The Helix. Yes, I know how badly you all want one of your very own, but I can’t help you, I’m just the designer. Though we are now very close to doing a mailing to over 500 shops across the US. I placed the order for flyers yesterday and the mailing should be going out next week. I’m pretty happy with how the flier came out. The glowing flame effect is something new for me. I’ve been expanding my photo / illustration skills lately and thought it was time to put them into a project.

The switch to black is also a step in a new direction for the Gravitron brand. I think this look will carry over into the new spring catalog and also the trade magazine cover. Gravitron has the cover for the spring trade show. 420 Science will have the back cover. We really like having the back cover too. We’ve had that spot the last 2 issues. We’re not limited to what we can put on the back cover. The front cover has be more stylized and has all the magazine’s info, since it’s the cover and all. If you ask me the back is the place to be.

Again, for the most part, you can’t get these yet. Gravitron is selling them in a few shops in TX and some of their better clients are carrying them. I don’t know who those people are, so don’t ask. In the coming months we’ll be launching a website and we’ll have a list of shops that are carrying them. Until then, you can go into you favorite local shop and tell them about the Helix and how badly you want one. You can even encourage them to call up Gravitron and place an order.

Have a great Thanksgiving my fellow tribe members.

Over the years we’ve done quite a few custom jars. Headshops, dispensaries and the occasional special event. Recently the band 311 contacted us wanting custom stash jars. These are designs that they created (though I had to do some work to get them to get the art to look good on the jar). You can get one of these jars directly from the 311 store here.

A couple weeks ago Kim (Miss March) asked me why we don’t have music on our profile. I told her it’s because I hate it when I go to look at someone’s profile and music comes on. It creates a horrible mashup of what I’m listening to and what’s on the profile. Let’s call it a train wreck. But, I promised her I’d blog about what we listen to and here it is.

I find most new music I listen to from kcrw.com. I really enjoy Jason Bentley’s program named Metropolis. A nice mix of progressive pop & electronic. You can stream it anytime with new shows daily. I usually listen in a couple times a week and keep a list of new songs that I like. Outside of that I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t really have much of an idea of what songs are popular at the moment. I just know what I listen to regularly and I listen to music all day, pretty much everywhere I go. It’s a borderline obsession. I even have a small record collection. There’s something warm and soothing about vinyl. Sure, it’s not convenient like my ipod, but it’s fun to burn some good herb and listen to records.

These are songs from albums that are in heavy rotation at the office right now. We listen to a lot of other stuff throughout the day, but these are some of my personal favorites. There are a few bands that I would call my long time favorites and a few that are brand new bands.

Here’s what you’ll find on my mix:
Iron & Wine, Spoon, Born Ruffians, MGMT, Cold War Kids, Republic Tigers, Bloc Party, Stateless, The Black Ghosts, Booka Shade, Sasha & Ratatat

I look at that list and know that I left a few out, but I’ll hit on those next time around. I’d like to do a Radiohead top 10 next time around. Anyway, I hope you like it, let me know what you think.

Click here to listen

Both Matt and I read a lot of other blogs. One of our favorites is from Seth Godin. Seth has written many well known best sellers (if you’re into the art of marketing). You might say that many of his ideas are applied to our own company everyday. Some of his ideas are the founding tenets our company. From how we treat and communicate with our customers to how we develop new products and create branding. This whole idea of tribes that I’ve been referring to is a concept of his (and a book that we’re currently reading)

Anyway, Seth had a great post this morning. I had wanted to post something election related today and his post was both election themed and had some great marketing insight. So if you want to read what I like to read and perhaps learn something in the process (like why presumably McCain lost), read on.

Don’t forget to vote.

Why McCain Lost: A Lesson in Marketing

I just set up a twitter account for 420 Science. We’re pretty excited about the possibilities, but I’m a little skeptical about how many of our tribe members will follow us. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. There is a feed on our profile page and we’ll have it set up on 420Science.com in the near future. I’ve made some small design changes to our main website too. Matt is coding those as we speak. It’s hard to tell what the level of interest is for our company outside of the cannabis subculture. I’m also curious how tech savvy this subculture is? Most head shops don’t even have an email address. I think if we told a head shop that we had a twitter feed they’d think we we’re selling bird seed. (smoke it for an amazing high!) I know that our retail customers have to be a little more connected since they order from our website, but how much they are into the web 2.0 movement…that’s another question. Maybe I’m not giving our 6000+ friends on myspace the credit that they deserve…but I choose facebook for my own personal site, so it’s hard for me not to be biased. My relationship with myspace is definitely one of love hate.

