Just got back from a business trip to Vegas, and it was so much fun. I went with a fraternity brother and spent the week gambling, going to clubs, dinners, etc. Now that I’m back in the ever-humid Orlando, I find myself wanting to go play some Craps. Looks like I’ll have to take a trip on the river boat to do so.

If I could have anything, it’d be a time machine to go back and do things differently. I know I wouldn’t end up in the same place I am now, but I think I’d be in a better place. No one event has brought me to that conclusion. It’s scary getting old, and you might say to yourself, “Matt, you’re only 22, you’re not old”. But think back to how carefree everything was when you were younger, I really miss that.

I’ve been getting so much work done lately. If it wasn’t due to technical problems, I’d have almost nothing to do on my “To Do” list, which I keep update daily, always scribbling in new things to do, crossing out activities as I finish them. The list really helps keep me organized, if you’re unorganized, try a list for a couple days, it will change you.

The technical problem is that for some reason the online class video I was supposed to watch last Wednesday, is in a very low resolution, low bit rate encoding. And since this is a math class, it makes it near impossible to see what the teacher is writing. So for now, I’m 2 classes behind, and the teacher has told me that he is working on getting the correct version online. I’m not holding my breath. I found a mistake in his study guide. Not the kind of mistake like “the answer is A not B”, as in the wording of a true or false question could actually be True, even though it was meant to be written as False. He was a bit surprised when I showed him that I guess, as no one in over twenty years had caught it.

I finally got myself out of the house last night and went to Devaneys with some of my brothers, because I hadn’t gone out in a week or so. I try to keep the going-out to one time a week, two if it’s some kind of special occasion or birthday, which happens a lot around here. My life is still pretty drama free though, so that’s always good. I find myself finally at a point in my life where I don’t have to call other people all the time to arrange things. In highschool, if I didn’t call my friends, setup parties, events, etc… nothing would of ever got done. Finally people are starting to grow up and get off their asses.

Speaking of finally growing up though, I also find that some of my best friends have real jobs. It makes me think about being an entrepreneur for the rest of my life. It might be a big lonely when I don’t have any work to do. If I don’t want to work for part of a day, or even a few days in a row, I can do that. It’s a majority of the reason I’m doing this with my life, comfort. However, I can’t just call up my friends and tell them I want to go to Vegas this weekend with them, because they have to schedule time off, can’t get time off, etc. That is going to be one downside for sure.

Today I got a bunch of stuff done, then tried to watch my video class only to see that it was such bad quality (not sure why), that I couldn’t even see what was on the screen. Being that it is a math class, this is bad. I am hoping they’ll release a new version, as I posted in the discussion boards and emailed the teacher. Had really weird anxiety tonight after I got an email from the business department saying they denied my request to change catalog year, which would let me skip out on 6 hours of bullshit electives. I asked for an appeal.

Kyle’s been living with me for about a week now and it’s nice to have a room mate who shares common interest, even though we haven’t been doing ALL that much. Patrick Erickson came to visit for a few days though and that was exciting as always to see him. Patrick if you ever read this, move to FL, seriously.

We went fishing on Pat’s dad’s boat over the weekend in Tampa and I didn’t wear much, if any, sunscreen. Mistake. I turned red as a lobster, which wasn’t bad, and then I was really sensitive, which wasn’t that bad… then I began to peel. I literally will be able to peel my entire body over the next week. Sounds kinda gross, which it partly is, but in the same aspect it gives me something to do. Gross.

I haven’t been cooking that much lately, but I did make some steak sandwiches for Kyle and myself the other day. In the cooking process I managed to cut my left thumb down to almost the bone. It’s not TOO bad, I got it all taken care of without going to the hospital (Never had stitches, they seem like a pain). Anyhow, the meal was really good. I’ll post the recipe at the end of this post.

This weekend I’m most likely going to be in Orlando, then going to Jupiter either Sunday or Monday and staying until Thursday. On Friday I’ll be in Melborne hanging out with Adam Arnold and his family / friends going boating and such. Saturday May 17th is the 1st Annual Great Orlando Beer Festival and I’m really excited. There used to be a really crappy festival put on downtown and it was mostly international beers and 90% sucked big time. This festival has potential.

I also have some new videos on Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/user244181

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Garlic Steak Sandwiches:

This is a very simple recipe, stolen from Sandra Lee. I was bored so I turned on the TV and decided to make the first thing I saw. This is modified to make 4 meals.

