. So here we go, I have another four nominees for the Word of the Day. All four, again, thanks to the free newspaper Spits.

- 'Please-complex'. This came from an interview with some artist, who was complaining that artists (dubbed 'everyone', because in their world, 'everyone' is a famous artist of course) are so eager to please everyone. He seems to suggest that this is a pathological deficiency that requires psychiatric treatment. Regardless of wether or not he has a point, the word is a clear nominee. And I don't care whether you agree with me on that, because I don't suffer from a Please-complex. So ef you.

- Kaalheidscomputer. There is a German site where men can have their probability rating calculated for baldness. The 'program' (probably just scripts) that does the calculating was dubbed 'kaalheidscomputer' in the article, baldness computer. Albeit that this is the most correct usage of the word 'computer' in over a decade, I doubt it's a term that will enter common language and the introduction of it as a whole word is completely pointless. It's not like people will be discussing this phenomenon for so long and so often that it needs its own label. Kaalheidscomputer is the perfect example of a word that needn't be introduced.

- Tsunamidoden. Here's a word that you never heard before until a couple of weeks ago. We all, by now, are painfully aware of what a tsunami is, and really, in most of our minds there is only one: the one that has been so widely broadcast. God forbid there'd be another one in the near future, we wouldn't know which tsunami we would be referring to when we discuss 'THE tsunami'. There'd be a First Tsunami and a Second Tsunami. Or a First World Tsunami and a second one, I dunno. In any case, where you would normally talk about 'casualities from a (the ?) tsunami', apparently now it's necessary to introduce the word 'tsunamideaths'. People who have died from the recent tsunami. THAT's what we're talking about, folks. But the media do love their labels, so nominee number three is the beautiful, beautiful word 'tsunamidoden'.

- Lichtoverlast. This one made me laugh. There has been some ridiculous research (god, there are so many of them ! Are there so many researchers around that we really need to waste their time with this crap ?) or questionnaire which turned out that a lot of my countrymen wouldn't mind if the streetlights, car lights, and other electronic lights, would be turned off or down a lot at night. Especially car lights are a major nuisance - I can't say I like car lights at night all that much, but to actually introduce a word that calls it 'light nuisance' really seems way over the top. The fourth nominee for the day, by good right.

And the winner is... without a doubt, Tsunamidoden. I mean, there isn't even a dash in between tsunami and doden, folks ! Once the media noise about the disaster dies down and everyone's forgotten about it, do you realise how long it will take before another tsunami ever hits a shore again ? Will you really use this word again in your lifetime ?
René out.

Nothing to report

Well, I have fairly little to report in the personal field, but the Word of the Day provided an interesting dilemma today. I've nominated four, for the following reasons:

- Brandveiligheidseisen: One of the main reasons for the Word of the Day is that concepts that before were not really that important, became commonplace discussion material due to media influence, or major issues in society, in any case, the concept is brought up so often that it becomes a word. This goes for 'brandsveiligheidseisen'. It means demands for fire hazard safety, and the reason it's been such a popular topic in the media is that some two years ago a bar in Volendam burnt down to the ground while filled with young people celebrating New Year, killing a lot of them and maiming several others. Of course you then get the usual uproar of 'how could this have happened' and 'we must take drastic actions', and it has gotten to the level now that each restauration, each new building, etc. has to comply to much stricter demands from fire departments in the Netherlands.
Some people even go as far as to suggest that the fire departments, through these - often ridiculous - demands are trying to cover themselves and make sure there is no way THEY could be held responsible if something goes wrong. The excesses can go as far that some buildings have two or three wide escape doors in one four-yard-length wall. I mean, really, people. And before, the term would probably be described as "eisen ter bevordering van de brandveiligheid" but it's been in the media so often - even going as far as causing half of all fireworks distributors at New Year having to abandon this profitable business because their buildings couldn't comply with these demands - that it became one word. Brandveiligheidseisen. It's a gem. I had to nominate it.

- Stoeptegelincident: In Holland, a lot of curbs are made with tiles. Sometimes youth with way too much time on their hands starts doing bad things, and this time one tile was thrown off a viaduct on a car, killing the driver. The article mentions this as a 'stoeptegelincident', which means curb tile incident. I'm fairly certain there are few occasions that this word would ever be used again, so its introduction really has no point whatsoever, except perhaps by bloggers who have an affinity for useless words and think they are absolutely beautiful because of their uselessness. I mean, when are you ever going to bring up 'stoeptegelincident' again ? At the most, you would be talking about the incident with a tile, and you would be doing the same in Dutch.

