It's true, my little 'posse' (our group has kept close bonds since halfway highschool, which grants our friendship some nearly 10 years existance now) is the coolest. Right now they're all at a house warming party which I declined the invite to, and was repeatedly urged to go after all, to. But really, I'm exhausted from this past week, and the company that employs me stole a normally quite fruitful evening from me that I *could* have spent working on The Grim DotCom. All day today, I've been mostly asleep, after a taxi indeed drove me back from Amsterdam at 2 at night. I *want* to work on the comic, but really, all I seem to be capable of today is vegetating. So tomorrow will be well-spent, I hope. Because all in all, I turned in 3 days this week that I could have been drawing (Wednesday constituted a well-deserved break since I drew next Monday's Worst Case Scenario which tells the world Joep and I are halfway this crazy enterprise of making the same joke 365 times).
However, I would have liked to have gone. And I hope they all have fun.
But the main reason I bring them up is to give big dibs to my friend Joost, prominent member of our little posse. I mentioned on his birthday recently that I've been trying to get the DVD of the brilliant BBC series Manchild but it's impossible to do without a creditcard. So he ordered it for me (of course I paid him back, but still - it WAS impossible to attain otherwise !) and he brought it along tonight when he came to pick up Viktor to go to the housewarming. So I've been watching it in this warm, exhausted, vegetating slump I'm in, and it's still brilliant.
For those of you who have never heard of or seen this show, shame on you !
It's all about a group of four friends: a stock broker, a dentist for VIPs, an art collector and a decking 'king'. Though different in their lifestyles and interests, they all mainly have their age in common: they've hit the big five-o. And thus the series is all about their midlife crises. Hilarious in itself as the concept is, it's been done brilliant: the stuff these episodes show and tell are insightful, witty, sarcastic, even cynical, but awesome. Each episode breaks down for the audience how the male mind REALLY works. And thus, I would like to state here that this is the one and only 'Sex In The City for men'. It's far from the sentimental crap that SITC keeps popping up, or the pointless theories and other observations, however, exactly like SITC, it's perfectly aimed, full-blast and honestly, at the very focus group it's displaying. SITC is for women, Manchild is for men. Of all ages. Sure, it's about the midlife crisis, but trust me, we ALL THINK LIKE THIS. ALL OUR LIVES. It's brutal, it's honest, it's terribly, terribly insightful, and while watching it you can't help but feel slightly ashamed of what kind of creatures us men are, and at the same time, feel yourself wanting to cheer these guys on. If you haven't seen it, go to the BBC site and order it.
For a while there, there was a series called Mind of the Married Man. Though marketet as 'SITC for men', trust me, it's crap. It's mostly SITC *itself* but ABOUT men. Men who watch this will not get the 'SITC experience' women get out of SITC. It's bogus. It's a cowardly look at a couple of men who, though a slight tad controversial here and there, mainly maintain the image men try to show women of who 'we' are. I watched it for a while, and besides being bored, I was annoyed at it being typecasted as SITC for men. It's not. It's cowardly propaganda, written for, and probably by or with the aid of, women. It's not at all about men. Not a single man I know is HONESTLY like that. Yes, we all ACT like that, but that's not who we are.
Manchild, however, DOES show who we are. And how it all works. Because, after all, divorced men in their 50ies, or deliberately-remained-bachelors at 50, or even married men at 50 (all of which are represented in the little quartet of main characters) have no reason to have ANY qualms about giving in to every hedonistic whim they have. This show is clearly about which head men think with, how we approach any dilemma, how we REALLY view relationships, women, etc - and makes NO apologies whatsoever for it.
I can't wait for series 2 to come out at some point. Meanwhile, excuse me while I continue to vegetate.
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Thursday, April 08, 2004
God Damnit I could be drawing or sleeping now !
I am still at work. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT ?!!
I was stupid enough to reply 'yes' when they asked me to volunteer a few hours of overtime to help test a roll-out of a newer version of my department's CMS product. After all, I know it best of the entire department - at least best from a user's point of view. I won't pretend to be able to understand the infrastructure or how the databases tie together, but I know how the software behaves, what the issues are that to date are unsolved, which workarounds there are, in other words: if this was a horse, I wouldn't be a vet, but a damn good instructor and riding champion.
