It snowed, and that’s nice. Snow resets everything. Snow makes you go slow; snow makes you pause by the window and watch the world disappear. And then watch it come back - the sidewalks were patrolled by snowblowers that remove the snow like wet erasers sweeping a sentence off a blackboard.

Stepped outside for a while; cold, but everything looked right for January.

Looked even more right when I ran it through some filters. ;)

You know I work on this site in advance, right? Here's where it stands today:

And I feel behind. I also feel irritated because I have neck pain because of 1947. I sat too long in a state of attention, thanks to 1947. To be specific, a magazine from 1947. It had too many good ads; they needed to be separated, sized, given a 1 pixel border, numbered, and put in a folder for the Tuesday advertising section. It was one of the last such folders for the year, since I decided to populate all the folders for the entire year to come.

Don’t you love that word, “populate”? It used to mean “fill with people” but it’s come to mean “fill with things.” It’s one of those buzzwords you use in a meeting because everyone knows what it means, or at least pretends they do.

Why? Two reasons.

1. It was used by that one younger person who’s smart and savvy about social. That's the word we used now for "internet," somehow. How is this piece doing on social? We need to populate our social. He said that with authority.

2. Then there's the other type of youngish buzzword-using person - filled to his cranial brim with jargon, but he gives the words a slight sarcastic spin to let you know yeah, it’s a buzzword, but it’s useful, so let’s roll with it?

The questioning inflection isn't meant as a question, just a way to assert without asserting.

The latter is the type who never used the word “robust” to describe anything without air quotes, because the word's a joke. The #1 guy is the type who used the word a lot because "robust" made him feel like some manly type having a craft beer at a place with an axe on the wall and maybe a flannel pattern on the menu? And the bartender was one of those guys you could tell was serious about his beard, and probably bought beard oil, or beard wax or whatever it was, and while that was mayyyybe taking it a bit far, dudes were into beards now. It's a thing. Buzzfeed had a piece about 14 Times These Beards Won the Internet or something, and they were all like guys from Brooklyn doing websites about phosphate bars and artisanally ground monocles or something.

Anyway. Thee weeks ago, it seems, I populated all the Main street folders through the end of the year. That’s nice. Two weeks ago, it seems, I filled all the Listen folders through July . . . well, let’s do the rest of the year. Annnnd done. Now let’s fill the Product folders through the end of the year. Done! Fully populated and robustly antisocial, since there aren't any Facebook links.

There were many images left over. Toted up the unused images. . . holy crow.

I have, in the bank, sized and numbered and ready to roll, the Tuesday Advertising site through July 2018.

That’s when my neck seized up. I had been working on a page that will run in June of 2018. Why. I don’t even know if I’ll be alive. I mean, who knows? My name is Ted, after all.

So’s yours.

Eh? Huh? I was driving to the airport to pick up wife and child last week, and tuned into the 80s channel. They played a much-reviled song: I Want To Be a Cowboy. I do not revile it. I love it. Sums up the 80s: catchy and funny. It’s amusing. It’s wry. It’s self-aware and it doesn’t care. The cowgirl has a verse, and says she's following her man . . . his name is Ted. Can you believe that?

TED! O TED! sings the background chorus. FIGHTING OFF DANGER!

At the end the singer says my name is Ted. And one day, I’ll be dead Yo Yo Yo

The Giant Swede and I say this from time to time when discussing the contrusions of life. Bad as it gets, well, my name is Ted. Nothing more needs to be said.

So if that just happens, for whatever reason, before July of 2018, you’re not going to get those 1947 ads. You’re on your own. And you’ll probably never think again about those 1947 ads - it’ll be like a TV show you watched because it was on, and then it wasn’t.

DON’ T WORRY EVERYTHING’S FINE. It just feels . . . hubristic to lay out content for 2018, but only because that’s the year I have dreaded for a long time. The year Daughter’s room is finally neat.

Day, after day, after day. Neat. No tea cups that should have been put in the dishwasher; no piles of clothes or stacks of scratchpads; no half-finished paintings, no unmade bed.

Neat. When they’re gone, it’s neat.

Pictures left behind in empty houses, found by my realtor uncle-in-law.

No names on the back. The happy couple:

Something about his expression says "I know. Believe me, brother, I know."

Something about her expression says she'll have none of that. Whatever it is, if it's nonsense, she'll just have none of it.

In case you missed it last week, we're doing . . .

And it's great! To bring you up to speed:

Here's the decent Man of Science who is creating Wonders to make our world Better:

Here's the jerkwad who wants to thwart his efforts to lead the nation into the bright light of Progress:

And here's the brave fellow who's dedicated to doing good, and maybe getting his own comic book some day:

He is, in reality, Bob Wayne, who was a friend of the Governor, who was killed by Dr. Satan, and somehow that gives Wayne the right to investigate the matter along with the Authorities.

The previous episode led with the Copperhead - the Secret Identity of Bob Wayne - rushing to save the Spunky Gal Daughter from the clutches of Dr. Satan’s Remote Control detonation. This was pretty much a given:

Dr. Satan’s henches rescued him from wherever he was last ep - remember, he’d been foiled and captured and had his identity revealed, which is pretty good for a first ep. We get a hint of his evil plan:

No, not the fearsome Remote Control Roberts!

Of course Dr. Scott has another remote control, and demonstrates it with a remote-controlled pilotless plane. (Ahead of his time, he was.) The Copperhead gets on board for some reason. Dr. Satan’s plan to hijack the plane goes awry right off the bat; you wonder what spectacular successes he had before to amass his rep and fortune.

Dr. Scott uses the pilotless plane to show the military brass how good it’ll work in war situation:

Pretty cool! But they’re unaware that Satan’s henches are planning to hijack the plane. This just cracked me up, for some reason; sure, that's standard plane equipment.

Oh that’ll be a cinch. How does that work out for him? I give you . . . the entire fight, lacking only a definitive AAAIIIIEEEEEEE

Yep, killed him! Another day at the ffice. The Copperhead lands the plane, so all is safe and fine, except he’s instantly captured by Dr. Satan’s men, who take him to the OLL, or Obligatory Lair and Lab. He breaks free in about 23 seconds, and there’s another very, very good fight:

I mean, this is just, like, ballet, but fun:

What happens to the hench who lost the fight?

Our hero, of course, finds Dr. Satan in his study, holds him up at gunpoint, takes the remote control, gets the drop on all the bad guys, but makes one tiny mistake . . . he A) doesn’t look where he’s backing up, and B) doesn’t smell the acrid aroma of Disintegrated Hench. And so.

A-grade stuff, this is. Really!

That'll do! See you around, Ted.