Book Promo: Indigent (Charity Book 1)

Title: Indigent

ISBN: ISBN (13) 978-1512317404

Genre: Fiction – LGBT Anthology

Audience: Young Adult and Teen (age group 16+)

Edition: Quality Paperback, Pages – 464, $5.99 Ebook, $3.99

Authors: Frederick Eugene Feeley Jr, Mari Evans, Leona Windwalker, Shaye Evans, M. LeAnne Phoenix

Publisher: CoolDudes Publishing (PTY) LTD

Publication Date: 15 June, 2015

Distributor: Online distribution. Createspace. Amazon. Gumroad.

Marketing: Multilayered online campaign, including giveaways (Epub, Mobi and Kindle) and advertising. Social media campaign including Facebook and Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest. ARC distribution.

Book Description (Blurb)

Five authors have joined together to produce stories evoking both loss and hope. Reaching deep within their fiery imaginations, these stories take flight and showcase dreams for a better today and future for LGBT everywhere. Embodying a diverse set of talents and stories, this volume sets out to grab the hearts of those who read the m/m genre and to offer hope to LGBT across the globe.

Frederick Eugene Feeley Jr’s “Indigent”, after which the anthology takes it’s name, brings the reader to witness an apocalyptic war between the good and evil that rages in one man’s mind. Soon he will know that his problems are insignificant compared to those of others.

Mari Evan’s “Stumbling into Forever”, involves a handsome young vampire who will learn that just a sip of blood is the difference between love and freezing to death.

Leona Windwalker’s   “If Only the World”, takes rejection to another level. A heartbreaking story that is turned on it’s head by the kindness of strangers.

Shaye Evans’ “Rescued”, is a contemporary social statement about the aftermath of a young man’s life after his drink has been spiked at a bar.

M. LeAnne Phoenix’s “Higher Love”, takes us on an almost spiritual journey through the minds of two people who have never met, but have spoken on a telepathic level. When they do come together, that bond is already cemented but there is a price to pay.

Author Information

Frederick Eugene Feeley Jr

F.E. Feeley Jr was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and lived there for  twenty  years  before  joining  the  military.  He  is  a  veteran  of  the  US Armed Services; having done a tour in support of Operation Iraq Freedom in 2002-2003, he turned college student, pursuing a degree in political science. He now lives in Southeast Texas where he is married to the love of his life, John, and where they raise their 1½-year-old German shepherd, Kaiser.

     As a young man, reading took center stage in his life, especially those novels about ghosts, witches, goblins, and all the other things that went bump in the night. His favorite authors include such writers as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice, whose work allowed him to travel to far off places and meet fascinating and scary characters. As a gay man, he wishes to be able to write good fictional literature for those who love the genre and to write characters that readers can relate to. All in all, he is a cigarette smokin’, whiskey drinkin’, rock and roll lovin’, tattoo wearin’ dreamer of a man with a wonderful partner who puts up with his crap and lets him write his stories.

Mari Evans

Mari is a wife and the proud mother of a very active daughter, two

dogs and two cats. She’s a very social kind of girl, who loves to talk. It’s both her best and worst quality.

From the moment she could read, she devoured books. Anything goes, as long as it has a happy ending.

There were always stories swirling around in her head and as a child she liked to lay in bed and let the characters have their story and happy ending. It wasn’t until 2013 that she actually tried to put one of the whole stories down and submit it to a publisher. To her own surprise and excitement it was accepted. This gave her the drive to keep going.

The decision to write m/m was made when a friend told a story about a young gay man that struck a chord, even as her husband had already encouraged her to try it earlier.

Now she found her passion, having already found the love in her family and friends, her life is completely chaotic, crazy but wonderful.

Shaye Evans

Shaye is a proud Australian and best selling author of the M/M Romance genre.

At age nineteen, Shaye found her love in the m/m genre when she read her first M/M and was instantly hooked, but it took her an entire year to begin writing her own. She has had five of nine short stories accepted to be published in 2014 alone. Something she is very proud to admit—and who wouldn’t be

When not writing or plotting her next piece, Shaye keeps busy by either reading one of over four-hundred books in her collection, designing her next book cover, or shopping. She one day dreams of being a paramedic and her books making it to the movies!

