Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in ted_the_robot's LiveJournal:

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Monday, July 13th, 2009
12:08 pm	200 You know what happened today? Today the 200th tiny ghosts comic was posted to the internet. 200 is a big even number! A lot of people like to use the occasion of a big even number to tell everyone they know that something they like has just passed a milestone of some sort. Hey, you know what I bet? I bet if you told all your friends about tiny ghosts, it would be a great way to show them that you know what a big even number looks like too! Maybe then they'd start treating you with respect and let you sometimes handle the money when you are all chipping in for pizza. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
12:23 pm	required reading I just heard that one of my novels is going to be taught in a class this fall in college. This is totally true! I was kinda surprised to hear about it, considering no one ever reads my book, I've been told by internet trolls that it 'sux0rs' and it's a fiction book on a weird topic in a fiend with lots of better known similar works. But next fall if you go to Richland College and take a class called "Wackos or Warriors for Truth, Exploring the Conspiracy Community," you will be forced to read City of Pillars. I'm not sure if the prof is going to say I'm a 'Warrior of Truth' or a 'Wacko' but hey, it's 40 more copies sold than I had last week. The bonus for you is that if your parents catch you late at night in your room reading tiny ghosts under the covers with a flashlight, you can say to them, "don't worry, it's educational!" (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
10:26 am	fan stories You know how we always say here at tiny ghosts that the viewer is encouraged to use this fragment as a seed and develop the rest of the story in their own minds? Did you know that some people actually take that seriously and write short stories based on tiny ghosts comics? This is true! For example: Ophelia. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
10:19 am	creepy down pat So, I did another comic convention this weekend. It was just a small, indie show of Washington DC comics creators, craftsmen, and artists. There were less visitors than some of the bigger shows I've been to, but I sold more stuff, possibly because I wasn't overshadowed by famous people, possibly because it was labeled an 'arts' festival. What I do isn't really a 'comic', so if people come to a show expecting superheroes they aren't going to like what I'm offering. But if they come looking for 'art' then they'll give me a chance. I gave away a lot of flyers, so we'll see if I get any increased sales on the website in the coming days. That would be nice. One thing I find interesting is the misperceptions people have. A number of people that I talked to thought that making creepy, unmarketable comics was my full-time job. One guy even asked where my store was! These people have no understanding of the business dynamics of internet commerce. The other question I get asked all the time is, "do you take the photos yourself?" That seems like a strange question to me. What do they think my participation in the comic is? Alternately, they ask, "so how did you make the robot and the ragdolls?" That also seems like a strange question to me. I guess the assumptions I make when I see a person selling art are not the same assumptions other people make. The best comment I had all day was from some girl who was looking at my work and I said, "my art tries to get to the nexus between 'romantic' 'funny' and 'creepy'." She looked at me, said, "Well, you've certainly got 'creepy' down pat!" derisively, and then walked away. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
9:40 am	juneau So, tiny ghosts will be on the road this summer, and by 'on the road' we mean 'stuck in Juneau Alaska'. In one way it's a Jack London-esque fantasy voyage of self-discovery. In another, more accurate way, it's a long boring summer in a tiny place with very little to do, no one to talk to and the possibility of being eaten by a bear. If you happen to know anybody in Juneau, especially someone who is good at fending off bears, tell them if they see a creepy-looking person lurking behind some trash cans carrying a fancy camera, to say hello and offer to buy me a sandwich. Remember, this weekend is the DC Counter Culture Festival in Vienna VA. If you've been considering making an assassination attempt but haven't been able to find me, here's your chance to take your shot. There will be other comics people there too, in case you want to take out a whole bunch at once. If you were thinking about using bears as a weapon though, it might raise less suspicions if you wait until this summer, as there are only a few bear attacks in Vienna VA each year. More info: Counter Culture Festival Events and Workshops Counter Culture Festival Vendors Virginia bears Remember, because of the whole Juneau thing there'll be no one around to ship prints this summer. So if on the off chance you were debating getting one now is the time to do this! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
