The Extraordinary Tourist

10/12/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) *Minor Spoilers*. When I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86), I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired.I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the [ more ]

It's safe to say, whatever this is, it isn't an adaptation of the original TV Series. The title of movie definitely describes what it is...

04/12/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: The Parent's Guide to Beginner and 'Next Steps' 2D and 3D Animation Software For Aspiring Younger Animators. Younger artists, who enjoy drawing characters and telling stories, may find themselves gravitating towards animated cartoons. While hand-drawn animation was traditionally done with pencil and paper, nowadays it is more commonly created on electronic devices like iPads and pen display monitors. This shift to digital platforms has made animation more accessible to young artists, allowing them to [ more ]

If you're a parent looking to support your child's interest in digital computer animation, here is a quick guide on where to start, their next steps.

03/12/2024

New Headlines from TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life) for 12/03/2024 -

TET.Life is a lifestyle blog centered around the interests of artist, writer, animator, skateboarder and entrepreneur David Arandle (TET).

03/12/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Social Media: It's All Fake News - Even That News You Shared, That Proves the Thing, Because It's Backed Up By a Credible Expert, is Fake.. Social Media profiles need a peer based rating system that locks you out for 30 days if your feed is one long stream of depressing boredom that bums everyone out.I don't watch or read the news anymore (mainstream or otherwise). From time to time, if something filters through that piques my interest, I'll take a bit of a dive to find out more. The recent US election is a good example. I even [ more ]

Thanks, largely to Trump, we have this thing called 'fake news', where any reporting you don't agree with is said to be untrue, misreported, or 'fake'

26/11/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Movie Opinion: GhostBusters: Frozen Empire (2024) *Some Spoilers*. There's one thing that can be said for 2016's, all female Ghostbusters reboot, and that is, it's not anywhere near as bad as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.Although you don't realize it almost all the key moments of the actual plot are spoiled in the movie poster shown here. It's a wildly over thought, and overly convoluted story, with much exposition, that boils down to a big end level [ more ]

There's not much here that this franchise hasn't done before, in every film, only this time everything freezes too because... I don't know, I drifted

19/11/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Movie Review: Memory (2023). Something a little different for me in terms of movies I usually review, Memory is a film I was invited along to see by my partner, and both of us didn't know much about the movie going in, other than it was a film where one of the leads has dementia.The basic premise follows adult, special needs social worker, Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), who leads a simple and structured life. When [ more ]

I found this movie to be an engaging character study, and a little bit of a 'slice of life' film given that it just kind of picks a point to end.

16/11/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 Fast by Creating Fun, 2D, Animated Christmas Holiday Messages - Free Course by The Lazy Animator. Have you ever wanted to send your friends and family fun, 2D animated, holiday messages, or just create 2D animated characters that you can make move and talk without learning difficult to master animation skills or spending hours drawing frame by frame?Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 is a professional quality, 2D animation studio software that is also very easy to produce impressive results with [ more ]

Learn my fast, easy way to rig and animate your first 2D character in Cartoon Animator 5 without complicated templates or any drawing skills at all.

12/11/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Trump's 2024 Election Win Will Change Everything - At Least I Sure Hope It Does!. Trump by Leonardo.ai & TETAs an outsider looking in on the US 2024 election, right up until election day, it is beyond my belief that the election continued to be a 'close race'. It is even further beyond my belief that Trump won, without question. Even if the Democrats wanted to claim the election was rigged somehow (which I'm sure Trump was gearing up to do had the outcome been [ more ]

My hope is, Trump will have no trouble implementing everything he wants to do. Which seems very likely with his decisive win.

05/11/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: TV Series Review: Velma (2023-2024) *No Spoilers*. As a kid, Scooby Doo cartoons were something I used to watch fairly regularly. I wasn't a diehard fan but it was one of the better, of the many, cartoons I used to watch.I had heard about the new animated series, Velma, around the time of its release but it wasn't coming out on any streaming service I was subscribed to so it went off my radar pretty quickly.Quite by chance I signed up to a [ more ]

This isn't for Scooby Doo fans. The creators have hijacked the IP and made something...

