Asif's Blog

Apple 2011 Think Different Steve Jobs Commercial [HD]

2011-10-16T13:08:00.001-05:00

UNICEF TAP WATER PROJECT

2011-02-28T21:08:00.003-06:00

Dua

2010-04-25T09:40:00.000-05:00

Sar Kiye Yeh Pahaar By Strings at Coke Studio

2010-04-01T18:43:00.003-05:00

Argentax Tax Services - Income tax Preparation Franchise - www.argentax.com

2009-11-18T04:58:00.002-06:00

Balaghal ula be kamalehi

2009-07-21T05:01:00.001-05:00

Dedicated to the innocent children of Swat Valley!!

2009-06-09T09:59:00.000-05:00

Durood Sharif by Asif

2008-12-08T00:26:00.002-06:00

Changeling - Theatrical Trailer

2008-11-21T22:24:00.000-06:00

Changeling - Theatrical Trailer Movies & TV SPIKE.com

Durood-o-Salam by Asif

2008-10-01T02:11:00.000-05:00

Allah Hu Allah by Asif

2008-09-08T05:57:00.004-05:00

Noori Mehfil by Asif

2008-08-07T14:06:00.001-05:00

The Dark Knight - Trailer 3 HDQ

2008-08-07T14:05:00.001-05:00

Coke Studio: Allah Hu - Ali Zafar & Tufail Ahmed

2008-08-07T13:20:00.002-05:00

Coke Studio-Ep1 Part 4/6 RFAK and Ali Azmat (Garaj Baras)

2008-07-02T00:04:00.002-05:00

Neend Ati Nahin LIVE - Ali Azmat

2008-06-05T08:38:00.003-05:00

Kehdo Jo Bhi - Junaid Jamshed

2008-05-29T08:18:00.000-05:00

World Economic Forum - Three Crucial Questions for the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf

2008-02-08T20:37:00.000-06:00

Chaired by
Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates, USA; Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting - Davos 2008

I am Legend - Trailor

2008-02-03T13:41:00.000-06:00

Movie to watch - There will be Blood

2008-01-20T21:07:00.000-06:00

There Will Be Blood - International Trailer

Posted Sep 10, 2007

A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.

The Kite Runner - Trailer

2008-01-11T21:19:00.000-06:00

The Kite Runner - Trailer

Posted Aug 07, 2007

After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.

Galleria of Pakistan

2007-12-27T05:51:00.001-06:00

Frank Caliendo - Great Impressionist

2007-11-03T21:13:00.000-05:00

American Gangster

2007-11-03T19:39:00.000-05:00

American Gangster - Trailer

Posted Jun 11, 2007

Based on the life of drug-kingpin-turned-informant, Frank Lucas, who grew up in segregated North Carolina where he watched as his cousin was shot by the Klan for looking at a white girl. He eventually made his way to Harlem where he became a heroin kingpin by traveling to Asia's Golden Triangle to make connections, shipping heroin back to the US in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam.

Micheal Clayton

2007-10-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

Michael Clayton - Trailer

Posted Jul 11, 2007

Michael Clayton is an in-house "fixer" at one of the largest corporate law firms in New York.

Pakistan Upcoming Potential Cricket Wicket Keeper - Sarfraz Ahmed

2007-10-02T22:34:00.001-05:00

The Kingdom - Leavitt Gets Kidnapped

2007-09-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

Devastating Flood in Pakistan

2007-07-19T19:51:00.000-05:00

Severe flooding resulting from heavy rains that were exacerbated by
a cyclone in late June 2007 has affected over two million people in
Pakistan. The Baluchistan Province is most affected, with 23 of its
29 districts impacted. The National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA) has placed the figure of affected people in that province
alone at two million, with 130 deaths. The Sindh Province, where at
least 311,570 people have been affected and 115 deaths confirmed,
has also been hard hit. Five of its districts have been affected.
Infrastructure has been severely undermined with roads and bridges
damaged or destroyed and telecommunications out in many areas
since 26 June 2007.
In addition to the considerable loss of life, thousands of people have
been displaced as their homes have either been washed away by floodwaters or are inundated. In Baluchistan, 5,000
villages have been affected while in Sindh, 173 villages are submerged. Over 67,500 houses have been damaged
across the flood-affected provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh.
People have lost their houses and will require
support to rebuild them.

