TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

I  decided not see Captain America: Brave New World in a cinema because everything I heard about the film pointed to a disjointed mess, from testing poorly, to whole characters being added in during reshoots. The trailers looked okay but, since they featured Red Hulk, quite a bit, it felt like there wasn't much left as a drawcard for seeing the film in a cinema. Having now seen the film on Disney+ I feel it was a good decision. While the big budget effects no doubt would've looked better on a big screen, the story wasn't particularly complex or intriguing enough to make the film stand out. If anything, it's a straight forward action movie with a hero who is just kind of... there. The story revolves around a plot to kill the newly elected US President, former General Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). Captain America (Anthony Mackie) must find who is the real mastermind in order to clear his friend and the original Super Solider, Isaiah Bradley's (Carl Lumbly), name. I...

A t the beginning of the year I introduced you to my latest cartoon/comic series, Resident Dragon (because a dragon's got to live somewhere).  A daily - well, week-day-ly - gag cartoon about Red the Fire Dragon, living in a shared house in the suburbs, with his human friend, TET and his two pets, Grrr Dog and Cool Froyd the cat. Back then I had about 100 cartoons sketched out, with eleven completely digitally inked and coloured.  As of writing this, I haven't yet skipped a day of my schedule, and am seven toons short of an even 200 sketched out, with 31 fully inked and coloured. Actually, it's 33 but I only publish one full colour toon each week, so I have two in the wings. I'm not planning on doing daily toons forever. My goal is to hit 366 so I have enough to fill a daily desk calendar, should I decide to sell one. Currently you can buy individual prints of my finished toons in my Resident Dragon Store . When I have enough finished toons I will be compiling them into...

D isney+'s Star Wars: Andor  the first season is widely regarded as some of the best Star Wars since the original trilogy, and I don't disagree in my  Andor Season 1  review. Despite that, it does have its problems, mainly a lot of space between action pieces. That's not to say nothing is happening in those spaces, but I do remember being frustrated how long season one took to get to a promised heist scene, going from conversation to conversation over several episodes. However, when Andor does have action, it usually delivers, with action that serves the story rather than action because 'it's time for some action now'. Unfortunately that gave Andor the reputation for being Star Wars 'for grown ups'. People who understand how tension and intrigue can come just as much from character interaction, who is talking to who, and what they're saying. That lead to low viewership and the show's proposed number of seasons being reduced to just two (I believe...

G oing into  Thunderbolts*  I was a tiny bit concerned that not seeing the previous Marvel Movie, Captain America: Brave New World , might be a problem. Fortunately, if you've seen the trailer to that film, you mostly have all you need to understand the brief references to it here. The bigger issue you may bump up against is not really knowing who any of this team is, if you haven't been watching every Marvel movie or TV series. The movie is counting on you at least knowing who Yolena (Florence Pugh), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), and Red Guardian (David Harbour) is to draw you into seeing the film. It is kind of a better experience if you know who John Walker - Captain America Lite (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr - Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Antonia Dreykov - Task Master (Olga Kurylenko) are but there is enough backstory given, to at least place them in context of the wider MCU as misfits. Having said that, the story really lends itself to filling in the backstory on almost all...

Anthony Albanese Victory by ChatGPT and TET. W hen I started writing about the 2025 Federal election the polls were suggesting the world's most boring government was crusing to a defeat . As it turns out, boring is good, and Australia wants more of it, handing the current government a landslide win with a majority vote. Anthony Albanese became the first PM since John Howard to win a consecutive term, and the first Labor PM since Bob Hawke to do so. Some of that comes down to the leadership revolving door both major parties had through the mid 2000s. Although Anthony is my preferred PM over Dutton the irony is Dutton sounds more like a leader with a fairly commanding voice and an ability to speak well, without sounding like he's waffling and dodging questions, even if he is. Anthony, on the other hand, does have the ability (and speech writer) to say a lot of inspiring things but it gets lost in the delivery. He doesn't seem to know when to emphasise a point for effect. In h...

TET, Episode 5 Heelflip attempt. C ontinuing my ten part series of Second Sunday Skateboard sessions , the series where I'm attempting to master all seven basic skateboarding tricks in Braille Skateboarding's Skateboarding Made Simple Volume One , over twenty weeks (or ten fortnights).  Each episode is a short Sunday check in to show where I'm at after each two week period of practicing. Generally I aim for at least an hour practice session every second day if weather or my work schedule permits. These are the links to Episode One and Episode Two  should you feel the need to see where I started.  I'm not a complete newbie, having been a relatively hardcore skater through the late eighties and early nineties, however I was mostly a mini ramp and curb skater, and never really maintained my skills beyond riding and ollies.  The explosion of council built concrete parks came a decade too late for me to maintain my mini ramp skills. Once we closed our own skate park in ...