8:00 am	tiny ghosts prints temporarily unavailable this summer. Get yours now. If you've been thinking for a while that you wanted to buy a tiny ghosts print, but you were waiting for a sign, this is the sign! Due to recent events, the tiny ghosts team will be spending the summer far from process servers living in a remote cabin in an exotic rainforest wilderness. While the comic will update exactly as normal, there'll be no one left here at tiny ghosts headquarters apart from a few crime scene investigators, and they are unlikely to be willing to ship evidence prints. So if you want a print, get one before the end of May or you'll be forced to wait until the end of August. Books will continue to be available as normal. As a bonus (and because they are just cluttering up the place) if you order a print, we'll throw in some poison a few tiny ghosts greeting cards for free. Hooray! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
9:07 am	editing the archive So, there was one tiny ghosts comic that was really popular for some reason. It bothered be because I thought it was one of the worst ones, and yet people kept linking to it. I thought the text was bleh, but more importantly I thought that the photos were awful, probably the worst photos in the entire archive. So I went and re-did them. They are substantially the same photos, but taken from a different angle and with much better lighting and color. So at least I can live with it now. But I'm not sure how I feel about that. Should the archive be an inviolate representation of the past, flaws and all? Or should it be a living document that grows and changes as the author improves. Seems like that could be a bit disingenuous. On the other hand, why leave low quality work in the public domain when it's a simple matter to fix it? ugh. I feel like Winston Smith. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 19th, 2009
8:56 pm	tiny ghosts forums There used to be a tiny ghosts forum. But no one really read it, and there were a lot of spambots attacking it, so I took it down. But I've now upgraded it to stop the spambots, so I've put it back online: http://www.tinyghosts.com/phpBB3/ I still expect that no one will read it. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 8th, 2009
8:53 am	foreign sales So this week, people in both South Africa and Brazil have bought tiny ghosts merchandise. In the past, items have been shipped to people in Europe, North America, and Australia. That means that the only continent that doesn't have any tiny ghosts stuff on it is Asia. So, what's up with that Asia? Don't you have like, the most people of any continent? Get with the program! Fun Fact: tiny ghosts sells far more stuff outside the US than inside. You would think that since the comic is produced in US, and is written in English, there'd be a high percentage of US sales, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The probable explanation is that all those foreign sales are just Nigerian scam artists looking to launder money from their internet bank fraud schemes. Either that or foreigners are just more easily entertained than US persons. Although, I've seen American tv, so that seems unlikely. The only problem with all those foreign sales is that the contact poison degrades over time, and the longer the package spends being shipped, the less likely it will be effective once it reaches the recipient. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
9:29 am	feed working? I just noticed that Livejournal has not picked up the last two tiny ghosts comics in the tiny ghosts feed. The feed seems to be working in some places and not others. This is likely because computers are based on quantum physics which is the language of the universe, and the universe clearly hates me. No one here on the tiny ghosts team is 'tech savvy' enough to fix this, not even the robot who likes to claim at parties to be 'made of computers' in order to impress the ladies. But then you ask him one simple question about xml and all of a sudden he's too busy baking a pie for Larry's birthday to help you out. But the thing is, Larry's birthday isn't until March and so there's no way he's baking a pie now, and who even bakes pies for birthdays? You bake cakes for birthdays you stupid lying robot. But I digress. The important thing is that if you've been waiting around on Livejournal to read tiny ghosts you may be under the impression that it isn't updating, but it is! Right now several world-class physicists with 20 lb brains are diligently working on getting the feed up and running. Until that time, feel free to just go to the tiny ghosts site and read the comics directly, or use some of the other feed readers (like bloglines or google or Facebook) that seem to magically be able to still pick up the feed. -the MGT. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
11:20 pm	Global Zero You should support this organization: http://www.globalzero.org/ They just started today. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 10th, 2008