Leona Windwalker

Leona is a long time staunch supporter of human rights and environmental causes. Her favorite genre is m/m fiction and she particularly enjoys the sci fi, fantasy and action suspense sub-genres, especially if they have a nice seasoning of romance. She has far too many books on her Kindle, has overloaded her phone with even more, and when not reading, writing, being driven to distraction by her children, or being overlorded by her three cats, spends time trying to locate the portal that the sock monster uses to steal socks from her dryer.

M. LeAnne Phoenix

Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas in the mid-1970's, Ms. Phoenix was young and wild (and even free!) during the crazy wondrous decade known as the 1980's and the even crazier but now grungy decade of the 1990's. Music is second only to the muses that live and breathe to fill her mind with beautiful men, and music always helps them to tell their stories. She is never without her iPod or her computer no matter where she goes, although, she does like to hike and take pictures of the sky and the moon, and even the occasional shot of the sun through the branches of a tree.

An avid cat lover, Ms. Phoenix has been owned by many throughout her life, though her current owner is one Lily-Rose, who really would like for her to step away from the keyboard and pay her some attention! After all, hasn't she earned it?

Editor Biographies

Louis J Harris

Louis lives in Germiston, South Africa.  He has published three novels, “Stars Fall”, “Revival”, and “Swimmer”, his short stories have appeared across the globe.  He is the owner of CoolDudes Publishing and has been an affiliate member of the South African Professional Editors Group.

Kimi D Saunders (Leona Windwalker)

Leona is a long time staunch supporter of human rights and environmental causes. Her favorite genre is m/m fiction and she particularly enjoys the sci fi, fantasy and action suspense sub-genres, especially if they have a nice seasoning of romance. She has far too many books on her Kindle, has overloaded her phone with even more, and when not reading, writing, being driven to distraction by her children, or being overlorded by her three cats, spends time trying to locate the portal that the sock monster uses to steal socks from her dryer.

Links

Louis J Harris

louisjharris@cooldudespublishing.com

Kimi D Saunders (Writes as Leona Windwalker)

https://twitter.com/ShroudedDancer

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leona-Windwalker/890405037684824?fref=ts

Frederick Eugene Feeley Jr

www.authorfefeeleyjr.wordpress.com

Mari Evans

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mari-Evans/1412324675676352

Shaye Evans

https://www.facebook.com/ShayeLEvans?fref=ts

M. LeAnne Phoenix

mleannephoenix.com

FB: mleannephoenix

Twitter: @MLPhoenix

CoolDudes Publishing 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/CoolDudes-Publishing/1524105151191706

https://twitter.com/search?q=cooldudes%20publishing&src=typd  Twitter: (@lgbtpublisher)

https://www.pinterest.com/cdgaypub/

https://plus.google.com/u/0/108242351336143580514/videos

Events

To schedule author readings, signings, or other author events (virtual or live), please contact Louis J Harris at CoolDudes Publishing via email louisjharris@cooldudespublishing.com or by calling +27 83 784 9658

June 2015 Book of the Month: And the Band Played On

Book of the Month
Starting June 2015, I'm going to list one book that either had a great impact on me, or I just thoroughly enjoyed.

This month's book, And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts was the first book that took me out of my safe, self-involved, the government is my friend, zone. Each chapter I grew more and more angry and more and more sad as countless lives were ruined due to fear, bigotry and downright hate. It was this book that made me realize that love is love, in all its forms and shouldn't be confiled by what may or may not dangle between the legs. Read this during my college years and knew then I could never trust the government to look out for the well-being of people ... that is, unless you were male, straight, white, and rich. They just didn't care about HIV/AIDS until it effected one of their own, and even then, research and money moved at a snail's pace. And it wasn't just the government; scientists themselves bickered and bitched their way through the virus-hunting process, where, even to this day, French and US scientists cannot come to an agreement about who discovered what and when.

If you've seen the movie, it covers a lot of the book, but you don't get the whole story, and how can you in a two and half hour movie when compared to a 656-page novel. If it's been a while, I suggest reading the book again.

Same-Sex Marriage & Wedding Cakes

Same-Sex Marriage & Wedding Cakes

It's really very simple ...

(I must disclose I'm not a Constitutional scholar nor a lawyer, and this is all gleaned from my own research.)