Ingredients:
1 pounds top round steak
1 green bell peppers diced
1 yellow / red bell peppers diced
1 large onion, 1/2-inch slices
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion soup mix
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon minced garlic
4 slices provolone cheese
4 sandwich rolls
Optional: Quartered mushrooms (I don’t like mushrooms)

Slice steak into very thin slices. Place sliced steak into large zip-top bag, set aside.

In another zip-top bag, add sliced peppers and onions, and quartered mushrooms. Set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together olive oil, garlic powder, onion soup mix, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour half of marinade into each of the zip-top bags. In a small bowl combine mayonnaise and minced garlic, set aside.

Preheat saute pan on grill. Saute vegetables until desired degree of doneness, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Quickly grill steak. Remove, slice into bite sized pieces, then set aside.

Spread sandwich rolls with garlic mayonnaise. Fill rolls with steak, vegetables and a slice of provolone cheese. Wrap sandwich with foil and place on the grill and cover. Cook until cheese has melted. Serve.

Pics:

I went to the Chi Omega semi-formal last night. It was pretty fun, besides having 12 beers taken away from me, so the result was being sober. Life has been entertaining to say the least. Staying out of drama is extremely hard, but so far has been avoided. Today I made stuffed peppers because a friend asked for a recipe, here is the result:

He asked that I make stuffed peppers. I’ve never made a stuffed anything in my life. I brainstormed for about 10 minutes then went to the grocery and got what I wanted. This ended up being a chicken stuffed pepper, but I originally wanted octopus, but couldn’t find it. I made this with 2 different peppers to see which tasted better. I liked the bell pepper better due to it being a bit sweeter.

This was created today by me from scratch, writing it down as I went, so sorry if it’s a bit rough.

Ingredients:

2 Green Bell Peppers or Cubanelle Peppers
2 cups low-sodium, fat free chicken broth
1 cup organic brown rice
1 shallot, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons sundried tomatoes, chopped
1 large chicken breast
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 green onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic salt or powder
Fresh ground pepper
Dash of chili pepper
13×9 baking dish

Preheat your oven to 400F. Bring the chicken broth to boil in a small pot, once boiling add 1 cup of rice and reduce heat to a simmer, then cover the pot, stirring occasionally. Simmer this for around 20-25 minutes, rice will not be cooked through. Remove from the pot, drain the rice over the baking dish so all liquid goes into the dish, and set aside.

Cut your peppers open, remove the seeds and insides, keeping the top. In a sauce pan, sautee the shallots in a tablespoon of olive oil on medium. Cook for 10 minutes total. At 3 minutes left add the tomatoes. At one minute left add the green onion. Remove from heat and put into a small bowl.

Once rice has cooled, combine rice, vegetables, chili powder, hot sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in the bowl.

Grill the chicken breast on your grill, and while doing so, grill both peppers for about 10 minutes total, turning every few minutes. Shred chicken and mix it in the bowl as well. Stuff peppers and place in the baking dish with the chicken broth. Cook @ 400F for 30 minutes. Enjoy.

PICS:

I’m all about creating recipes that are healthy, finding ways to cut down on calories, fats, etc. This recipe, to a surprise, uses no cream at all. In fact I actually used low fat milk instead of whole milk and it still came out fine.

Ingredients:
2 strips of bacon
1.5 cups diced yellow onion
6 regular sized russet potatoes
2+ cups of low fat (whole if you like that) milk (will be explained)
1 6.5 oz canned clams (non-drained)
Salt and Pepper
Chopped fresh parsley (for garnish)
Low-Fat Shredded cheese (for garnish)
Hot Sauce to taste

In a sauce pot, cook the bacon fully. Remove the actual bacon (and enjoy lol), and add the onion to the pot. Sweat the onion until they are semi translucent and tender. Add the potatoes and then add enough milk to just barely cover the potatoes (usually around 2 cups). Bring all contents to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are soft. Taste and add pepper only (no salt yet).

After potatoes become soft, mash (preferably with an electric hand stick blender) potatoes to come up with the desired consistency of your soup. This actually works, I didn’t think it would, but it works fine. I mash about 1/2 the total potatoes, leaving chunks. Add the clams and juice to the pot and simmer for a minute or so. Taste and then season with more pepper and salt. The liquid for the clams is very salty, this is why I don’t season salt until the end. This is also when I add my hot sauce. Garnish with parsley and maybe some low-fat cheese if you want. Serve and enjoy.