Tom Hanks - The Polar Express - Roller Coaster

2007-06-13T01:45:00.001-05:00

Ocean's Thirteen - International Trailer

2007-06-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

A cool montage from the film Mr. Brooks to the song "vicious traditions" by The Veils

2007-06-03T00:48:00.000-05:00

Fracture - Verbal And Signed Confession

2007-05-26T11:55:00.000-05:00

Shrek 3

2007-05-26T11:45:00.000-05:00

Millennium Park Chicago Workout Schedule

2007-05-06T14:23:00.000-05:00

6/9/2007 - 9/29/2007

Millennium Park Workouts
Sat, 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Great Lawn
6/9/2007 - 9/29/2007
Millennium Park Workouts (Yoga)
Sat, 8:00 AM - 8:45 AM
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
6/9/2007 - 9/29/2007
Millennium Park Workouts (Pilates)
Sat, 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM
Great Lawn
6/9/2007 - 9/29/2007
Millennium Park Workouts (Dance)
Sat, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
Great Lawn
6/9/2007 - 6/23/2007
Millennium Park Workouts (Bhangra Blast with Shamila Khetarpal)
Sat, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
Great Lawn
6/30/2007
Millennium Park New Kids Workouts! (Get Moving!)
10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
Great Lawn
7/7/2007 - 7/21/2007
Millennium Park Workouts (African Tapestry with Amaniyea Payne and Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago)
Sat, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM
Great Lawn
7/28/2007

Linkin Park - What I've Done

2007-05-02T22:14:00.001-05:00

Coca Cola Ad - Amir Khan

2007-04-13T22:19:00.001-05:00

My Happy Ending - Live at Budokan - Avril Lavigne

2007-04-08T20:20:00.002-05:00

Coldplay - The Scientist

2007-04-01T21:54:00.002-05:00

Nelly Furtado In MUMBAI - India - Say It Right

2007-03-30T23:16:00.001-05:00

Aadat [ Acustic Live ] By Atif Aslam

2007-03-27T22:56:00.001-05:00

Pakistan Rythm of Unity

2007-02-28T22:51:00.001-06:00

Lahore & Chicago: Sister City Since 2007

2007-02-28T20:25:00.000-06:00

Lahore & Chicago: Sister Cities Since 2007
Lahore, Pakistan is Chicago’s newest Sister City. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood, District of Lahore signed the official Sister Cities agreement February 6, 2007.
Programs: Traffic, health, public safety, infrastructure and education Mission: Implement exchanges of education, culture, medicine, social services, environment and technology, and to promote mutual prosperity. Did You Know?
Both cities, Lahore & Chicago, bear the name “City of Gardens”/”City in a Garden” Featured Events for 2007
The Lahore Committee will work on several local programs to introduce Chicagoans to the city of Lahore in 2007 including the Sister Cities International festival on Daley Plaza in June, the World Fashion Chicago runway show in October, and the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival in November.
LAHORE EVENTS
06/01/2007 The Lahore Committee will work on several local programs to introduce Chicagoans to the city of Lahore in 2007 including the Sister Cities International festival on Daley Plaza....
LAHORE NEWS
LAHORE: Mayor Daley Signs Sister City Agreement
On Tuesday, February 6, 2007 the City of Lahore, Pakistan became Chicago’s 26th Sister City. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood, District of Lahore signed the agreement before 500 guests in a formal ceremony at the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 East Randolph Street. (Nazim is the Pakistani title for Mayor)Mayor Daley touched on the many commonalities that unite the two cities including concerns with traffic, health, public safety, infrastructure and edu...

Josh feat Erin - Mausam

2007-02-27T23:08:00.001-06:00

Strings - Zinda Hoon

2007-02-27T21:52:00.001-06:00

Finally it feels like winter in Chicago!!

2007-02-07T17:51:00.000-06:00

Think Small: Getting Started as a Real Estate Investor

2007-01-14T20:35:00.000-06:00

Even in a Sinking Market,
Carefully Buying and Managing
Properties Can Bring New Riches

By DAVID CROOK
January 10, 2007

The real-estate bubble has burst. Get over it. In areas that saw big home-price run-ups in the first half of the decade, prices are stagnant, or worse. New-home inventories are up; new-home builder stocks are down.

A kind of real-estate weariness has set in. Who's the cocktail-party boor? The guy still talking about making a killing on Miami Beach condos.

