TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Flitt Selfie Camera Drone. Ollie by TET. The Flitt folds up to easily fit in your pocket or bag. The latest trend in drones is what's known as the 'selfie' drone. These drones aren't designed to fly extremely high or long distance, capturing panoramic views. Their purpose is, as the name suggests, to photograph or film the person controlling the drone itself. There's a few reasons you might want to do this including but not limited to: Hands free camera operation. More dynamic shots. Wider environment shot framing. Higher camera placement. I've already written about the Pink Elfie Drone that I bought, which is just an awful drone for selfie work based on my own experience with it. For Christmas my partner bought me a Flitt Selfie Camera Drone , which, like the Elfie, uses an app on your phone as a controller, and is designed to be carried in your pocket. It's slightly more expensive but if you're looking for a great first drone I...

I'm not entirely sure what I expected to see in Episode VIII of Star Wars, The Last Jedi . Unlike Episode VII, I wasn't as hyped for this movie and therefore wasn't following all the trailers and other publicity as closely leading up to the release. The movie picks up almost from where Episode VII ends, the First Order has had some time to regroup after losing Star Killer base to the Resistance. The film opens with the Order in pursuit of what appears to be the last remnants of the Resistance fleet commanded by General Organa.

FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes I first saw FP's FINO skate shoes in a video by YouTube channel, Braille Skateboarding, titled, THE FIRST EVER NON NEWTONIAN FLUID SKATE SHOES!? As someone whose feet hurt and bruise relatively easily just from the basic tricks of skateboarding (Ollies, Pop Shuv-its etc.) the 90% absorption of impact energy selling point seemed like an ideal solution for minimizing my injuries. A day later I placed an order through FP's website . ​​ Ordinarily I wouldn't mention Customer Service but I can't let the lack of communication on my order slide. FP's website says to expect delivery within 7-14 days of your order. After close to two weeks, my order was still marked as being processed. I sent an email asking for any kind of update, to no response. A day or two later my order was marked as completed but still no signs of shoes in my mail? About two weeks later (just over a full month of placing my order) the shoes arrived. I'm sur...

Stage 4: Refining Colors and Adding Form. Despite missing a couple of weeks writing about my Three Wise Color Monkeys painting project work has been continuing. Last post I'd just started on Stage 4, refining the colors and adding form through shading and adding highlights. This work has been continuing and, due to the break I took on writing about the project, this post you get a nice comparison of how far the work has progressed. In the first image (above), I began by adding darker shadows to the blue monkey, using dark blue. Instead of mixing dark red, and dark green, for shadow on the two other monkeys, I continued to use dark blue on them as well. This wasn't particularly part of the plan. I had thought I was going to mix dark red and dark green but then I thought, shadows tend to have a blueish/purple look anyway, so why not just keep using the blue? As it turned out, this worked quite well. You can see on the red and green monkeys, the red and green undernea...

TET holding a Bored Yeti MKII Popsicle Skateboard deck. In creating the Bored Yeti MKII skateboard deck design I set out to create an image a little more old school style. Every time BoardPusher packages up a deck, included is one of their A4 paper templates for your next skateboard graphic idea. They encourage you to create your design on the template, then use your phone to take a photo and upload the image into their board designer. I thought I'd give it try. ​I'd always planned to do more Bored Yeti skateboard graphics so that was an easy choice for subject matter. I didn't do any preliminary sketching, I just looked at all the sketches I did from the first design for inspiration. Watch the video below to see the MKII go from drawing, to my online store, to an actual skateboard that I take out for a spin. Originally I was going to create the entire design on the template but I realized I wouldn't be able to match the coloring of the first design. So...

Murder on the Orient Express is director, Kenneth Branagh's, adaptation of the Agatha Christie, Poirot, murder mystery novel. Overall this was an enjoyable movie, though for someone more used to seeing comic book movies of late, I did find it a little slow in places. Not boring, by any means, just a lot more talking than action. The basic plot is, Detective, Hercule Poirot, gets caught up investigating a murder during a holiday journey he is taking on the Orient Express.

