Yousef Abdul-Husain

Switched over to wordpress.

TO CONTINUE FOLLOWING ME, GO TO THE NEW WORDPRESS BASED WEBSITE AT THE BRAND NEW URL! I WILL NO LONGER BE POSTING HERE, BUT ALL CONTENT ON THIS SITE WILL STAY AS IT CURRENTLY IS!

NEW WEBSITE URL:

www.yousefq8.com

www.yousefq8.com

www.yousefq8.com

www.yousefq8.com

www.yousefq8.com

www.yousefq8.com

Tumblr is a great blogging service. It’s easy to start, easy to post, and easy to maintain. The whole point is to post quickly and get lots of people to check out your stuff in an easy and fast way. I like it for what it is.

But, it is too simplistic. Ever since I started using Tumblr, the themes have been severely limited in terms of their options. With every theme I’ve ever used I had to manually edit the html/css file just to get it the way I want. It takes hours to get the theme how I want it to look like and a lot of the time I’m not satisfied. 

I feel Tumblr is a step above twitter and a step below a full fledged blog. 

Wordpress has been growing very fast. There are lots of amazing themes and layouts that I’ve been seeing the last couple of weeks and I’ve been wanting to try them out. HTML 5/CSS3 have worked their way into some of these themes and the results are amazing. 

I want to expand the blog and make it new looking, 2011 looking, and I feel tumblr is too limited to achieve this. 

And also I want to get a .com for the blog. 

I was chilling at home playing some Dynasty Warriors 7, when I hear my mom yelling upstairs. I quickly go up to see whats going on and she tells me that next door theres a fire!

I run out and find around 5-6 guys pumping water from their hoses down to the basement of the house next door and throwing buckets of water down there, including my dad who was trying to help out. An electrical fire started down there because there were a lot of loose wires all mangled together and somehow it caught on fire. I started helping my dad get buckets of water next door and we did that for about 5 minutes back and forth, but the fire wasn’t letting up at all. The fumes were absolutely horrendous and my dad, who is an electronic engineer told me that the white fumes are worse than being actually burned. We covered our mouths up and tried to block it out as much as possible while still trying to help. 

My mom let in the women and children from next door into our house for their safety. Luckily, no one was injured and no one inhaled too many fumes. 

It took the fire department around 10-15 minutes to arrive, and when they did they managed to put out the fire within 5 minutes. 

Pretty crazy morning. Just glad no one got hurt. Here’s some more pictures:

After the fire was put out:

Guys! GET HYPE! First MVC3 and MK9 tournament in Kuwait!! I’ll be there, hopefully to help out as I’ve contacted the guy running this, if not, I may just join the MVC3 tournament. Money is ON THE LINE!!!

FULL INFO:

MvC3/MK9 Kuwait Tournament @ FreezeClub 360Mall
The next tournament at the Freeze Club is here! It will be a MvC3 tournament and MK tournament over 2 days!

Fees
Players entry fee for one of them: 5KD
Players entry fee for both: 7KD
Spectators entry is free of charge

When:
MvC3 Tournament: Friday June 24 will start @ 6PM
MK9 Tournament: Saturday June 25th will start @ 6PM

Prizes:
1st place: 150kd
2nd place: 75kd
3rd place: 25kd
This applies to both tournaments, so if someone wins 1st place in both tournaments he will win 300KD!

Registration will be at the Freeze Club reception (360 mall, 3rd floor), and they will be accepting people until the day of the event, or until they reach 32 players for each tournament!

via http://www.grapevinekuwait.com/1/post/2011/06/mvc3mk9-kuwait-tournament-freezeclub-360mall.html

I’m addicited to this new game I found out about yesterday. It’s called Terraria, and it’s a 2d old style graphics platformer/rpg. 

