TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

The dust hasn't even settled and already the rumors for the next installment in Christopher Nolan's Batman movie series are doing the rounds. Who will the villains be and who will be able to match Heath's Joker performance? The success of The Dark Knight guarantees another film - not that they were counting on success to make a third film happen. As far back as Batman Begins it was already confirmed that Christian Bale, Michael Cain, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman were all signed on for three films. Live News is reporting in Batman buzz: Johnny Depp as The Riddler? that Johnny Depp has been approached to play The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman is being considered to play The Penguin. The story is questionable. On the one hand Johnny Depp would certainly be an exciting choice for any male villain in the Batman universe but on the other hand, mention of the Penguin suggests the source isn't reliable. I've read direct quotes from Christopher Nolan stating that th...

Print on demand (POD) web site Red Bubble recently added Bubble Sites to their growing list of features for artists and photographers. Bubble Sites come as part of your free Red Bubble account and give you a way to sell prints or T-shirts of your art and photography from your very own stand alone, e-commerce enabled, Red Bubble powered, web site. Red Bubble, in a very short space of time, have become a force to be reckoned with in the POD space. By offering free Bubble Sites they are effectively moving into the Cafepress Premium (paid) shops arena. As far as I'm aware Cafepress is the only other POD site that allows you to make a stand alone shop to sell prints of your art or photos on various products. Although Red Bubble doesn't have the range of gift items of Cafepress it does have better options for high quality art prints, specifically matte prints and prints on canvas (neither of which are available from Cafepress). Cafepress recently acquired Imagekind , which has a ...

The much talked about The Dark Knight , Christopher Nolan's sequel to 2005's, Batman Begins , continues to bring an edgy realism to the Batman legend. I've been anticipating this film since the announcement of Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker because, as I mentioned here , I had every confidence that Heath would (and could) redefine this character. If you're looking for reviews or story outlines this isn't the post for you - especially if you haven't seen the film. This article is my thoughts after having seen The Dark Knight and I'm assuming you've seen it too - hence there may be spoilers ahead. I didn't get to see this film until a week after its Australian release which gave me time to get a feel for how the movie was being received by critics and audiences. This doesn't influence whether I go to see a movie but if general consensus is good then it gives me confidence that I'm going to be entertained. Thankfully The Dark Knight opene...

How thoughtful is IKEA , providing free pencils for us starving artists? Here I was thinking the only time you ever get free pencils is on a government election day and today I discover you can get a pencil, free, every day at IKEA. You can also get free, paper tape measures too - not quite as cool but still useful. More worrying than cool is seeing a sign that says 'Pick up your kids here'. Hmmm... I didn't have kids when I came in but when you're in an IKEA super store a lot could have happened by the time you come out. You just never know. I mean, a trip through IKEA does take you through every room of the house... If you're not familiar with IKEA furniture stores (a description which I'm sure IKEA executives would balk at - they'd probably prefer a description like a home, lifestyle store) then IKEA is that company, famous for flat pack furniture that you put together with a trusty allen key. If you need more explanation then click the link in the first ...

My bank doesn't seem to understand the appropriate level of customer service for their industry. It spent the best part of the nineteen nineties pushing their customers out in front of the ATM machines by reducing the number of tellers and charging fees for counter withdrawals. They then spent the best part of the new millennium promoting their outstanding customer service by bringing back all the services they'd spent the previous decade cutting back on. I walked into my bank today, like I have many times before, and was practically accosted by a man at the Customer Service desk, "Hello, how are you? Just going to the Tellers are we?" "Errr... yes," I was somewhat taken aback. For a minute I thought I'd walked into the wrong place. The guy realized I had no interest in him as I, like most people, know that to deposit a cheque, you need to head straight to the teller windows. I mean it's not a boutique clothing store where you expect assistance, it...

I'd like to accept this I Love Your Blog award from Kristine of WenchdGrafix Designs who has labeled me her Guilty Pleasure in the blog reading world. You can read what she had to say about me here (right down the bottom of her post). Kristine also combined another award - with the same set of rules - so, technically I received two awards. I've just chosen the one with the best graphic to display here. The rules for both these awards say that if you receive it you're supposed to link to the blog of the person who gave it to you (done that) and choose seven more recipients whose blogs you love... oh dear... not so much a guilty pleasure any more, just guilty. I have to admit I don't read a lot of personal/individual blogs regularly. At least not regularly enough to say 'I love your blog'. Of the blogs I do read, the majority are boring technology, business, art news and social networking news written by collaborations of people who like to think their opinion...

