TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

One of the better aspects of 2016's Suicide Squad movie was Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. While the character does have a significant fan base, both Margot's interpretation and the various incarnations depicted in animation and the comics, I don't think mainstream audiences were particularly hungry for a Birds of Prey or Harley Quinn movie.

Despite that, Birds of Prey (2020) was always going to have an audience. Suicide Squad, while not a great critical success still did well enough to be getting a James Gunn directed sequel, and Margot's performance as Harley was widely praised... and then there are plenty of people like me.

I have no real interest in a Birds of Prey film but it features Harley Quinn, and it's a DCEU film so of course I'm going to go see it.

Plus it does play as a kind of sequel to Suicide Squad, that you could maybe interpret as a spin off film, since it directly references events from that movie.

I will say that as the trailers for Bird…

If you're looking for an opportunity to leave some small legacy of your art behind, or just looking for another place to get eyeballs on your work then The Sketchbook Project by The Brooklyn Art Library may be of interest to you.

The Brooklyn Art Library is a crowdfunded library of artist sketchbooks that anyone can join. Their focus is on creating a collection of physical art that viewers can interact with. The collection is made up of literally thousands of sketchbooks submitted by artists of all levels worldwide.

You can physically go to the library in Brooklyn to view the collection. A selection of books are toured around the USA each year, and artists also have the option to digitize their sketchbooks for people to view online.


It is a bit of a vanity project since the artists themselves have to purchase a sketchbook, fill it up, and send it back, with additional cost if you want to digitize your book too. After that it's a life of warm fuzzy feels as the library will se…

My partner, for her birthday, was gifted two tickets to see Cold Chisel on their Blood Moon Tour as it rolled through Adelaide at the beginning of 2020. As part of the gift she also was given two nights accommodation at the Largs Pier Hotel, Largs Bay, South Australia.

Amazingly she chose me to be her plus one on this mini break, and while I do like Cold Chisel, Paul Kelly was second on the bill, and kind of the bigger draw for me.

It probably seems a bit late to be writing about a weekender, mini holiday, my partner and I took to kick the new year off but the By the C beach concerts held around Australia seem to be an annual event presenting different national and international artists, so maybe something you might like to look into for your plans for next year.

The Largs Pier Hotel I can't give you a full review of this hotel since we literally were only there in the evenings but it is an iconic, historic hotel (and actually a common stomping ground for early days Cold Chisel).

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I've wanted to learn to play an instrument for many years. Specifically the guitar but have never really done anything about it beyond buying one book (literally years ago), complete with DVD, teaching the electric guitar, that I've never opened.

In October of 2019 I happened upon the Populele 2 Ukulele through an email promotion from shopping site Gearbest (#notsponsored but links to the Populele 2 and Udemy are my affiliate links).

I can't say I've ever wanted to learn the Ukulele, because it seemed like a dinky little instrument, and not particularly thought of as 'cool'. However, the Populele 2 Ukulele has a fairly unique, eye catching design, in two colors (black or white) that doesn't immediately scream 'UKULELE'.

That aside what really caught my attention is the ability to link the ukulele to a dedicate phone app that teaches you to play using fun games and lights on the ukulele's fretboard showing where to place your fingers as you play…

I'd heard a lot of good things from various successful people about Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, particularly about this daily activity called 'Morning Pages' that seemed to help focus their day.

I was curious to know more so I decided to buy the book and see what it was all about.

As it happens The Artist's Way is a self help, Twelve week program to assist you in discovering or rediscovering your creativity. As such it's not a book you want to read cover to cover just to get the information. To get the full benefit it's designed so you can read a chapter each week and do the activities, until you've completed the full twelve weeks.

Which is what I chose to do, with every intention of following the course as instructed, but as I started reading, I just didn't recognize the person this book is reaching out to.

Initial impression The book is intended to help you discover or rediscover your creativity. It does so by assuming the reader …

After Star Wars VIII - The Last Jedi my enthusiasm for the new trilogy wasn't in a great place. Director, Rian Johnson, did make a fairly good movie but his efforts to subvert expectations by almost completely trivializing (or ignoring) most of the interesting hooks from The Force Awakens, meant that J. J. Abrams needed to make up for a lot of missing story for Star Wars IX - The Rise of Skywalker.

The Rise of Skywalker is the final installment of the Skywalker saga that includes nine films, though technically it really only concludes the stories of Rey and Ben Solo that began with The Force Awakens.

If you saw the trailers then there are few surprises to be had here in terms of the story. Rey and Kylo Ren are on a collision course that eventually leads to the return of Emperor Palpatine (thanks to Rian who turned Snoke, a potentially interesting villain, into nothing noteworthy) who for some reason needs Rey in order to make himself even more powerful than probably the most powe…