Note: You can also do this with fresh clams and it would be much better, but more work. What you want to do is steam the clams in the juice that the canned clams came in (so you’d have double the clams total) and then add the juice after using it to steam. Dice your fresh clams before adding.

PICS:

I went to my cousin’s wedding reception this last weekend. This was my third wedding / reception I’ve attended. The actual wedding was a couple weeks ago in the Virgin Islands so not many people were able to go. Overall, the weekend consisted of seeing my family… and drinking. I am pretty sure in that one weekend I drank as much as I normally would for an entire month. Starting the weekend, right off the plane, in Bloomington, IN we went to 5 different bars in the night. Their drinks are about 40 ounces and are usually some kind of long island or other mixed drink with thousands of calories lol.

I made some clam chowder the other night, but I haven’t made a post about it yet, that will probably come later. TShirtReview is also being updated on a regular basis in an effort to increase traffic. Any promotion is appreciated, even down to just leaving it in your AIM away message.

Today for lunch I made this (planned on making it for dinner but got hungry lol) and let me tell you, this is AMAZINGLY good.

Fishstick Ingredients:
1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 egg whites
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs (Italian preferred)
1/2 cup fresh shredded Parmesan cheese
9 oz center cut salmon with skin removed

Dip Ingredients:
1/3 cup plain lowfat or fat free yogurt
1/3 cup reduced fat mayo
Handful of chopped parsley
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Cut the fish into 1/2 inch pieces lengthwise. Dip into the flour giving a very light coat, dust off excess flour. Dip into the egg wash then into the bread crumbs. Place on a 13×9 greased baking sheet
Drizzle with olive oil (not a lot)
Bake @ 425F for 15-20 minutes (I do 18 minutes)

For sauce you just simply chop the parsley fine and mix all four ingredients together.

Dip fish sticks into sauce and profit.

PICS:

I’ve been cooking a TON lately. I’ll post some of the recipes here.

This is a nice, and easy recipe I made last night, taken from the food network then modified to my standards since I 1) don’t cook for 4, 2) don’t have every ingredient ever available to me.

2 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup chopped shallots (or onions)
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (Whatever brand you like)
1 teaspoon House Seasoning, recipe follows
2 grouper fillets, about 8 ounces each
1 lemon, halved or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Few dashes of Cayenne Pepper and Smoked Paprika
3 tablespoons of butter

In a small skillet, add 1 tablespoon butter or oil over medium heat. Add shallots and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and cool slightly.
To the bowl, add the cheese, mayonnaise, hot pepper sauce and 1/2 teaspoon House Seasoning. Mix well and set aside. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking dish. Sprinkle the fish with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon House Seasoning. Place the fish in the baking dish and squeeze the juice of the lemon over it and sprinkle with cayenne pepper and paprika. Top fish with slices of butter. Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes or until fish is almost done; the time will depend on the thickness of your fish. Remove the dish from the oven and cover each fillet with 1/2 cup of the cheese mixture. Return to the oven and bake until cheese melts, about 8 to 10 minutes. These times work for 1 inch fillets, if yours are thicker, you’ll want to cook longer on the FIRST time.

House Seasoning:
1 cup sea salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder

For the scallops I just took 4 of them and the same skillet I cooked the shallots in. I heated it to medium high heat, added a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of garlic. I then cooked them for 3 minutes per side.

For the red potatoes just simply slice them the same, add olive oil + seasoning, put in a baking dish for 1 hour at 350 (which works great with this recipe, since the fish is cooked at 350.

PICS!

If I could buy more hours in a day, sometimes I’d be fully willing to do it. I would also love to pay for someone to study for me, then transfer the knowledge into my head. Studying is one thing I am horrible at. I have the attention span of about five to ten minutes and then I drift off onto some other project. For this reason, studying for a test on Friday basically means I have to start Monday, studying maybe 1 page worth of text per day.

I also wrote down a new recipe I made from scratch, so I figured I’d put it here. It’s nothing that complicated, just pan-friend red skinned potatoes.

First, you will need:

1 large or 2 smaller redskin potatos
1 frying pan
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste
2-3 tablespoons other seasoning (I use Emeril’s)

Cut the potato into 1/4 inch thick slides like potato chips.

