Wild West Land Blog

Apologies all for the 2 month hiatus from the blog - I moved house again for the second time this year and have been slowly sorting out all the associated chaos that brings with it.

I’ve also been working hard to source a supplier for the Cowboy Country Owners Packs in NZ who can offer good quality veg tan leather to produce further portfolio packs for new owners. Despite the country’s reputation for lots of livestock it’s proven harder than expected!

So, as of tomorrow, I’ll be calling a pause to orders for 2009 and revamping the product offering ready for Feb 2010 (January is pretty much written off down here I’m told, much like August in France).

Many thanks to those of you who’ve ordered the pack this year - be sure to tell your friends or colleagues about the unique gift but please advise that ordering won’t be back up and running until the new year.

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Enough product promotion! The real topic of this post is news of a major new wild west themed computer game launching in 2010 - Red Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games, the company behind the often scandalous Grand Theft Auto series.

The London Times explains how programmers have to date always found horses and gunsmoke hard ‘to do’, well it seems from the trailer video below they have cracked that problem.

The game, featuring ‘John Marston’ - who looks a lot like a spaghetti western era Clint Eastwood - is due out on 27 April 2010 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. I can’t say I’m a big console gamer but the video promo looks superb and may entice me into shelling out the dollars required. But which platform to buy? Recommendations welcome.

Red Dead Redemption video trailer

Like it? Love it? The game’s got everything a wild west buff could want: red butte landscapes reminiscent of Monument Valley; railroad trains with cowcatchers charging across creaking wooden bridges; dusty one horse towns; even Mexican bandits and pueblo architecture straight out of The Magnificent Severn.

Going to pre-order my copy come January. In the meantime, a Merry Xmas to all!

“The Internet has finally taken on the characteristics of the Wild West where no one is to be trusted”

So said Sukhdev Singh, senior security consultant from IBM Internet security systems. It’s a dangerous world out there so make sure you’ve got your sixguns strapped on (read anti-virus/phishing/malware software).

A Bambi-esque technological tragedy is recorded for posterity by the Google Maps street view car traversing the Five Points Road in Rush, NY over on Gizmodo. I hope they had their hunting licence in the glovebox…

Social media and social networking are two very web popular 2.0 buzzwords that have been making waves for quite a while now online. Do you Tweet? Personally I don’t have the time to check my emails let alone connect with people I’ve never met but I may be an exception to the buzzword action.

I do however love Facebook as a tool to keep-up with what friends, relations and former colleagues are up to.

So imagine my surprise tonight when I read the latest Ranch Rider messages to discover that not only are the company running Save The Dude Ranch Campaign specials on holidays to working ranches, they’re also now active on HorseTweet.com.

Is this a social network too far? It would appear not judging by the frantic postings of members keen to brag about their first dressage show or sell or trade a horse to interested parties. It sure beats the old Exchange and Mart!

HorseTweet.com bills itself as ‘the social network for equine enthusiasts’. As someone keen on the idea of horseriding but none too accomplished I’ll leave more qualified readers to judge that statement.

Oh and here’s media-spokesperson-cum-glovepuppet-horse-reporter, Hoof, to introduce the site. Saddle up partners!

I keep driving past new, green McDonald’s outlets on my scooter travels around London. I don’t mean green in the ethical consumer sense but in the coloured frontage style many of the restaurants are now taking on.

I have to admit I don’t eat in Maccy-D’s all that often any more after reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. This isn’t due to a paranoid fear of the food but because I’m supposed to be looking after my health being over the age of 35 and with a worryingly high incidence of heart disease in the family genes. Plus if I ate too many cheeseburgers I’d need to invest in some haggar® Heritage Expandomatic® Trousers.

When I was a child McDonald’s were all bright reds and yellows with upbeat piped music all alledgely designed to ensure a rapid turnover of clientele who were subconsciously primed to eat more at a faster pace. Green on the other hand, I assume, will bring a noughties-style feeling of natural, organic healthiness to the brand.

Given the company’s legal resources I’ll move rapidly along to the real reason for this post - cow care top tips!

This new fangled internet has been around a fair few years now revolutionising the way all kinds of things happen and it’s only fair that farmers - traditionally thought of as being behind the times - should also make use of the joys of Web 2.0.

After stumbling across The Beef Blog I have discovered a whole world of online resources for cattle farmers including podcasts on iTunes, Chicago Board of Trade agricultural prices via text message and dedicated YouTube channels.

Jenni Glenn writes in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Journal Gazette newspaper:

Think of it as moo media… Cattle farmers anywhere in the world can pull up YouTube’s Web site and watch Purdue University’s videos on grazing and breeding techniques… Online video channels and podcasts are building on a long tradition of agricultural radio shows, TV programs and magazines.

Purdue - the alma mater of the first and last men to walk on the moon - is obviously the place to go for beef betterment (Cattle Farming and Ranching 101) as well as rocket science.

If you really want to look after your cows though take a tip from this Oklahoma Cattle Hauler on Deb Goodrich’s great blog ‘Mason-Dixon Wild West’. After all, you want to ensure your cattle ride to market in style so what better way to recycle a battered Oldsmobile than to chop off the top and make room for one of your herd? I don’t think it’s a Photoshop job…

Pondered buying a great book today on movable homes (not just caravans) and came across A-Z Wagon Stations which are built and located at A-Z West, “the historical site of the five-acre Homestead Act“.

The prototype for the A-Z Wagon Station is inspired by two different generations of “wagons.” The covered wagons used by the original settlers of the West, and the station wagon of the 20th Century

The wagons are great to look at and a really innovative way of building small, living spaces in remote places.