Ben Benner’s Blog

I think that there are some songs that I like from the 1970s, but the title of this post is in reference to my Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ queue. I have been loading my queue with Doctor Who, a series near and dear to my heart.

I have mainly been focusing on the Tom Baker years, which were filmed between 1974-1981. I am not entirely sure why some of them are available via streaming and some are not. I mean, it seems like everything that old should be available, but who knows, maybe someone’s estate is refusing to allow the content to be streamed due to royalties or something.

I have found that I need to have the TV on in the background when I am coding at home. There are times when I prefer to just have music, but it is just not the same. I have been trying to figure it out, I know that I am more productive without TV, but only from the standpoint of me not occasionally looking up at the screen. Without some sort of  background noise, I cannot focus.

When I am here at the office, I find that the listening to music is the perfect thing. But when I am at home, I prefer the TV. Not sure what it is, but unless Gina is home, then listening to music and coding just feels, I don’t know how else to put it but, lonely.

Anyway, the streaming quality of Netflix on the (xbox) 360 is superb.

In terms of this weekend though, it was not just coding and watching Doctor Who. I also had to clean-up the kitchen. As usual, I started falling back into my bachelor tendencies and not cleaning up all of the dishes I had used the day before. After that was done, it came time to mop up. I want to try and make sure that the house is clean for when Gina returns for Florida.

Let it be known that little dogs, have little bladders. And that while I do take them outside regularly (or leave the dog door open, provided the neighbor dog is inside), they occasionally make a mess. I had spot cleaned these messes, but it was time to mop the floor. I mopped, the kitchen, dining room and the living room. One of the benefits of having mostly tile, is that provided your back is strong, cleanup is easy.

I also did what Gina would normally start doing on a Sunday, dog laundry. Our dogs have an assortment of dog beds (many of which have been recently constructed by Gina herself), blankets, sweaters/shirts and what not. I am thinking that tomorrow night (because I will be too sore from Camp Gladiator tonight) the dogs will be getting bathes.

Another thing I did was cook dinner. Yup, amazing feat right?

I bring this particular cooking experience up, because I tried out a couple of new things.

1. I used our small Dutch Oven for the first time, I think Gina might have used it before, but I myself, had not. My in-laws have been giving us Le Creueset for Christmas the last couple of years.

2. I braised some beef short ribs. Never done that before. We buy them all the time to feed to the dogs, I had bought two packs of them and decided that I would cook and eat the second set myself.

3. I followed the recipe that came on the meat packaging. I think the recipe on the meat packaging is fairly universal and not just HEB. But they usually have some sort of recipe / cooking instructions on the sticker that tells you the price and weight. I followed the recipe and it turned out OK. In retrospect, I should have tasted the sauce/gravy that I made out of the broth before applying it to the meat, it could have used a little bit of salt.

I took the meat off the ribs, which was not a hard feat at all, they had cooked long enough that it fell off the bones. The carrots that I had put into the dutch oven with them turned out great. To be honest, it was kind of like pot-roast, but with short ribs.

I never remember how long to cook the Brussels sprouts for, so I had to call Gina. Afterward, when everything was plated up, I sent Gina a picture of what I had made. I opted not to put it up on Twitter, maybe I will post it up here later.

Unfortunately, the whole cleaning the kitchen, dog laundry, etc cost me a few more hours than I had wanted to, as I didn’t complete all of the coding that I had been planning to do this weekend. But I did manage to get a significant portion of what I am working on done. To which, there were a number of things that I was not familiar with how to make the framework do what I wanted to, but after a few hits with the sonic screwdriver, everything started to work just fine.

I hope to be able to do some more coding after I get done with Camp Gladiator. But, honestly I will likely end up eating dinner, taking a hot bath and passing out.

Back to the grind.

Laterz