"The Colorado Civil Rights Division has ruled that a baker who refused to make cakes with anti-gay messages did not discriminate." - Yahoo News, 4/6/15

Some people may be shaking their heads on this. How could one baker be guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, but this one isn't for not putting an anti-gay message on a cake? It's really pretty simple, when you look at it. There are many differences in these cases.

Let's start with what a protected class is (discrimination can only occur to a protected class). Being gay is a protected class (in quite a few states, including Colorado). Being black is a protected class. Bring a woman is a protected class. Being an anti-gay bigot is not. Thus, no discrimination.

Okay, you don't like that simple reasoning. Try this:

There is a commerce clause in the Constitution. It states, in laymen's terms, that when a business opens to the public, they must serve the public. In the case with the baker refusing to provide a wedding cake, the baker refused to serve the public.

There is an implied contract between a customer and a business once the business has opened and the customer walks through the door. This implied contract means that whatever products or services the business provides, they must provide it to the customer.

(For the rest of this blog, I need to define who the parties are; Azucar Bakery is the one who refused to put an anti-gay message on a cake shaped like a bible; Masterpiece Cakeshop is the bakery that refused to make a cake for a gay wedding.)

Masterpiece is in the business of baking cakes, including wedding cakes. Once a customer (regardless of sex, race, religion, orientation, etc.) walks in the door, Masterpiece must provide that cake. They don't have to write anything on it (see next paragraph) but if they are in the business of providing wedding cakes, they have to provide the service. The only way they can get around it is if they form a co-op or private club where only members can take advantage of Masterpiece's products. 

Private members clubs have a right to deny service. They are not serving the public, they are serving their members. (Which is why we still have men-only clubs and white-only clubs - it's true, we do. They are privately-owned and the members have to pay a usually hefty fee to join.)

Azucar is in the business of baking cakes, including bible cakes. But in this instance, she offered to bake the cake, but refused to put the hateful words on it. She is in the business of baking cakes, even bible cakes, but not the business of writing hateful messages on cakes. She did not refuse the product to the customer, thus she fulfilled her duty for being open to the public.

In Azucar's case, think of it this way; you go to a printer to have him/her print off your manuscript on how to be the biggest bigot, Neo-Nazi KKK hater in the world. The printer would print it out, thus providing the service, that is his/her duty for being open to the public. But if you ask the printer to WRITE the manuscript (or even tweak it), they can refuse. That's not their business.

But what about religious freedom you ask? Being a business open to the public trumps religious freedom. Try this on for size:

A Muslim opens a grocery story. A Hasidic Jew comes in, wanting a soda. The Muslim CANNOT force the Jew out onto the street, he has to sell him the soda. The grocery store is open to the public. Religion has to take a back seat.

And it works for everyone. A black person owns the bakery; a KKK member comes in and wants a donut. The KKK member is all tatted up with the most vile depictions of lynchings and name calling of black people. The owner still has to serve the KKK member. (Why a KKK member would go into a black-owned business, I'll never know, but I guess it could happen.)

I hope I've opened your eyes to the issues here. To look at these cases any other way opens up a whole can of worms and will lead to a very slippery slope indeed.

Guest author - Anna Butler

First, I wish to apologize to Ms. Butler; this was supposed to go up on March 16th, but due to a personal crisis, I am just now getting it up. I do apologize to her for the delay.

Explain that to me again, would you?

Neither of my two new releases, The Gilded Scarab and Gyrfalcon, are set in our contemporary world. Scarab is an alternate, steampunk London of 1900, and I’m not entirely convinced Gyrfalcon is even in this galaxy. 

Certainly a long, long way across it, anyway.

In some ways, that offers tremendous scope for building my own worlds and since that’s something I just love doing, I was, as you can imagine, stoked about the opportunities.

The hard bit came with explaining those worlds to the reader without going into acres and acres of exposition. That can be so jarring, it isn’t true. The first time I read David Weber’s Honor Harrington books, I was happily gobbling up the action as our heroine had her spaceship chasing after the baddies at light speed—at which point her ship slammed its nose into about six pages of Weber telling us how faster-than-light travel was done in the Harrington Universe. Aaand back to the chase again… To say that it shot his pacing to hell and back is an understatement.

In The Gilded Scarab, I have a first person narrator. I found that made the explaining of a steampunk world, ruled by a system of powerful Houses in an oligarchy where influence is everything, actually very much easier than I had anticipated. The hero tells us: in his experiences, his reactions to them, in dialogue with the other characters, in acidic little asides as he’s recounting his adventures. Using Rafe as narrator allows the world picture to grow slowly, with no huge sections of exposition, and the reader gets everything in Rafe’s own, sardonic ‘voice’. It works for me—and I hope for the reader, too.

