And here we go again.

Try walking into Target, Wawlmart, Staples, or a discount furniture store this time of year.

Everyone is spending all that discretionary income on back to school and back to college items. Beds and futons. Microwaves and microfridges. Notebooks and netbooks. It’s a cornucopia really.

We guarantee you missed something vital.

Here are five things you need, but didn’t buy, for your dorm or recently graduated apartment.

1. A home theater receiver with HDMI

You may have speakers. You may not, so keep that in mind.

What we know you DO have is a video game console or two, a Blu-ray player or DVD player and cable service with DVR. You also have that shiny new flat panel your parents bought you.

You need a home theater receiver to (a) have surround sound and (b) organize everything into a manageable mess.

An old hand-me-down receiver will not work. You need a receiver with HDMI ports.

On a budget, the Yamaha RX-V371BL will do the trick. It has four HDMI inputs as well as an output. This means you only need HDMI cables to wire up your PS3, video player, etc. You do not need several multicolored cables for video and optical cables for audio. One wire, done.

Of course, if you want to get a little more complicated and a lot more high-end, check this out.

2. A personal smoothie blender

You want the Oster BLSTPB-WBL My Blend 250-Watt Blender. Just trust our judgement on that.

You want to get in shape. You want to eat and drink healthy things. You just don’t have a handy solution. For all of $29.50, you can have a personal blender that makes fruit smoothies, mixes protein shakes, and allows you to craft something just for you.

The 20-ounce BPA-free plastic bottle is dishwasher safe and fits most cup holders.

It will pulverize frozen fruit, fresh fruit, ice, and even veggies, if you’re really healthy.

The My Blend also comes in a variety of stylish colors.

3. A keyboard case for iPad

You may very well have been lucky enough to own an iPad or have received one as a gift. The iPad is wonderful. The apps. The multimedia. The battery life. Love it.

The super duper new folding case? Not so much. It slips off and doesn’t provide much protection.

It’s also a bitch to type anything long on a touchscreen.

The Logitech Keyboard Case for iPad 2 solves a lot of these problems.

First, it is an aluminum case. It adds a new level of protection beyond the soft cover you may have purchased with the iPad. It’s also soft on the inside to keep your screen safe.

Second, it’s a real keyboard, no worse than a laptop keyboard. It lets you sit there and take notes or write emails or blog more comfortably on an iPad.

It also works in portrait or landscape mode.

4. HDMI and Cat5e Cables

We touched on wires a bit in the first option, but cables are the salt of the techno-dorm’s earth. The two main wires in services today are HDMI multimedia cables and Cat5e network wire.

Do. Not. Buy. Them. At. Best Buy.

At their core, cables and wires are cheap. They are just wire! Copper, plastic, rubber. Raw materials. They cost very little to make.

Do not pay $50 for an HDMI cable and $30 for a network cable.

Buy your cables on Amazon. You can get a good HDMI cable for $10 or a decent cable for about $3.

Network cable is even cheaper.

You can get 25-feet of Cat5E (which works for gigabit ethernet) for 30 cents on Amazon.

You need cables for all your devices. Don’t pay a lot for them.

5. A Crock-Pot

Even if you can’t cook at all, you can still use a Crock-Pot to make food.

And the Crock-Pot Cook and Carry 6-Quart Oval Manual Portable Slow Cooker lets you not only cook but bring your melange of foodstuffs with you. You can actually bring something homemade to that housewarming party you’re going to next week.

These slow cookers make stews and and chilis very doable. Anyone can cook with a Crock Pot, and if you’re new to living on your own, you need one. Unless you enjoy Ramen every day.

Oh, and it’s $29, so no price excuses here.

Whether you’re an undergrad headed to the dorm or just moving into your first place, you’re leaving the nest and need stuff.

For the college crowd, by now, you’ve not only had a few awkward Facebook conversations with your new roommate (look to see how many pictures he or she is tagged in that are added by others, not by themselves-that’s how you know they’re cool), but you’ve probably acquired your brand-new comforter and Twin-XL sheets and you’ve got your shower caddy and shower shoes safely packed away. You’ve spent the past few days tinkering with your new Macbook’s iSight camera and you think you’re prepared to face the great beyond of post-high school life.

Well, you’re not. You’ve almost certainly forgotten a few items that will make your college experience a whole lot better, but thankfully for you Blast Magazine has decided to help you out.

10. Organization

Depending on how cheap your university is, they may or may not provide desk drawers or a hutch/bookshelf. And as much as you think you won’t be studying, you’ll still need a place to store your unused hundred-dollar textbooks and to hide your solo cups and ping-pong balls from the wandering eyes of resident assistants. The best (and most flexible) option if you don’t want to actually buy any kind of quality shelving, is stackable cubes or bins-basically, you want them to be small enough to fit in the nooks-and-crannies of exposed space in your dorm room (on the window sill, under your bed, bottom of your closet, etc.) and you want to be able to configure them to fit your needs.

