@xEBRONx I used to. I moved. I miss it, but the economy sucks. There's a disproportionate number of celebrities and other scabby rich people who move in and drive up the cost of living and generally have no actual appreciation for what the state is.
@JonT Hey, I was born there. It's beautiful. And, no offense to you in particular, @DaveInSoCal, but part of what's wrong with it now is that it's overrun with rich ex-Californians.
@DaveInSoCal I visited Montana for work once. They have an airport. I've been there. Granted, the biggest city in Montana is only as big as your average subburb, but it does exist!
@joelmw Yeah it is lovely. Drove there way the heck too much for kid soccer (from Idaho) tournaments that those stupid children kept getting into the finals so I never got to, say, drive to briefly check out Glacier National Park that was filling the sky less than an hour away (tournaments were in Kalispell) and the drive there past some river on some two lane road was spectacular - especially when the sky was blue and the sun was shinning on the river… would not, however, care to live anywhere but a big city during the winter as the highway has some lovely OZ style "GO BACK" signs with respect to winter snow.
Not to nerd out on you but the population of the entire state of Montana barely scrapes a million people. In context, Dallas' population is 1.25 million people.
I think you need to send a card to every household in Montana welcoming them to Meh. It shouldn't cost that much, maybe include a free shipping to Montana code to really seal the deal.
It's Montana. If they need a USB iPod speaker dock they don't order it, they make their own out of grizzly pelt, sunbleached buffalo bones, and dried mountain thistles.
I want to know who the hoarder is, in southern California, too. I'm pretty sure not a day goes by that the same county isn't all lit up, brighter than any other county. They must have several accounts and max them all out, daily.
I really wonder how many Built NY cases they ordered, too.
@teacups well, we used to until they took them away because our computers contained products known to the state of California to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
@teacups Yes, but I'm still guessing it's the same person ordering a bunch of stuff. In reality, they are probably buying it cheap and selling the stuff for a profit, on craigslist or eBay. If it's just one city, why aren't other big cities lit up like that, daily? Or maybe there are a lot of hoarders in LA.
@TheCO2 Tshirts aren't banned. :P Anyways, Los Angeles County has a population >10 million - over 3% of the entire US and greater than 42 states. Add in the freight forwarding companies that make it possible for non-US folks to buy from meh, and it's going to get lit up. As for banned products, you can thank CA for the lack of formaldehyde in wood products these days. Apparently, the US had no standard before hand, hence plywood and particle board that was too toxic to even be sold in China was sold in the US instead.
Lots of good things about Montana. It was the last state to adopt a formal speed limit...this was helpful in getting out of the state! It gets cold there, which makes me appreciate Texas weather all the more. They will never beat my professional sports team in anything. The list goes on and on...
Montana is a gorgeous state. You wish you lived someplace so beautiful.
The weather--at least in western Montana, where I was born and spent much of my early life--is perfect. So it gets cold, they have winter and snow--which is great. But the climate is arid so you have the unpleasantness neither of humid cold (my first winter in Missouri was far less grand and felt far worse) or humid heat. Thunderstorms leave the air cool and clean (again, unlike in humid climates). In the winter, they get these these winds called Chinook, which are awesome when you're out doing things in the cold, because they are inexplicably warm (well, I think meteorologists can actually explain them).
The wildlife is singular, especially for the lower 48 (Alaska is probably better, but a little detached). They have grizzly bears, which put all but the polar bear to utter shame. The deer, the elk, the moose, the wolves.
So here's what you should understand about the Montana economy. It's been too dependent on extractive industries like logging and mining. And for all of its yet enduring beauty, the state has been shat upon by those industries. There's not so much money to be made in logging anymore. Tourists and immigrants from less awesome states (like California and Texas) come in with just enough money to drive up the cost of living. Most of the natives who still live there are willing to put up with meager wages and high prices because they love it so much. Proportionately, they're going to be doing far less impulse buying than the rest of us. They're not going to be spending money on shit they don't need and they're unlikely to dedicate their time waiting around for the occasional useful cheap good shit that sometimes comes along. It just doesn't make sense. And that's not who they are. They drive beatup cars and dress like hippies and know how to survive alone in the wilderness with just a good knife and their wits. Okay, that's a little hyperbolic if applied to the whole state, but a lot of the natives are just like that.