So go join twitter today and start following 420 Science even closer.

Here’s the link to our twitter page. Tweet Tweet!

For those of you that don’t know what twitter is…click here

and yes, 420 Science does have a product page on facebook here.

So over the past week I’ve been learning some basic video production using Adobe Premiere. I’m pretty proficient with Adobe products, so it didn’t take me too long to pick it up. The same, however, can not be said for my presentation skills. The clip I used is the 6th take and nowhere near perfect, but it does the trick. So don’t be too harsh, but let me know what you think and hopefully we’ll be making some more of these in the near future. I’m sure they’ll improve as we do more.

Video Link

I don’t really have too much to show this week. I’ve been working on a new retail catalog that we’ll start sending out at the end of the year. I also have started working on a new catalog for Gravitron, the Helix and the cover of HQ for the spring CHAMPS show. Yes, I’m busy, but it’s all in the beginning phases at the moment.

Not to mention preparing for the move to Austin. I can’t wait till it’s all over and we’re finally settled there. Though it’s going to be a long road to get to that point. We’re still trying to lock down a good warehouse & office space. Right now our office is at the house and we communicate with the warehouse virtually. But in Austin we’re all going to be under one roof. It’s going to be a big change, but a good one. I’m still not sure how I feel about having to come into the office every day, but hopefully the commute will be short (preferably a bike ride).

Also…

Smoco (headshop in Austin) has finally opened it’s doors. Matt was in Austin over the weekend and snapped this photo of the front of the store. Yep, that’s my handy work. Looks pretty cool. We just got some jars done with the logo too.

I also received another question that I wanted to answer. Kim, one of our long time supporters, asked why we don’t have music on our page. She wants to hear what we’re listening to at the office and not just see it on the blog. Well Kim, I hate to say it, but I really dislike music on myspace pages. I guess it’s the fact that I listen to music at my desk and when someone’s page has music on it, well it interrupts my music with a horrible mashup of whatever I’m listening to and what’s on the page. Terrible I know. So that’s why we won’t ever have music on our main page. HOWEVER, I really like the idea of sharing my musical taste with my readers, so I’m going to work on getting a playlist up every month with what’s currently in heavy rotation at 420 Science Radio. Maybe even a podcast? Anyway, thanks for the question Kim and I’ll get something together soon. I love sharing music with people!

So here are some of the questions I got today. I answered a few other directly. I also copied the questions into the blog just like they came to me. Hopefully that will make some of you read what you wrote prior to sending it to me. Is this what our education system is producing? Silly stoners. Maybe my standards are just too high? Or maybe they are? Anyway, there were some good questions in there and I answered them to the best of my ability. Keep them coming. It makes for some interesting conversations around the office.

When are you getting some tshirts? I want to spread the word

Soon hopefully. Hats are on the way. Shirts are a little further off.

Due say i score like a pound of killa, how would i be able to keep it fresh untile i finish it? could i freeze it? would it still taste the same?

I think your best option for long term storage is breaking it up into smaller quantities (1-2 ounces) and investing in a vacuum sealing system. Bag them up and store them in the freezer perhaps in a larger plastic container. You’ll also want to make sure that your goods are properly cured before bagging. Then when you’re running low, pull out one of your freezer bags and dump it into a 420 Jar (or 2)

[update] After posting this reposonse a I received this message…
“no dude you cant freeze it will mold and your bud will get you sick as hell! DONT FREEZE! TRUST ME I KNOW. I TRYED IT AND IT DIDNT WORK I LOST LIKE 14Grams cause of it”

Unfortunately this poor soul fell victim to improperly cured smoke. If you freeze something with water in it you’re going to ruin it. It’s so very important that it’s properly cured before sealing and freezing. Check out this forum for more info on the subject.

are you really a 28-year-old female??

Wouldn’t you like to know? I think that would make you a lesbian since you’re my girlfriend. Hot!

what i want to know..eh? hmm..
i want to know what kind of tests or experiments you guys do with your products. like they do at car test tracks or those condom testing facilities where they blow them up like balloons to see when they’ll burst!
durability? freshness? smellyproffness?
what kind of science experiments are you guys doing?

