The forums weren’t really a great place to post news, so davean helped me set up a blag here. I’ve got a bunch of news/info on a bunch of topics, and will answer questions in the comments, so here we go:
Job:
My about page mentions that I work for NASA — I’m technically a contractor working repeated contracts for them. However, they recently ran out of money to rehire me for another contract, so I’m done there for now. This isn’t really bad, because it came right as the t-shirt orders were becoming so strong that I really needed the time off to handle them. Combine that with answering the huge amount of email I get through the site, drawing the actual comics, and assorted other things, and I really don’t have the time to work a full-time job at the same time that I do this comic/store. So, for the moment I’m now a full-time webcomic artist/t-shirt designer. I don’t know how to thank you enough for all the support.
Shirts:
I shipped out the domestic preorders last week, and the international orders were held up by the post office and didn’t get through until this week. This was a bit later than I planned, and I’m sorry. For the week of the main shipping I was literally working every waking hour, 16 hours a day, on getting the t-shirts out, along with a lot of help from friends. For those who ordered shirts, if there was any kind of a mistake in your order, let me know and I’ll send you the right shirt(s) immediately.
T-shirts have been taking over the apartment, and the supplier is still working very hard to try to meet the demand. As mentioned on the t-shirt page, a few orders might be delayed right now as I try to catch up and keep stocked, and I appreciate your patience. Sizes marked with “backorder” will be shipping probably around the 20th.
The Date Project:
A lot of you have been asking what happened with the project I did a while ago to come up with a neat date. I know I have been quiet about that, but it’s mainly because the girl in the project had been relatively out-of-touch, and I couldn’t easily talk about what was up since I hadn’t talked to her and wanted to give her some privacy. She basically started to feel uncertain about the whole thing, and I didn’t want to push her, so I called it off. The winning suggestions are here, and I will be hanging on to the full list for a while and maybe doing something interesting with it.
Press:
xkcd comics have been featured in a lot of neat places, and I will try to mention them here as that continues. The one I have in front of me is the Toike Oike, the University of Toronto’s long-running high-quality humor newspaper.
Nobel Prize:
Two of the guys who did the COBE experiment — the one shown on the back of my t-shirt — won the Nobel Prize for their work. I’ve sent them both free t-shirts. Maybe they’ll wear them to the prize ceremony.
xkcd 