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.

The last day of winter yesterday was such a spectacular day I decided to head out to the garden to trim our camellias.

I got 5/12 trees done, and I can barely move today. I have blisters on my hands and scratches up and down my arms…

I am not built for gardening.

When it rains, it pours…

A couple of weeks ago, the car battery died. $$ Yesterday we serviced the car. $$$$ Today, the back tyre seems to be leaking and probably needs to be replaced. $$$

Anybody want to sponsor my general feeling of disillusionment?

Fun 2-player game of Ark Nova today with my wife. Kids went for a bike ride. Just a nice, relaxing day…

Except I lost 😬

Still a PB score though, so it wasn’t a total bust 🎲

Setting up ark nova on my table for 2 players.

This week I discovered that even after about 30 years of not hearing - or even thinking about - the song I want your love by Transvision Vamp, I still remember all the lyrics.

But ask me what I had for dinner on Sunday, and I draw a complete blank.

I’m writing about Ghost’s ActivityPub integration, and I realised that deep down I really just want it to be more like Micro.Blog.

Today I discovered my wife had never heard Rebecca Black’s Friday.

Needless to say, she has now.

It was fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

I like the idea of meal planning and cooking ahead, but it took me all afternoon to cook some freezer McMuffins and I am completely shattered.

Saw Superman. It’s a great foundation. I wanted more Supes, though really enjoyed Mr Terrific and Guy Gardner. Lois Lane and Lex Luthor were solid. Unconvinced by parts of the story, though. Still… much better than Batman v Superman.

Today I made a “continental” loaf of bread in the bread maker. It was the first time I have ever used a bread improver, and it came out ridiculously tall. Can’t wait to eat it though.

A stupidly tall loaf of bread from my bread maker.

I just spent (checks watch) an hour trying to setup a Windows review laptop.

One hour. Just to get to log in and use the device.

Maybe I should start charging an hourly rate to review Windows laptops. Such a ridiculous waste of time.

I need to get car insurance quotes. I spend 5 minutes filling in a form of details, only to be told that they will call me to discuss.

The phone starts ringing seconds later.

To hell with that.

Your number is now blocked and I will never use your services. I’d probably walk into the ocean before I picked up the phone to talk to an insurance salesperson. Pretty sure avoiding these people is why the internet was invented.

At some point today I have to climb up into my ceiling to look at the leak in my roof. Our old antenna – which hasn’t been used in almost 15 years – has cracked, giving the rain a way into the roof. I’ll have to decide if I should just pull it out or get it fixed in case we ever move.

Things that are driving me crazy this week: People opining Apple is failing with its AI initiatives, when everyone else’s AI solutions are terrible for the quality of the Internet, small business and the environment.

Give me a shit Siri over the crap Google plans to unleash every day of the week.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed and depressed by Google’s I/O announcements overnight. It’s so hard to see a way to succeed as an individual publisher in the face of Google’s strategy to vacuum up all the content and repurposing it to keep people on Google.

I’m really enjoying the new Counting Crows album: Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!, but it’s so short! Especially because the second half just runs into eachother, making it sound like one long song. It ends before I’m ready for it to stop.

Car insurance rant

I just received our annual car insurance quote. The car is 5 years old now, so it’s getting on a little bit. But other than the extra year of age, nothing has …

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Multitasking effort for the day: making lunchbox snacks while testing the Ankarsrum mixer. Can confirm they taste pretty good.

A couple of racks of Swedish cinnamon scrolls.