Again ?!

I'm ill, again. It's sort of a throat infection / cold, and it's not TERRIBLY bad. But again, I was better off staying home instead of going to the office.
This really sucks. My throat feels shattered to shreds, and ironically, I want to smoke. I remember how cigarette smoke can really clear up the irritated feeling in my throat - I kinda want that right now.
That's about as badly as I miss smoking, still, though. I suppose I should update you all on my little experiment. I'm getting the distinct impression I'm the victim of a common misconception: that quitting smoking is an interesting experience. I'm still mostly bored with it. And people keep telling me things like that it won't get bad until two weeks after quitting first, or two months. Sounds like a pretty lame 'challenge' to me.
I've even gone as far as to make it as difficult as possible on me. I am carrying a pack of smokes, still wrapped, in my coat, so that in the evening I have no excuse NOT to smoke if I'd want to. I still go on all the smoke breaks with colleagues (I just don't smoke, that's all - the fresh air was the best part about those breaks anyway). And I can honestly say I still don't miss it - except for the throat thing then, and that's just now that I have this cold.
Blah. I need real challenges. At this rate, there's no point in having quit for me - but then again, maybe THAT's the mind trick I'm playing on myself, that as long as it seems easy enough, I won't see the point and just resume smoking. I dunno. It's weird.
The only thing I can add to this is that life's a whole lot easier without smoking, at least in a country as opposed to smoking in public as this country has become. I can travel around by train for as long and often as I want, I don't have to mind other people too much, I don't have to estimate if the next train arrives too soon for me to finish a cigarette, etc. Non-smokers really don't realise how easy they have it.

In other news there's been plenty of ruckus around Worst Case Scenario, both the comic (or rather, the cult concept of that constant punchline) and the movie that the comic gets confused with more and more. It's funny for now, but I really don't want to be remembered for that comic - it's just a joke, folks. It's a lighthearted, one-year, semi-challenging attempt at turning a funny anekdote into a cult comic, and that's ALL it is. I think I've made much more interesting comics before, and will make much more interesting comics later in life as well, so just get over it. Yes, it's a comic about sausages. Why aren't you all pestering Joep ? Officially, it's HIS comic, geez (although admittedly I've drawn the majority of them).
I can just see it now, my epitaph: Here lies René van Densen. Wil je daar ook worstjes bij ?

Hmmmmmm... could someone light a cigarette and smoke it right next to me please ?

Three days and still going strong. So far it's been very easy. At least it wás, until I sat down with some colleagues on a sunny terrace after work (tomorrow's a national holiday so for me, and by coincidence for them too, it was weekend). I really craved to light a cigarette up, right then and there. It feels unnatural to be drinking without a ciggy. Still, it's not exactly rough yet. I'm simply not smoking. That's about all there is to it. The "craving" is about as bad as, say, considering going for a fried egg in the morning.
So I made it worse for myself to up the challenge. There's a pack in my coat. Unopened. But it's there. So not having any around isn't an excuse anymore, no matter where I'll be, a pack will be within my reach (since my coat goes everywhere I go). Let's see if I go nuts. I sure hope so - what's the point of quitting if I can't get any creative experience out of this ??? Is there any truth in those wild stories that quitters always love to tell, or are they just pathetic winers ? And even if they are, why isn't it rough on me then ? *wink*

Alright, what else is there to tell.. I have to go fix my bike tomorrow. That should be fun.. I get a day off, and where do I get to spend it ? Waspik, fixing a bike. Yay...
I posted my 500th posting today on the Stripliefhebbers Forum. Jeroen Mirck now seems to prefer calling me Status500...

I was exhausted and sleepy all day. Not weird if you consider that I've stayed up very, very late every evening this week, and then the whole trip on Tuesday morning, and the fact that I didn't get home till late that evening and still had some work left to do, and going for that drink tonight also made me late.. but I'm a night owl as people closer to me know. So I just passed the point where I'm still tired and I'm starting to really wake up now. Which can't be good because I should go get some sleep.
I could use a cigarette.. *grins*

Nite everyone !

And All That, For What ?!