Gyrfalcon, though, was harder. While Rafe’s story was helped by being in a place recognisably London, only skewed a molecule or two to the left, Gyrfalcon is set somewhere way across the galaxy. There was much more to try and convey: that this is a colony of Earth in the far, far future, that Earth itself is dead and gone, that this colony is at war—and losing. And again, trying to do this without going for the Weber effect of a wall of technobabble. Where to drop the explanations in, and how?

Here’s some of the things I learned:

(i)    Use it sparingly. Only tell what the reader really, really must know. James Scott Bell says use three lines in the first ten pages, and no more than three paragraphs in the next ten. Sound advice, if hard to follow.

(ii)    Can you convey it in dialogue? Real dialogue, not the sort of thing that has a wife saying to her husband, “Betty, our adopted daughter, is…”. That might have the merit of establishing with the reader that this couple has an adopted daughter called Betty, but really, shouldn’t the husband know that already? And that bit of dialogue, by the way, is from an Agatha Christie novel.

(iii)    The same principles apply to books in a series. Keep the recapping to the same level in subsequent books, and use the same techniques. Very helpful for me, since Gyrfalcon is the first of six books.

I don’t think I got it perfectly right, but I hope what is there doesn’t throw itself up like a wall in front of my hero while he’s chasing after Maess drones!

What’s your take, reader or writer, on how worlds should be explained? I’d love to hear your views.

The Gilded Scarab

BLURB

When Captain Rafe Lancaster is invalided out of the Britannic Imperium’s Aero Corps after crashing his aerofighter during the Second Boer War, his eyesight is damaged permanently, and his career as a fighter pilot is over. Returning to Londinium in late November 1899, he’s lost the skies he loved, has no place in a society ruled by an elite oligarchy of powerful Houses, and is hard up, homeless, and in desperate need of a new direction in life.

Everything changes when he buys a coffeehouse near the Britannic Imperium Museum in Bloomsbury, the haunt of Aegyptologists. For the first time in years, Rafe is free to be himself. In a city powered by luminiferous aether and phlogiston, and where powerful men use House assassins to target their rivals, Rafe must navigate dangerous politics, deal with a jealous and possessive ex-lover, learn to make the best coffee in Londinium, and fend off murder and kidnap attempts before he can find happiness with the man he loves.

(Cover by Reese Dante)

EXCERPT

Whenever someone asks how my life came to take such a sharp and unexpected turn—and they do ask, because people are insatiably nosy—they get my most charming smile. I know it’s charming because I practice it every morning in my shaving mirror. It’s devastating.

It’s even better without the shaving soap.

The short answer is “I crashed one of the old Queen’s aerofighters into the African veldt, fighting the Boers.”

The timing is the most important thing. Wait a heartbeat, savor a mouthful of the best coffee in Londinium while they absorb that, and as their mouths open to ask more questions, drop in the next line.

“At Koffiefontein.”

I put a little gap between the syllables so they can’t miss it. Koffie—pause—fontein.

Some of them laugh. The clever ones, the ones who see the delicious irony when they think about how my life changed. How I changed. Not all of them do. Most people are… how shall I put this? Not the brightest lucifer in the box. It takes them a few minutes to understand before they snigger and nudge their companion with a “Koffie! Like coffee, see. One of them Boer places, likely. Coffee fountain or some such. That’s rich!”

No. Definitely not the brightest.

I saw the irony at once, though. Given my life since then, it had to be some sort of divine joke, a little prod to the ribs from the Almighty. “Wake up, Rafe Lancaster, and pay attention! Change is coming.”

It was a sign, of sorts. The first step into a new life when the old one was taken from me, sending me in the right direction—the crash at Koffiefontein, selling my mother’s jewels, reopening relations with my House, and yes, even the scarab. All of those things came into play.

Mostly it was luck. The famous Lancaster luck. They should name things after it. Ships, or aerofighters.

Or perhaps a racehorse.

WHERE TO BUY THE GILDED SCARAB

Dreamspinner as an ebook and in paperback.

