Two Poor DudesGrabbing life by the horns…and shaking it for nickels.

Ok long time no post.

Today’s idea: Music review/interview podcast. Look for it in the future. More on that when it actually takes shape.

Today’s thought: Multi-variable calculus sucks.

Elaborating on that, if you have iTunes, fire it up and go to the store. Under their Podcast section there’s an iTunes U section, which has multi-variable lectures from MIT. Hope it helps you, cuz it’s free.

Todays free stuff: Math Lectures

Math Blows

In my opinion, there is no internet radio that exists that can trump Pandora.com. Granted that as the radio genome project blew up and has gained millions of users, they’ve had to integrate advertisements in between playing, these ads are less irritating than real radio ads. If you want to spend some cash, you can get rid of them too. But let’s get down to it.

If you haven’t already heard of Pandora, then you probably live in a cave. On the off chance you haven’t, run over there right now to Pandora.com and sign up. You’ll be able to create stations full of only artists you like.

If you have already seen Pandora, I urge you to try out all of it’s features. My stations got a bit dull until I realized their feature where you can add artists to an existing station. This ads a fresh new set of songs and artists without forcing you to switch stations.

Pandora.com Internet Radio

My other favorite feature is station sharing. Good stations usually take a while to mature. You have to listen for hours to weed through what songs you don’t like, and teach Pandora what music you’re looking for. With station sharing, your friend can send you their best station and vice versa.

Sorry If I’m beating a dead horse by trying to introduce Pandora to internet users, but for the price of this service (Zippo, nada, nuthin’) I didn’t think it deserved to be let out of our blog.

Are you broke? Are you looking for an undisclosed amount of enjoyment for minimal financial output? Well then I have found just the thing. A little game called Team Fortress 2, possibly the greatest multiplayer experience I have or will ever have had. Its Phong-shaded graphics create an atmosphere and panache that blankets the game and slides like butter on top of the toast that is intuitive, simple and outlandishly fun game play.

At a glance:  You have 3 health, you are being charged by a Scout with impossible speed and maneuverability, a Soldier with massive health and unavoidable damage output, and on top of that a sniper is in the back shooting arrows at your bean. Armed with nothing but a Jar of urine dubbed “Jarate” (Jar based Karate) what is a poor sniper to do?

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Shhhh… This is a secret. Just kidding. Coming right up for the main course is a recipe that Justin and myself cooked up one day when we decided to grill some Tilapia. It’s ridiculously simple, and was under $15 for enough fish to feed 3-4 people if we had cooked it all.

Available in hardback only...

What you’ll need:

• Tilapia Fillets
• 2-3 Mangos
• 2 Limes
• Cajun seasoning
• Vegetable Oil (for oiling grill grates)
  

The Tilapia cost about $7 for 5 fillets, and the mangos/limes were about $4 altogether. If you don’t have cajun seasoning lying around, pick up some McCormick Cajun spice at the grocery store, it should only set you back about $3 or less.

We chose to grill the Tilapia, which we believe was a great decision. Be sure to get your grill grates super slick though, or grilling fish fillets will be a nightmare. We used a charcoal grill and closed the lid most of the time.

How we did it:

1. Slice out the center of the fillets to remove the harsher part of the fish, if desired.
2. Rub each fillet lightly with Cajun seasoning. Don’t overdo it, but get some well down into the grooves of the fish, so it won’t grill off.
3. Squeeze lime juice over the fillets, and spread it evenly. If you do this right, you won’t take off any of the Cajun seasoning and it will even help it stick more evenly.
4. Throw the fish onto a medium-high heat grill, for 3-5 minutes each side. You want the fish to become completely opaque, and begin to flake a little before you pull it off.
5. Serve with slices of mango on or around the fish.
   

Well there you have it. That’s our secret recipe. If you want a quick vegetable on the side I would also recommend grilling some asparagus.

Let us know if this recipe does it for you, or even if it doesn’t. We aren’t chefs…yet…so give us some tips or variations if you’d like. Oh, and if you’re dissatisfied and were too lazy to search Epicurious (yes I know, I’m pressed), I’ve done it for you, and you can give Pan-Seared Tilapia with Chile-Lime Butter a try.

I realize I’ve been neglecting the blog but hey, at least I’m not as bad as Justin. Here’s a quick tip for today, which I’ll follow up tomorrow with an exclusive recipe: If you want to try something new for dinner and don’t want to spend a ton of money for fillet Mignon, try tilapia. Even though it may not be the easiest fish to grill, you can bake, saute or grill it pretty darn quickly, and it’s only a little more expensive than chicken. Look for white colored fillets, and cut out the darker center to alleviate some of the harsher fishy taste. You should be able to find decent cuts year round, since it’s farmed commonly. It’s a pretty universal fish, kind of like the remote of the sea.

Give it a try if you haven’t already, and let me know how it goes. If you missed my last post, you might be able to find some good recipes on Epicurious, or you can Google it. Stay fishy.

Epicurious, a site for free recipes and dinner ideas.

In case you’ve never been to Epicurious.com, you need to zap yourself over there right now. There’s plenty of cool features, such as a feed where you can get the recipe of the day and whatnot directly to a feed reader. If you don’t use a feed reader, just bookmark the site and start cooking some delicious meals for your significant other or your family. Everyone likes an evening of fine dining at home every now and then, and cooking at home is normally cost effective.

Look out for some updates in the near future, where we will be showing off simple meals that take less then $15 to make. Also, I’ll do a segment on how to set up a free RSS feed reader, so you can pile all this useful information into one giant, free reading extravaganza.

Let me know how you feel about Epicurious’ recipes, or comment if you know of a better site that delivers recipes daily.

Twitter is the latest social networking frenzy. You can update your friends in text message-sized bites about every single happening in your life. Exciting to no end. Millions of users love watching for updates about their friend’s lives, or for news from businesses, but somewhere out in the cyber universe, there are a bunch of poor people sitting in front of their keybaords, grumbling about how ridiculous Twitter and it’s users are.

Yeah...It's kinda like that.

So the question is: Why don’t poor people like Twitter?

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Often times we take simple things such as food for granted. An empty fridge is a lot like a Jackson Pollock painting: Startling, confusing, subject to personal bias and if you stare at it long enough you get really hungry.

Now here is an average poor person’s fridge, give or take a couple necessities:

Now to a person of standard wealth this fridge would look like this:

Now this is not to say that a poor man doesn’t see this as well, he does, it is just more of a fantasy than a reminder to visit the market. A poor man’s eye is trained to see the minimal as a maximum. In the vacuum of nourishment there is the opportunity for greatness.  To a poor man the fridge looks more like this:

Possible outcomes:

• Scrambled Eggs
• Pasta and Tomato Sauce
• Pasta and Salsa
• Pasta and Butter
• Salsa Omelette

Or…

• Salsa and Tomato Sauce Omelette with Buttered Pasta and a side of Scrambled Eggs

Any of the above can be garnished or topped with slices of pickles for a minimal charge of free.

Now a common phenomenon occurs in the poor man’s fridge. He may not have that much “food” but he has an abundance of  accoutrements:

There is upwards of 10 different kinds of condiments in my fridge cabinet, multiplied by the possible entree’s listed above there are at least 60 different dishes that can be supplied by virtually no food and an abundance of toppings.

Now with addition of one more key ingredient any of these things can become even more nutritious. BREAD. Bread turns any of these entrees into a sandwhich which not only saves you effort it also gives you less dishes to wash in the long run. If there is anything a poor guy likes more than the words “Less work now” it’s “Less work now AND later.” And money, we like money too.