I was born in Missoula, Montana and spent much of my youth there (through age 6, then back for 8th grade and high school and then back for several years after college). I love the state. But I probably won't ever live there again because the economy is so shitty (and can be a little depressing) and the natural beauty is increasingly abused by the most abhorrent of humans. When I did live there as an adult, I worked too hard for too little so that I couldn't get out and enjoy it like I would have wanted. And I confess that I like cities. Though it was nice to just step outside and be surrounded by grandeur. My walk to work (about a mile) when I was managing testing for a software company was spectacular for its panorama.
@joelmw My sister-in-law has lived in Missoula for almost 40 years. (When I say "in" I mean a little outside of town.) I've been there a bunch and love it. My dear friend Roberta who recently passed away was born in Missoula. She was Miss Montana in the early 60s,
@joelmw I was born in Missoula too, but left when I was three and we moved to Anchorage, now I live in Spokane and get to go back for work all time:) I also lived in TX, I was stationed at Ft. Hood for three years... I would take the NW, including AK, over any other place. Montana has far less interlopers from warm states than WA and OR, there are a lot of people that move there from the west to get away from "them" and back to a place that's "the way it used to be", but sadly as you said they're moving in there too and raising the price of things. Look at Whitefish, and Kalispell, those are two great examples of you what you said about prices going up, all these people with money have moved out there and basically turned it into a resort town that people who were born there can't afford to live in.
@badmnky And people driving there for kid soccer tournaments can't afford to spend the night there either. Kalispell was way expensive when we used to do that. I preferred northern Idaho where I lived to where I am now which is South central MS (my least favorite place on the planet to live and I have lived a lot of places). On the other hand I prefer some other places to either of those.
@Kidsandliz@badmnky Yeah, my middle brother is a chef at one of those resorty places in the Kalispell/Whitefish area. Honestly, between the tourists and the understandably frustrated, suspicious locals, I don't much care for that area. Missoula still feels like home to me though. Even though I don't really want to live there anymore. My other brother is in Spokane; it's got a decent vibe. Have at least one cousin in Alaska. Actually her man was (is?) on one of those "extreme survival" shows.
@joelmw Spokane was where the mall was. The one for the Pullman. WA/Moscow, ID area sucked as there was about no stores in it. In Spokane somewhere or other is a store (aka rathole) I can't remember the name of that was full of liquidator stuff only a lot of it was really nice things at dirt cheap prices. Clothes, toys, furniture, junk, windup flashlights that stayed working maybe 3 weeks… That store I miss. I broke down in Missoula - had been limping along from Yellowstone in the ghetto van (overheating and it was not the thermostat - still have the one they took out which was NOT broken under the front seat in case I need one again). Nice shop fixed it (a bit of diagnosis of what is broken by random replacement of engine parts though) the same day. We spent about 4 hours randomly walking around town - it was nice.
@phatmass Or give to my gofundme (http://www.gofundme.com/78d3nc) - proof you can suffer in the deep south too LOL. You can come visit here and stay in the ghetto van since I am already in the basement and there isn't much space. Ghetto van would be quieter than my friend's house with 3 dogs, 2 cats (plus I have cats), 2 goats (yes goats) and lots of kid bickering due to 7 kids, including one they adopted that I had in foster care a couple of years ago. No mountains, 2.5 hours from the Gulf of Mexico, one reservoir with alligators but I had to sell my 14' sailboat and my canoe so I guess we could fish from the shore. There is an urban campground which is actually pretty nice. I could loan you my tent if you wanted to pretend you are in the wilderness. Pond, lots of trees and woods and swamp and mostly you can't hear the highway.
@duodec I've seen some skies while camping in Glacier NP that would blow your mind. I swear, it was a blanket of white with just a few dark spots. Were I to travel the world, looking for places without light pollution would be a good enough reason to do so. Which is ironic, given how much I love cities--including that "shithole," Chicago.
