PhilAsify 101

Being new to the blogosphere, I quickly realized that I have a lot to learn when it comes to posting my innermost thoughts together for the world to see. It's not easy crafting my commentaries into the perfect combination of keystrokes with just enough wit and useful information to engage a human being to click my article and scroll through. I also know that the best and most successful of writers are ones who read ten times as much as they write. So I take a good chunk of my time to read and observe what's out there, what's hot and what people latch on to when they want to get their fix on the world around them. What have I found? That people are making the very action of reading content annoying, laborious and complicated! I mean no wonder people are reading less and less! The tactics that businesses and popular blogs are doing these days almost compel a person to just go to someone's Twitter feed to find out what's going on rather than reading things at length f...

Mmm caramel! For those of you who read my "A Khutbah is like a box of chocolates" article I posted a while back, Alhamdulilah this past week I was treated to an ooey gooey khutbah with melt-in-your-mouth goodness! Brother Atif Mahmud, a Houston-area teacher and khateeb gave a phenomenal khutbah about the wonders of reading.     He spoke at length about how we are becoming a society that hates to read, a lot of it due to the technology of all those gadgets with a lower "i" in front of it. He threw out statistics he obtained that stated that last year, 90% (I think) of people neither read or picked up a book in the last year! Atif even alluded to the Ray Bradbury novel Farenheit 451 , which is a story set in the future where Americans outlaw and burn books by the thousands to eradicate learning and literacy, and said in a way things are becoming just like the story as people are reading less and less. In the end he presented to the congregation, notably the parents,...

Wow. I know the shoe industry makes slaves of us all with its outrageous prices and churning out hideous design after design but I didn't know they would be so explicit and direct about their intentions! Adidas was all set to release a shoe that, check it, had shackles attached to the dang thing! Ankle cuffs! But then they canceled its promotion and shipment to stores after receiving tons of negative feedback from its facebook followers. Heres how they were pimpin' these things on Facebook last week: "Tighten up your style with the JS Roundhouse Mids, dropping in August. Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?"

PhilAsify reviews the VICE Guide to Travel: Karachi, Pakistan Well, let me take to to the neck of the woods of my hood,  show you wat we livin' like Walkin' like a man, finger on the trigger Got money in my pocket, I'm an uptown n---- --"Neck of The Woods" Birdman ft. Lil Wayne This past weekend I sat down and watched the Vice Guide to Karachi, Pakistan. For those who don't know, VICE is a Montreal and New York City based magazine and media entity known for its whacky news columns. Their style falls in the same category of Maxim, Manswers, TMZ in that it pokes fun at pop culture and world affairs and has that sarcastic, expletive-laden and blunt sort of way it conducts its journalism that guys love.  Some of their more interesting documentaries have been travel guides to dangerous and crazy places in the world, getting a glimpse of how things operate and how a citizen can get by doing things they wouldn't want their parents to know. T...

Credit to:  patvicious1 I don't believe this video above is totally necessary to drive home the fact that women and men can't be just friends, but the sample of people interviewed is most certainly reflects the larger part of society and transcends race, culture and religion. It really should be common knowledge. It's just not possible for Men and Women to just be friends. If a guy or girl has a friend that is of the opposite sex, a homegirl/homeboy or what have you and believes things will always be strictly platonic, they are fooling themselves! If not on one end of the spectrum, then definitely on the man's end. Update (10/22/12): ScientificAmerican.com recently put up on article which gave results of a study conducted by researchers who brought 88 under-graduate opposite-gender friends to their labs for testing, asking them various confidential questions regarding their attraction to their friend. The article basically concludes that Men and Women u...

I've watched my fair share of Video Game movies and like most gamer fans, I find myself horribly disappointed. Many can hearken back to a time of enjoying an epic game for hour after captivating hour sitting in front of the boob tube, immersed in the magnificent cutscenes of games like Metal Gear: Solid Snake and Final Fantasy . And while sitting there with our friends or siblings we would say, "Man, they gotta make this a movie. It'd be sooo **insert dated reference for awesome**". The highlight of a gamers life from days gone by are those times after school bonding with the our favorite action heroes the Mario brothers, Liu Kang and that guy from the Grand Theft Auto games. When we picture a Hollywood film with these amazing characters, we expect nothing less than a classic cinema experience for the ages. But Alas, when Hollywood actually gets ahold of those button mashing masterpieces, it creates an abortion of a movie. If you don't remember (or have gone in a...

Note:This is a change from my usual articles and is geared towards the world of professional wrestling. I am a big wrestling fan and have loved it since the Hogan days (which sadly are still happening in TNA). I have been through the ups and the downs.I loved Wrestling before it was considered cool in the late 90s. I resented the bandwagoners who hopped onto Wrestling with the "Austin 3:16", "DX", "NWO" shirts.and became a total insider when I grew older. This article is in regards to the decline of wrestling, specifically the WWE into not being compelling television anymore. It's no secret that the WWE is not "must-see-TV" anymore. And lately WWE isn't really doing much in terms of changing that perception aside from it's "Did you Know?" propaganda. All over blogs, forums and chatrooms fans bemoan the state of the WWE and lament all the things WWE is doing wrong and its falling on deaf ears. When news broke that the teen ...

So the Spurs threw away their championship chances this post-season and have been eliminated in the Western Conference Finals by the Oklahoma City Thunder, thus utterly squashing my attempt at predicting the Champions in my blog a week ago. It's all good. I didn't like them anyway (Go Rockets!)  nor was I really rooting for them (other than just to prove my point). Thought I was making an educated guess but the Thunder blasted my hypothesis real quick and pissed all over the scientific method.   I admit it, I was wrong. I'm not Nostradamus and predicting the future is haram anyway. Let's just move on. On a brighter note, Kevin Durant solidified himself as a bonafide Superstar, which I am glad for because he deserves it. He's proved that he can be a leader on top of being an elite scorer. I actually will declare that he has stolen the nicknames of Paul Pierce and Allen Iverson and is now both the Truth and the Answer. Kudos to KD. Also I am officially on the Ja...

Since the inception of this blog, I have been a huge advocate of productivity. I make it a huge point of emphasis to get up and get something done! And this goes not just for all you loyal readers, but mainly for myself. Even though I usually don't want to, in the end it feels good to get off my lazy rear end and accomplish something: read a book, plan out my monthly budget, bust out my sneakers and do a little bit of HIIT training at the gym, catch up on some Islamic knowledge, post something on PhilAsify 101 ;). But there are those certain days when you just gotta chill. When you make that two day weekend a THREE day weekend. Take a day off from work and relaaaaaax. Yes, my productive friends, it's good to have those days where you're just absolutely UNproductive. Where you just break from the norm of keeping that consistent exercise regimen, or writing, planning etc. Go grab that epic cheeseburger you've been avoiding! Go waste a few hours mashing buttons on Xbox Li...

It seems the more I tap into current affairs, the more I feel that college is a crap shoot. It's a gamble. And for the Muslims out there, may I remind you that Gambling is HARAM ! (Forbidden for those not familiar with the Arab lingo) In pursuit of a college education, you risk getting into overwhelming debt. You're practically making a bet (also haram ) with those  lenders that you're going to nail a job when you graduate and will have fat stacks of cash to toss at them so they will get off your back. Easier said then done couldn't be a more appropriately used cliche to use for that. Case in point, a poor sap by the name of Nick Keith . Nick graduated from culinary school with $142,000 of debt on his head eight years ago and has yet to pay much of it off. Where is he now? Homeless! Living out of a van and on disability. It's truly a sad and horrifying story which you can read in full  here . Here's a quote from the article from Keith below.