Concerned Extras

Since I got some complaints during my reader survey about readers not able to pinpoint their various countries in my limited selection, I went and set this up. Now, you should be able to show where you actually live.

NOTE — THE FIRST ONE I POSTED WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S EXISTING MAP THINGIE. Don’t join that one if you haven’t already. If you have, then forget it and join this one instead.

Here’s the new one!

You don’t need an actual account, so why not take a second and put yourself on the map?

I saw this over at the excellent Alien Loves Predator, who was cool enough to link me last week. Thanks, Bernie!

King Nintendoid sent a screencapture of Google Adsense once again detecting exactly what type of ad to run under today’s comic. Check it out here. Thanks, KN!

It’s your lucky day, because now you can do what you’ve always wanted to do: send me some of your hard-earned money!

I’m sure this is going to sound like a lie, but I do get a fair number of requests from readers who’d like to contribute. And, I like to give the people what they want (except for more To The Deaths, apparently).

Anyway. If you’ve got a couple bucks you weren’t planning to spend on anything (and who doesn’t?), and you feel like you absolutely have to send it to someone (because you’re tired of looking at it sitting there uselessly on your desk), and you’d like that someone to be me, now you can.

Keep in mind, and this is important, that the money you send will really be going to me, and not the website. The comic won’t get funnier if you send money (if only it worked that way). It won’t be updated more often. And, most importantly, the comic won’t vanish if you don’t send money. I’m not holding the comic hostage or anything. This is completely voluntary on your part, and you shouldn’t feel any pressure or guilt or anything. The comic and site are free, and even if I accumulate a total of zero dollars, it’ll still be published with the same attention to detail (that is, very little) as it currently is.

If you’re wondering where your donation will actually go, here’s a handy guide to help you out, with the dollar amounts listed and how they’ll most likely be spent.

$1 — Anything I want at the 99 Cent Store (plus, change!)
$2 — A huge cup of plain coffee. The lifeblood.
$3 — A breakfast burrito (no meat) from the Maggot Wagon (those disgusting trucks that sell food to construction workers)
$4 — A gallon of gas for the Volvo (predicted 2007 prices)
$5 — A delicious and healthy pack of cigarettes. Lung-a-riffic!
$6 — A lunch at Subway, just like Jared has.
$7 — Anything I want at the 7 Dollar Store (no change, though).
$8 — Anything I want at the 7 Dollar Store, plus a buck to give the guy panhandling outside the 7 Dollar Store. His name is James, and he’s a little stinky.
$9 — A couple of gaming magazines, so I can catch up on the latest outdated gaming news
$10 — One ticket to a current quality film, such as… well, there’s nothing good out now.
$15 — Small soda at aforementioned film that isn’t playing
$20 — A copy (via Steam) of Half-Life 2: Episode One (coming June 1st!)
$25 — A free month of web hosting (I have two sites)
$50 — Could be for a bribe. Could be to have some schmoe worked over in a dark alley. You don’t want to know my business. Trust me.
$100 — A posh dinner. One with cloth napkins.
$250 — An iPod. No songs, but I can pretend to be listening to something by bobbing my head and dancing like an idiot down the street.
$500 — Anything I want at the 500 Dollar Store
$1,000 — Enough songs to fill a small amount of memory on the iPod from before.
$10,000 — A seriously cool new gaming rig.
$100,000 — Ten seriously cool new gaming rigs, at least one of which I’ll install in my bathroom so I can play games on the can.
$1,000,000 — A million lottery tickets.
$500,000,000 — My very own Citadel, pointing into the clouds like an accusatory finger, from which I can broker the very end of humankind. Also, maybe a new pair of jeans.

Here’s a button to help you out, and there’s one on the main comic page, down near the bottom. And thanks!

The results are in! As of right now, 9748 readers participated in the survey I posted on Thursday, so here’s a look at some of the data.

The most common age of Concerned reader is 16 (923 of them, or 9.5%). 18 years of age comes next, at 9.1%, followed by age 17, at 8.7%. There were also a number of 1 year-olds, not to mention several readers aged 666, and a couple of fans pushing the creaky age of 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999, give or take a few 9’s.

Some other entries in the age category:

§1
1.2 billon
10:00
18 … Hey, I can write text here! ^_^ Cool. Greetings from Germany, a fan *g*
22 man years, but, if I were a dog!, 154 yrs old
3458o487362553op
512(and 3/4)
900 million
I AM FILLING THIS FORM OUT TWICE
OLD!
OLDER THAN BOB
Older than Mark
Older than the universe
older than you, jerk
older then you think
omfg you pedefile

…and, of course:
ballsack

Man, I remember when I was the ripe, tender age of ballsack.

In terms of geography, about 40% of my readers are in the United States, and 40% are in Europe. Roughly 8% are in Canada, and 7% are in Australia. .6% are in Mexico, 1% hail from South America, 2% are in Asia, and .7% are in Africa. Speaking of which, my apologies to New Zealand, the residents of which were not thrilled to be lumped in with Australia. Also, some Brits apparently don’t think England is part of Europe. And, someone complained that I’d left “hundreds of countries” off the list. Well, yes. I wasn’t trying to obtain everyone’s street address, I was just curious about the general, continental dispersal of readers, and determine how many fans lived in the US and how many lived abroad.

Moving on, 28.5% of visitors found the comic through a link in a gaming forum. About 20% were directed here by a friend, and 16% stumbled upon it during a web search. 5% found it in a magazine.

Surprisingly, only 9.7% of the folks taking the survey are members of the forum.

91.8% of the survey takers have played Half-Life 2.

And, 97.2% of the survey takers are male. There were only 274 females out of the 9748 people who answered that particular question. So, my plans of slowing converting Concerned into a dating site are completely out of the question.

As far as the questions I asked about merchandise, the majority of readers answered that they would “possibly” purchase some. Well, that’s fine, as there “possibly” may be some someday.

Thanks to everyone who participated!