From an Amazon near you (Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk links for starters)

All Romance as an ebook

Gyrfalcon

BLURB

Earth’s last known colony, Albion, is fighting an alien enemy. In the first of the Taking Shield series, Shield Captain Bennet is dropped behind the lines to steal priceless intelligence. A dangerous job, and Bennet doesn’t need the distractions of changing relationships with his long-term partner, Joss, or with his father—or with Flynn, the new lover who will turn his world upside-down. He expects to risk his life. He expects the data will alter the course of the war. What he doesn’t expect is that it will change his life or that Flynn will be impossible to forget.

EXCERPT

A shadow fell over the page. Someone was standing in front of his table. He shot a fast look up through his lashes, and returned his gaze to the book. Thought so.

Bennet turned the page. “Good evening, Lieutenant.”

“You don’t often see one of those outside a museum,” Flynn said. “Most people use datapads.”

Bennet smiled. “Me too, usually, but this was a present.”

Flynn mimed interest and Bennet obligingly turned the book so that he could see the spine. Flynn made an exaggerated wince. “A bit of light reading, I see. A History of the Theban Peoples, Volume sixty-three.” He looked blank. “How many are there?”

“Volumes? Eighty seven.”

“And you have them all?”

Bennet nodded. “A graduation present from my parents.”

His mother’s idea, probably, since he and his father still hadn’t been on good terms. There were too many sharp words between them about Bennet’s selfishness and perversion. To Caeden the books symbolised what he considered to be Bennet’s fall from grace, every selfish choice Bennet had made from refusing to go to the Military Academy when he left school, to falling under Joss’s spell at the Thebaid.

Caeden hadn’t come to his graduation from the Thebaid. On a mission, Meriel had said, but Bennet hadn’t been fooled for a minute. He reckoned that his mother had forged his father’s signature on the card that came with the books. She’d definitely made up the bit about ‘all our love’.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to go,” Flynn said. “They’re supposed to buy you a fast red sports car. If I were you, I’d complain and make them do the right thing.”

Bennet laughed. Joss had looked like a cat with its head in a cream jug when they’d come out of the Thebaid together, the day of his graduation, and there it was, parked directly at the foot of the wide, sweeping stairs at the main door: the shiniest, reddest, fastest sports car that Bennet could ever have dreamed of. He still had it. “I got the car from someone else.”

“Red and fast?”

“Very red and very fast. Are you joining me, Flynn?”

“I came over to invite you to join us.” Flynn nodded at a table where a number of officers were sitting. “Thing is, this morning was a bit basic. We didn’t buy your artless performance, by the way.”

Bennet nodded, fighting to keep his mouth from curving up. “You think I was up to something?”

“Of course you were. I’m just wondering what you were looking for.”

“And if I got what I wanted?” Bennet issued a fair and friendly warning. “I should tell you, Flynn, that I don’t drink very much and I’m trained not to say a lot even when I do.”

“I don’t know whether to be more appalled at your lack of trust in your fellow man or at how transparent I am.” Flynn grinned at him and it was remarkably attractive, slightly lopsided, and only the sheer good humour kept it this side of insolent. “I’ll be good.”

That grin decided it. Flynn was altogether too pretty as it was and that grin should have carried a health and safety warning. Bennet closed the book and stood up, picking up his beer. “Sure you will. Which one of them have you set up to be bad?”

WHERE TO BUY

Gyrfalcon is available as an ebook at Wilde City Press (a print version will follow soon) and from an Amazon near you (Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk links for starters)

GIVEAWAY

Comment here and get an entry in a rafflecopter to win an Amazon gift card (drawn when the blog tour is over at the end of March).

Please click here for Rafflecopter Giveaway 

In addition, one commentator chosen at complete close-eyes-stick-a-pin-in-it random will get their choice of a little pack of Gilded Scarab or Gyrfalcon loot and a free copy of FlashWired (a gay mainstream sci-fi novella).

ABOUT ANNA

Anna Butler was a communications specialist for many years, working in UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to running an internal TV service. She now spends her time indulging her love of old-school science fiction. She lives in the ethnic and cultural melting pot of East London with her husband and the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockapoo.

Find Anna:

Website and Blog

Facebook

The Butler’s Pantry (Facebook Group)

Pinterest

Twitter

It's Valentine's Day

Overheard an acquaintance lamenting Valentine's Day. No, she's not single, no her SO hadn't forgotten ... she was complaining that her SO hadn't gotten her roses and had 'only' planned a dinner and movie out and had 'only' gotten her a 'trinket' of a necklace. (He gave it to her early so she could wear it on their dinner.)

