COFFEE BREAK
B6 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
SATuRDAY, JAnuARY 22, 2022
Boyfriend’s ‘chatty’ habit makes girlfriend jealous
he flirts or says something that
could be taken in a sexual way,
and I worry that one of these
women could take it like he’s
interested in her.
I don’t want to break up
with him. I love him. But I feel
I have reason to be jealous.
I wish I was the only girl for
him. Please give me advice.
— NOT NUMBER ONE IN
PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR NOT NUMBER
ONE: If you have discussed this
with him and it persists, listen
to your intuition. If he loved
you, he would not be chatting up
other women. If a man makes
you feel like you are not No. 1,
DEAR ABBY: I’ve been
going out with this guy for a
couple of months. The problem
is, he has to always talk to every
woman he sees — from a two-
second conversation to a sev-
eral-minute conversation. He
doesn’t even know 99% of them.
When we go to a store, I feel
like I’m invisible. He’ll walk
away from me and start talking
to women. I don’t trust him
completely because sometimes
mate is more violent. Johnny has
already gotten into trouble at pre-
school for pointing and making
shooting noises. Is there any-
thing we can do to discourage this
behavior? Does he need profes-
sional help? — UNCLEAR IN
CALIFORNIA
DEAR UNCLEAR: Because
Johnny has gotten into trouble
for pretending to play with guns,
his parents should explain to him
why it is not OK to do that at
school. Unless there is something
going on with your grandson that
you omitted from your letter,
he should not need professional
intervention for acting like a
normal boy.
DEAR ALWAYS: Your friend
may be an avid “Dear Abby”
reader, but what if — heaven
forbid — she misses the column
today and doesn’t see your letter?
The “best” way to handle this
would be for you to take the bull
by the horns and address the
problem directly with her.
DEAR ABBY: My 4-year-old
grandson, “Johnny,” is obsessed
with all things military. Every-
thing he picks up is a pretend
gun, sword or blaster. I know
we played cowboys and Indians
as kids, pointing sticks or our
hands and shouting “Pow! You’re
dead!” and none of us turned
into shooters. But today’s cli-
get rid of him before he destroys
your self-esteem.
DEAR ABBY: We have a
neighbor who likes to go out with
us to the casinos, restaurants and
various other places. This is doing
her a favor, but she never contrib-
utes toward the transportation.
When we go out with other cou-
ples, we alternate driving or help
to pay for fuel. All we get from
her is, “Thank you. Let me know
when you’re going next time.”
I know she reads your column.
I hope she reads this and real-
izes this sounds like her and takes
the hint. What do you think is the
best way to handle this situation?
— ALWAYS THE TAXI
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
Mars rebrands its female M&M’s chocolate characters
Company ditches high
heels for sneakers to
make characters more
representative of
customers
By DANIELLE WIENER-BRONNER
CNN Business
McLEAN, Va. — M&M’s
branding is getting a refresh.
The candy’s anthropomor-
phized chocolate characters are
being made over, and the logo is
also getting a tweak.
But the most noticeable
change is to the six M&M char-
acters: new shoes. Green has
swapped her go-go boots for
sneakers. Brown is sporting
lower, more sensible heels. Red
and Yellow’s shoes now have
laces. Orange’s shoes laces are
no longer untied. And Blue’s
shoes, while little changed,
resemble what Anton Vincent,
president of Mars Wrigley North
America, described as “a bad
version of Uggs.”
Mars Wrigley, which owns
M&Ms, is trying to make the
characters — particularly the
female ones — more “cur-
rent” and “representative of our
consumer,” Vincent said. The
revamped footwear is “a subtle
cue, but it’s a cue people really
pick up on,” he added, noting that
Mars gets a lot of feedback on
the characters’ shoes.
The logo adjustment is also
slight: Instead of resting on its
side, it’s set up straight. The new
orientation is designed to empha-
size the ampersand. The logo was
last tweaked in 2019.
The changes are rolling out
online this week and they’ll be
incorporated into M&Ms’ pack-
aging and other marketing mate-
rials this year.
The changes may be subtle,
but even small shifts can help
M&Ms/Contributed Photo
M&Ms old logo and characters are shown on top, and the new versions below. The changes include new footwear for the six characters.
brands avoid falling out of
fashion, said David Camp,
co-founder and managing partner
of Metaforce, a marketing
company.
Better gender
representation
M&Ms were first sold in
1941, and the characters arrived
on the scene in 1954. Old
M&Ms commercials starred
Red and Yellow, representing
regular and peanut M&Ms. In
the late 1990s, new characters
were added to the mix. Brown,
the most recent addition, joined
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
37/52
Kennewick
29/45
St. Helens
32/50
Hood River
27/43
31/43
32/49
32/50
Condon
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
Partly cloudy
Partly sunny
Partly sunny
Chilly with
some sunshine
Clouds and sun;
chilly
34 17
32 16
31 17
Eugene
3
1
0
32/50
41 19
35 20
34 23
5
3
3
La Grande
21 38 23
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
3
5
3
21 44 26
Comfort Index™
6
39 21
34 24
4
4
3
ALMANAC
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High: 82°
Low: -34°
Wettest: 4.39”
32°
28°
40°
31°
41°
33°
0.11
0.38
0.46
0.38
0.46
0.41
1.24
1.14
1.24
1.14
0.03
3.06
2.21
3.06
2.21
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Thursday
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Normal year to date
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
HAY INFORMATION SUNDAY
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
45%
SSE at 6 to 12 mph
6.2
0.04
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
Elkton
2% of capacity
25% of capacity
19% of capacity
29% of capacity
20% of capacity
29% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Thursday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
1660 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder
1 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
15 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
1640 cfs
Minam River at Minam
150 cfs
Powder River near Richland
54 cfs
Plant City, Fla.