Google Home Mini. Giving the Internet a Voice. My partner recently acquired a Google Home Mini Smart Speaker through some promotion where spending a certain amount would earn you this device for free. If you're not aware of what a Google Home Mini is, it's a live, internet connected microphone/speaker that just sits in your house waiting for you to ask it a question. It basically allows the internet to speak directly to you with the voice of Google's Assistant AI.

Base color layer completed. Work continues on my Three Wise Color Monkeys, acrylic painting. Last post I had just begun Stage 3, painting in all the base colors. At this point I've now completed all the base painting and am moving into the next stage. As you can see from the image my base colors layer is still very rough but I'm starting to be much more mindful the edges - where one color stops and another begins.

I'll say, right out of the gate, I enjoyed Justice League . Sure it has a fairly straight forward, let's get the team together and battle a world destroying common enemy, plot but, after the complexity of Batman v Superman , it was nice just to see my favorite heroes come together and fight as a team. I've seen a few reviews that claim you don't get enough backstory for the newer team members, Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg, but honestly, knowing more about their history isn't essential.

TET, Rock-to-Fakie attempt No# 43 (maybe?) Rock-to-Fakies, the act of riding your skateboard up a ramp, hanging half your board over the lip, then lifting your board back into the ramp, and riding out backwards, is one of the most basic ramp tricks. Bored Monkey Classic Popsicle Skateboard . See more deck shapes . Yet I can't do them anymore. At one time I could, without giving it any thought - even on my home 5' high mini ramp with an extra foot of vert extension added to the top of the transition. But as my skating got less, and skateboard spots with ramps diminished through the mid to late 1990s, I got out of practice. I did have a two foot tall, driveway mini, quarter pipe (with coping) I used to practice my mini ramp tricks on. Then one fateful day (I say that because this is scarred into my brain) I tried a rock-to-fakie and the tail of my skateboard dug into the pave stones at the base of the ramp as I came down, throwing me, hard, back into the ground...

Under Painting completed. My Three Wise Color Monkeys painting has progressed this week. If you want to follow along but this is the first post you've seen, you may like to go back and read Part 1 and Part 2 for the previous stages. It'll give you a good insight into how I create my paintings that you may wish to try yourself.

JJRC H37 ELFIE Foldable Mini RC Selfie Drone. When I first saw the online ads for the JJRC H37 ELFIE Foldable Mini RC Selfie Drone they made it look so easy to fly and film dynamic footage of you and your friends. My very first flight was indoors. This thing took off, careered out of control and smashed into the wall. The same thing would keep happening time after time. Take off, completely fine. Then the drone realizes it's flying, freaks out and promptly chooses some random direction to fly into the ground. I shelved it for several months because I just couldn't fly it, at all. Recently I decided to give it another try, initially with similar results but, as I took a little more time to study the wafer thin manual, I've gradually gotten to learn how the controls work. I'm now at the point where I can at least keep the drone under some degree of control. Not yet good enough to frame the camera for decent video footage though (as you'll see in the video...

Skateboarding is like surfing, it just becomes a part of your life. Once you take that deep dive into becoming the best skater you can be, always progressing, you'll always consider yourself to be a skater. For many of you skateboarding is not about becoming a pro skater, even though you're probably good enough to turn pro. For you it's just a fun activity, that's challenging, creative, and often a great way to pass the time with your mates. That's pretty much what it has always been for me. I'm 47 years old and I still skateboard for fun but you don't want to aspire to be like me... and there are lots of skaters like me. I started skating at 18 years old. Late in the game but 1987-88 was when skateboarding experienced a massive resurgence. I used to skate virtually everyday, only skipping days if it rained, and even then I might find somewhere with cover to skate. I built ramps, including a 24' x 16' x 5' mini ramp in my backyard whe...

Camera Inception! Last post I announced the start of a new painting titled, Three Wise Color Monkeys . Turns out I was serious about getting back into creating some traditional art because I managed to get over the first hurdle... making a start. For most artists, making a start means setting up the canvas, paints, and actually painting the first brush strokes. For me it's working out how I'm going to set up my camera so I can film the whole process with the least disruption to actually doing the art. You'd think I'd know where to set up a camera by now considering I have filmed myself painting more than 30 artworks on my YouTube Channel . The problem was, if I set my camera up in the usual way, it would constantly be in the way of a major thoroughfare through my studio. With a bit of thought I managed to find this amazing elevated camera angle just over my right shoulder (see the photo above), achieved by standing my tripod on top of a bookshelf. Not only ...