Smells like a buying opportunity. Probably not right away, because there's still plenty of froth in the markets that saw the biggest price increases. But soon, you'll see the real-estate investors -- property vultures who buy when prices are low and then ride property manias to their crest -- toeing the market again.

Even in today's uncertain climate, novice real-estate investors can make money, especially in smaller properties that are easy to acquire and manage.

Let's explore some options.

In-Law Units

The most basic form of property investment is a so-called in-law unit or guesthouse on the site of your home itself, sometimes attached to the main house, sometimes not. No one has ever gotten rich renting out such properties, but they can significantly reduce the cost of homeownership. Renting out an in-law unit for $400 a month and using that money every month to pay down principal on a $350,000 30-year mortgage will shave 10 years from the mortgage term and reduce total payments by more than $165,000. And you will be able to write off all your costs on your income taxes -- including depreciation on the unit -- up to your actual rental income.

Weekend or Vacation Homes

Just as with an in-law unit, renting out your weekend house is not a way to get rich. Many of the same numbers that applied to in-law units can be applied to your weekend home, although the tax situation is decidedly different.

HOMEOWNER VS. LANDLORD

Investing in real estate isn't the same as owning a house. Here's a look at the financial breakdown.First, the IRS gives second-home landlords a very nice little present in that it allows two weeks of tax-free rental income a year. Beyond that, however, the accounting can be irksome. The IRS doesn't want people buying second homes and disguising them as rental properties. It has two criteria to determine whether the property is a second home (bad) or a rental (good). It's a second home if you don't rent it out at all or if you personally use it at least two weeks a year or 10% of the number of days the place is available for rental, whichever is longer.

Single-Family Homes

Throughout much of the country, the market for single-family homes is seriously out of whack. As prices fall and inventories rise, that's changing. But, compared with rents, prices are still quite high, outstripping the ability of such properties to cover their mortgage and operating costs.

Avoid this segment of the market unless you have a chance to buy a property at a 30% or 40% discount from its previous price. Don't think this is out of the question. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the government liquidated the real-estate loan portfolios of bankrupt savings-and-loans, speculators picked up properties for just dimes on the dollar.

Managing a house that pays for itself is what it's all about. You can do it in one of two ways: Renting or "flipping." Renting is a "buy-and-hold" strategy, while flipping calls for quick turnarounds of fixer-uppers that can be spruced up and sold quickly.

But in the current environment renting is probably the more prudent path, although it can be very difficult to make a house pay for itself at today's prices. That's because if your house carries an 80% or 90% loan, the renter will have to pay more per month to rent the house than he would to buy it.

Look at it this way: There's a handsome three-bedroom, two-bath house in Tampa, Fla., for sale at an asking price of $199,900. If you bought it with 10% down and a 90% loan at 6%, your monthly payment will be about $1,550 (that's PITI -- principal, interest, taxes and insurance). As a landlord, at a minimum, you'll want to budget at least $200 a month in additional expenses. That puts your break-even point at almost $1,800 a month. That's far more than you can reasonably expect to earn where comparable properties in the same neighborhood can be rented for less than $1,300.

But it turns out that there's a similar house available less than a mile away. This other house is roughly the same size. The difference is this one's being taken over by its lender, and the house has a mortgage loan of $110,000.

A buyer with cash can drive a hard bargain and make out very well. And the worse the market, the better for the buyer. But don't get carried away. If you simply take over an existing 90% or 95% note, you won't make any money. Let the lender foreclose and take over the place. Then lowball the lender.

Multiple Units

A housing market that saw the price of single-family homes skyrocket was not quite so generous to smaller two-family or multifamily properties. Because the universe of home buyers expanded so much in the past 10 years, the universe of renters contracted, and the market for smaller rental properties contracted with them.

In Memphis, where two-bedroom apartments in better neighborhoods rent from $500 up to $800 a month, good two-family properties can still be bought for far less than a one bedroom condo on either of the coasts. Recent prices for 40-year-old two-family homes near the University of Memphis main campus ranged from $70,000 to $110,000. Monthly payments, including insurance and maintenance, on an $88,000 mortgage (20% down on the $110,000 property) come to only about $750 a month. So renting both units at the low end of the market would result in a positive after-tax cash flow of more than $100 a month. Upgrade the units, and you can charge top-of-the-market rents of $800 a month.

