h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I got sucked into it this time.

The ad was something about a super new technology that Stephen Hawking was, er, hawking. It could revolutionize life on this planet, or some such sky pie. When I clicked on the link, I was taken to the Motley Fool website, where they didn't actually say what the new technology was , only that Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos were interested too.

I'd have to pay some money to find out. Well, if it's truly the wave of the future, soon everyone will know, for free, and it will be inescapable.

American meadows seed company.

Less than a minute ago, I was looking at new flower varieties and Johnny's Selected Seeds. Now I'm dealing with flowers from *another* seed company.

Now I'm being asked to buy Skittles at CVS, an American pharmacy chain

Abebooks. I've used them, they are terrific for second-hand and out-of-print books. Not recently though.

Yes, I’ve used them too. I’m amazed the prices are so low. The booksellers can’t make much from it.

"When to retire," by money manager Ken Fisher.

Fisher was born in 1950, so he's at least 67. Many people become retired by that age, so maybe we should ask why Ken hasn't retired?

Ken Fisher still hasn't retired

Maybe he retired at 45 to write books as a hobby.

I don't mind his writing books, but did someone have to go and publish them?

"Rate President Trump"

"Nabelschnurblut einlagern" - WTF? Why (how?) should I preserve umbilical cord fluids?

Whew - it's back to bunches of flowers now. I ought to organise some for my Mum for Mother's day. But I shall actually be in the UK on Mother's day, so I won't need the flower delivery service.

Will you have flowers in bloom by Mother's Day? In my corner of the world, we have to wait a couple months just for daffodils!

We have snowdrops and crocuses at the moment - daffs and tulips probably in 3-4 weeks, depending on the weather. My mother's garden is about the same, although she lives farther North. What you do notice is, if travelling Northwards in April, that the lilac is a great indicator of how far you've gone. Lilac blossom can have been out for 2-3 weeks, or even already faded, in our part of the world, and if you travel to Kassel or Hannover, it's still only in bud!

I don't know if my mother still has any bulbs in her garden, but there may be some flowers out for Mother's day. If not, I may put in some primula like we did last year. Or pansies.

I bought and planted 30 more daffodils last Fall. I look forward to seeing them bloom, but the long-range Spring forecasts seem to agree that warm weather will come late this year. We could even have late snow.

I've just checked your coordinates and mine - you are 42° North, we are 49° North. Surely your Spring comes earlier than ours. My mother lives at 52°N, but is in a far more temperate climate than we are here.

"This is not an advertisement: 7 Honda models have five-star safety ratings."

"I've just checked your coordinates and mine - you are 42° North, we are 49° North. Surely your Spring comes earlier than ours" [TC]

I'm sure the French colonists thought the Canadian climate would be as balmy as the French one, only to almost die from the cold. Likewise the Pilgrims who lost half their number during their first winter in Massachusetts. Part of the reason for warmer European coastal temps is that a convection current called the Gulf Stream brings warmth from the tropics. The Gulf Stream bypasses Massachusetts to the southeast. There's more to it than that, though. The Gulf Stream warms the air, which rises and pulls polar air in after it. Every winter, we in Massachusetts get rain or snow as the Gulf Stream dips to the south, but as the storms pass through our area, they pulls polar air after them. t happens again and again.

http://www.livescience.com/13573-east-coast-colder-europe-west-coast.html

Combining two of the ads would yield the following:

Trump rates Stephen Hawking's bold new breakthrough!

"Tax Act: max out on deductions"

I'm surprised that anyone has figured out the new legislation already. It seemed devilishly complex.

I just got finished using TaxAct. I was going to switch to TurboTax since I also use Mint dot com but, for the first time ever, I had to pay to file my taxes. Both services required me to upgrade to fill in one single box. I now have a high deductible health plan with Health Savings Plan. My pay went down this year, my health coverage went up and now I have to buy tax software. And the only reason we have to use these programs/websites is because the companies that create them spent a -ton of money on Congress critters to prevent the IRS sending out provisional tax returns and letting citizens just check for errors and omissions, like so many other more sensible nations do.

Moonpig online personalised greeting cards.

Is it really 'personalised' if you order it online and have their name printed in it?