Photo Lost

So it seems blogger has decided to stop hosting a lot of the photos I had uploaded and hence you will find several posts with missing images. I would try to fix it, but as you may have noticed I barely have time to keep up with posts, much less back editing.

For now, enjoy the following image and hope that it holds together any voids you may feel created while sifting through GUE.

Food Meets Nu Rave

Japanese Electrorrific sensations, Polysics, bring it back to basics.

He shoots. He scores.

In the midst of everything that has been going on lately in my life I've forgotten about a GUE a bit. Not so much forgotten as delat with a mixture of lack of time and procrastination, as I usually do.

One thing I'd like to mention as it had been most definitely mentioned before is my gigantic black hole of debt. The vaccum which sucks away over half of my paycheck each period. Well. NO MORE! Finally one of those long-term goals people talk about. I've met one!

That's right. The long list of debts depicted and reflected in my credit report are now completely gone. This has been a long, treacherous path. A hard goal to accomplish, as it has been something I've been somewhat dealing and respectively not dealing with for years. As of last week, all debts have been paid and all accounts have been brough up to date. My credit report is able to do nothing more but to repair itself and regenrate from here on out.

Granted there are a few things that need paying such as some IRS payments (which at this point aren't that much) and the $800 I owe (to mom) to finish paying off my machine of destruction. These are not liabilities as they do not affect my credit report.

The only other acquired debt now is the Sallie Mae student loans, which consequently are not required to be paid until I'm out of school, and thankfully only a small portion of them are subsidized.

Time to start turning the cash into more cash continuing to plant it inside the ING accounts, which with a 3% return I hope by this time next year I'll have a good chunk of cash. I can't wait. I've also slightly been trying to gain control of my finances by cutting down on my eating out for lunch and dinners.

I've started to buy food to keep at my desk at work, easily prepared meals, and making use of the office resources (fridge, microwave, toaster). I went this last pay period from spending $250 in lunches alone, to $78 in desk groceries. Add onto that the $200+ in take out dinners, which have been replaced by a mere $100 in home groceries. Healthier and cheaper.

Even now that I'm at my last dime before next paycheck, all the leftover ingredients bought throughout the past two weeks have been suffient to keep me from starvation and excessive spending.

I've ranged in at home meals as such [All while applying and practicing my knife skills for school]:


[Bean and Cheese Tostadas]


[Very Berry Salad]


[Greek Vegetable Lemon Rice Soup]
All in all small efforts which have in the end had a major result in my daily life. I think I'm doing pretty well, if I do say so myself.

All You Can Eat

Completely stole this stealthily from a friend. Nothing like some good old 1980s hip hop beats, a little beat boxing, and some Fat Boyz rapping about an All You Can Eat Buffet. Only way to make your way and celebrate endless food, imo. I wonder if Sbarro's got paid (or rather paid) a good chink of cash for the plug.

Food for a good cause

This Thursday, area restaurants will be participating in the annual Dining Out for Life event, where over 130 restaurants have agreed to donate between 25-100 percent of their night's sales to benefit Food & Friends. [DCist]

Since I missed Restaurant Week for a number of reasons, this is a bit of an incentive to come out and try something new in the city! Let me know if anyone goes out for this.

Full list of participating restaurants.

Making Moves

[Consumerist via Penelope Trunk]
The uncertainty of jobs in these days on the brink of recession is nerve-wrecking to say the least. I often ponder on when it would be a good time to change career paths and if staying within my same field is wise. Anyone that knows me knows the basic me. I work business, but long for art. The endless internal debate of what to do and where to go and how to do it.

Penelope Trunk has a phenomenal post on this very topic that, through the blog roll, I discovered.

Here’s how you figure out what to do next in your career: you line up all the stuff you like to do and you figure out which one will pay best. Don’t complain to me that I’m too focused on money. Really. Just do the exercise. The ones who are complaining the most right now, after reading just this far, are the people who are most in denial of what adult life is about.

Look, figuring out what you should do is actually a hard task. Because you have to start eliminating stuff. [PT]

Wow. Have I just been fooling myself all along? No. Definitely not. I know what I like. I know what I want. Entrepreneurship, food, and art are in my future. Paperwork? Not so much.

Getting Fit is the Hardest Part

In my never-ending struggle to fend off fatness consistently perpetuated by my lack of activity (office job) and my eating habits (birthday cake!!), I try to stay on top of what it is I need to do to keep the weight off. And it's a challenge. Reading about the right steps to take is the easy part. Putting those steps in motion and incorporating them into my lifestyle is most definitely a difficult task.

Diethack had a great write up today on some people also struggling with this, but nevertheless maintaining their goals. In 2006 I achieved the ultimate. I dropped 60 lbs., that I had been dragging around for quite some time, right off on the curb. By way of being cautious of what I was eating, constantly conscious of my intake, and hard time at the gym. Towards the end of 2007 I started slacking on all this due to several factors. Mostly BS excuses that somewhat justify everything in my head.

There are some steps I had been taking on Diethack's entry, and I plan on getting back on top of them beginning today.

• Eat a good breakfast. [I can't function without it and thankfully I do this every day]

  Eat smaller portions. [This is a tricky one. I'm a big boy]

  Choose the healthier foods. [Since I've fallen back into the bad habits of empty simple carbs, getting back off this train will prove a challenge]

  Drink lots of water. [Another one I need to do better at]

  Enjoy healthy snacks. [I'm not much of a snack person, but those random ice cream OD attacks will have to be stopped]

  Skip dessert. [I don't usually have dessert, so this is almost a non-issue]

  Exercise three times a week. [I'm on it, boss!]

  Get physically active in small ways. [This was a lot easier when I had the second job, I need to find more stuff to keep me off of the couch]

  Join an online support community. [Eh. I think I'll pass on this one]

  Find inspiration. [Trust me. Every time I try something on and it doesn't fit, it inspires me by fear-of-fatness-induction]