So yeah, if you want someone there to tell a bunch of infrastructure experts wether or not the software's doing what it normally should do, after the upgrade, I'd be a logical pick.
Except it's some 6 hours after they started installation, and it's still not even properly installed. I'm sitting around at work, reading about the history of webcomics, online, in lack of ANYTHING ELSE TO DO.
I don't mind the overtime in a sense that I'll compensate it all sometime next week, but damnit, it's practically MIDNIGHT and I'm in AMSTERDAM ! I could be in sweet Tilburg, curling up in bed with my cats Satan and Damien, or watching a good movie on DVD, or working on The Grim DotCom, or just chatting away on ICQ, or chillin' on the downstairs couch talking with Viktor. Hell, I could be drinking in the Cul de Sac.
Instead I'm sitting here on stand-by while they try to get the program running. I barely slept this week, so I'm exhausted now and can barely keep my eyes open. And since I won't be able to catch any train or bus home anymore, I guess a taxi will drive me home after this - luckily, I *do* work for a company that'll pay for that. So a taxi *WILL* drive me home. Still, I'd rather already have BEEN home. And the train has the added benefit that I've mastered how to draw during the ride. I doubt I'd get much drawing done in a cab, during some, what, three hours ? on the road home, in the dark. Yeah. No comics tonight, folks. Thank my wonderful employer for that.
Anyway, I'll stop bitching. It wouldn't all be so damn bad if I wasn't sitting around being practically useless. It's all infrastructure that's causing the trouble now, nothing that my expertise can help. I'll only get useful once they get it to work. And from the looks of it, that'll be damn late, and MUCH testing won't end up being done. They could have just asked one of our NY clients to test, instead. It'd be about the end of the working day for them, there. That wouldn't be as bad as my predicament.
Damnit. I hate Amsterdam. It's my weekend by now. To quote Clerks' Dante: I'm not even supposed to be here !
I was stupid enough to reply 'yes' when they asked me to volunteer a few hours of overtime to help test a roll-out of a newer version of my department's CMS product. After all, I know it best of the entire department - at least best from a user's point of view. I won't pretend to be able to understand the infrastructure or how the databases tie together, but I know how the software behaves, what the issues are that to date are unsolved, which workarounds there are, in other words: if this was a horse, I wouldn't be a vet, but a damn good instructor and riding champion.
So yeah, if you want someone there to tell a bunch of infrastructure experts wether or not the software's doing what it normally should do, after the upgrade, I'd be a logical pick.
Except it's some 6 hours after they started installation, and it's still not even properly installed. I'm sitting around at work, reading about the history of webcomics, online, in lack of ANYTHING ELSE TO DO.
I don't mind the overtime in a sense that I'll compensate it all sometime next week, but damnit, it's practically MIDNIGHT and I'm in AMSTERDAM ! I could be in sweet Tilburg, curling up in bed with my cats Satan and Damien, or watching a good movie on DVD, or working on The Grim DotCom, or just chatting away on ICQ, or chillin' on the downstairs couch talking with Viktor. Hell, I could be drinking in the Cul de Sac.
Instead I'm sitting here on stand-by while they try to get the program running. I barely slept this week, so I'm exhausted now and can barely keep my eyes open. And since I won't be able to catch any train or bus home anymore, I guess a taxi will drive me home after this - luckily, I *do* work for a company that'll pay for that. So a taxi *WILL* drive me home. Still, I'd rather already have BEEN home. And the train has the added benefit that I've mastered how to draw during the ride. I doubt I'd get much drawing done in a cab, during some, what, three hours ? on the road home, in the dark. Yeah. No comics tonight, folks. Thank my wonderful employer for that.
Anyway, I'll stop bitching. It wouldn't all be so damn bad if I wasn't sitting around being practically useless. It's all infrastructure that's causing the trouble now, nothing that my expertise can help. I'll only get useful once they get it to work. And from the looks of it, that'll be damn late, and MUCH testing won't end up being done. They could have just asked one of our NY clients to test, instead. It'd be about the end of the working day for them, there. That wouldn't be as bad as my predicament.