@joelmw Nice video. Miss the northern lights from when I lived in NW ontario. Northern lights didn't hit all that often in Moscow, ID nor, actually when I lived in NW Scotland, but round there the town was dark enough you could see some serious sky at night. When we'd camp or do a river trip when I lived there my kid would be blow away (I used to take people camping for a living so was used to it) by the sky and that the stars had colors.
@Mehrocco_Mole I bet that was nice. I used to work on tall ships (have my USCG master near coastal, sailing, tug endorsements. license along with able bodied seaman limited ticket) and sometimes we'd be enough away from the cities and off shore enough sailing all night that it was really nice having the midnight to 4am watch to see the sky.
Simple conclusion: No one lives in Montana
@xEBRONx I used to. I moved. I miss it, but the economy sucks. There's a disproportionate number of celebrities and other scabby rich people who move in and drive up the cost of living and generally have no actual appreciation for what the state is.
And, no, it's not just speaker docks.
Though it looks like at least one of you backed us on Kickstarter, so I can't be too upset.
I dunno, man. But, if you tilt your head to the left LBJ.
I think that is a smudge.
bad combover
It's a Canadian scofflaw.
@Consumeh No, that's Nixon.
Huh. I didn't think Montana was a real place....
This still isn't any kind of proof.
@JonT Hey, I was born there. It's beautiful. And, no offense to you in particular, @DaveInSoCal, but part of what's wrong with it now is that it's overrun with rich ex-Californians.
@joelmw Expect provincial, insular statements from places like SoCal and NYC. Its just the way they are.
@DaveInSoCal I visited Montana for work once. They have an airport. I've been there. Granted, the biggest city in Montana is only as big as your average subburb, but it does exist!
@joelmw Yeah it is lovely. Drove there way the heck too much for kid soccer (from Idaho) tournaments that those stupid children kept getting into the finals so I never got to, say, drive to briefly check out Glacier National Park that was filling the sky less than an hour away (tournaments were in Kalispell) and the drive there past some river on some two lane road was spectacular - especially when the sky was blue and the sun was shinning on the river… would not, however, care to live anywhere but a big city during the winter as the highway has some lovely OZ style "GO BACK" signs with respect to winter snow.
Not to nerd out on you but the population of the entire state of Montana barely scrapes a million people. In context, Dallas' population is 1.25 million people.
That said I think everyone in Montana is napping.
@patti They can't afford to nap.
I think you need to send a card to every household in Montana welcoming them to Meh. It shouldn't cost that much, maybe include a free shipping to Montana code to really seal the deal.
Welcome to Mehtana!
@DaveInSoCal @dave @steve @jonT @ed @snapster why hasn't this happened. Country wide door-to-door mailer.
@er1c you forgot to send us the mailing list with prepaid postage.
@DaveInSoCal I'd gain nothing!
Hey, lookit that....
It's Montana. If they need a USB iPod speaker dock they don't order it, they make their own out of grizzly pelt, sunbleached buffalo bones, and dried mountain thistles.
that little bit of the buffalo that one can take or leave behind.
@Starblind You got it.
You need to target coal miners, or miners in general. No I don't mean e-miners, I mean real old fashioned playing in the dirt miners.
Seriously, just add "Free shipping to Montana" to every product page until the orders improve!
Montana peeplz haz interwebz for pron and kitteh not mehz
I want to know who the hoarder is, in southern California, too. I'm pretty sure not a day goes by that the same county isn't all lit up, brighter than any other county. They must have several accounts and max them all out, daily.
I really wonder how many Built NY cases they ordered, too.
@TheCO2 that would be the entire metropolitan area of Los Angeles. There's at least a couple people there who probably own computers.
@teacups well, we used to until they took them away because our computers contained products known to the state of California to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
@teacups Yes, but I'm still guessing it's the same person ordering a bunch of stuff. In reality, they are probably buying it cheap and selling the stuff for a profit, on craigslist or eBay. If it's just one city, why aren't other big cities lit up like that, daily? Or maybe there are a lot of hoarders in LA.
@neuromancer Is there anything that isn't banned in California? I'm pretty sure CA is one of the strangest c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ states in the nation.