Ok, let's start at the beginning of this lil' story. That would be the end of the working day, yesterday. My boss was looking for the cell phone number of a colleague of ours. I figured I might have it somewhere, and things were slow, so I tried all the resources I could think off. Ended with pulling all business cards from my address book. As I did so, I suddenly noticed the 'dentist appointment reminder' I always keep at the front of those in the inline cover of the booklet. It said 'May 18, 8:00'.
So I was like, oops - apparently I have a dentist appointment first thing tomorrow morning ! It was too late by then, to call it off. So I knew I'd be away most of the first half of the day today, because my dentist resides in the tiny, nearly impossible to reach by public transportation, village called Waspik which is where I grew up. Now, obviously I do this twice a year, so by now I should have a well-thought through approach to this problem, right ? Well, I have a few, actually.
One is to head over to my parents the evening before, then crash there, then go to the dentist in the morning and catch the early bus right after the appointment (very very tiny time window there).
The other is to bike over from my place (about 50 minutes worth of biking as today proved once again) and bike back again after the appointment, at which time I'll take the usual bus etc. to work from my place, just later. Either approach gets me at work late, but today.. well..
I got up at 6. Ouch. 6 30 I was on my bike, heading over to Waspik. I was there around 7 20 !!!
Now, I've gotten kinda spoiled from commuting, staying and living in larger cities for the past years, so I decided to bike around town to find a place to get some hot coffee and some breakfast. Yeah... no such thing, not in that town, dude. So I bike over to the major super market just to be sure, and just as I turn back disappointed in front of it, PANG ! My back tire pops like fire cracker.
So I drag it over to my parents' house, but they turned out not to be home. Since they keep telling me whenever they go on holiday but I always forget, I have no idea if they are right now or not. Either way, I left the bike parked next to their house, with the key and a little note asking politely if it can sleep over for a few days attached to it, thrown in the mailbox.
After the dentist appointment, naturally, I miss the bus. And of course the next one's an hour and a half from now. And that would have probably made me too late for an appointment. Going back home first wasn't an option anymore without a bike, and my parents weren't home to give me a head-start-ride, so I decided to put the best next idea into action. I walked.
That's right, I had to walk some 6 KM to get to a bus stop with more options than the bus line that wouldn't arrive till an hour and a half later. By then I'd been walking for 50 minutes or so already, so I'm not sure how much difference it made, but I caught a little neighbourhood bus that took me the remaining 3 KM to Waalwijk. There I caught the bus to 's Hertogenbosch where I hopped on the train. Of course the train connecting to the bus left three seconds too soon, and the next one decided against travelling further than Utrecht, so it took some more fun transfers and adventures, not to mention cut down on time I could have spent napping to make up for all the sleep I lost this morning so far, before I got to work.
And all that effort.. for what ? To get to a meeting on time that would end up just being cancelled, after going to a dentist who merely scratched my teeth for a few seconds and then said 'alright, see you in half a year again'.
Just thought I'd share this little story with all of you. And I really should write that coworker's cell phone number down.

Amazing !!

Amazing fact about smokers: In our department, since we're a minority, us smokers take breaks together. So I still take the breaks with the rest (even though I just quit and therefore do not smoke). Now here's the amazing fact: it doesn't clue in to smokers that you're NOT SMOKING. They talk straight to your face, watch you drink your hot cup of tea, seem to pay good attention to you, and yet NOT notice the absence of a cigarette in your fingers. Until theirs is almost gone, at which point they will surprisedly conclude you've smoked yours already ???
Wow. Truly amazing.

One left after this one.

I'm about to end one experiment and start a new one. I'm currently smoking the last cigarette BEFORE the last one in this pack. This pack is the last pack I'm going to smoke.
That's right, I'm quitting. It's quitting time. I decided this two packs ago. I originally started smoking for various reasons, one was to finally experience what it was like. I can now at least pass whatever judgement I want about smokers and smoking because I know what it's like. The only experience I lack now is quitting. All the wild stories people tell about it made me curious, so I'm gonna go ahead and try it. 'Just for laughs', in a way, because it doesn't matter to me if I quit or not. I want to know what it's like, and if it's truly an interesting experience, I want to put it into my art.
So. That's starting tomorrow.