It’s hard to describe exactly what Terraria is about. After you generate a completely random world, you build houses, mine resources, make cool weapons like swords and boomerangs, make cool armor, and fight lots of different types of enemies including bosses. It all sounds so simple, but its really addicting!
At first you struggle a lot, building yourself up to become stronger by mining resources underground and using those resources to make better weapons and armor. It really rewards you for your hard mining and building skills, and by that I mean you can find tresure cheasts underground that hold powerful items and money in them, as well as building things with the resources you collect. And there’s these NPCs that randomly appear in houses that you built as long as you meet certain conditions, and the various NPCs help you out by healing you, a merchant you can buy and sell stuff from, and a demolitions expert that will sell you demolitions! There’s other NPCs out there as well!

I’ve showed the game to my brother, and to my friend, and now they’re really into the game too! My brother and I even started playing multiplayer where we can play together at the same time. It’s 10x more fun with multiplayer!

So check the game out on youtube, or head over to Steam and get a copy! The game is only $10 (3kd) and it’s easily worth much more. 

http://www.terraria.org/

http://store.steampowered.com/app/105600/

And if you’re having trouble getting started or need some information, check out the wiki:

http://terraria.wikia.com/wiki/Terraria_Wiki

So apparantley, Tumblr is cooler than I thought. I read up on another site about how on Tumblr you can “follow” people, so then on your dashboard all their posts will show, and you can give “hearts” or “likes” to posts made by other people to show that you like those posts. 

Tumblr is way more web 2.0 than I previously knew! 

So I’ll be following a bunch of people and hearting posts that I like form now on. You do the same too Tumblr peoples! 

Upgraded my internet connection to 2 mbp/s. 

Black Ops multilayer is now bearable. I actually stopped playing online altogether for around 4 months because of the constant lag and disconnects, but now, if Black Ops makes me host of the game, there is very little lag. The game is so much more enjoyable and I’ve started playing it again. There is really a huge difference and I advise anyone to get 2 mbp/s or higher for a lot less lag in Black Ops and online gaming. 

Download speed is around 210 kb/s. 

Upload speed is around 100 kb/s.

Youtube videos need no buffering with 360p videos. 

Overall I’m happy, but those damn download caps!!!!!!

With Gulfnet ISP, you can get a special “plus speed,” which allows your internet speed to boost up to 24 Mbp/s from 3am to 3pm every day.

Gulfnet implements fair usage policy, which means, once you download a certain amount per day, your internet speed will be cut down 75%. This resets everyday at 3:01am. 

So lets say you subscribe to the 2 Mbp/s plus speed plan, your daily limit, according to the customer service representative that I talked to, is 3.8gb, which by the way is not documented anywhere on their website. Your speed goes to 24 Mbp/s at 3am, and you decide to download, lets say, a game off Steam, which you legitimately purchased. 

So if you went to download a 4gb game, with an internet speed of 24 Mbp/s, you will hit your daily limit in around 20 minutes. Then, your speed will be cut down to 512 kbp/s, until 3:01am the next day. 

This is not a joke. 

You are paying for a monstrous speed, 24 Mbp/s, and then, just for using the speed that you are paying for, in 20 minutes, it’s cut down to 512 kbp/s. 

Your download speed will go from 3 MB/s, to 64 kb/s in 20 minutes.

So what exactly would be the point of paying for these speeds? My point is, there is no point if you can’t use it to download. Past 4 Mbp/s you can’t even tell the difference in speed while browsing, and youtube videos @ 720p all load without buffering, so why would you even need or want speeds faster than 4 Mbp/s for browsing?

The whole POINT in getting these faster speeds during certain times of the day is to DOWNLOAD things QUICKLY. They are offering this service BUT they are saying you CAN’T download! Hello!!!!!!!

You know whats the worst thing about all this? All the ISPs have been implementing this new “fair usage policy.” It’s already effected Gulfnet, Fastelco, and Viva. Just today I talked to a telephone rep. at Qualitynet and they told me they just started implementing FUP and your daily download limit is 3gb. I talked to a KEMS phone rep, and he said within 2 weeks KEMs would be implementing a FUP. 