Season them with the seasoning, salt, and pepper. In a hot pan (medium high, NOT HIGH), heat the olive oil, rosemary and thyme. When the herbs begin to freely float around and move, you know the oil is hot.

Add the potatoes seasoned side down. Season the other side. Cook for 5 minutes per side, sometimes 3-4 minutes on the 2nd side. Flip after 5 minutes for the first side.

When done the seasonings should start to blacken, remove the potatoes and put them on paper towels to drain. Let sit for 3-4 minutes and serve.

hope you guys enjoy

Got some work done during the day, studied for a test for all of an hour, took a nap, took the test, went home. I haven’t checked my grade yet as of typing this, but it’s probably online…. let me go check.

A 75, not bad, lower then my usual test scores for this class, but oh well. I have 8 extra credit points to add to that for various things so an 83 isn’t so bad. Tonight for dinner I came home and didn’t want to turn on the grill, as I thought it would take too long and be too boring to cook chicken yet again. I ended up taking 2 large redskin potatoes and slicing them to about a 1/4 of an inch. I put about 2 tablespoons of oil into a pan on medium high heat (right below the setting that would result in the olive oil burning and smoking) and threw in some rosemary and thyme. I also added a pinch of salt and a good amount of fresh pepper. I let that get hot until it was slightly popping. I added the potatoes in two batches. The first was pretty experimental as I had NO idea how long this would take to cook. I waited until they were golden brown on one side, flipped them and cooked for a little less then the first side. At the same time as they were starting to cook I looked for my source of protein. I dug through my fridge, nothing. I looked in the freezer and found a talapia fillet from probably… 5 months ago. It looked fine, but I didn’t want to wait to thaw it so I said the hell with it and threw it in a hot pan with about 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil, some lemon juice, some pepper and Emeril’s seasoning. I then covered it and let it go for about 5 minutes. It was looking good and actually thawing and cooking, I had no idea how it would turn out though. After another 5 minutes I flipped it, cooked my 2nd batch of potatoes in the other pan and the fish looked great. Another 5 or 10 minutes and I drained the potatoes on paper towels to cut the grease and put the fish on a plate with a cover to keep it hot. When the potatoes were dry I put them on the plate with a little ketchup. The meal was actually REALLY good, better then previous potato and fish dinners I’ve done.

I sat and watched “Locked Up Abroad” which is an amazingly addictive docu-drama about US and UK citizens that get roped into smuggling things into other countries and get caught, spending YEARS inside foreign jails such as Nepal, Venezuela, and Columbia. The people in these jails (the inmates) actually carry guns and such, it’s freaking insane. 5 or so prisoners are killed every week. It’s on the National Geographic HD channel, watch it. Next showing is Monday March 31, 2008 at 9pm.

So I decided I think I’m going to start updating this in true blog fashion whenever I can. I’ll most likely write about things that are going on that no one may care about. I also plan to post some business type discussion here. If you don’t know, I run a golf company and a online clothing promotion company. They are both sucessful, making money. I love business, it’s one of the most dynamic things on the planet that draws from every facet of life.

Today I went to the pool with some brothers but it was pretty cloudy out, only letting the sun through at most, 25 percent of the time. I’m also going to the gym 5 days a week since last month. I hope to continue this and look better by the end of summer. I already immediately feel better. I go when I first wake up and I have a ton more energy and really get more work done during the day.

Hopefully I’ll keep writing.

I went duck hunting this weekend for the first time. It was AWESOME. I got myself 1 Teal, 1 Wigeon, and 1 Pintail. Here is a pictorial guide on how to properly clean a duck and remove the breast meat.

1.

Go hunting and get some ducks. The limit here is 6 but I have a couple from my fellow hunters since one guy just feeds his to his pigs anyhow. This is a mix of Teal (Best Eating), Wingtail (Second Best), Mallard (Third Best), Wigeon (about the same as the Mallard), and Mottled (Behind all the others).

2.

This is the Green Wing Teal Duck. This is what I will be using in the first set of photos.

3.

Take your thumbs and press them against the breasts. Tear outward towards the wings and the skin will literally rip apart with little to no force, and the skin will come right away from the breast meat.

4.

Make sure to pull the skin away all the way to the side of the breasts, down to the wings. This will make for easy removal once cut away from the breast bone.

5.

Make a slice down the center of the duck on the side of the breast bone that you wish to cut off first. This slice needs to be down towards the center of the duck, getting as much meat as possible.

