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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

I just want to remind everyone: Washington, Idaho and Oregon are terrible places to live.

In 2 of these states, it just rains all the time. You never ever want to visit these waterfalls, because you're perennially living in a waterfall. The local population is always depressed/suicidal. The only Oregonian of note got in trouble for that whole Nancy Kerrigan fiasco. And Washington is under the grip of Bezos and Gates. If you think Windows is bad ...

And Idaho, is, well, Idaho. There's a reason people doubt its existence.[1] It's because there is absolutely nothing of note there.

Texas is great! Lots of land. Number 1 in green energy. Go there.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/221739400799965/posts/302745...

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The parent comment is a tongue-in-cheek comment that emphasizes the negatives of a location because the commenter likes it so much.

The idea (and it's a semi joke) is that it will discourage more people from coming so it doesn't get spoiled.

A bit like telling people some tiny restaurant isn't all that good, because if too many people eat there, you will never get a table again.

30 years ago, listening to FM radio in the Seattle area (probably Marty Reimer on KMTT), the DJ was talking about the gorgeous weather we were experiencing and added “if you’re talking to folk down in California, be sure to let them know how gray and rainy it is”.

July and August are usually great summer weather - though I never had to deal with forest fire smoke when I lived there. Often June is nice as well.

These are the Seattle Tourism marketing months. Microsoft's college interns got the best weather of the year.

What they don't tell prospective residents is that the other 9 or 10 months of the year will be gray and drizzly/rainy, esp. December to March.

I could deal with the inclement weather, but one person I knew had to get a bright light to treat his seasonal affective disorder.

I've been here 35 years now. Yeah, winters are dreary, but rarely snowy - more just drizzly rain and gray skies. There's usually a good patch in February. Pretty sure that DJ comment was in February, though maybe early spring.

And I don't have any data to back it up, but it feels like the weather has gotten better (less gray, less drizzle) over the decades. Or maybe that's just Stockholm syndrome.

Still, I'll likely never move away.

I am hoping the Cascadia fault stays quiet another few decades, until I'm dead and gone. That, not the weather, is the thing that worries me.

It rains only twice in Seattle. Each time it lasts 6 months.

Yes everyone should stay away from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho! Terrible places to live! California is a dream compared to those hell-holes.

I agree! These are just miserable places to live. Please reconsider just moving to Arizona or Utah. Leave us to our 10 months of misery a year. :)

Indeed! No one made a song with the title "Washington Dreamin". Same with Oregon and Idaho.

Someone made "Choosin' Idaho"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrUu10MVvo4

Yep, this is sooo true. Washington and Oregon are especially terrible. I tell you what, you're going to be sitting in traffic in Seattle just as much as you do in LA. And it's all very expensive. Texas is a much better decision.

> I tell you what ... Texas is a much better decision.

I tell you h'what*

Have you seen Texas city traffic lately?

Have you visited Seattle in rush hour?

I kid you not when I say it took over 20 minutes for me to drive one block to get on to the freeway. There was no accident or other problem.

I go to LA often. Seattle is way worse.

Shhh don’t encourage people to come by making comparisons please.

I guess the OP has never experienced any part of eastern Oregon or Washington.

It's a tongue-in-cheek statement to prevent more people moving there so crowds don't spoil it.

I hadn't drank my coffee yet when I read it at first :)

Please move to Texas. Those of us who like waterfalls, are not suicidal, and who will accept beautiful nature in lieu of a functional state government appreciate you freeing the capacity for someone else.

That I don't get about the PNW is the property prices of places hours away from any economic center that pays well enough to justify them. Are that many people still working remote for FAANG that those prices can be justified?

I assume part of this is because there is a lot of national forest not that far from Portland, and aside from a few exceptions here and there you can't buy a piece for yourself. So if you do want your own piece of rural wilderness you have to buy farther way. And Portland does have millions of people, many of whom have the financial resources to buy a little chunk of their own paradise.

Personally I'd pay a solid chunk of change for a campsite size chunk of land on the east fork of the Sandy River near Mt. Hood, right where Nottingham Campground is. I'd never leave.

I have no doubts you're right, but got any examples? Just curious to see them.

No, but rich assholes like getting away from it all too.

>In 2 of these states, it just rains all the time

Sounds like the perfect place for me, I love rain. If only the housing was more affordable though.

Is this a meme? I've never heard it before.

The meme is "<____> sucks, dont' go there." Traditionally spoken by a "local", in reference to stuff they love. It kinda/sorta makes sense in the broader culture of "locals define themselves by excluding others" left-coast parochialism. (I don't think HN is the correct place for it.)

Another example of the meme style is this ski resort "tier" map: https://www.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1d96f93/my_tierlist...

Which is actually funny. And the "joke" is that the person who made the tier list is trying to "hide" the resorts they want to ski (Mt Rose., Mammoth, Kirkwood, Sugar Bowl, Alpine) from whoever's reading the blog post. While falsely "praising" the famous places in an effort to divert the crowds there. (The Reddit post is great b/c the author clearly communicates that they're being ridiculous.)

I think it originated in 1971, when OR governor Tom McCall famously said, "Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live." It wasn't meant as a joke, he was speaking in earnest. One of his ongoing themes was opposing growth for growth's sake and he helped pass the strict land-use policies that largely still exist. It has become a joke though, you will see "Welcome to Oregon, now go home" bumperstickers and such. And a quick way to get dirty looks at a party is to announce that you just moved here from California and can't believe how cheap the houses are.

Sort of. Phrasing varies, but at least for Idaho it's very common for people who live in Idaho to go on the internet and tell people how awful Idaho is and how you should absolutely not move there. On a related note, for people who do move to Idaho, one of the things they are advised to do as soon as possible is get new license plates so that they're not constantly advertising the fact that they came from out-of-state. Idaho has received a massive amount of immigration from other states and many people are unhappy about this.

Going around shitting on other states is a very Texan thing to do

Last night in Arizona, I was watching You Can See Everything about Elizabeth Holmes. Her husband and two children had relocated from a picturesque beach cottage in Del Mar, California, to Texas to be near her federal prison camp. But there was a threat of her being transferred to a prison out of state, and Billy began shouting about "having to move to fucking Arizona!!" which played really well in our packed theater auditorium, I can tell you!

As a Texan,

stop telling people to move here, I-35 just keeps getting worse

What? This is absolute lunacy, I hope its sarcasm. It rains a decent amount but not all the time, summer in Oregon is absolutely beautiful and there's plenty of time to visit the waterfalls.

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