Skip to main content

Timer

There are a bunch of everyday tasks around the Mild Home that require waiting some amount of time. Say I put want to put something in the oven, I need to make sure that I take it out after a set amount of time. I mean, bad things happen if you leave food in the oven for a long time. If you're lucky, it's just inedible; if you're unlucky, then the smoke alarm is involved.

Quite a few of them involve food (steep the tea for X minutes, uncover the pot after Y minutes, etc.), so that should come as no surprise. However, I recently had to use baking soda and vinegar to help unclog a sink. As I discovered, you don't just dump those things down the sink. You wait 5-10 minutes after mixing those ingredients in the sink, to let them do their thing. Otherwise, it just fizzes for a bit, and nothing really happens. In either case, I needed to wait for a set amount of time.

Now, when it comes to setting a timer, I have a few options. There are timers on the stove and on my cell phone, and both work equally well. However, it gets a little trickier if I have to leave the oven on for 20 minutes, but I have to turn the contents of a tray after 10 minutes. Sure, I could set the timer for 10 minutes, turn the food, and then set another timer for 10 minutes. That's a perfectly valid solution, and it accomplishes the goal. However, it takes a few extra steps, so there's always a nagging sense that there is a better way.

This is where my use of phone games has become helpful once again. I've discovered that it may take be a while to complete some quests, but on one of those games, it takes me roughly 5 minutes to complete a match. It's not precise to the second, but on average, it comes out to about 5 minutes. In essence, my brain knows that waiting 5 minutes is a solved problem.

So, if I want to wait some multiple of 5 minutes, I really just have to play my phone game a few times. This is especially useful since I rarely need more than about a 10 minute wait (if I did, I'd walk away and do something else while I waited).

Remember that scenario about having to turn the food in the oven? That simplifies to turning on the oven, sticking the food in, setting a timer for 20 minutes, playing my phone game twice, turning the food, then waiting for the only timer I set. It cuts out some steps, so I don't have to fiddle with the stove twice, nor do I have to wait for two different timers. And since I was likely going to play at some point anyway, it just makes that use of time more productive. All in all, it feels like a win.

I have to say, I'm highly amused at this turn at events, since I never thought I'd be using a phone game as a cooking tool. Still, the proof is in the pudding, so I'm going to keep doing this. I'm probably going to chuckle every other time I do it, too.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...
Post a Comment
Read more