@TheCO2 Tshirts aren't banned. :P Anyways, Los Angeles County has a population >10 million - over 3% of the entire US and greater than 42 states. Add in the freight forwarding companies that make it possible for non-US folks to buy from meh, and it's going to get lit up.
As for banned products, you can thank CA for the lack of formaldehyde in wood products these days. Apparently, the US had no standard before hand, hence plywood and particle board that was too toxic to even be sold in China was sold in the US instead.
Lots of good things about Montana. It was the last state to adopt a formal speed limit...this was helpful in getting out of the state! It gets cold there, which makes me appreciate Texas weather all the more. They will never beat my professional sports team in anything. The list goes on and on...
@tightwad I miss the Montana cold.
@joelmw Only in the summer...
Good place to raise some dental floss.
@cercopithecoid or grow some bees.
@cercopithecoid Me and my pigmy pony
Alright all of you haters, skeptics and mockers:
Montana is a gorgeous state. You wish you lived someplace so beautiful.
The weather--at least in western Montana, where I was born and spent much of my early life--is perfect. So it gets cold, they have winter and snow--which is great. But the climate is arid so you have the unpleasantness neither of humid cold (my first winter in Missouri was far less grand and felt far worse) or humid heat. Thunderstorms leave the air cool and clean (again, unlike in humid climates). In the winter, they get these these winds called Chinook, which are awesome when you're out doing things in the cold, because they are inexplicably warm (well, I think meteorologists can actually explain them).
The wildlife is singular, especially for the lower 48 (Alaska is probably better, but a little detached). They have grizzly bears, which put all but the polar bear to utter shame. The deer, the elk, the moose, the wolves.
So here's what you should understand about the Montana economy. It's been too dependent on extractive industries like logging and mining. And for all of its yet enduring beauty, the state has been shat upon by those industries. There's not so much money to be made in logging anymore. Tourists and immigrants from less awesome states (like California and Texas) come in with just enough money to drive up the cost of living. Most of the natives who still live there are willing to put up with meager wages and high prices because they love it so much. Proportionately, they're going to be doing far less impulse buying than the rest of us. They're not going to be spending money on shit they don't need and they're unlikely to dedicate their time waiting around for the occasional useful cheap good shit that sometimes comes along. It just doesn't make sense. And that's not who they are. They drive beatup cars and dress like hippies and know how to survive alone in the wilderness with just a good knife and their wits. Okay, that's a little hyperbolic if applied to the whole state, but a lot of the natives are just like that.
I was born in Missoula, Montana and spent much of my youth there (through age 6, then back for 8th grade and high school and then back for several years after college). I love the state. But I probably won't ever live there again because the economy is so shitty (and can be a little depressing) and the natural beauty is increasingly abused by the most abhorrent of humans. When I did live there as an adult, I worked too hard for too little so that I couldn't get out and enjoy it like I would have wanted. And I confess that I like cities. Though it was nice to just step outside and be surrounded by grandeur. My walk to work (about a mile) when I was managing testing for a software company was spectacular for its panorama.
I'm shooting for Colorado as a good compromise
TL;DR? They've got better things to do and not enough money anyway.
@joelmw
Nerrrrrrrrd
@joelmw You don't have to cry about it.
@joelmw My sister-in-law has lived in Missoula for almost 40 years. (When I say "in" I mean a little outside of town.) I've been there a bunch and love it. My dear friend Roberta who recently passed away was born in Missoula. She was Miss Montana in the early 60s,
@axleman1011 Yes?
@phatmass I'm afraid I do.
@SSteve I was actually in Lolo for much of the time I was "in" Missoula.
@joelmw I was born in Missoula too, but left when I was three and we moved to Anchorage, now I live in Spokane and get to go back for work all time:) I also lived in TX, I was stationed at Ft. Hood for three years... I would take the NW, including AK, over any other place. Montana has far less interlopers from warm states than WA and OR, there are a lot of people that move there from the west to get away from "them" and back to a place that's "the way it used to be", but sadly as you said they're moving in there too and raising the price of things. Look at Whitefish, and Kalispell, those are two great examples of you what you said about prices going up, all these people with money have moved out there and basically turned it into a resort town that people who were born there can't afford to live in.
