Quick update on the ENT promo: 120 eBooks sold, 4 paperbacks, and 10 audiobooks.
During peak of promo, we actually got Naked Alliances down below #3000 Kindle books sold in store at about #25-#30 for three categories.
If you don’t have a copy yet, and would like one, you can find it here: Naked Alliances. I highly recommend the audiobook if you like to hear a good storyteller. The eBook is still 99 cents until Sunday.
Not as good as ENT promos once were, before FB changed the algorithm, but not a bad shot at it either.
I was a little concerned when I saw the “Customers who Bought this also Bought”…only because so many also bought cozy mysteries. I can’t count the number of times I have made a point of letting people know that Naked Alliances is NOT a cozy mystery. It clearly sates on the cover and book description that it includes nudity, sex, lies…and murder. The story is about murder and sex-trafficking.
Then, the RS reminded me of the many books he’s purchased and didn’t like…not to further disappoint me, but to say, “Hey, just because they bought those cozy mysteries doesn’t mean they liked them.”
Maybe they are looking for something new. I had not thought about it like that.
Leave it to the RS to point me in the direction of the positives. That’s why he’s my better half.
On to other things:
Pokemon Go:
I have stories to tell you about a Pokemon Go adventure or two.
As I’ve shared, Pokemon Go gets me out of the house and into city parks. I enjoy the sunshine and the people I find out and about. Sometimes, I just have to escape these four walls, get out from in front of the computer, stop the words in my head, and focus on something totally unrelated. The game helps me do that. For a while, when I was building up my pokedex, I would spend from 2 pm to 2 am at a special park in Kissimmee that is a magical place for finding rare pokemon.
A little after 2 am I came to the intersection of Hwy. 192 (the road in Kissimmee that runs by Disney’s front gate) and Main Street. I was stopped at a traffic light and the road was empty in all directions, until a car pulled alongside me.
It was occupied by a white guy (the driver) with long, dark dreadlocks and a black guy in a red, yellow and green crocheted hat and wearing a bright green floral shirt (the passenger). I was vaping with my window down.
“Hey, mon, Vape Life!” the passenger yelled at me holding up his personal vaporizer.
I nodded in his direction and gave a little salute with my own PV, and smiled.
He was, it seemed, a bit drunk, and hopped out of the car. The driver called to him to get back in the car and stop acting the fool, but the guy approached my window chattering on about the good life in paradise and tossed a bag of reefer in my car window. “Go home, relax, and burn one on me,” he said.
I immediately looked around for the cops, wondering if I was being set-up.
He hopped back into his car, the light changed and they sped away west down 192. I proceeded up Main St. to OBT, then right onto Osceola, and left onto Orange Ave. heading for Orlando.
Instantly, I found myself paranoid. I know people are pretty open down here with this stuff, but I haven’t smoked it but three times since 1983. Once with my oldest son at a Pink Floyd concert (hey, it was necessary to get Comfortably Numb), once with my daughter at the Salvador Dali Museum (think about it), and again with my youngest son on the back porch of my lake house on Toho, (just because he was jealous).
I proceed up Orange Ave, going the proper speed limit, looking over my shoulder, scared to death that some cop was going to pull me over any minute. Just as I crossed the railroad tracks on the edge of Orlando, not one, not two, not three, but nine police cars came screaming by with their lights on heading for somewhere in a hurry. I nearly shit myself.
By the time I got home I was shaking all over, but slowly, I began to feel like I was in the clear. If you’re wondering what happened to the greenish-gold bud that was in the bag, I’ll tell ya. I kept it and put it in a special place. I started to flush it, but then thought, “Why not just hold onto it….you never know when you might need it and you have no earthly idea where to find it.” So, I locked it away someplace special.
Then my birthday came around. We didn’t have any sort of celebration planned and I was sitting on the lanai thinking I should do something different for my birthday. Why not get stoned? I mean, I’m retired, it’s not like I have to pass a piss test.
I went to the local head shop and bought a small pipe figuring I could burn a few bowls. I didn’t buy rolling papers, because I was sure I’d forgotten how to roll a joint.
I came home and sat on the lanai with my bowl and fired it up. After about four or five tokes I was completely self-aware and self-conscious. No way could I relax. My hair didn’t seem right, it was too short, my skin wasn’t clear enough, my clothes were frumpy, and I needed both a manicure and a pedicure.
It was a horribly negative experience, so I flushed the rest. It made me feel really old and I feel that way already…no need to have something on the menu that reminds me.
On to Pokemon story number 2:
One thing Pokemon Go players do is catch pokemon. The other thing we do is take our games to pokemon gyms where our pokemon battle other pokemon. You have to get into your car, walk, or skate to the gyms. The gyms are frequently located at churches, dining establishments, places where there are murals or sculptures, parks, city monuments, and the like, but you can drive within playing range of most of them…not having to get out of your vehicle. You see the gyms on your phone screen and touch the screen to enter the gym with your pokemon. You line up your six pokemon to battle with and once the battle starts, you tap the screen to move your pokemon and strike the opponent’s pokemon. There doesn’t have to be another player around. They’ve left their pokemon inside the gym for you to come along and battle. If you win, they get their pokemon back and you gain points toward your team winning that gym, or take an opponent’s gym back for your team and leave your pokemon there.
So, it’s 3 am and I’m out battling gyms alone. Sometimes we go as a group to stack gyms. I like to go when there is little traffic on the road, and not a lot of competition. I also like to take a bunch of gyms in the middle of the night and cash out (if you have ten gyms you get max coins and stardust for playing the game with).
I’m parked in a big parking lot next door to a bank at a sculpture. Suddenly two cars pull into the lot at angles on either side of my car to block my passage forward. I’m frightened because sometimes players take the game too seriously and have been known to assault people taking down their gyms, so I back up quickly, and spin the van around.
In seconds there are four people with guns in my face, and I’m holding out my phone saying, “Pokemon, I’m just playing Pokemon.” The cops relaxed and lowered their weapons. (They never turned on their blue lights, so how was I supposed to know they were cops?) They thought I was trying to flee when I backed up. Just as they lowered their weapons one of the cop cars rolled into the wall at the bank because she hadn’t put the damn thing in park when she jumped out of it. I tried really hard not to laugh.
I thanked the officers for keeping me safe and asked if I was free to go. The lady cop uttered expletives as she ran for her car and the other three cops just laughed and said, “Sure, be careful out here.”
What do you do for fun?
Have you ever played pokemon?
When was the last time you got stoned?