Damnit. I hate Amsterdam. It's my weekend by now. To quote Clerks' Dante: I'm not even supposed to be here !
Monday, April 05, 2004
Recommended Reading.
A colleague sent me this, and I found it to be quite insightful to be honest. I can't wait for the full version which, according to the article footer, should also appear at some point.
In any case: What do you get when these two guys (regardless of the facts that one of them has died and the other might not be willing or quite as intellectual and clear as in this example) started a conversation ?
Well.. you get this.
In any case: What do you get when these two guys (regardless of the facts that one of them has died and the other might not be willing or quite as intellectual and clear as in this example) started a conversation ?
Well.. you get this.
Sunday, April 04, 2004
It's Been A Long Time, Shouldn'ta Left Ya
I hope none of my readers was ignorant enough to take ANYTHING in that last post seriously - you should have paid attention to the date if you had. Anyway, I'm back. And I've been terribly busy !
So here's the latest stuff on my life:
I finished an excruciatingly difficult-to-do Grim DotCom episode, that took me nearly all my free time over the past week. The drawings look amazing though, and, just like with the art episode (which is currently showing in our Probeersel.com theatre), resizing it into page format ruins it completely. It's frustrating. Perhaps I need to think about a new format for that comic, or cut down on panels, and in doing so, in pacing, wittiness and story. Not sure I'm ready to do that yet, but if I keep producing better and better art but the end result screws it up, I'm gonna be too frustrated to continue this concept. Then again, I know damn well that, one, it's a terribly popular comic. Two, it's a great (though not completely unique) concept that can run for a REALLY long time. Three, it gives me great opportunities to vent all sorts of stuff on life, bureaucracy, death, people's general stupidity, and I get to explore all kinds of stuff I was never able to do before. And four, all that, and the story, and the pacing and jokes etc. ALWAYS COME BEFORE THE ART.
Still, though. After that 24 Hour Comic I feel like taking on new challenges. I want to do that Non Biblia Sacra script so god damn badly, you have no idea. I need my hands free ! But to get there, I first need to get The Grim DotCom, Worst Case Scenario, the Probeersel books, the re-setup of the site, the new T-shirt competition (which will likely start any day now since we only have one original shirt left anymore), and possibly Penguism (since Sionnain isn't quite back in the saddle yet and the comic's missed two updates already) out of the way. Not to mention, my job. And my social life, which has been shouting louder and louder claims on my time and I'm trying to balance it just só that people, when this busy period of my life is over for a while again, won't have turned away from me forgood. Annnnd finally, I suppose some sleep every now and then might have upgraded from luxery to the status of necessity.
But I *will* do that story. At some point. I can't wait. It's gonna be hellish and I have to learn to draw COMPLETELY differently, but it's gonna be a major challenge and I'm all for that now. I feel like I'm slipping into a bit of a rut, and that tale may just be exactly what I need to get me out of it again.
Anyway.
About the claims my social life makes on my free time: Thursday night I was out in bar Cul de Sac which was celebrating its 5 year anniversary. I don't think I'd have been forgiven if I'd made a no-show. It was good though, talked with a lot of people I know there, and also got to congratulate Troy (Titane) on his officially joining the ranks of the publishing artists on Probeersel.com, and I got to hang with Joris for a bit who I hadn't seen since somewhere halfway February.
Then Friday, there was a lot of household stuff that really needed to be done, as well as drawing (as mentioned above), which both went on into Saturday, on the evening of which I had to make my way to The Hague where Michelle was having her house warming party. I knew a whopping three people at that party, so I was kinda glad to go back home.
