Ach, snow. Lots of snow. It will melt soon. I’ll probably have to shovel anyway.

It didn’t stop the demonstrators; they blocked off a street and made speeches from the back of a van.

It says FRONTLINE on the safety vests. The volunteers waving traffic away are on the FRONT LINE here. Don’t know if they had a permit, or if the police just let them do it because it would look bad if they cleared the street. The TV news crews took shots, but didn’t seem particularly enthused about it. The weather was lousy and the real story was inside, where more jurors were selected and more motions filed.

I went down later to hear the speaker. He was complimenting the National Guard for wearing masks, unlike the Minneapolis police, who slobbered all over you, from his experience. When I looked out the window a half an hour later the Frontline workers had departed.

I just got off the phone with SiriusXM customer help, which wasn’t helpful at all. I could barely understand what she was saying, and she could barely understand what I was describing.

The phone app had a nice feature for the old radio channel: boxes for the shows that aired earlier in the day. It goes back about four hours. Tap on the box, go to the show. (More or less. Sometimes you’re put 30 seconds into the show, or two minutes out, with lots of tiresome commercials for term life insurance.)

Then something changed. Tap on the box now, and you get a description for the show, a chance to set an alert or favorite it. There are also options for Facebook and Twitter because of course and who cares.

Describing this to anyone who doesn’t use the app, which appears to be the overtwhelming majority of people in customer service, is a chore.

So you cannot listen to the station? said the customer service person.

"No, I can listen to the station. I cannot access previous shows by clicking on the boxes in the laterally scrolling pane below the on-air show information."

Can you hear music on other stations?

"Yes. But - it’s not a problem with my settings or my connections. It’s a problem with the way the app has been redesigned."

Have you tried deleting and reinstalling the app?

"The app is not defective. It is performing as designed. I’m here to complain about the design."

See, if there’s an unresolved TROUBLE TICKET floating out there, it’ll disturb the Matrix, or something.

I should note that she said I thank you so very much in response to every question I asked. Are you calling about reciever in your car? "No, I am calling about the app." I thank you so very much. And what is the problem with the app? "It is not thanking me very much." I thank you so very much.

It’s 1945

SO FIND THEM AND STAB THEM

The war is over, but there are still troops abroad. Canadian troops, in this instance; I got this ad from Maclean’s, and it provides the usual familiar-but-slightly-different flavor you get from Canadian ads.

		As a kid I never liked that cat. Peered out from the windows of the shoe repair shop. It had your number. I knew it was from another era, like that laughing bear that sold automotive products, but I couldn't say why I knew it.

Says this history site:

Cat’s Paw was founded in Baltimore as Cat’s Paw Rubber Co. in 1904. The main draw of the heel was in its no slip rubber pads embedded in the heel. These little white studs were made of a different material and recessed slightly into the rubber. The wearer’s weight would extend the pad and add extra traction.

Did people slip a lot before this invention hit the market? Absorbed by other companies, phased out in the 60s.

Also: “Famed German graphic designer Lucian Bernhard (father of the Bernhard font) designed the logo in 1941. The swiping cat on the bright red box sums up everything we’d like to imagine about post-war American quaintness (it was ripped off wholesale by Black Cat fireworks).”

Really! Really? No. I don’t think so.

		"Look, kid, that’s not part of the deal. My legal and moral responsibilities are done the moment you’re out of the cloth sling."

A 2013 comment from WebMD: “I have used it all my life, I am 46 years old, I learned today, Buckley's white rub, has been discontinued, no longer manufacturing it.”

We share your pain.

Now that the war’s over, you won’t be cold:

Huge! Imagine having to lay out your living room based on that behemoth. Wonder if drunks came up and tried to turn it on and hear music.

Oh, sure:

Ohhhhh, sure it got little heat-arrows to the corner of another room. Only if it was stifling in the main room.

Cagney had a bad patch:

		The extent to which people blamed kidneys for things in the early 20th century is always surprising. They’d be amazed to learn we never give them a thought today.

War’s over, but you’re still watching your sugar.

If there’s one thing people today don’t necessarily request, it’s spicy hard pudding that looks like a baked ostrich brain.

I know it’s a Christmas ad, but I didn’t realize it until I got to the end, and I’ll be danged if I set this one aside for nine months.

That will do today, I hope. See you around.