Three Wise Color Monkeys Sketch. After completing the InkTober challenge where I spent everyday completing at least one digital ink artwork, I feel I really need to keep my hand in on the traditional art too. Partly as an excuse not to be staring at a monitor for some of my day but also because the traditional art I create has a very different look to my digital art.

Is Thor Ragnarok the best Thor movie so far? Honestly, it's hard to say. I really like the first Thor movie . It's a more relateable story, as much as a story about a god coming to Earth can be relateable. It definitely has a character arc for Thor though. You feel like he's grown as a god/person. Since then Thor has mostly just been Thor whenever he turns up in a Marvel movie... and he's great. Chris Hemsworth is reason enough to watch a Thor movie. He makes a fairly intense, fantastical character fun and believable. However, for the most part since the first movie, he's just reacting to events around him. Thor Ragnarok is very much that. Thor reacting to events around him. It's entertaining to be sure. I enjoyed the film very much, but my engagement with the story ended at the end credits. In Ragnarok Thor is tasked with saving Asgard from certain destruction (Ragnarok) at the hands of the all-powerful, Hela (Cate Blanchett). Along the way he ends u...

At the beginning of September I wrote that I was trying multivitamins to improve my health . Having never taken them before I was skeptical about their benefits, and even if they were beneficial at all. Almost two months in, and down to my last two tablets in a 60 tablet bottle, I thought it might be worthwhile sharing with you how things  have gone thus far.

Recently I entered Sock It To Me's Design a Sock contest for 2017. The competition is an annual event allowing anyone to submit a fun, quirky, or whimsical sock design, with the winning designs going into production. There's also a sweet $2000 cash prize, and you get a swag of socks of your choice from the company's range.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Blade Runner 2049 as a sequel to 1982's Blade Runner . The trailers didn't really say much in terms of what the film was about, and I'm not a huge fan of Ryan Gosling. (I have no justification for not being a fan, he's a good actor, and I really enjoyed his work in Nice Guys especially, there's just something hit'n'miss about him for me). Having now seen the film I can understand why the trailer doesn't reveal too much in terms of the plot, other than Ryan's character, Blade Runner, Agent K, has some need to locate Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

My day 2 InkTober drawing. This year I've decided to participate in InkTober . If you haven't heard of it, InkTober began in 2009 and is a 31 day art challenge to draw one ink drawing everyday in October. Challenge creator and professional illustrator, Jake Parker, started the event as a way to improve his traditional inking skills and it just grew from there. There's no prize at the end, it's just a personal challenge to get you drawing daily and hopefully improve your own inking skills in the process.

Unisex T-shirt Skateboard Monkey. More info . Redbubble is an Australian, Print On Demand website that was founded in Melbourne, back in 2006, and has become a global choice for independent artists worldwide to sell prints of their work. I've had an online store with Redbubble pretty much since they launched. For the most part I limited the art I posted on Redbubble to my, popular for a second, whimsical, cat artworks. It has been quite a few years since I've painted any cats, and the followers I had for them have certainly thinned out. I was going to shut down my Redbubble account to focus on my Cafepress online store but Redbubble just has better quality prints all round at very affordable prices.

First look at SpaceX Spacesuit. Photo: Elon Musk . Elon Musk gave the world a second sneak peak at the new SpaceX space suits they've been developing. According to him the suit is a fully tested working model. Whilst Mashable noted that the suits have a certain cool factor about them with their sleek, body fitting design, and black and white styling, I can't help but think there's a safety issue here.

At age 47 I'm really starting to feel the aches and pains of a body that not only doesn't recover from injuries as fast as it used to but also is much easier to injure than it has been in the past. This is not a good thing for someone who still feels young at heart and still enjoys getting out and about on a skateboard as much as possible. Recently my skateboarding has been the cause of several arm and shoulder injuries. Not from falling but just from the very act of skateboarding. Specifically the action of swinging my arms around to maintain balance when performing even simple tricks.