- Huiskamerontmoetingsplaats: A word a colleague found in an interior decorating article - huiskamer means living room, ontmoetingsplaats is meeting place. Er... what use is the word "living room meeting place", people ?! When, when, WHEN will that ever be used ?! Nominated for the same reason as Stoeptegelincident.

- Gewetensvrijheid: This one's an interesting one. I didn't know it existed, but it's actually an old word. The etymology of it suggests that it became popular in a time when christianity and the constitution were clashing in the Netherlands, and the word now seems to pop back up in discussions about fundamentalist muslims who are committing unconstitutional crimes out of religious beliefs. The word 'geweten' means conscience, and 'vrijheid' means freedom. Freedom of conscience ? Freedom within conscience ? It's a bizarre combination of two words with a meaning that has actually been defined but makes fairly little sense. In essence, it's used here again to emphasize that the constitution should always take priority over any religion. The constitution itself protects the freedom of religion as long as it does not lead to unconstitutional acts. I agree with the usage, and I agree with the discussion, but fact is, this is one very beautiful word.

And the winner is... by a very narrow margin and giving it lots of thought: Gewetensvrijheid. It's a word that will no doubt be used a lot again in the upcoming near future, considering current events, so we may be seeing lots of it. It's not an entirely fair candidate, since it's already included in the dictionary, but really, it was a word that was about to be fully obsolete until all hell broke loose here. It is, without a doubt, the Word of the Day.

Sad I Nekad

I took the above title from a comic in the magazine Zone5300. Apparently it means "now and then", as in the temporal indications, not the english expression. It was a magazine in Belgrade that published articles speculating what the changes in vocabulary were, and that noted new words that they thought would become influential.

To force myself to blog a bit more often, I will add at least a daily word find on here, most commonly a Dutch word, with an English explanation of what it means, where I found it, and why it charmed me. Likely it will mostly involve made-up words in the media or in conversations that could, for those inexplicable cultural reasons, either become popular enough to get included in the dictionary, or not and just be forgotten. These are the things my mind occupies itself with for a few minutes a day, and the least I can blog about are those.

For starters, I'll do one for today AND for yesterday. Let's start off with yesterday,shall we ?

Word of the day for 17/1/05: Slaviertje.
This word was invented by a colleague to be able to discuss a special kind of service agreement they were cooking up for several of our clients. Normally you would use a Service Level Agreement or SLA (simply pronounced 'sla', which also means lettuce in Dutch) but these kinds of documents consist of many pages, and the simpler agreements the colleage was talking about would only be about one page. A page is most commonly A4 format, so the word became SLA-A4, SLA4, slaviertje.
Much hilarity ensued in the office environment and the next day it was still in use. I don't know how long it will last and how popular it will turn out, likely it will die a quiet, quick death and be forever forgotten - except on this blog, of course.

Word of the day for 18/1/05: Kraanwaterdrinkers.
This one I read in the free Metro newspaper today, which wrote an article about how tap water turned out, in marketing research, to be the fourth popular 'brand' of drink amongst young people in The Netherlands. The article then proceeds to mention the people who regularly consume tap water as 'kraanwaterdrinkers', drinkers of tap water. These words are, in good Dutch tradition, composed into one word that most foreigners probably would not be able to make sense of, and the practical use of the word is highly doubtful. Definately a gem for the records.

I'm Surrounded.

I swear, everyone I know is either getting married/making babies/moving in together, or going back to school. What is it with you people ?! The economic climate isn't suitable for either of the two options, and besides, most of you are barely halfway your twenties !
I'm not going to claim I've been doing too much 'being young', but damn, youth is definately WASTED on the young. Once more, I'm happily continuing drawing comics and attempting to realise wild dreams. To the rest of you, suit yourselves - but think back some ten years or so and try to imagine what your younger self would say about all this.

That Time Of The Year Again

Well, it's 2005, and since practically everyone's publishing their reflections on 2004, I might as well, too.

2004 has been incredibly busy. I can't even properly recollect the things I've done over the past year, but both in my paying job and in my activities as a comic artist, things have been very hectic and a lot got done. I won't get into the things that happened at my job (since most of them fall under 'insider knowledge' and I have a contractual obligation to shut my mouth about things like that), but in the comics field I feel I've made 2004 count for me.
There was a reasonably successful small 24 Hour Comic Event (in which I also drew my own 24 Hour Comic 'Autobiopsy', which is still available to read on Probeersel.com).
I've been doing guest comics for other comics, not to mention most of the episodes for the comic Joep van Abeelen and myself did for a whole year called "Worst Case Scenario" (also still available on Probeersel.com).
There was a large storyline in The Grim DotCom where the little company grew out to a multinational, which was fun to write and draw but at the same time fairly insane to plot. It turned out really well, though, even if I do say so myself.
Great, promising new artists joined Probeersel.com, bugfixes were made, in fact, a transition to a new site engine was made together with our technical staff member Tom Geelen, who did a fairly excellent job.
At the Str!pdagen in Archeon, 1500 Probeersel artist showcase booklets were distributed, which was also a hell of a job to get done.
Lately I've been busting my hump on getting together people to help organize the first ever Dutch webcomics convention, which will be held on May 1st in 'my' city, Tilburg. (It's called ClickBurg and I got the site done - you can find it here).
I can't even remember the rest anymore - there's been lots more I've done the past year, but I'm tired and these highlights are the most I can recall right now.

