Turn The Lights Off - Tally Hall

I've posted this to facebook and google+, so I may as well post it here as well. I absolutely love this song. This video is amazing. Tally Hall rocks my world.

In Da Balkan Style - Ahilea

Ahilea was one of the last guys my dad introduced me to before he died. It is always a great go-to music. I've yet to find anyone that hasn't found it oddly entertaining. I need to see if Ahilea has more music out. I only have one album.

Hobbies and Goals

I keep writing blog posts about things I need or things I should be doing. I don't know why. Maybe I feel like my life lacks direction right now. Maybe I feel like I'm stuck in a rut working my "9-5" job 5 days a week.

Anyway, the topic of today's brain dump is hobbies and goals. Moose said to me last night "I wish you had goals so that I knew if they coincided or clashed with mine." Now, he's talking about large overarching life/career type goals and I'm talking about smaller things, but regardless... My life has lacked a lot of focus since grad school. Grad school puts on the blinders and says "go forth and research." Real life gives you some time to pursue things, but not enough to pursue them fully.

Life goals: Work, get married, have children.... (Yeah I'm lame)

Longer-term goals: Buy a house, buy (and pay off) new car (so lame)

Short-term goals: Set up music area in basement, get rid of stuff in boxes, exercise more and eat better

Okay, so I'm cliche. Oh well, writing things down is a good start, right?

I need to pursue music more. I need to pursue art more. I need to get hobbies that at least somewhat coincide with my employment. Maybe its time to take up android development. Something that got me very excited the other day is the Meta Watch. Looking into something like that might be fun.

Oh well. I need to do SOMETHING. Maybe I should start with cleaning my house!

Chocolate cake made out of beans?

Apparently, there is a way to make a gluten-free chocolate cake out of black beans. I need to try this. I don't know if I can wait til my birthday to try it!

Here's the link.

For Moose's birthday, I made a cake out of ground pecans. It turned out pretty good. Other than the fact that I accidentally added red food coloring thinking it was vanilla extract. Oh well. Red cake.

Electro-Swing

Saving this for later: Reddit post about Electro-Swing.

New Car, Money, and the Future

IT'S TIME FOR A CAR FROM THIS CENTURY. I put in an order for a new car. I'm (hopefully) getting a 2012 Subaru Impreza 5 door with some pretty nice bells and whistles. This comes to about $24,500 before tax and licensing. I'm probably going to have a car payment of about $350-$400 a month, depending on interest rate. But, I'll have a dependable car for the next 5+ years. And, I'll be getting significantly better gas mileage and I will have AWD.

My car will look something like this:


All this talking about car stuff got me thinking about house stuff too. So, I've been talking to my good friend Swap about houses, as he just bought one. He pointed me to this site. It helps you calculate how much house you can afford. Time to start saving for a downpayment and looking into areas I might want to live. I think that in the next 1-3 years may be a good time to get something, especially if interest rates stay so low.

The future is exciting.

Muffins in a Minute

OH MY GOD THESE ARE DELICIOUS. I think Muffins in a Minute are darned near the best thing ever.

These are gluten free. These are low carb. These are incredibly fast. These are easy. These are delicious. The possibilities are limitless.

Screw buying gluten free bread. These come out hot and fresh and you can make them whenever you want them.

This morning I made one with cinnamon and vanilla in it. Tasted amazing. This is a great, quick breakfast that I can get used to.

Now I need to figure out a way to save the other half of it for lunch!