Hampstead , starring Diane Keaton and Brendan Gleeson, is a pleasant movie. It's an enjoyable tale that never gets too challenging emotionally, never gets too deep into any of its characters, and manages to have just enough quirky humor to provide a few decent smiles, making it a worthwhile way to spend just over 90 minutes at the movies. Inspired by, and based upon a true story, Diane plays widower, Emily Walters, who discovers a homeless man, Donald (Brendan) living in a shack on an abandoned hospital estate, opposite her apartment building. When the estate is earmarked for development she takes it upon herself to help save Donald's home.

I never imagined I'd be reviewing the Tom Cruise, Sci-fi action movie, Edge of Tomorrow (2014), three years after its debut but, after seeing it on Netflix, the film is so good I now wish I had seen it in a cinema back when it was released. Perhaps this film didn't do so well in the USA (it fared better internationally) because of the mixed reactions to the previous Tom Cruise Sci-fi movie, Oblivion (2013), which I did see in a cinema and also thought was exceptional. If I was to compare the two films, Oblivion is more visually interesting, conceptually, with its production design, but Edge of Tomorrow has a more engaging story that keeps you thinking about every choice the lead character is making.

I was excited to see Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets for the sole reason that, based on the trailers, it was writer/director, Luc Besson's return to his visionary best since The Fifth Element  (1997). Beyond that I'm not familiar with the comic series, Valerian and Laureline , that the movie is based upon. The comparison to The Fifth Element is very easy to make as the visual style of Valerian is very similar. So much so that it could easily be another story set in a different part of the same universe.

I do buy and ride my own boards purchased through my Boardpusher skateboard store, etourist Skateboards . (Boardpusher handle everything so I can focus on creating sick custom graphics to enhance your unique style) Recently I decided to purchase an Alvin Owl Longboard complete because a) I've never tried longboarding and b) I thought it would be great for you to see pictures of an actual complete deck purchased through etourist Skateboards . When buying a complete you can choose from a small range of branded trucks and wheels. I chose the cheapest options because, whilst I get to buy my own decks at wholesale prices, that discount is dwarfed by the postage cost from the USA to Australia. It's not prohibitively expensive but, it would be significantly cheaper if I just bought the deck and then sourced everything else from an Australian based Skate shop on ebay. Here's what arrived in my box: 1x Alvin Owl, 7 ply, 100% Canadian Maple wood grain longboard deck 8x ...

Q.bo Robot... I think this girl may be thinking about eating robot brains? The makers of Q.bo One are promoting their educational robot as a family friendly companion for your home but, at the same time, it is, pretty much, a robot head in an amputated foot bowl... which is kind of creepy, right? Or is it just me? Not to mention this image of the girl (pictured) I took from their Indiegogo fundraiser page . Is she trying to eat that poor robot's brain?

etourist Skateboards Most skaters like to buy and skate the Pro-Model skateboard of their favorite skater, which is fine, and you should absolutely do that. It supports the skater and allows them to continue getting free stuff and/or paid to do what they love. It's not often that skaters think about the artist creating the graphics that appear on the decks they buy, unless they particularly like a design, in which case they might give it some attention. As much as I've enjoyed skating pro-models of my favorite skaters, I also know that skating a deck with a design that I really like motivates me even more to skate often and progress. You just feel good skating a good looking deck with a great board graphic.

Back in the day I designed and built the majority of the skateboard ramps my friends and I skated at our house. Though I had plenty of help building because what skater doesn't want to help a new skate ramp get built as quickly as possible? The crowning glory of all the ramps I built was my backyard mini (pictured), which I've written about before in this blog. It started out as a 16 foot wide, 4 foot high, 30 foot long mini, to which I later added 1 foot extensions. It probably had a 6 foot transition but I can't be sure. I used to draw transition templates free hand and just eyeball it until it looked right to me. I never worked off a plan either. It's not a hard structure to just plan as you go.

Spider-Man Homecoming delivers on the promise of the new Spider-Man from Captain America, Civil War , with an enjoyable stand alone Spidey film that also clearly shows where the character fits in relation to the Avengers. Tom Holland continues to shine as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man with a good mix of self conscious uncertainty as well as decisiveness and resolve, when needed. In this film Peter is initially obsessed with becoming a fully fledged Avenger. In the meantime he's working hard at being a 'friendly neighborhood Spider-Man', looking for ways to impress Tony Stark with his superhero capabilities. In the process he discovers alien technology based weapons are being sold to street level criminals, which sets him on the trail of the Vulture, played by Michael Keaton.