On Sunday my mom calls me while I was still asleep, to let me know.. that the tickets arrived. That's right, folks: Stockholm, here I and Vik come ! Sure, it's only three days, but it's a free vacation ! Who can not be excited about that ?! Well, besides my wallet - the travel expenses from airport to hotel are for ourselves, and Stockholm's a notoriously expensive city, booze-wise. And we all know how expensive that might get for someone like me. But I'll be fine. Most importantly, I'm out of the house for a while and I get to travel without the travel costs. We should really figure something out about the cats, though - someone needs to take care of them those days. Perhaps we can get a friend to stay in the house those days. We'll see.
Work has been insane all week, but there's all sorts of progress being made, which makes it GOOD busy-ness. I could do without it for a while though - like I said, I really need, need, NEED my hands free for just a few days to work on my comics. I have another house warming next Friday and I'm seriously thinking about calling it off - first of all, I hit a creative vein so The Grim DotCom's making some progress again, and I want to exploit that to the fullest possible. Secondly, it's in Eindhoven which is far from my favourite city to be at all, and finally, most of the people who'll be there I've seen at another birthday just last week. So I'm thinking - although regrettable - passing it up will be good.
If anyone reads this who's also waiting for a call or visit from me, I hope I gave a clear enough impression of exactly how insane my life's gotten, and that I really barely have the time to sit down for a good meal. I have too much mess to clean up. The Grim DotCom's backstash is the first on the list.
Anyway. I skipped on some perfectly good sleeping time (which was planned in since I couldn't come up with a good storyboard anymore tonight) to report all this to you folks. Be grateful, damnit !
If work allows me a bit of slow time tomorrow, I may check in again. Otherwise, I'll just see ya when I see ya.
So here's the latest stuff on my life:
I finished an excruciatingly difficult-to-do Grim DotCom episode, that took me nearly all my free time over the past week. The drawings look amazing though, and, just like with the art episode (which is currently showing in our Probeersel.com theatre), resizing it into page format ruins it completely. It's frustrating. Perhaps I need to think about a new format for that comic, or cut down on panels, and in doing so, in pacing, wittiness and story. Not sure I'm ready to do that yet, but if I keep producing better and better art but the end result screws it up, I'm gonna be too frustrated to continue this concept. Then again, I know damn well that, one, it's a terribly popular comic. Two, it's a great (though not completely unique) concept that can run for a REALLY long time. Three, it gives me great opportunities to vent all sorts of stuff on life, bureaucracy, death, people's general stupidity, and I get to explore all kinds of stuff I was never able to do before. And four, all that, and the story, and the pacing and jokes etc. ALWAYS COME BEFORE THE ART.
Still, though. After that 24 Hour Comic I feel like taking on new challenges. I want to do that Non Biblia Sacra script so god damn badly, you have no idea. I need my hands free ! But to get there, I first need to get The Grim DotCom, Worst Case Scenario, the Probeersel books, the re-setup of the site, the new T-shirt competition (which will likely start any day now since we only have one original shirt left anymore), and possibly Penguism (since Sionnain isn't quite back in the saddle yet and the comic's missed two updates already) out of the way. Not to mention, my job. And my social life, which has been shouting louder and louder claims on my time and I'm trying to balance it just só that people, when this busy period of my life is over for a while again, won't have turned away from me forgood. Annnnd finally, I suppose some sleep every now and then might have upgraded from luxery to the status of necessity.
But I *will* do that story. At some point. I can't wait. It's gonna be hellish and I have to learn to draw COMPLETELY differently, but it's gonna be a major challenge and I'm all for that now. I feel like I'm slipping into a bit of a rut, and that tale may just be exactly what I need to get me out of it again.
Anyway.
About the claims my social life makes on my free time: Thursday night I was out in bar Cul de Sac which was celebrating its 5 year anniversary. I don't think I'd have been forgiven if I'd made a no-show. It was good though, talked with a lot of people I know there, and also got to congratulate Troy (Titane) on his officially joining the ranks of the publishing artists on Probeersel.com, and I got to hang with Joris for a bit who I hadn't seen since somewhere halfway February.
Then Friday, there was a lot of household stuff that really needed to be done, as well as drawing (as mentioned above), which both went on into Saturday, on the evening of which I had to make my way to The Hague where Michelle was having her house warming party. I knew a whopping three people at that party, so I was kinda glad to go back home.
