TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

T he trailer for Borderlands is an example of a movie trying hard to convince you it's better than what it actually is.  Initially I had wanted to see this movie in theatres just because it had Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis in a movie that looked pretty bonkers. I mean it's two veteran, Oscar winning actors, it should be amazing. I'm not familiar at all with the computer games Borderlands is based upon so a really fun looking trailer and the top tier cast was all I had to go on. Unfortunately the reviews started coming in and it wasn't just games fans that were disappointed with the film. Critics thought it was bad too. Ordinarily this wouldn't stop me from going to see a movie but, since my local cinema closed down, I have to travel further to see a film on the big screen. I've become very selective about what I'll go see. Someone uploaded the entire movie to YouTube. I just happened to see it (YouTube suggested it to me) so I took the opportunity to

Trump and Harris both gave a clear insight into what they were about at their first Presidential debate. W hat a difference a competent opposition to Donald Trump makes. Watching the second, or first? Let's call it debate 1.5 since it's Trump's second debate and Kamala Harris' first in this US election campaign. Watching debate 1.5 my overall impression is, regardless of which candidate you support, and if you don't drill down too deep into what each actually said, both looked like they delivered a strong performance. After the debate the Left media seemed to think Donald took every piece of bait Kamala threw out, and was flustered, and even shouting at one point. I watched the whole debate and at no point did I feel Trump was shouting - no more than he would at any public rally to get his point across. He certainly never look flustered either. He did exactly what Kamala was doing when he heard something that he felt was false or inaccurate, he asked if he could res

1X Technologies, Robot for the Home, Neo. B ack in 2022 Google announced it had a small army of 100 AI enabled robots training at the company to become home helpers. As far as I know these robots, which were visually, little more than a pedestal on wheels with a mechanical arm and a head full of cameras, haven't emerged in anyone's home (and haven't banded together, laser guns attached, to start robot Armageddon either). Undeterred by Google's lack of progress, along with the rapid advances in humanoid robots,  1X Technologies , a robotics company based in Norway and San Francisco, focused on creating humanoid robots for your home, plans to build 100,000 of its Neo Humanoid robots for the home by 2027. That puts them into I, Robot territory. Let's hope they don't own any big, omnidirectional trucks to facilitate the roll out on mass, while some old school, naysayer detective tries to warn everyone that something isn't right! 1X Technologies, who have at le

I  wasn't familiar with Rebecca Yarros prior to receiving the first two books in her Empyrean Series, Fourth Wing and Iron Flame , as a gift. (Note: links will take you to the audible product page versions of the book on Amazon and are affiliate links. You should be able to find links to physical copies of the books from there if you prefer). It's been a long time that I've read a book that I don't want to put down after the time I have to read for the day is over. These two books, which are not insignificant in size at 498 and 623 pages respectively are page turners from beginning to end (almost but I'll get to that later). The story is set in a fantasy mythical world where dragons and magic are common place. Fourth Wing opens as Violet, the younger, weaker daughter of a fairly infamous general in a dragon riders army, is pushed into the first year of dragon rider school, rather than her preferred, and prepared for, path of scribe school. Both her mother (the afor