Minneapolis Snow Emergency’s Twitter feed @MinneapolisSnow reminds us that despite the recent brief stint of Indian Summer, there’s snow in our future.   They kindly informed everyone that November 1st is the first date they’re allowed to declare a Snow Emergency.  And while there’s a chance of flurries in our region this week and we’re all getting ready for Halloween, it’s those dreaded winter months that we should all prepare for.

It’s a good time to get the snow tires organized and ready to be installed.  Make sure your AAA membership is up to date, find the battery charger and make sure it’s working, and maybe take the snowblower in for an oil change and general maintenance before the shops get overwhelmed with procrastinators.

And speaking of @MinneapolisSnow, be sure to follow their Twitter feed so that you’ll get timely notices of Snow Emergencies.  I had my car towed last winter and, believe me, you don’t want to go through that nightmare.

Is it just my house or does it seem like one of Comcast’s two hamsters died a couple of weeks ago and their signal is only about half-strength.

My sister and brother-in-law live over in St. Paul, and they’ve been having some odd issues with their cable TV service from Comcast for well over a year.  They lose sound on a channel occasionally and have to switch out and switch back to fix it, and for the past couple of months their picture keeps breaking up.  They chalked it up to a problem they have with critters crawling under their porch and chewing on the cable, but I’m not so sure.  My Internet service has always been dodgy since I got it a couple of years ago.  They say I have a very weak signal even though there’s just one splitter on the cable for my TV and the modem.  I had sound problems with my TV service back when I was still on their old analog system, too, but usually just in the early morning for some odd reason.

But lately, my picture has been breaking up all the time and I’ve started to have the same sound drop-out as my relatives in St. Paul.   And, worst of all, my cable box keeps crashing.  I mean it freezes up and reboots itself, which means it’s dead for 5 to 10 minutes until the cable system recognizes it again.

<rant>So, is it just my house or is everybody in the Twin Cities getting this spotty service?  I want to know because I’d really rather not have to call Comcast and have them send the munchkins back out.  They did enough damage the last time they were here.  </rant>