Financially, it hasn't been a terribly great year. Although I did get a few raises and I don't have a very bad salary for someone my age, the economy *is* bad and I don't care what the god damn government says, they're turning it to crap and I feel bad for everyone who's making less than me right now. My own salary only just sufficed the past year, so I can't imagine how rough things must have been for people who are doing even less well. Then again, there were loads of special circumstances the past year for me that caused large, unexpected costs. Most of these were sound investments (and some charity), though, so I expect things to be a whole lot better in 2005, when all of these things have finally been taken care of. Still, fact of the matter is that these unexpected circumstances kept getting me in red numbers by the end of the month. I'm gonna love January, when I *know* my money won't be gone yet before the next paycheck.

Health-wise, 2004 also wasn't a great year. I'm getting more and more tired and chaotic, and I've been ill on more than one occasion, which is rare for me. I hope that was mainly due to me being such a workaholic the past year, and since I intend to make 2005 a slightly less busy year, hopefull I'll be doing better in that field. It could have been a lot worse though: Probeersel member Gregory Cathalina is still suffering from his terrible (and still unidentified - yay for the incompetence of the medical world) disease, and Sionnain Comeaux suffered a brain tumor, from which she, thankfully, recovered after surgery. To know what they're going through often prevents me from complaining about my own health, since it all seems a bit irrelevant compared to their trouble, but still, I plan to take things a bit slower in 2005 and focus a bit on my health. In the end, that will allow me to get more done, anyway - something most workaholics all too easily forget.

There was also time for fun, every now and then. Not as often as I might have liked, but still. There was a special Probeersel get-together which was memorable. There were various fun comics conventions and events that I went to, and where I pretty much consistently hung out with some great people. I've gone to some great performances in the music and humour fields, I've seen a lot of great movies, and I managed to 'discover' many great new comics, both on- and offline, that I didn't know anything about yet. I'm also glad my friends are so patient with me - we don't get to hang out a lot, but when we do, we make it count. Thanks guys, all of you - and I'll try to make a bit more time for you all this next year. I miss some of you - I miss you all, of course, but some of you I haven't seen or spoken to in quite a while, and although I'm blessed with many friendships that can easily cope with this, it still would be very nice to be in touch again.

Then there was the world. There was war, there was corruption, there was Bush getting re-elected, there were religious attacks, even in this normally reasonably peaceful country. Since a lot of these things happened towards the end of 2004, I think a lot of people will remember it as a bad year. I kind of want to beg to differ, that's why I'm listing it last. Yes, bad things happened. But also a lot of great things happened. Not just in the personal field, but in the world, in general - spectacular things, as well as subtle things, even as simple as interaction between people. Most excitingly for myself, a lot of great things happened in the webcomics world, which seems to be brewing with revolution right now, in a very good way. Status quos are being challenged, existing traditions altered, unexpected things are happening... The 'assault' on newspaper comics. The first-ever, world-wide 24 Hour Comic Event (shortly after my own small one). The audience of Something Positive paying the author a huge sum, together, to make sure he can completely focus on his comic and not have to bother with his job. Charity events. The first-ever webcomics convention in the UK last year (which will repeat in 2005, a few months before ClickBurg). And so on !

So on that note, I want to quote Gregory Cathalina who said it better than I could, and with admirational positivity and sincerity, especially if you realise what hell he is still going through:

We're sure lucky to celebrate our new year this way other than waiting for a sign of life from relatives who've been wiped out by a tsunami. We're sure lucky to be here, other than a country where you can't say what you think. A country where you can't eat a normal meal. Where you can't drink normal, healthy water. Where you have to fear for your life.

We're lucky fucks. Remember that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of sleep to catch. That's one thing I intend to do a whole lot more in 2005: take more time to breathe and rest, whenever I can. Trying to make a difference, and working, are very important things, but we must never forget to also enjoy life and calm down, from time to time. You only get one, you know.