I'm one of those people who has resisted upgrading my computer's Windows operating system to the latest version. However I'm not about to join the legion of people complaining about upgrading to Windows Vista. No I'm years away from that. I'm upgrading from Windows ME to Windows XP. Yes I'm finally leaping into the year 2001 (that's like, nearly a century ago in computer years!). In my opinion Windows ME was actually the last really good version of Windows. It had all the trouble free plug-and-play functionality of Windows XP without all the gloss and dumbing down bloating that attempted to make finding your way around Windows XP easy for everyone. I wouldn't even be bothering to upgrade to XP but the thing about old operating systems is, they don't die but they do slowly fade away. By that I mean less and less new software will run on older versions of Windows. For example, the latest version of Internet Explorer won't work on Windows ME (no los...

I've been a long time fan of legendary comedy team, Monty Python , having been introduced to them via their movies (as their famous TV Series was a bit before my time). Having seen all their movies from And Now For Something Completely Different to Monty Python's Meaning of Life a chance to go behind the scenes of these and other projects is one good reason to read Diaries 1969-1979, The Python Years by Michael Palin However Michael's Diaries are more than just Monty Python and give great insight into the life and times of one of the world's most acclaimed, yet understated, comedy writers and performers. It also touches on many of the side projects that the various Python members worked on during the same period including Michael's Ripping Yarns TV series, John Cleese and Faulty Towers , Terry Gilliam's movies Jabberwocky , Brazil and Time Bandits , Eric Idle's movie The Ruttles and more. Along the way Michael name drops some of the world's bigges...

Don't mess with the koalas over in Queensland, Australia because they build them pretty darn tough in that part of the world. At least it would seem so with this story of a koala that was hit by a car at 100kmph (about 60mph), then traveled for 12km (about 7m) with its head stuck in the cars plastic grill before anyone noticed. The koala, whose been named Ely 'Lucky' Grills (possibly after the well known, late Australian actor Lucky Grills ) by rescuers, was in shock but survived the ordeal relatively unscathed and was up and about after a few hours rest and a feed. What I'd like to know is how do you not notice hitting a koala at speed? Anyone who's done any significant traveling by car in Australia may at some point have hit wildlife that's wandered onto the road. My partner and I once took out a dove that wasn't even on the road as such but when it took off flew straight into the path of our car. We noticed it, and felt it hit. I wonder if the maker of ...

Ever since Spinal Tap popularized the notion of turning an amp up to eleven audio systems have been rising to the challenge of louder, more awesome sound. In particular, car audio systems have embraced the notion of the bigger the noise the better the sound must surely be. What I'd like to know is, if these sound systems are so good, why do they make all music sound the same... Doof, Doof, Doof? You've all heard them. Pimped up cars, with audio systems seemingly worth more than gold, volume blasting way past eleven. Sound waves booming long before you make a positive visual on the car... Doof, Doof, Doof. It has to be the audio system right? Surely all these people can't be playing the same tune? Doof, Doof, Doof. Could it be that the more money spent on a car sound system the less musical range it will actually play? Maybe these people can't afford to buy music after purchasing the audio system so they all play the same demo track? Doof, doof, doof. In my own car I hav...

If you like my art but for whatever reason making a purchase isn't quite for you right now then here is your chance to create your own high quality print of one of my original artworks. If you can see the Scribd , iPaper document below of my artwork, Tangled Toys , then just click on the iPaper menu button, select print, then adjust your printer settings for high quality printing. The document is set up to print on a standard A4 page. I recommend you use either special high resolution paper or, for a more 'arty' look, try an A4 piece of watercolor paper. Once printed, cut around the dotted line to make the page the ideal size for a standard 10 inch by 8 inch photo frame. If you don't have a printer or you like your art to be more functional then check out my range of Tangled Toys, Cafepress Gifts which include this whimsical artwork printed onto mousepads , shirts , note cards and more. tangled toys 10jun2008 10x8print - Upload a Doc...

As an individual artist, with a web site from which I sell my own art, write a blog and run a Cafepress shop, I decided to give Google's Adwords a try to raise more awareness of my cat themed art and gifts. I'm completely new to Adwords. I've studied everything I can on the other side of the equation - which is Google Adsense . You can see Google ads all over my web site, placed where you'll be tempted to click. Trialling Adwords is like being 'the man behind the curtain'. Suddenly I'm in control of what goes on behind the scenes, creating ads and adjusting settings, in the hope I can get a lot of targeted traffic in a big way. Adwords isn't like Adsense. You can't just set and forget. Before you read further, I highly recommend Dan's series of five articles about Adwords on his site, Empty Easel . These will take you through the process of signing up for Adwords in a more detailed, step by step description. You can also read Dan's experien...