TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

About a month ago Revive Skateboards launched their #DesignALifeline competition where entrants had to purchase a specific Lifeline template skateboard deck, draw their design on it, and then post a photo of their finished board to Instagram with the hashtag #designalifeline.

With only 200 template boards being made available, I liked those odds, and bought a deck within an hour of seeing the competition announcement video on the day it was posted. The deck cost me US$40.00 and about that again to have it mailed to Australia. It's the most expensive competition entry I've paid for to date.



The winner gets to have their design released as an official deck as part of Revive's Spring 2020 product release. As well they get three copies of their deck along with a sponsor pack (which typically consists of a number of decks, clothes, wheels etc. from Revive's range). Four runners up will get a sponsor package only.

If you're thinking you might like to enter, unfortunatel…

Joaquin Phoenix and director, Todd Phillips, gave us another interesting take on the Joker from Batman's rogues gallery, with their movie Joker. This has lead me to think about the three modern movie Jokers of the 21st century, i.e. Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and, of course, Joaquin Phoenix. Specifically how they fit in relation to the character and in relation to Batman.

Joker - Joaquin Phoenix
This interpretation of Joker can definitely be seen as Day 1 Joker. He's just an unhinged guy in clown makeup. He's no match for Batman but he doesn't need to be since Batman is barely an idea in Bruce Wayne's head.

This Joker needs a few years to mature before going up against Batman. The fact that Joaquin's Joker would be older than Batman may give him some air of authority over Bruce that a Joker of equal age wouldn't command.

I personally don't buy that the Joker is a response to Batman. They may become yin-yang to each other but Joker's origin was never…

Shaun Micallef is one of Australia's premier comedian, actor, writer, and media personalities responsible for numerous comedy TV shows, and generally leaning towards surrealist humor that often gives him a more unique perspective on finding what's funny in any given situation.

He's actually one of my favorite humorists working in entertainment, hence I was looking forward to reading his book, The Uncollected Plays of Shaun Micallef.

You would think a man who writes a lot of contemporary, biting satire would be a sure thing, laugh a minute writer of short plays but unfortunately, this book was disappointing. I found it extremely challenging to read, and was constantly looking to see how many pages were left to endure of the various plays as I read them.

Part of the problem is the majority of the plays are based on historical themes that were not only before my time, but also before Shaun's time. We're talking bible stories, World Wars, and even a reimagining of The…

Of all the autobiographies I've read by Monty Python members so far Eric Idle's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, A Sortabiography has been the easiest one to read. I'd even go so far as to say it's a bit of a page turner that's hard to put down.

I'm guessing it's because he made most of it up, probably... or maybe it's just the really, really good bits, I mean he has reduced a 50 plus year career in entertainment to a mere 272 pages.

I swear you could fit three of these books inside Michael Palin's published diary of just The Python Years. Admittedly Palin was too lazy to remove all the boring bits out of his diaries.

On the plus side you get a little more Python insight than you do with John Cleese's book, So, Anyway, largely because Eric, more than any other Python, continues to repurpose/repackage Python material for modern audiences, with stage shows like Spamalot, and the O2 Python reunion show.

Actually this book is a very easy rea…

If you're a frequent watcher of my skateboard videos you've probably seen me skateboarding my homemade boardslider here and there. Most notably I'm frequently trying to do nose slides on it.

Just to mix things up I thought I'd film a video mostly focussed on my boardslider, so you're not always seeing me running through Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple Volume One bag of tricks.

Watch the video below, in which I also give you a brief review of my cheap skate shoes that I featured in my previous video but had sound issues when I tried to review them there.



You'll notice my boardslider isn't very slippery, which is because I don't use it a lot and, as I mention in the video, I don't really like waxing things. Especially when I'm trying to get used to the feel of sliding.

Generally with this kind of boardslider, if you keep working at them, the paint from your board will gradually wax the rails and it will begin to slide. Sometimes I think p…

It seems almost redundant to review Brand It Purple given you probably won't find a hard copy edition without digging into the second hand market. The book's author and publisher, Ashley Knoote-Parke, seemingly, disappeared off the face of the Earth around about 2015. Which is a story in itself.

However, the book is still a very informative guide and, while not specifically targeted at women, many may relate more to a book written by an experienced female entrepreneur.

Brand It Purple is a personal marketing and branding guide released in 2009 by then, star on the rise author, Ashley Knoote-Parke, an English born, South African expatriate, who made Adelaide, South Australia her home.

There she started her own publishing company releasing a photographic, coffee table book of South Australian sights, along with books showcasing female, then male, entrepreneurs. As well she published 'Brand It Purple'.

I came across the book being sold at a discount price at a weekend mar…