9:51 am	Tiny Ghosts Greeting Cards I doubt many of you have noticed, but you can now buy greeting cards in the tiny ghosts store. Since they are creepy and disturbing there probably aren't any occasions where you'd actually want to send one to someone, but you might get a chuckle out of looking at them online at least: http://www.tinyghosts.com/cards/ (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
7:50 am	feed upgrade A number of people have complained about the tiny ghosts feed because it didn't actually show the comics. That's because I don't know how to make a feed. But now some dude on the internet suspiciously named 'Ramsez' (who runs a site called http://www.surefiresource.com/) has fixed it. So if you've been hesitant to use the tiny ghosts' feed, now's the time to sign up, or subscribe, or whatever it is you do with feeds: (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 20th, 2008
10:26 am	tiny ghosts to appear at Halloween art show Once again, there is an opportunity to see some tiny ghost prints live in the real world. A few will be on display at the Ofrenda: Art for the Dead Festival at 1212 U St NW in Washington, DC. The downside is that the show is only 2 days, Oct 31st, and Nov. 1st. The upside is that since it's Halloween you can dress as creepy as you want and you won't freak out the other patrons. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
9:18 am	Photos from SPX There are now a few blurry and unenlightening photos from SPX on the tiny ghosts facebook and myspace pages. What? You say you didn't know that tiny ghosts had a facebook and a myspace page? No wonder you've been missing out! http://www.facebook.com/pages/tiny-ghosts/6103869153 http://www.myspace.com/tinyghosts (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 6th, 2008
8:54 am	product positioning I guess the signing went ok. No one said anything negative or threw tomatoes at me. In fact, most of the people that looked at my work seemed pretty positive about it. I guess that makes it successful. I didn't sell all that much stuff, but I don't care so much about that. I think though that I've decided my work is more properly 'art' and not a 'comic'. A lot of people walked by my table yesterday and just glanced over for a second, and then kept on walking. They clearly didn't spend enough time looking to really judge the quality of my work, it was more of like, "oh that has photos, Not interested." But those same people would walk by my neighbors' tables filled with DIY comics made on a photocopier and would stop in their tracks, go over and say, "wow this looks really interesting, tell me all about it!" I'm not complaining or anything, it's just interesting to learn a little about product positioning. When I've done art shows, like Artomatic, people walking by my work seemed to get drawn in, and would spend some time considering it. At the comic show that didn't happen. So I'm thinking I should really focus my marketing efforts on the art world, and not the comic world. On the plus side, $60 for a framed print is outrageously expensive in the comic world, but outrageously cheap for the fine art world. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
2:57 pm	Small Press Expo Just a reminder to everyone that tiny ghosts has a table at the Small Press Expo, this weekend in Bethesda MD. Items will be sold and awkward conversations will be had. Look for Table W14. FYI: This show will be the first place in the entire world where you can buy tiny ghosts greeting cards! Be the first on your block to insult your friends or send stylish, personalized letterbombs to your enemies with tiny ghosts greeting cards. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
8:50 am	christians The guy who used to write the comic Terror Island (which wasn't actually all that scary), just made his own version of tiny ghosts for his new thing, Request Comics. In other news, someone mentioned tiny ghosts in their blog, which was nice. But what I found really interesting was that one of the commenters said that tiny ghosts was "A little too Christian for my taste." I'd never considered tiny ghosts a Christian comic. Do you think it's Christian? Maybe I should start passing around photocopies of some of the strips at local churches. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 7th, 2008
11:09 pm	Three year anniversary of tiny ghosts Tonight I posted the 156th episode of tiny ghosts. That means its now three years old. I guess soon I'll have to send it to pre-school. I like this strip. It's less creepy than some of the others, and I think that the photos came out better than usual. If you feel like telling people about tiny ghosts, I wrote up a bunch of idea in this previous journal post. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 25th, 2008
11:09 pm	how many books should I bring? Ok, I'm going to that Small Press Expo next month. Any guesses on how many copies of the tiny ghosts book I should bring? I've never been to one of these before, so I have no idea how many I might sell. If I bring too many they'll just up cluttering up my closet, but if I bring too few, some of you might not get the chance to buy one. (4 Comments |Comment on this)