Zaphon B. schrieb:

I'm new, so I'd like to wish everyone here a good day and a big HELLO.

At first a hearty welcome to the crowd.

At second: Beware of N8KDV (Steve Lare) and mwbryant (Michael Bryant).
Both known to keep everything to offtopic and posting under various
names. Please do NEVER ask a question or respond to them in any way.

OK. I bought a Grudig S350, comments, thoughts, suggestions?

It's an 'appetizer' just fine for a beginner :-)
For sure you want to upgrade to a tabletop receiver within a short time
when getting deeper into the stuff.
Your first upgrade may be an outdoor antenna. Just take a wire length of
10' to 20' connected to the whip antenna with an alligator clip....


I live in USA, Florida, Panhandle and I really want to catch up
on world news and the local cultures and going ons of various
countries, can someone help me out and toss a newbie a bone or
two?

OK.Here's a first bone ;-)
A free database for shortwave broadcast:
http://www.ilgradio.de/ilgradio.htm


I also understand Morse code as well as the next boy scout, but
some of it I seem to be picking up seems to be bursting out so fast
that I'm starting to think it isn't even Morse code, is there some
other high speed data burst stuff going on or am I just really
clueless to Morse code?

A second bone ;-)
On this site you will find a lot of stuff for decoding morse code and
digital modes on shortwave with computer and soundcard:
http://www.muenster.de/~welp/sb.htm

also any truth to the half murky stuff about random M/C popping up
at random places and times across the world and no one know
exactly what the **** is going on?

Thank You.

Zaphod "stil prez, stil a newbie"

PS. I think that shortwave radio is kinda like the internet only for people
who have imagination. Am I wrong or a snob?

You are wrong and a snob :-)
Best regards from Berlin/Germany.