Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/06/there-are-snowballs-for-sale-i.html
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People can’t even be bothered to make their own snowballs. Sad.
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On the one hand, the snow here in Wisconsin is so cold and so dry that you can’t make a snowball, which sucks. On the other: who the hell is going to pay a dollar for a snowball? I guess there’s a novelty factor of “hey, look at this ridiculous thing I bought,” but is that worth a buck? I’m so confused…
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Those were always a Hostess thing as I recall, but perhaps one of the brands is getting by on a technicality with spelling:
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Tunnock’s are a Scottish company, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you can only buy them in the USA at shops that specialise in British products.
I like the idea of a vending machine that is filled with Tunnock’s products. $1 is a bit pricey though,
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I think it’s more that Hostess and Tunnocks separately developed rather different products in very different markets and now independently have goodwill and IP rights in respect of their respective products in the relevant markets.
People in the US think Hostess, people in Scotland think Tunnock’s. There’s no real possibility of confusion since the people who know the one product usually don’t know the other plus despite superficial similarities in name and appearance, they are rather different products.
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You know in the middle of a hot summer day, I might well pay $1.00 for a nice, fresh snowball made from real snow crystals instead of just frozen slush.
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Bah, in my day we made custom defense snow balls, loaded with ice and some times rocks. You can’t put that kind of love and craftsmanship into a can.
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Just a matter of time before someone introduced P2W. 
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I was mildly surprised to see this wasn’t Japanese. Sometimes it seems like you can get anything from a vending machine in Japan.
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How much do they charge to ship to warmer locations?
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Some context: This machine was only put out for Superbowl week, when the city was overrun by people who thought snow was a novelty, and had lots of extra cash to spend on stupid things…
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I was trying to something in the supermarket quite recently and went to ask the assistant I addressed her with the idea… “do you not have any snowballs” ?
Now somebody needs to develop a machine that takes Real Minnesota Water™ and runs it through a snow machine and packs it so you can have a fresh snowball, not some lopsided, homemade one that’s been sitting around for a week. And probably has a rock in it.
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Such irresponsibility! I recall back in elementary school that Elmer the Safety Element strongly forbade the throwing of snowballs at sentient targets. Will no one think of the children?!
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How much for snowballs with some gravel in them?
This used to be big business:
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I read an excellent pop-history book about the inception of the ice trade some years ago. Now that was some venture capitalism, alright.
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