TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

"Who's the GOAT?" by TET 2026 Original Acrylic Painting on Canvas (40 x 50cm). Buy My Original Artwork or High Quality Prints (ArtPal Store) Prints Available here . (RedBubble Store) A bout a month and a half ago I first wrote about the inspiration for my latest whimsical art cat, Who is the GOAT?, in my post,  TET Artwork Diary: Cats, Goats, and Battlestar Galactica's Cylon, Number Six . That particular post covers where the idea came from and the challenges I had sketching the final composition. Worth a read, if you haven't already, to get the full story of this artwork. This post I'm mostly going to cover the behind the scenes of actually painting the artwork and, of course, give you the links to where you can buy the original or high quality prints. Rather than go into any great detail on my painting process, which I've talked about numerous times in many of my videos, I'm just going to focus on a few key highlights unique to this work. First, i...

I 'm like a lot of people whose first experience of Spider-Noir was in 2018's,  Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse animated feature film, where the character was voiced by Nicolas Cage. Prior to that I'd never heard of Spider-Noir. While the character was good in that movie I wasn't so impressed that I was clamoring for any kind of movie or TV series featuring the character. However, the moment I heard Nicolas Cage was doing a live action TV series based on Spider-Noir, I was in. Cage is one of those actors who always goes all in on a role, with interesting ideas that can be hit or miss, but you appreciate his commitment, even when it's a miss.  Thankfully in  Spider-Noir  (Amazon Prime) Cage, who is a fan of old Noir films and Comic books, doesn't disappoint. For reasons that are explained over the course of the series, this isn't Peter Parker Spider-Noir (known as just 'The Spider' in the show). Instead we get Ben Reilly (Cage), a seasoned, down-on...

Federal Liberal Party Leader, Angus Taylor, and Deputy Leader, Jane Hume. Image: Gemini and TET. G enerally I try to keep one eye on Australian politics, mainly at the Federal level because that affects the whole country. State based politics really only become interesting at state election time, as they're something of an indicator of how the various parties might fare in a Federal election. As indicated by the gains One Nation has been making at state level, with a recent Australian Financial Review/Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll suggesting the party is now the most popular party on primary support . Much of this surge has been at the expense of the Liberal Party of Australia with former supporters seemingly agreeing that you may as well be voting for Labor since the parties are so similar (they aren't but they're both close enough to the political 'middle' it can certainly seem that way). It seems the all new Liberal Leadership of Angus Taylor, and Deput...

T his is another movie that I've finally got around to seeing.  Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die  (2025) caught my attention because Sam Rockwell is in it, and it is a time travel movie. Despite not being particularly successful upon release, it's not a bad movie by any means. It can be somewhat confusing and a little disjointed with it's frequent flashbacks, but there are definitely some interesting ideas and visuals to enjoy. The film opens when a man enters a Los Angeles cafe, late one evening, claiming to be from the future. He says, within the cafe is just the right combination of people who can save humanity from  a massive technological error that will doom humanity.  He could be telling the truth, except he looks rather a lot like a crazy homeless man, and he does claim the device he's wearing is a bomb, initially, to stop patrons from just walking out. It's a great premise that easily draws you into this, possibly crazy, man's dilemma. Sam Rockwell pr...

Top: MQ-9 Reaper UAV Photo (Public Domain) by  Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt Bottom: Sypaq Corvo Cardboard Drone W hat do you think of when you hear the term 'drone warfare'? Chances are those Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) used by the United States Military come to mind because, of course, right? Drone warfare is high tech, it's the future. I'm probably one of the last people to know but Australian company Sypaq and the Ukraine Military have been changing the face of drone warfare with small cardboard (well, technically foamboard but it's a type of padded cardboard) drones that cost only a couple of thousand dollars, sold as flat packs that can be constructed in about an hour, on site. The Sypaq Corvo Precision Payload Delivery System Drones are actually intended for logistics use - which I imagine is planning and strategizing based on information collected with the difficult to detect, reusable drones.  However, the drones are also designed to be disposable and, with ...

D ave Filoni continues to mine his one idea for Star Wars animation with his latest ten part series,  Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord . Not that I have a big problem with that. At this point I'm hooked on all his Star Wars animated shows, but I do wish he would try something different with the basic story structure every now and then. However, young, inexperienced apprentice, either already teamed, or looking to be teamed with a Jedi Master (or in this case, reluctantly with a former Sith Lord) is a main character combination that just keeps giving in the Filoni-verse. The difference between shows is in the detail. Maul - Shadow Lord focuses on the Star Wars Underworld, local law enforcement, and the aforementioned Jedi Apprentice. As well it includes Star Wars lore that is usually less prominent in the animated shows, specifically the dominance of the Empire and how it changes a society once its ideology is imposed.  If you've only ever watched the feature films you'll likel...