Celina, Minn.
Hollywood, Fla.
OREGON
High: 61°
Low: 22°
Wettest: 0.87”
Brookings
Lakeview
Meacham
WEATHER HISTORY
A record 17.4-inch snowfall on Jan. 22,
1902, in Buffalo, N.Y., was dwarfed by 30
inches in Philadelphia, Pa., on Jan. 8, 1996.
SUN & MOON
SAT.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
SUN.
7:23 a.m. 7:22 a.m.
4:45 p.m. 4:46 p.m.
9:57 p.m. 11:08 p.m.
10:03 a.m. 10:23 a.m.
MOON PHASES
Last
Jan 25
New
Jan 31
First
Feb 8
Beaver Marsh
45/65
Full
Feb 16
34/55
Silver Lake
Jordan Valley
22/36
Paisley
23/51
21/52
Frenchglen
26/44
31/60
Klamath Falls
19/51
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
Hi/Lo/W
52/39/pc
59/35/s
34/23/s
59/42/s
38/21/s
60/38/s
48/32/s
30/15/pc
39/22/pc
50/33/s
40/30/c
43/32/pc
47/26/pc
46/34/s
45/32/pc
37/29/c
51/20/s
48/19/s
Hi/Lo/W
50/38/pc
59/27/s
34/22/pc
58/43/pc
43/20/s
57/38/s
49/33/pc
34/8/c
40/18/c
52/35/pc
41/24/pc
47/28/pc
44/21/pc
43/29/s
41/22/c
37/27/c
52/20/s
47/17/s
29/35
Lakeview
17/48
McDermitt
22/40
RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
MON.
Grand View
Arock
24/38
24/43
Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs.
SUN.
Diamond
25/41
Fields
Medford
Brookings
Boise
25/34
33/60
46/59
23/34
21/48
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Juntura
18/38
26/48
21/51
Roseburg
Ontario
27/36
Burns
Brothers
38/62
Coos Bay
Huntington
23/42
31/59
Oakridge
19/30
29/34
Seneca
Bend
THURSDAY EXTREMES
High Thursday
Low Thursday
30/46
29/61
Council
15/33
John Day
25/58
Sisters
Florence
Powers
19/30
Baker City
Redmond
40/56
43/56
Halfway
Granite
22/46
30/48
Newport
43/60
Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels
very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable.
25/47
39/59
32/50
35/56
41 20
6
Corvallis
Enterprise
21/44
21/38
Monument
28/48
Idanha
Salem
TONIGHT
3
22/39
La Grande
28/46
Maupin
Comfort Index™
Elgin
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
Lewiston
30/42
28/36
29/41
TIllamook
15 33 16
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Walla Walla
29/37
Vancouver
31/50
40/59
Baker City
placing more “focus on the
characters as it relates to the
total brand, and then building
ourselves a platform to be able
to advocate and talk about this
idea,” he added.
Other brands have made
adjustments to their logos or
mascots to keep them up-to-
date. One example is Quaker,
which in 2012 altered the face of
its mascot like a discreet plastic
surgeon. Changes included
“removing his double chin and
smoothing the rolls and plump-
ness in his face and neck,” The
Wall Street Journal reported.
The solution, then, was to
give the female Green and
Brown a promotion. They’ll
have more prominent placement
in ads, with the aim of “a little
bit more gender balance,” said
Vincent.
M&Ms is using these
changes to try to signal its brand
identity to customers, who are
increasingly drawn to brands
they feel align with their own
values. “It gives us a good plat-
form to talk about the whole
idea around belonging,” Vincent
said.
The company is also is
the crew in 2012.
Over the years the brand has
switched between highlighting
its characters more heavily or
less frequently, Vincent noted.
Now, it’s putting them front and
center.
Currently, there are two
female characters and four male
ones. Adding another couple
of female characters to balance
out the ratio is possible, said
Vincent, but there are “impli-
cations” for the product itself.
Namely, M&Ms would have to
add new permanent colors to its
mix.
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
SUN.
MON.
Hi/Lo/W
42/32/pc
45/33/pc
38/22/pc
60/32/s
56/39/s
49/33/pc
36/26/pc
39/30/c
41/29/pc
49/35/pc
65/40/s
58/27/s
55/35/s
50/34/s
34/27/pc
43/32/pc
47/29/s
36/27/pc
Hi/Lo/W
43/28/pc
48/31/pc
40/17/pc
58/33/s
53/38/pc
49/33/pc
34/24/c
40/29/c
40/24/pc
48/34/pc
61/39/s
54/25/s
55/37/pc
49/34/pc
37/23/c
46/29/pc
44/21/pc
36/27/pc
Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice
ANTHONY LAKES
PHILLIPS LAKE
Partly sunny
Partly sunny
38
28
39
29
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Partly sunny
Partly sunny
38
26
38
23
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Partly sunny
Partly sunny
39
23
43
21
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Partly sunny
Mostly sunny
45
32
45
31
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Periods of sun
Partly sunny
33
16
38
23