9. Water

In college, you need water for everything. Whether you’re trekking to class, making a cup of tea at 3am in the morning, or you’ve run out of soda on Saturday nights, water is essential. And frankly, it’s not only expensive but incredibly wasteful to burn through 24-packs of Poland Spring. Instead, buy a filtering pitcher like a Brita pitcher to keep in your fridge. It’s also important to have a plastic bottle on hand, both to carry water around and to bring to dining halls so that you can liberate juice and milk.

8. Fan

Even if your dorm room has air conditioning (unlikely), a small fan is essential. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never slept with white noise before, a fan is ideal in order to block out your roommate’s snoring (or to block your snoring for your roommate) and it is also important to keep some air circulation going in your tiny room. Dorm rooms are small, compact places and frankly, it’s in both your interests to have a little breeze here and there. Your best option is probably an oscillating tower fan.

7. Visitor accommodations

The thing about dorm life is that there are always people around. Once you make friends, there’s a good chance that someone besides yourself and your roommate will be hanging out with you. Where do they sit? Some people are uncomfortable either offering their beds or sitting on others’ beds, and so a chair of some kind is a definite plus. The coolest thing I’ve seen is actually a Yoga or Pilates ball that just rolls around your room“"not only are they really fun (and people fight over them!), but they offer a nice break from the monotony of sitting on your ass on a hard, uncomfortable chair (more on that later) and they’re really good for your posture.

6. Comfy clothes

The other thing about dorm life is that everyone sees everyone in their pajamas and ratty old field hockey shirts and so on and so forth. On wet days, you’ll come back to your dorm and get out of your soaked jeans as fast as possible and you’ll probably do your best not to leave your dorm room for the rest of the night. A good pair of sweatpants and a REALLY good pair of slippers are invaluable for times like these (especially if you actually go to your 8ams). You don’t want to walk around bare-footed because dorms are dirty places and no one wants to see your feet, anyway. Personally, I recommend L.L. Bean’s Wicked Good Moccasins (they have male and female versions) and your college bookstore will have a good selection of sweatpants.

5. Lap desk

I don’t care how studious you are, you won’t want to sit at your desk for hours and hours and hours on end. So you’ll move to your bed, bringing your laptop with you, and an hour later the fire alarm will go off thanks to your overheated computer bursting into flames. So a good-sized lap desk that holds your computer and a notebook or two is definitely a good investment.

4. Personal decorations

“But I already bought two awesome posters,” you say. But what you probably bought was yet another Klimt “The Kiss” or Dali”"Narcissus” that everybody and their mom already have tacked up on their wall. Go for something original; if you have a few unique posters on your wall your roommate and your dorm-mates might actually be interested in you. Don’t forget that the whole point of college (besides a degree and stuff) is to unashamedly be yourself. So if you’re an Apple fanboy, fly your true colors. If you’re a die-hard Bond fan, don’t be embarrassed of your Goldfinger movie poster reprint

3. A good backpack

You absolutely need a quality, comfortable back-pack. You might have a cool new shoulder bag or an adorable designer tote, but you’ll use it for one day and then realize that they make back-packs the way they do for a reason. You’ll need a bag big enough to hold your laptop (with sufficient padding for it, too), a notebook, a variety of extra pouches and so on for whatever you might need, and an easy way to carry your water bottle. If you sleep over someone’s room or take a weekend trip, a back-pack is honestly the best solution. Don’t hesitate to spend a significant amount on one, either, especially if it’s high-quality like a North Face or an L.L. Bean (which has a lifetime guarantee).

2. A nice set of speakers

Obviously it depends on your studying methods, but personally I have music on all the time. And laptop speakers just don’t cut it. Whether it’s a weekend night or you’re watching a movie with a friend or studying, a subwoofer makes all situations more fun. There are a lot of good options out there, but you can get a very nice set of two satellites + 1 subwoofer from Logitech for a decent price.

1. A comfortable office chair

I was lucky enough to get this advice before my freshman year and it was honestly one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. A proper rolling office chair lets you bring seating to others’ rooms easily, makes sitting on your ass for long, long hours much more comfortable, and is generally 12462343x better than the terrible hard, wooden chair that the college had mass-produced especially for you. Even though they might be expensive, a good chair is undoubtedly worth it. If you don’t believe me, just go to college and sit at your desk for a week. Then go buy a chair.

There you have it — my ten essential dorm room accessories. Now go forth and be educated.