And it effects ALL accounts, not just the plus speed account I’m talking about. 

Kind of ironic that ISP companies here in Kuwait are offering speeds that you can’t theoretically use. This stinks of rip off. 

My friend won the Pizza Inn Pizza Eating Competetion!!!!!! Woooo!!!!!!!

He ate 21 3/4 slices of pizza within 12 minutes. He was amazing! People were cheering him on as he was downing the pizzas and he ate the pizza like a pro!! Congratz to him! He won an Xbox 360!

I myself ate 12 slices. My stomach isn’t as big as my friends, and I ate a lot slower, even though I was trying to eat as fast as possible. 

Thanks Pizza Inn for hosting this cool competition! 

Pizza Inn is hosting a pizza eating competition! It’s tomorrow, May 23rd from 5-7pm.

http://mskuwait.com/pizzaInn/competitions/index.html

My friend and I joined. Honestly, I don’t know how long I’ll last, but I know I can at least woof down 8-12 slices pretty quickly, after that it’s anyone’s game lol! 

Google has recently announced they’ll be selling Chrome Books through Samsung and Acer.

I don’t think the chrome books will be a hit at all. 

Chrome OS was a cool idea… 2 years ago. Since then, netbooks have rapidly been dying out because of full featured laptops costing around the same as netbooks, e.g. $500-$600, and another factor is the tablet craze.

So here comes the chrome books, when netbooks are dying, and tablets arereining supreme, and it wants to sell you a netbook that the whole operating system is the Chrome browser. 

Lol? Just get a tablet, open the browser, and you got the same thing. Buy a netbook for 99kd, open chrome browser and you got the same thing, plus you have microsoft word and other windows apps with the netbook. 

As for the 8 second boot time, buy and install a SSD on a netbook and you’ll achieve the same thing. Instant on from sleep? My windows laptop already does that, and so does 90% of the laptops on the market today. 

Chrome books will be a complete failure. 

Though I must say that Samsung chrome book looks pretty nice, and it has a 12 inch screen instead of a 10 inch, which I like, but, it only has a chrome browser on it so whats the point.

So my friend told me about this new burger place in The Avenues that had good burgers. He was telling me about it because he thought I might actually like this burger place. See, I’m really picky about my burgers and I actually don’t really like burgers all that much, but he knew that I would like this new place. 

First, the menu is short and simple. About 4 types of burgers, and you have the ability to add as many extra patties as you want. Then you can add any one of a range of toppings to the burger, so you can really have it how you want it. Really like that.

The burger itself was absolutley delicious. The meat is 100% USDA beef that comes from free range cows that eat grass and not grain/corn like 95% of the cows eat in the US. That was really impressive, and the quality of the beef because of this really excelled. It tasted moist and delicious. 

The fries you have to order seperate, but let me tell you about them. They’re home made fries, aka not frozen. You can actually see cooks cutting actual potatoes into fry slices, then frying them in oil, but not just any oil. Elevation Burger uses extra virgin Italian olive oil to fry thier french fries. The result is that the fries tasted superb, and they were not greasy at all. I really really enjoyed the fries at Elevation Burger. 

I also got a milk shake. Their milk shakes are 100% made from ice cream, so they’re really thick and tasty. I got a plain vanilla shake and enjoyed every second of it. It had a great taste and was extra thick! 

The speed of the food coming out was really fast. My friend and I both got our food within 10 minutes. The staff were also very polite and friendly. The head manager was talking to both my friend and I in a very casual manner and it was enjoyable. 

Verdict:

You know, I kind of dislike most of the American chains that pop up here in Kuwait, with their greasy, fatty, frozen, overpriced foods, and somehow people seem to like food like that, but this place, Elevation Burger, really puts a smile on my face.
Grass fed range free cows, fresh potato french fries fried in olive oil, and full ice cream milkshakes is a unique idea and a fresh of breath air when compared to other fast food places here in Kuwait. Plus, the food was all reasonably priced and all tasted really really good. I’m craving it right now again!