I wanted to throttle her.

No, not because I've never received stuff like that, not because I'm single and jealous. No, I'm mad because she doesn't appreciate what she has. That she doesn't appreciate what her SO went out of his way to do for her on his limited budget (they both are in college). That trinket of a necklace cost at least $100. Dinner and movie (with alcohol, I'm assuming), another $100. So he's spending $200 and she doesn't appreciate it?

You know something bitch? I would TREASURE a hand-made card and an evening watching a DVD at home with someone. It's the memory you make that counts. It's not the things you collect that's going to matter in your old age. It's the memories that will be priceless. On your deathbed, will you be clutching that necklace or the hand of your loved one? I certainly hope it's the latter.

I HATE that holidays (even made-up ones like Valentine's Day) have become so commercialized that women (and some men) EXPECT something grand and romantic. You know what you'll probably remember better? The single rose he gives you just because it's Monday or that silly seashell bracelet he got at the airport on one of his business trips just because he missed you. Or that Sunday he brought you breakfast in bed, or that Wednesday he offered to cook from his limited cooking skills because you had a bad day.

You'll remember the time he held your hand when you were sick; you'll remember the time you laughed so hard when he tried to surprise you by starting some laundry and a red sock turned his boxers pink. 

In 30 years, will you remember what you ate and what movie you watched on Valentine's Day 2015? Unless you're a good journal keeper, probably not. Eh, you might remember the necklace if it doesn't get lost in ensuing moves or the during the mis-mash of life that will happen over the decades. But I doubt it. 

So, for those of you with SOs out there, if they bring you flowers, of course, be gracious, be excited, be romantic, but don't be disappointed if the flowers, or chocolate, or teddy bears bearing jewelry don't appear. Enjoy that your SO is alive and well, that he/she is there with you, today, Valentine's Day 2015. Create memories that you can relive and enjoy. Don't concentrate on the 'things' in life. They won't matter at the end.

There is nothing more in the world that I want than to create a memory with someone. To go out and play in the snow with someone, to eat leftovers and watch a DVD, to laugh and enjoy the evening with someone. I don't NEED things - I NEED memories.

But, for those that still want flowers, here is the most expensive Valentine's Day bouquet from Teleflora:

$410 WITHOUT the delivery charge. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Happy Winter Solstice and Some Random Thoughs ...

Happy Winter Solstice!

May you be surrounded by loved ones on this longest night of the year.

Now, for some random thoughts:

Just saw the third Hobbit movie (3? Why? It's a 247-page novel!) at the theatre. I didn't see the first two in the theatre, but wanted to hang with friends, so I went. It wasn't worth it to see it in 3-D in my opinion, but with my weird eyesight, 3-D always isn't worth it.

So, it was fun and I did tear up at the end. My fave dwarf (Kili) dies, but he dies in the book, so wasn't truly surprised. Wish though he could have at least had a kiss with Tauriel.

Now my question is, with hobbits wanting to eat six to seven times a day, is this the reason Bilbo was gone for two and a half years? They had to stop every two hours to eat? (I'm joking, but it does beg the question - is the group that awesome of hunters and gatherers that they survived such trials and tribulations for two and a half years? Perhaps yes for hunting, but you gotta stave off scurvy and the like, right?)

But for a serious question - will Peter Jackson go back to the original three movies and replace Ian Holms with Martin Freeman in the 'Bilbo steals the ring' flashback? I hope he doesn't go all George Lucas on us.

And while we're on Middle Earth - am I the only one who wishes Jackson could get the rights to 'The Silmarillion'? I would love to see the elves again. 

Tangent ...

Was watching 'Weird Science' last night. If we could time travel, I'd go back to let RDJ (well, at the time, he was just RD) that he'd be a serious actor AND get to play Iron Man. See if that blows his mind. (BTW - you could definitely see the beginning of the drug use in this film.)

And on that note ...

Do you think some serious actors wished their earliest works would just disappear? You know they do. 

Last random thought for the day ...

I want a Rocket Raccoon plush toy for Christmas.

Well, I REALLY love a Dancing Baby Groot, but he's not out yet. 

Until later.