Nick

Nick Broughall.
Writing again.

Tech journalist with 20+ years behind me. Running BTTR.reviews. Writing here about everything else — music, family, food, the odd rant, and the weird stuff in between.

I really enjoyed this. I thought Jonathan Majors was excellent as Kang, and am really keen to see what he brings in the rest of the MCU.

It did have the odd pacing issue, and Bill Murray was wasted here, but overall, it was an enjoyable experience, and much better than I expected.

Not as good as the first one, but still a bit of fun. Love the 4th wall moments too.

Third movie is inevitable. Will definitely watch it when it comes out.

I am absolutely, 100% earwormed by every track on the new Paramore album. The only way I can get one song out of my head is by mentally singing another song from the album. It’s great. 🎵

BTTR Weekly update

BTTR enjoyed its second record traffic week in a row last week. Over 600 pageviews for the week, which is still nowhere near where I want it to be, but also …

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Played against Lauren while the kids played video games. Ended up getting lots of spells that forced her to discard cards from her hand, so she couldn’t get enough tokens to gain new cards. Her defeat came quickly, in the end.

Won #HarryPotterHogwartsBattle–DefenceAgainsttheDarkArts on 2023-02-19 with 2 players, winning score: 3

I never really loved Cars like I did the earlier Pixar movies. The movie is fine — it’s a good story, well acted, and looks pretty spectacular in 4K. But I still just don’t really love it.

First play through of Goonies: Never Say Die today. I played as Goondocks Master, Lauren, and Kara played as Goonies; Mikey and Data respectively. Made a few mistakes, like I didn’t put out enough …

To the Goondocks!
Down here is our time. It’s our time, down here.

Nothing quite starts arguments in this house like trying to play 4 player Overcooked.

This morning has been a roller coaster of affiliate network approvals, rejections, technical challenges and implementations.

Don’t even get me started on the tax forms. Ugh.

Woke up at 4:30 this morning with a blocked nose and a pounding headache. Panadol helped, but I do not expect to be overly productive today.

Last week was a pretty good week for BTTR with a couple of good milestones achieved.

Over 500 pageviews in the week, an obvious record for me given the site is so new. Also managed to achieve my first $100 in revenue.

There is still a really long way to go, but it’s good to hit some milestones to help you stay inspired.

Last week’s highlights

Deal alert

Played The Hobbit: An unexpected party with the whole family today. It obviously took longer with 4 players, but it was just as enjoyable.

Won #TheHobbitAnUnexpectedParty on 2023-02-12 with 4 players, winning score: 23 #bgstats 🎲

The sequel was fun, and I enjoyed the focus on Elastigirl rather than Mr Incredible. But it just wasn’t as good as the original.

Ed Zitron captured the perfect analogy about company obsession with growth today.

As my friend Kasey put it in a recent conversation, growth is a fire. If you build a nice, sustainable fire, it’ll keep you warm, cook food and sustain life. And if the only thing you care about is how big your fire is, then it’ll set fire to everything around it, and the more you throw into it, the more it’ll burn. Eventually, you’ll have nothing left, but if you desperately desire that fire, you will constantly have to find new things to burn at any cost.

I’ve started trying to begin my day with the daily puzzles in Good Sudoku on Apple Arcade. I find that the simple logic and structure helps my brain focus a bit.

It’s better towards the end of the work week when the puzzles are a little challenging, but not impossible.

I updated LinkedIn today so it must make it official.

I’ve launched a new product review site for Australians. It’s still really early days, so there’s still a long way to go.

But I’m quite happy with it so far.

BTTR

(Feedback welcome)

There’s nothing quite like a Zelda game. I’m playing Skyward Sword on the Switch, and even though the controls are janky as all hell, its level design is flawless and the pacing is perfect.

Sunday barbecue

Well, my Sunday afternoon took a turn. Getting ready to cook a nice roast pork on the barbecue when a layer of residual grease stuck under the drip tray of the …

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Third day back at school at the boy slept through his alarm. Lucky we have redundancies…

Me.

Now that the kids are back at school, I’ve been more focused on trying to work.

And now that I’m more focused on trying to work, I’m less focused on writing stuff here.

I need to consciously remember to write here.

Another year’s school books covered in Contact. I would pay a significant premium to get pre plastic-covered stationery each year.