We test all our products before we introduce them to market. If it’s not something that we’d use ourselves we don’t want to sell it. (Needless to say we have a lot of jars in our house.) Fortunately we aren’t promising that our jars will keep you from getting pregnant, so rigorous testing of every jar isn’t required. We do require Brian to keep a watchful eye on jar quality. We hate sending out inferior products. We’re testing out some new jars right now to make sure they keep the freshness in. After all, freshness matters.

“Anything, aye? Well I use a Volcano for smoking and my tolerance is high using the usual pieces, but my tolerance never changes with my Volcano, I ALWAYS AM RIPPED.

That’s not much of a question, but as a Volcano owner, I couldn’t agree more. What should also be mentioned is that a Volcano uses less product and you’re able to save the leftover duff and bake with it. It’s a very efficient way to smoke and well worth the investment. Check out www.gotvape.com and pick one up.

“whats the highest precent of thc i haerd it was 9.6″

I think this is almost a bit of a stoner myth. I did some research and came across a rather comprehensive study done in 1999. They sampled 42 strains with the highest being 31.6% THC. 9.6% is what would be a decent mid grade smoke. Most high potency strains are closer to 20% With all the advances in breeding that have come about over the past decade there is no doubt in my mind that the number will rise. Link to Article

I know you guys/girls are becoming pretty successful and was wondering if yas ever wanted to go for Tv Commercials on the 420 Science products, will the mainstream media punks let you or people like us advertise pro-cannabis products on tv?

I really doubt you’ll see anything cannabis related advertised on major networks anytime soon. Our industry is underground and mainstream America isn’t quite ready for us yet. It would be nice to think with the current budget crisis that the government will be changing how it spends money and end the war on a plant, but I’m not holding my breath…

Anyway we find that our advertising dollars are spent on print publications. There are a few web based video shows out there, but we’ve found that their impact is minimal compared to advertising in print publications. We are working on some of our own videos currently. So keep a watch out for those.

so do you sell anything but jars and magnifying glasses
I m from L.A. why would I go through all the trouble of ordering those things from you ? Im not being a dick I m just wondering what makes it better than the hundreds of types of jars I can get out here.

That’s an easy one. I’ve collected jars for a long time. Long before 420 Jars was even an idea in my cloudy mind. There are a lot of great ones out there. I especially love little jelly jars. Repurposed jars are great. They’re free and you’re reusing something rather than throwing it away. (good for the earth) But there is a problem. You’re paying a lot of money for quality smoke and probably spent a lot of money on a fancy pipe or two. Why would you want to keep you stash in a mayonnaise jar? Ghettooooo. This is where we come in. Our jars work great to keep your finest fresh and look good while doing it. The lids provide an airtight seal. Any hand-blown jar with a cork lid can’t compete with that. Our decorations aren’t just stickers either. We use high quality glass enamel decals. These are fired in a kiln at over 1000 degrees. Our jars are a high quality and stylish storage solution that’s affordable. Not to mention the ladies will be impressed.

Experiment: What do you want to know? Send me a message with questions about our business, industry, design or whatever. I’ll pick out a few of the best and drop some knowledge.

You’d be amazed by how many people message me through myspace asking if we sell herb. Ummm, no. That’s illegal. (not to mention totally retarded) I have no idea what gives these people the impression that we would be selling anything other than jars or scopes. Maybe I need to include a disclaimer in all the photos – “jars come empty” – but really? Buying something that’s illegal over the internet? I tried to rationalize what these individuals might thinking…maybe I’m just really well informed and some people actually think that you can buy weed online? Needless to say I try to be cordial to these misinformed stoners. Maybe they just got into the lifestyle. Maybe they’re only 16 and don’t know a bong from a steamroller. I remember when I started smoking. I was so eager to learn everything I could about cannabis. So I try to give then a break and reply back (mostly) with a kind email pointing out that selling and possessing cannabis is illegal in the US. Maybe I need to come up with some canned response to these emails. Something helpful and productive. Something that can inform people that trying to purchase illegal substances over the internet is probably not the best idea. I guess in the end I should just have a little laugh (and pity) over these emails. There’s always going to be people that ask misinformed questions. I suppose it’s my duty as a so called “pot expert” (I do own 420 Science after all) to help these people that are in our tribe. Yes, I just called you a tribe. Get used to it.