Feel the salty spray.

Today's Tids Issue 3,225

Opening Stuff:

Most people in this world find great joy in being recognized by somebody else. I think I’ll dye my hair yellow and purple as a reminder to all of those people passing by who stare glassy eyed at me not remembering how witty I was when we talked at the last cocktail party.

 

Today marks the start of the second leg of the Volvo Around the World Ocean race – Capetown to Abu Dhabi. Team Abu Dhabi won the Capetown “InPort” Races with Brunel, SCA (All women), Dongfeng, Vestas Wing, Avimedica (Local Captain and USA Crew - #1 In first InPort race) and Mapfre. For the first leg, the winner was Abu Dhabi nipping DongFeng by 12 minutes and Brunel by 4 hrs and 23 inutes. The rest in order were Vestes Wind, Avimedica, SCA and Mapfre. For your reading pleasure, Bookmark: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/dashboard.html  and click on the “From the Boats” section for some great excitement, and often gut wrenching, sleepless adventure. And the “Inside Track” is always interesting. I’ve read the on-boat logs for these races for years, and it is better than any novel or non-fiction book available. Wait til they hit the Southern oceans. Zowie!

 

$325,000,000 for a baseball player?

 

The Question:

Who are the Top ten most generous countries in the world? Name the top five most likely to help a stranger.

 

The Headlines:

--Extreme Cold, Snow Gripping USA; Buffalo NY Gets 60 Inches Of Snow; All States At Freezing Or Below; NY State Police Using ATV”s and Snowmobiles To Deliver Supplies To Stranded Motorists, Including 30 Women From US Niagara Basket Ball Team; Snow Too heavy For Some oF State’s Largest Plows and Snow Blowers..

--Keystone Fails By One Vote.

--Markets Waiting For The Fed To Speak.

--Putin Rattling Sword Again; Says Ukraine Payment Freeze To Eastern Rebel Held Areas Justification For War; Tells Russian People, “America Trying To Subdue Russia”. I hate it when some Fashion designer latches on to a cool trend idea that is similar to what I have worn all my life. Am I to change.

--Putin Promoting Relations With North Korea.

--Natalie Morales And Popular Willie Geist Fired From Today; Some Opiners Think Lauer Saw Geist As Threat.

 

I was sorry to see Jesse Pitts leave The Voice, but somebody had to go. She reminded me of Melanie from the sixties or early seventies. Ryan was a surprise to many, but he entertains the broader demographic well. Sugar to me was something to look forward to, but often missed her notes, at least to this tin ear.

 

I think Google is losing something in their search engine. They have sold their soul to the Advertiser, and often results are company oriented instead of searcher rewarded. This especially true when looking for anything about cars. A simple question about some aspect of a car will give you promo features about a car maker selling something or broad generalities from any of the big car aggregators like Kelley BB or Edwards. Another piece of daily confidence fading a way.

 

It looks like Rhode Island in the wake of failing in the gambling arena is looking at a marijuana industry as the new economic savior. Yup, the forces are amassing to urge voting for a haze over the Ocean State. Oh yeah, in the same edition of the newspaper it was reported that RI had just recorded its 188^th Drug OD of the year. Hey, you gotta start somewhere.

 

Tiverton is a nice, quiet RI town. So I’m all for the folks planting signs in front yard after front yard with words that read “Don’t Mall Tiverton”.

 

You may have noticed that I often type phrases instead of full sentences. Personally, I think they read better. Sorry English teacher.

 

When I drive home after having my eyes dilated at the Ophthalmologists, I just follow the lines on the road and react to the changes in the intensity of the red before me.

 

If you post it, Twitter will knock it.

 

The Uber story about them paying over a Million to investigators to dig up dirt on journalists so they can retaliate, is frightening -- especially in this new world of too much personal information in the hands of the unknown. Uber itself has more info about people than is good for the folks – like where they go, what they do, who they meet. It’s all there in these potential dirt collector’s logs. And now Uber the onetime hot company of the young and aware  is sounding like just one more arrogant, where nothing more important than me and my survival company.

 

How come all of these industries that added gas penalties to the cost of goods during the uptick, aren’t rescinding them now that the averages are falling below $3:00

 

The Answer:

The top ten Most Giving countries are Myanmar, USA, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Malasia, UK, Sri Lanka and Trinidad. The five most like to “help a stranger” are The USA, Trinadad, Jamaica, NZ, Kenya, Canada and Australia.  

 

It’s getting harder to find answers to questions I want to ask or info for discussions I want to enter because, as I said earlier, Google doesn’t get it anymore. Key words latch on to advertiser objectives. The only thing I can say in favor of the Google decline is that yahoo seems a little worse.