Re LOTR: at some point you should make an excuse to come to NZ; Hobbiton is an easy drive from Auckland Airport and Mount Doom is great for walking and site-seeing if you are so inclined. In Winter you can ski on it (safe now that Frodo and Gollum cleared out the bad dudes)
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