Good deals on smaller buildings can be found throughout the country, even in some of the hottest markets. In trendy Pasadena, Calif., where even modest homes can sell for $400 to $600 a square foot, two-, three- or four-unit rental buildings can be bought in the $250 to $350 range.

David Beckham amazing football / soccer skills

2007-01-11T10:45:00.000-06:00


David Beckham

Fight the emergency of Global AIDS and Extreme Poverty

2007-01-07T20:33:00.000-06:00

Preview--Creating a Poverty-Free World: Insights from Muhammad Yunus

2007-01-03T23:47:00.000-06:00


The Bonsai Tree

Mr Bean - In The Hospital

2007-01-03T22:16:00.000-06:00


Mr. Bean 1985

Teri Perchaian' by Ali Azmat

2006-12-26T21:24:00.001-06:00

ROBERT DENIRO DIRECTS THE GOOD SHEPHERD

2006-12-26T00:13:00.000-06:00

Movie to Watch "Apocalypto" Trailer -

2006-12-25T15:53:00.000-06:00

Coca-Cola Commercials - Amir Khan

2006-12-14T07:14:00.000-06:00


Coca-Cola Commercial - Amir Khan

Coca-Cola Commercial - Amir Khan

2006-12-13T07:59:00.000-06:00

Recent visit to Earthquake disaster area Balakot & Shogran, Pakistan (Gallery 1)

2006-12-11T01:24:00.000-06:00

Recent visit to Earthquake disaster area Balakot & Shogran, Pakistan (Gallery 2)

2006-12-11T01:23:00.000-06:00

Special Address by Pervez Musharraf at WEF, World Economic Forum

2006-12-08T15:27:00.000-06:00

Charlie Rose - An hour with Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan

2006-12-05T20:34:00.000-06:00

The Honorable President General Pervez Musharraf

2006-09-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

Thursday, September 28, 2006

To,
The Honorable President General Pervez Musharraf
President of Pakistan
Islamabad, Pakistan

Honorable Sir,

I take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Asif Waheed, born in Karachi, Pakistan and currently living in Chicago, USA for the last 12 years and working for a Chicago based CPA firm.

On my recent visit to Pakistan after 11 years, I was pleasantly surprised at the progress and development of the city where I was born and brought up.
This made me realize that finally Pakistan has been blessed by the Almighty with a leader who envisions the best for Pakistan and covets its place among the developed nations of the world. I also visited other metros like Lahore and Islamabad and I found them to be more developed than Karachi. I was really impressed with the construction & maintenance of the metro cities.

In my opinion, there has lots to be done in getting Pakistan’s infrastructure organized. Though economic progress is evident, but it deeply sadden me to see that there was constant number of days where in metro cities like Karachi there was no power for up to 6 hrs in a day. Management of Basic utilities such as water and electricity are in a poor state of affairs. I recognize that the economy of Pakistan suffered greatly at the hands of deficient or reckless leaders in its past. It takes great ability to undo the regressive and I am sure that you are doing the best but certainly though it requires your resolute attention.

What I mostly observed that in spite of the overall progressive trend, there is a stagnating trend in the field of Education where brilliant students are unable to study in schools of good standard due reasons of funds. Due to this, the economy of Pakistan is loosing out greatly in strengthening the foundations of its forthcoming generation.
Good Business Management schools pertaining to International standards would give the people of Pakistan an opportunity at Global level.

I humbly request you to emphasize the importance of Education to the masses and this could be easier if there were more English medium schools made feasible and affordable to the masses. Exposure to advance Mathematics, Science, Geography and Brainstorming session would certainly help develop a higher level of world knowledge and confidence in the upcoming generation.

Your memoir “In the Line of Fire” has increased my conviction that Pakistan’s future is in great hands.
The book familiarized me with the human aspect of a President who has taken up the challenging task to re-build a misconstrued nation. Your position in the War against Terror is exigent and extremely challenging. I truly admire the way you are handling this global issue with Veracity, Sincerity and Toughness.

In the past, Pakistan has suffered a lot of setbacks politically. Looking at these factors, I know that it is a challenging task to fulfill. But as I have complete faith in your leadership, I pray to almighty to give you all the strength to overcome the hurdles and help you take Pakistan to its well deserved position.

Sincerely Yours,

Asif Waheed
Chicago, IL USA