29/10/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: TV Series Review: The Office - Australia (Prime Video) (2024) *No Spoilers*. While I'm a late comer fan of The Office, only watching after the original and USA versions were both available on streaming services, I did watch them in the order of release i.e. I watched the U.K. version first.Now, with the release of the Australian version of The Office on Prime Video, I think it's best to approach watching this new version understanding that it is not those shows.More [ more ]

The Australian version of The Office comes to Amazon Prime with the shows first female boss. It's not the show being woke, since no one aspires to be

20/10/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Optimus Robots, Self Driving Cars and Buses - Tesla's 'We Robot' Event and the Evolution of Optimus. Tesla Optimus Robot Serving Guests.Image: TeslaOn the tenth of October Tesla held their 'We Robot' event, which I guess is the new incarnation of their previous Tesla AI Day annual event. There were three much talked about reveals, the driverless taxis, a driverless bus, and Optimus robots moving around the event, fully interacting with people 'on the ground'.Tesla Driverless Taxi. Image: [ more ]

While many were impressed by the Gen III Optimus robots interacting with the crowd at the WE Robot event, it has been confirmed that all these robots

20/10/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Zack in Time - Support an Independent 2D Animated Series that is Creating Opportunities for New Talent. Zack in Time is an independent, 2D animated series about a biracial 13-year-old teen, who has trouble fitting in at his new school, until he finds a time-traveling watch developed by a secret government agency. Created by Christian Haynes, who I featured in December of 2021, and produced by Imhapie, the production has now launched a Kickstarter (which runs until October 25th, [ more ]

If you would like to support a truly independent production, that is also supporting up and coming talent in the animation industry world wide, please

16/10/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: If I Could Talk to the Animals... Maybe AI Can Make This a Reality?. We've always been able to talk to animals, and it's sometimes said, jokingly, you may have a problem if they start talking back, but what if they could?One thing that AI is good at is processing data and spotting patterns, common elements, and highlighting relationships which makes it ideal for all kind of research, so why not studying the language of animals?It seems like science fiction but so [ more ]

While were not there yet, advancements in AI learning systems seem to suggest that the idea is no longer as far fetched and fanciful as it used to be.

16/10/2024

Check out TET Life's latest blog post: Movie Review: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) *No Spoilers*. If you're like me and didn't go to see Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in theatres you made the right choice.For context, I loved the first Aquaman movie. It's one of my favorites from the Snyder/DCEU era. It is a relatively well made adventure story, with some fantastic world building, amazing visuals, and included some commentary on environmental issues as well.Despite having,

Honestly I struggled to stay focused through this. Unlike the first Aquaman film it isn't really presenting anything new.

03/10/2024

New Headlines from TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life) for 09/23/2024 -

TET.Life is a lifestyle blog centered around the interests of artist, writer, animator, skateboarder and entrepreneur David Arandle (TET).

25/09/2024

For those of you interested in learning how to fold the paper airplane I shared recently, I posted a video to my TET-Life (include the '-' if you look for it) YouTube channel, along with two other designs, including my completely original paper airplane, that was the catalyst for this plane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRtCKNEdiY

This particular plane is a modified 'Dart' that most people know, and is a variation of the 'Concorde' paper airplane that apparently is a classic but I'd never seen it anywhere in the late 1990's when I first made this plane and then put the instructions online in 2000.

A little bit random I know, uploading how to fold paper airplane tutorials, but designing paper planes was something I used to do a lot with just three rules...

17/09/2024

Kamala didn't wipe the floor with Trump because she doesn't really speak the language of his supporters. I'm pretty sure she didn't move the needle.

11/09/2024

LTX Studio (beta), a new 'all-in-one' AI film making tool, is not going to let you realize a finished film from a single text prompt but if will help.