5/5

Seriously, go there. You will not regret it. 

Elevation Burger is located at the Avenues Mall, in between phase 2 and phase 3 sections, on the first floor. 

If you’re the only one laughing, you’re probably being an asshole.

They don’t mean jack compared to skill. 

Stop bringing up tiers. Stop picking only top tier characters. Stop repeating stuff you read on the internet about characters and how they suck or are good. Tiers don’t mean anything. 

Play who you want to play, and who you like, and have fun.

…you can name every font they use in every commercial on TV. 

For the last 7 days, the internet has been VERY SLOW!!!!

I’m talking about barely loading pages. 30 minutes buffering for 2 seconds of youtube video loaded. Gmail DOES NOT open! I cannot download anything because the speed is at 1 kb/s! NO JOKE!

So, I decided to call Gulfnet and ask them about it. I ask the gulfnet rep about the slow internet and he says theres a wire cut in bahrain or some bullshit lie like that.

Why do I think it’s a lie? Because at uni, the ISP is Gulfnet and the internet is 100% fine and going full speed. So I tell the rep this, and you know what he says? He says, thats cause the service at uni is a corporate account and is unaffected.

I was like, um, what? Because they have a corporate account their internet is just fine? The gulfnet rep said yes. I said, well how is it your excuse for my internet being really slow is because a wire thats cut in bahrain that is affecting all the internet in Kuwait, but SOMEHOW, MAGICALLY, it DOESN’T affect the internet speed of a corporate account.

He said, thats just how it is. He said it should be resolved by Saturday or Sunday.

I was like, um yeah, okay, said thanks, and closed the phone.

If by Sunday the internet is still this slow, I’m calling up and going to say I want reimbursement of some kind, because this is ridiculous, and they’re lying to me or hiding the truth somehow. 

Just saw The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift

Okay, the storyline was weird and way too forced, but the cars, action scenes, girls, and everything else was pretty awesome!

I’m a total Japanese car junkie, and I named every single car in the movie! Plus drifting is so cool and Japenese cars + drifting is a total win.

The movie was nonsensical, but it was completely fun and over the top, which made it cool. They payed homage to everything the Japanese drifting and racing scene is all about, including the infamous highway runs and togue drift battles! Plus the movie had some funny parts, and my goodness there were some attractive looking girls!

Not to mention Sony Chiba was in the movie, who is an absolute legend, and there were 2 cameos by the drift king Keiichi Tsuchiya! That was awesome too!

I enjoyed the movie.  

Check out this site I recently found out about from lifehacker.com

http://hackertyper.net/

All this website does is write random code when you type on your keyboard. 

It is so simple, but I find it so awesome and cool looking. It makes me feel totally cool and makes me laugh so hard. If only coding was this easy!

Awesome website!

Red Bull hosted a drifting competetion at the Mishrief Fair Grounds. I went to it and snapped these photos. 

Winner of the event, Saleh Bin Eidan from STS. Great drifting and definitely had the loudest turbo out of all the cars in the competition. 

Famous Lebense Rally Driver with full rally ready Subrau WRX STI. This guy came out a handful of times and was doing crazy drift maneuvers. A nice show.

Overall the event was cool. There was a huge lack of letting the people know what was going on though, and there were a handful of times where we would just be standing around for 15+ mins and nothing was going on. 

I also feel that they shouldn’t have allowed professional racing teams from Kuwait join. Most of the people who joined brought their lightly modified cars and there were some guys who had pretty good talent, but the pro drivers out-drifted them in every way because they’re pro and had professionally modified vehicles! 

But it was still awesome and fun. Hope it happens next year but with less dusty weather! 

MMMMMAAAAAAIIIII!!!!!!!!!!

Standing next to the giant (that’s me). 

CHEECCCCHEEEEEE!!!

Massi split!