Friday's Random Musings or Things that made me go Hmmm.

          Okay as a sort of writing exercise and a way of pandering to my growing number of readers  (1009 page hits!  Whoo hoo!) I have decided to take a moment or three each week to look back and ponder some of the stories that didn't piss me off, annoy me or in any way inspire my usual Ass-ish nature.  Don't worry, the other blogs will still do their very best to really make people think and hopefully honk as many people off as possible.  Ready?  Okay, here we go!
           http://gma.yahoo.com/mysterious-forest-boy-identified-german-police-091307335--abc-news-topstories.html  Okay so in this story, apparently a young boy wanders into the city claiming to have been living in the wild with his Dad for five years after his Mom died.  The boy was clean, well groomed and even had good teeth.  The gear he claimed to have been using was too new looking to have been used in the wild for five years.  He claimed to have came to town after his father died and he had buried him, but he couldn't remember where he buried him.
          Now, at least to me there were so many holes in this "kid's" (Turns out he's actually 20 years old) story that it isn't even funny, but the authorities in Germany seem to have mostly took the kid at his word giving him a place to live and support.  Now it turns out the Boy is a runaway with at least one living parent and now everyone is all heated up about it.  There is talk about making the boy "pay" for all the help he has received.  My advice to Berlin?  Get over it.  You got took because you accepted his story.
          http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/beef-expensive-dinner-214902964.html  Now this one hits a little close to home because I am a major Carnivore.  I like my meat grilled, fried, broiled and even boiled if done properly.  The idea that meat prices are going to keep going up and up scare the crap out of me, but on the other hand maybe it'll make people eat more veggies.  As anyone who reads any type of news knows, small scale farming is making a huge come back.  People everywhere are growing corn, potatoes, peas and other veggies on their porches, patios and fire escapes.  Whole new industries are cropping up to design new and better ways of growing your own food.
          When I was a kid (well after we moved off the actual farm) I didn't know a single person that didn't have some form of vegetable garden and at least a small chicken coop for eggs.  Even people in the "big city" (Troy at that time had a population of about 9000 I think) kept a small garden and some had bigger gardens than us country folk.  Somewhere along the line, being self sufficient became uncool.  It was better to go the grocery store to buy stuff from people hundreds of miles away that you had never even met than to grow your own or buy some maters from the neighbor down the street.  Now thanks to high prices and fears over GMOs and poisons, people are relearning the lessons my Daddy knew back in the 60s-70s.
          http://news.discovery.com/animals/iceland-river-monster-120210.html & http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/bigfoot-spotted-idaho-150527313--abc-news-topstories.html  are kind of a double whammy on the same subject.  Now as anyone who knows me knows I am a firm believer that there are strange creatures out there in the world we haven't discovered yet and yes I do believe in the Loch Ness Monster.  However, it always kills me that anytime anyone finds "footage proving the existence of ...." that the film or photos are always grainy, out of focus, shot from a distance or all three combined.  You'd think that in this era of modern tech where everyone has an HD recorder sitting in their pocket or clipped to their belt, that we could get some believable shots.  Hells, people haven't you ever heard of Fotoshop?
          New species are being discovered every day and species long since though extinct pop up from time to time (Ceolocanth anyone?  Don't know that one?  Look it up and it will blow your mind)  There are still vast areas of the world that are relatively unexplored so who knows what is out there?  However, the era of hoaxers making bad videos and fake footprints should be over with.  I want to see CGI of Bigfoot dancing with Nessie Darn it!
          Well, that's all for this Friday.  Tune in next week for the next confused and random musings.  Thanks to all of my readers.  Have a great weekend!