Ever since I was a wee lad I have been a big fan of Tolkien. From the first time I read 'The Hobbit' when I was about 7 right up till now the world of Middle Earth has enthralled me. It was this introduction to fantasy worlds above and beyond fairy tails that got me interested in other fantasy worlds and fantasy games.

A couple of years ago a Turbine, a well known games company, release the Lord of the Ring MMO game and more recently the first expansion for the game 'The Mines of Moria'. In this game you can create a character of one of the many races of the free people in Middle Earth (Elf, Dwarf, Human, & Hobbit) and go and explore Middle Earth during the timeline of the Lord of the Rings storyline. Rather than taking the role of one of the main characters from the storyline of the book you create a character who takes a supporting role in assisting the fellowship from behind the scenes and helping in side plots that are never fully explored in the book. Not taking the role of a main character gives the game designers a much greater level of creative freedom in creating stories and quests for the game without conflicting with the storyline itself.

In future posts I will include some screen shots of some of the more famous locations in the game as mentioned in the book such as Bag-End, Weathertop, Rivendell etc.

Well, its been a good weekend. I managed to take my investment portfolio up from $160 to $220 with the election results. My prediction with a National win but without a decisive majority, and Peters not making it back to parliament all paid dividends.

More money was made with short selling the Maori seats as I was doubtful that they would get 4% of the party vote also paid out. I made most of my money however on the market with the Maori Party - National Party coalition stock where I had predicted no agreement between the parties. I bought this stock at about 25c and it peaked at 80c just prior to John Key's victory speech. Unfortunatelly I did not sell it till a bit later by which time it had dropped to 50c ... still a 100% gain.

New stocks about the Labour leadership had become available where I have gone with Phil Goff for the leader position Annette King for the deputy leader and shorted Maryan Street. (It seems not  many people had cottoned on to the fact that she has said she is not running for the deputy leader position, so shorting the stock at 25c will return a healthy proffit).