@badmnky And people driving there for kid soccer tournaments can't afford to spend the night there either. Kalispell was way expensive when we used to do that. I preferred northern Idaho where I lived to where I am now which is South central MS (my least favorite place on the planet to live and I have lived a lot of places). On the other hand I prefer some other places to either of those.
@Kidsandliz @badmnky Yeah, my middle brother is a chef at one of those resorty places in the Kalispell/Whitefish area. Honestly, between the tourists and the understandably frustrated, suspicious locals, I don't much care for that area. Missoula still feels like home to me though. Even though I don't really want to live there anymore. My other brother is in Spokane; it's got a decent vibe. Have at least one cousin in Alaska. Actually her man was (is?) on one of those "extreme survival" shows.
@joelmw Spokane was where the mall was. The one for the Pullman. WA/Moscow, ID area sucked as there was about no stores in it. In Spokane somewhere or other is a store (aka rathole) I can't remember the name of that was full of liquidator stuff only a lot of it was really nice things at dirt cheap prices. Clothes, toys, furniture, junk, windup flashlights that stayed working maybe 3 weeks… That store I miss. I broke down in Missoula - had been limping along from Yellowstone in the ghetto van (overheating and it was not the thermostat - still have the one they took out which was NOT broken under the front seat in case I need one again). Nice shop fixed it (a bit of diagnosis of what is broken by random replacement of engine parts though) the same day. We spent about 4 hours randomly walking around town - it was nice.
@Kidsandliz Of course we're biased toward our hometowns, but Missoula is good people.
I want to visit Montana and give some of my rich Texas oil money to the poor souls suffering there.
@phatmass You should do that. Or just send the money. Or give it to me and I'll make sure it gets there.
@phatmass Or give to my gofundme (http://www.gofundme.com/78d3nc) - proof you can suffer in the deep south too LOL. You can come visit here and stay in the ghetto van since I am already in the basement and there isn't much space. Ghetto van would be quieter than my friend's house with 3 dogs, 2 cats (plus I have cats), 2 goats (yes goats) and lots of kid bickering due to 7 kids, including one they adopted that I had in foster care a couple of years ago. No mountains, 2.5 hours from the Gulf of Mexico, one reservoir with alligators but I had to sell my 14' sailboat and my canoe so I guess we could fish from the shore. There is an urban campground which is actually pretty nice. I could loan you my tent if you wanted to pretend you are in the wilderness. Pond, lots of trees and woods and swamp and mostly you can't hear the highway.
Ashamed I didn't think of this earlier.
Here's some beef:
@joelmw all it needs it an Aaron Copland soundtrack
@joelmw Yes in addition to targeting miners they should also come up with something cows really want to spur sales.
@thismyusername I see what you did there.
@joelmw I think they prefer goat.
@WTFhqwhgads Speaking of local delicacies, there's always the Rocky Mountain oyster.
@joelmw It is easy to forget, when you live too close to an overcrowded shithole like chicago, what the night skies are really supposed to look like.
@duodec I've seen some skies while camping in Glacier NP that would blow your mind. I swear, it was a blanket of white with just a few dark spots. Were I to travel the world, looking for places without light pollution would be a good enough reason to do so. Which is ironic, given how much I love cities--including that "shithole," Chicago.
I love purple.
@joelmw In the Navy on the deck of a blacked-out ship during night ops in the middle of the Atlantic. Stars from horizon to horizon.
@joelmw Nice video. Miss the northern lights from when I lived in NW ontario. Northern lights didn't hit all that often in Moscow, ID nor, actually when I lived in NW Scotland, but round there the town was dark enough you could see some serious sky at night. When we'd camp or do a river trip when I lived there my kid would be blow away (I used to take people camping for a living so was used to it) by the sky and that the stars had colors.
Meant to type "blown away" by the sky...
@Mehrocco_Mole I bet that was nice. I used to work on tall ships (have my USCG master near coastal, sailing, tug endorsements. license along with able bodied seaman limited ticket) and sometimes we'd be enough away from the cities and off shore enough sailing all night that it was really nice having the midnight to 4am watch to see the sky.
@Mehrocco_Mole @Kidsandliz That sounds cool for sure. I'd like to spend more time out on the deep water.