The 2019 Thanksgiving Freestyle Episode

The guys throw the show notes out the window and kick it freestyle on this special Thanksgiving episode. All of today’s hard-hitting questions are answered: Dark meat or light meat? Turkey or duck? The warm glow of a fireplace or the warm glow of a database upgrade progress bar? Plus, the guys talk about when to start holiday feature freezes and what Honeybadger is working on/not working on this December.

Links:
Build Your SaaS podcast capitalism episode 

Transcript:
Ben: For some reason that reminded me of the presence method that I use from time to time with our Ruby and Rails work.

Josh: Ruby? Yeah.

Ben: I didn't really actually know about that until like, I don't know a year ago. I never paid attention because I always use the present a and then do something or something else.

Josh: Yeah.

Ben: But that presence method, that is pretty dang slick. I love that. That's one of the reasons I always love Ruby, do stuff like that.

Josh: It's a very nice ... yeah, I like how it works.

Starr: I don't think I've used that one. So what does that do again?

Ben: So if you have a string that might be nil-

Starr: Okay.

Ben: So you have a variable that contains a string, it could be nil and you want to display something other than blank if it happens to be nil. So like username, right? You want to, you want to spit that out into a template. What you can say "username.presence" or whatever text you want as a fallback.

Ben: Then what it'll do is if the string is present, if it's not nil, not blank, it will display the user name. But if it is now, then it'll display the alternative. Whatever your fallback is. So you don't have to use a ternary operator to like say, "Oh, if it's new, then do this or that," you know?

Starr: Oh, that's nice.

Ben: Yeah.

Starr: That's pretty handy.

Ben: Yeah, it's fun. One of those little things that make Ruby such a delight to use.

Starr: Yeah. I think this week's podcast is going to be freestyle. Okay. No, it's going to be a little bit looser because we're coming up on the holidays. So this is our special holiday episode, I guess where we talk about like what are we doing in December? Last year we did a hackathon. Are we going to do a hackathon this year? What are we doing about time off?

Starr: I would just like to know about some of this stuff because ...

Ben: I think, I think the first we have to talk about what are we having for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Starr: Oh that's right. Okay, so this is going to come out like a week after Thanksgiving there, right?

Ben: Oh right.

Josh: Yeah.

Josh: Well that's okay.

Starr: What good did we have for Thanksgiving? Looking back on that, I just have fond memories of it.

Josh: We're getting on a dangerous it's a slippery slope here because then the next week we're going to have to pretend like it's the week after the week after Thanksgiving-

Starr: We have to keep up for the rest of our lives.

Josh: We're going to keep up this charade for the entirety of this podcast.

Starr: I don't know Josh, I just got such a great deal on a flat screen TV on Black Friday that I just can't not talk about it.

Josh: This is going to be like podcast inception.

Ben: Well the the Curtis household always has traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We have turkey, we have a green bean casserole, we have some mashed potatoes and of course the sweet potato casserole. You cannot have Thanksgiving without the sweet potato casserole.

Josh: Oh yeah.

Ben: Yeah.

Josh: Do you guys do like the marshmallows on top?

Ben: No. Man, that's evil.

Starr: That's the best part.

Josh: Strong opinions on Founder Quest.

Ben: Cannot abide the marshmallows, no.

Starr: that's all right. What's a food that you have a strong opinion about Josh?

Josh: Turkey, I like my turkey.

Starr: Oh really?

Josh: Well, I'm very adamant that you have to ... turkey has to be included. There are elements within our family that believe otherwise. So that's one of our disputes. Yeah.

Starr: Well I'm having duck this year. I hate to break it to you so don't come to my house because there's not going to be that many of us, so why? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why I should make a turkey for that. That many people.

Josh: Well, ducks ... at least it's not like a fish or something like that.

Starr: Oh my God. Who would do that?

Josh: Some people. I won't name names. I want to, I want to enjoy my Thanksgiving this year.

Starr: Oh, I love Thanksgiving because it's all about cooking and large, extravagant cooking projects. Which is like my favorite thing to do. I posted the picture in Slack. I made some cultured butter, which started by you buy some cream and you mix it with some bacteria and you let it sit out for a couple of days. Then-

Ben: I thought you just took it to an art gallery. Now you're cultured butter.

Starr: Oh yeah. That would probably be quicker.

Starr: Let's see, we got the duck in the fridge. It's sort of air drying because you have to wait until the skin is like parchment, which is what they say. Then what else? I made a panna cotta with the leftover buttermilk for tonight and ... Oh yeah. For the sauce I'm making duck l'orange, which I'd never or duck Allah, Laura, I don't know French. I've never made this before. What I had to do is I had to buy five pounds of chicken wings because I can't afford five pounds of duck wings. Five pounds of chicken wings. You make stock out of them. You make about two quarts of stock or two liters of stock. Then you boil it down until it's like a cup of liquid and then that's the base for your sauce.

Ben: Wow.

Starr: Yeah, so we're not messing around.

Ben: That's hardcore.

Josh: Seriously.

Ben: Nice. Now I'm hungry.

Starr: Well, too late. Because you got to you got to finish this podcast.

Starr: Got to.

Starr: Too bad.

Ben: Let's get on it. I'm going to come crash your Thanksgiving Starr. That sounds pretty good actually.

Starr: Yeah, you should. You should. I mean there's like food for four people.

Josh: We have like, we've got a 25 pound turkey in the fridge. That's what we're doing. We've got like our big family get together at my brother's house that we're going to.

Ben: Nice.

Josh: We're doing the turkey. We usually do that every year. Well, if Katelyn has a really good turkey recipe that she does. It's like an orange citrus brine that we do.

Starr: It's like a turkey l'orange.

Josh: Yeah, kind of. I'm not as a learned as you are Starr in the cooking department. I'll leave that to you.

Starr: I just, I looked up the recipe.

Josh: You have the internet. I guess I also have the internet I'm just too lazy to use it.

Starr: Yeah.

Josh: But we also have two 15 pound turkeys in the freezer for later. That's how much I like turkey.

Starr: Those are backup turkeys?

Josh: Yeah. Yep.

Ben: Wow.

Starr: Oh, I didn't know anybody actually like turkey to be honest. I thought it was just this thing that we all had to pretend to like for one day a year.

Josh: I like turkey.

Starr: Oh.

Ben: Yeah, me too.

Josh: I mean, I like the full dinner.

Ben: Yeah.

Josh: I mean, I'll get tired of it but I also eat a lot of lean meat for the protein factor so that's good for that.

Ben: So when it comes to Turkey, I have to know what is your preference? Light meat or dark meat?

Josh: Probably, I mean like, dark. Everyone likes dark meat, right?

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