I've been on Instagram for just over a year now and have been posting regularly enough that I feel, those of you that are on Instagram, might want to check my feed out. I now have posted enough images to get a good feel for the kind of things I like to share. I try to keep the selfies to a reasonable minimum unless I have good reason like this... "But with the blast shield down, I can't even see..." I can only assume the fold down lenses on these circle specs are for people who are constantly needing to be prepared for a spot of welding (spot welding?) But don't want to carry around a bulky welding mask. The double lense is really that dark! Did I mention I have a thing for circle specs? #glasses #fashion #onionskinglasses #sunglasses #specs #circleglasses A post shared by David Arandle (@etourist.tet) on Nov 2, 2016 at 10:45pm PDT

Being a fan of the 1995, Terry Gilliam movie, Twelve Monkeys , when I discovered SyFy channel had adapted it into a TV series, 12 Monkeys , I was interested to see how that would pan out. Although the show has been aired in Australia on free to air TV (I'm pretty sure I've seen it listed there at ridiculous hours on occasion), it's only recently that the first two seasons were added to Australian Netflix. So I added it to my list of shows to watch. This article is not so much a review of the show, rather it's my thoughts on adapting to the TV version after being a big fan of the film. At this point, I've only seen all of season one and the first episode of season two. Going into the TV series I literally went in cold, not knowing anything about the approach to this adaptation from pre-publicity or trailers beforehand. I didn't really have any expectations other than wondering if the show would stick to the movie plot lines closely and, if they did, how w...

Bailey - R.I.P. Our English Cocker Spaniel, Bailey, passed away recently. He had an aggressive, inoperable tumor in his abdomen that sent him into a relatively rapid decline within the course of a few weeks. Unfortunately we had to make that dreaded decision of pain over quality of life for a much loved family member. Bailey was struggling with going to the bathroom and holding food down. He was no longer able to go for walks and his enthusiasm for barking at next door's cat in our front yard was getting less and less. Despite all this he still had moments where he seemed perfectly fine, even wagging his tail. Our vet seemed to think he didn't have long with such an aggressive tumor, particularly if it ruptured, which would cause Bailey to bleed to death. Not a nice way to go, and something I experienced first hand with our cat, Casper.

Wonder Woman is by far the most satisfying of the DCEU film series to date. By the end of the movie the thought passed through my mind that if Zac Snyder had given Superman a similar optimism (he's credited as both a Producer and co-writer on Wonder Woman), that character would be in a better place now. That isn't a totally surprising thought as director, Patty Jenkins, has not only stated that her Wonder Woman takes some inspiration from Richard Donner's 1978 Superman movie but also Superman is a character she'd like to make a film about too. As much as I'd like to see Patty's version of Superman, here's hoping she will stick around to complete Wonder Woman 2, now that she isn't tied to an origin story and can set any subsequent movie within the modern day DCEU. All that aside, if you're a fan of Gal Godot's Wonder Woman from Batman v Superman , this movie will certainly cement that fandom by clearly defining exactly how awesome the liv...

Things weren't looking good for our Water Heater at this point. It's surprising how two bolts breaking can totally screw up your day. Our electric water heater died. Specifically the element that does the actual heating failed and needed replacing. The job is a relatively simple task. .Undo the four bolts holding in the old element, disconnect and remove, put in the new element, reconnect and you're good to go. Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes at most. That's how I thought the day might go. Not for me personally but for the electrician our landlord hired to do the job.

iRobot's Roomba... when home robots attack ! Many people think of the inevitable Robot Uprising as a humanoid, Terminator like, robot army, wielding laser guns, hunting us down in some kind of distant future, human Armageddon. What they don't realize is that the robot armies are already taking shape, albeit in a much more passive aggressive form. I've previously documented the Roomba as the first wave of mass produced robots surveilling your home under the guise of being a floor vacuum. These irritating devices are supposed to quietly work away in the background while you perform Yoga poses in peaceful bliss but are actually noisy enough to attract your attention and... why does the thing keep missing that one spot in the middle of the floor but has cleaned the same corner four times already!