6.

Continue cutting all the way towards the wing, pressing the knife against the rib cage to get as much meat as possible. On ducks such as the Teal, there is very little meat, but it’s tasty, so get as much as possible.

7.

Quack, Quack. This is a Mallard Duck with the yellow beak.

8.

This is what a larger duck, such as the Mallard, will look like after the larger breasts are removed. This is all I take from the duck, the carcass is then disregarded.

Thanks for reading, I’ll do my best to answer questions, but I’m still pretty new to this.

While I was in New York at the FilmFights 2k7 trip with Kyle, we made short movies that had to be edited in camera. This means you have to shoot in the order you want people to see it. A friend in my group, Edward Flinch, came up with the idea to do a stop motion type movie, about a camera that changes hands and ends up back where it started. I used my Canon 20d to take all of the photos, then manually scrolled my wheel and played them into the video camera, what a pain! Here is the final result. You can vote for us at www.filmfights.com . Our movie is called Loose Canon by Edward Flinch Productions.

Loose Canon from Matt Pollitt and Vimeo.

FFCon 2K7 in camera edit by Edward Flinch, Scott Lightfoot, Matt Pollitt, and Newman.
Classic title: Loose Cannon
Location: Empire State Building

I was in a commercial for Indy Mogul’s series called Backyard FX. Erik Beck, the host and creator of the show, is hilarious to work with, along with the rest of the people, who were all Film Fights crew!

Find more videos like this on Film Friends

Ok so you’re hungry, and you want something fast, but also healthier then a burger from McDonalds. So where do you go? Maybe Chick-Fil-A. I went there since I have a cholesterol problem, and chicken is ok. I got a wrap thinking its even better. Well it is, but then I looked at the dressing they provide. 15g of fat per serving, 2.5 servings per package. So ONE packet of salad dressing that they give you has 37.5 grams of fat in it! Holy crap, that’s over 50% of your daily recommended fat intake, in one thing of dressing for their supposed “Healthiest Choice” on the menu.

What a load of crap, the McDonalds sandwiches are the same way, but I think everyone knows that everything at McDonalds will kill you over time.

I got a grill for $25 from my Dad. He found it at a church sale, what a deal. After putting it together and cleaning it, I had a bunch of my fraternity brothers and Tony over for a Memorial Day BBQ. No photos, but it was a blast. We grilled chicken, burgers, shrimp, corn and potatoes. We even played some SNES on the Xbox just for fun. Also we watched “Old Boy”, which was a pretty ingenious and disturbing movie. I love my 50″ DLP Samsung and Denon/Mirage home theater I bought. TV in HD looks amazing. I now am a true HD snob, and I watch stupid shows, just because they are in HD.

I moved in the house I bought. I love it, except for the neighbors dogs that bark when I go out back. I hope they’ll get used to me. I mowed the lawn today, took like 30 minutes, wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be, and I even used a weed wacker to do some of the edging and trimming of weeds against the fences.

Inside is really nice, but lacks color. I got a couch, a love seat, and a recliner in perfect condition at a garage sale for $250. What a steal. At the same garage sale I got my silverware (100 pieces, $5), a ladder ($5), electric weed wacker ($10), and the mower ($50, which is $350 right now new in the store). The people wanted to get rid of all their stuff and I was the first person there so I had nice pickings. I also got a wireless G router for $5 that works perfect. Garage sales are my new favorite thing, minus waking up at 6:30 am.

I also went to office max and bought a computer chair for the office, a desk for my room, and some organizational items. At home depot I bought new locks and changed the whole front door and garage door locks to silver, and they look awesome.

After that I went to Best Buy and bought a 50″ DLP TV and a home theater. I got 0% financing for 18 months! Amazing deal. I cashed in a bunch of bonds and I’m going to invest the money into mutual funds for the next 18 months and take out the price of the TV stuff, and leave the rest in to continue gaining interest and not pay taxes on it till years down the road.

On the todo list is:

1. Install a kick plate and repaint the front door
2. Miracle grow the flowers, round-up the weeds
3. Get the baked on tape off the windows
4. Install 2 fans into the office and guest room
5. Tile the porch out back
6. Buy a new, bigger toilet
7. Get a pool table used

Thanks for reading, I hope to start updating regularly. Also check out www.tshirtreview.com!

I bought a house and it’s sweet. Move in end of May.