On Sunday my mom calls me while I was still asleep, to let me know.. that the tickets arrived. That's right, folks: Stockholm, here I and Vik come ! Sure, it's only three days, but it's a free vacation ! Who can not be excited about that ?! Well, besides my wallet - the travel expenses from airport to hotel are for ourselves, and Stockholm's a notoriously expensive city, booze-wise. And we all know how expensive that might get for someone like me. But I'll be fine. Most importantly, I'm out of the house for a while and I get to travel without the travel costs. We should really figure something out about the cats, though - someone needs to take care of them those days. Perhaps we can get a friend to stay in the house those days. We'll see.
Work has been insane all week, but there's all sorts of progress being made, which makes it GOOD busy-ness. I could do without it for a while though - like I said, I really need, need, NEED my hands free for just a few days to work on my comics. I have another house warming next Friday and I'm seriously thinking about calling it off - first of all, I hit a creative vein so The Grim DotCom's making some progress again, and I want to exploit that to the fullest possible. Secondly, it's in Eindhoven which is far from my favourite city to be at all, and finally, most of the people who'll be there I've seen at another birthday just last week. So I'm thinking - although regrettable - passing it up will be good.
If anyone reads this who's also waiting for a call or visit from me, I hope I gave a clear enough impression of exactly how insane my life's gotten, and that I really barely have the time to sit down for a good meal. I have too much mess to clean up. The Grim DotCom's backstash is the first on the list.
Anyway. I skipped on some perfectly good sleeping time (which was planned in since I couldn't come up with a good storyboard anymore tonight) to report all this to you folks. Be grateful, damnit !
If work allows me a bit of slow time tomorrow, I may check in again. Otherwise, I'll just see ya when I see ya.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
StatusNil.BlogSpot.com, your reliable source of news and information.
NEWS FLASH - In the news today:
René van Densen comes out of the closet and admits: "The rumours you have heard about me are true. I am, in fact, a penguin. The handsome guy who has posed for countless of my pictures is actually a group of similar-looking actors, hired to keep up the façade of me being a human being. My comics are actually drawn by Craig Thompson, under my name as a pseudonym to experiment. I can't live with this lie anymore. I hope my fans will forgive me and continue to send me fresh fish. Also, it's kind of cold here."
Truth finally revealed about the Bush administration: Today in a special press conference, president Bush will openly admit that allegations that his leadership is a joke are in fact true. "It was all part of a well-prepared, long-running April Fool's day gag, folks."
World renowned international comics community Probeersel.com unveiled ! Probeersel.com turned out to be, as the result of a shocking investigation turned out, nothing more than a sub-section of Keenspot. Fans are rioting and stormed the building of the hosting provider. Helpdesk support is still at large.
And finally... Today's not April Fool's day. Someone messed with your calendar. Yes, on your computer too. And on your watch. Your mom's in on the conspiracy as well. LOOK OUT, BEHIND YOU, A NINJA SQUAD !!
René van Densen comes out of the closet and admits: "The rumours you have heard about me are true. I am, in fact, a penguin. The handsome guy who has posed for countless of my pictures is actually a group of similar-looking actors, hired to keep up the façade of me being a human being. My comics are actually drawn by Craig Thompson, under my name as a pseudonym to experiment. I can't live with this lie anymore. I hope my fans will forgive me and continue to send me fresh fish. Also, it's kind of cold here."
Truth finally revealed about the Bush administration: Today in a special press conference, president Bush will openly admit that allegations that his leadership is a joke are in fact true. "It was all part of a well-prepared, long-running April Fool's day gag, folks."
World renowned international comics community Probeersel.com unveiled ! Probeersel.com turned out to be, as the result of a shocking investigation turned out, nothing more than a sub-section of Keenspot. Fans are rioting and stormed the building of the hosting provider. Helpdesk support is still at large.
And finally... Today's not April Fool's day. Someone messed with your calendar. Yes, on your computer too. And on your watch. Your mom's in on the conspiracy as well. LOOK OUT, BEHIND YOU, A NINJA SQUAD !!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)