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I got the chance to attend the world premiere of the movie “What’s Your Raashee?” at the Toronto International Film Festival this past weekend at Roy Thomson Hall.  I sat in the very last row so admitedly, I didn’t get a great view but the movie itself was still very enjoyable.

“What’s Your Raashee?” is a Bollywood (Indian Hollywood) movie that I can see having great reception in mainstream North American theatres.  This was actually my first experience with a Bollywood film so you can take this review with a grain of salt.

The premise of the movie involves an NRI (Non-resident Indian) played by Harman Baweja who needs to go back to India to find a wife.  He decides to interview 12 girls, one from each raashee (zodiac/star sign) to find his most compatible match.  All 12 girls are played by the beautiful Priyanka Chopra (she is playing 12 different characters) and hilarity ensues.

Being a romantic comedy, it was a pleasure to watch although it was hard to get past Harman Baweja’s poor acting at the beginning of the film.  Once you see past the forced and unemotional delivery, the story really starts to shine.  Priyanka  is absolutely brilliant in all 12 roles although I found some of the characters forgettable and shallow.  At a couple points in the movie, I was confused as to which character she was playing but that may be partly because I’m not used to distinguishing Indian names.

I also found that the couple of side stories didn’t serve to add much to the movie, but rather served as comedic relief.  The movie itself was also very long, at almost 4 hours.  I’ve been told that many Bollywood movies are around this length but if you take out all the dance numbers, the length would be much more manageable, but then it wouldn’t be a true Bollywood movie then, would it?

All in all, “What’s Your Raashee?” is a pleasure to watch, in fact it’s got me interested in the whole genre of Bollywood films.  Any recommendations for Bollywood classics?

Popularity: 3% [?]

Ever wonder what you would do if you encountered a bear? Or if your parachute wouldn’t open in mid jump? Whether you prefer to stay in the comfort of home or like to take adventures, I’m sure some of these questions have crossed your mind.

Now’s your chance to put your “traveller IQ” to the test! Tripbase has a fun travel intelligence quiz that will test your “travel-savvyness” based on how you would react in various extreme scenarios.

75% of the world!

Quiz by Tripbase

I did the quiz myself but only got 75%, it’s not as easy as it looks! I found that what seems to be the most logical answer were in fact incorrect.  I went out of my way to look up some of the answers on Google and was quite surprised by what I found.  So go ahead, do the quiz. It might even save your life in the future.

If you’re the traveling type, Tripbase.com itself is a neat site to check out.  They offer suggestions on places to travel based on things that you like to do and present everything you’ll need to know to plan the trip including hotel costs, flight costs and required spending money!  It’s even been described as the Match.com of travel planning!

Popularity: 2% [?]

I recently built a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) to drive my new LCD TV.  The benefit of using a HTPC is that it can replace many components of a traditional home theatre system while adding the benefits of having a full fledged computer system in your living room.

I plan on keeping this system running 24/7 so it makes sense to make it as energy efficient as possible.

Here’s a quick list of the components used:

• Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 250
• Motherboard: Gigabyte MA-785GMT-UD2H
• Memory: Corsair XMS3 2×2GB DDR3 Dual Channel Kit
• Hard drive: 1TB Seagate Baracuda 7200.12
• Heatsink: Scythe Ninja Mini Rev. B with Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
• Optical drive: Samsung DVD-RW
• Case: Antec NSK2480
• Speakers: Logitech Z-Cinema Advanced Surround Sound System w/Media Center remote

Motherboard
You might notice that I don’t have a graphics card listed, which may seem strange for a PC that’s built for high definition video playback.  The reason is because I’m using AMD’s new 785g chipset that was just released earlier this month.  This features an integrated Radeon HD 4200 GPU which is capable of smoothly decoding 1080p video.  This 785G chipset really has everything you need for a HTPC and is highly recommended in reviews by TomsHardware and AnandTech.

CPU
The AMD Athlon II X2 250 is one of the best value CPUs out there.  One can be had for about $70-$80 while providing two cores at 3.0ghz.  The best thing about it is that it is rated at 65w, making it one of the more energy efficient CPUs.  I could have opted for the 5050e which is only rated at 45w but I figure the extra processing power may come in handy for 1080p decoding.

Case and Heatsink
For the rest of the system, I decided to keep it as quiet as possible, opting for a passive heatsink cooled only by the case fans on the NSK2480 chassis.  The Antec NSK2480 case was designed by Antec in conjunction with SilentPCReview to give it the best airflow.  You can read a full review of the case here but let me just say, it is just beautiful and the attention to detail really sets it apart from other cases.  It’s also fairly inexpensive at around $100.

The case comes with a 380W power supply that’s 80+ certified meaning high energy efficiency.  Although the PSU isn’t that large, the low energy footprint of the individual components means 380W is already plenty.

Problems
The RAM that I got came with their own heatsinks which adds to the size of the modules.  This increased size coupled with the fairly large Scythe Mini Ninja CPU heatsink meant that the first two DIMM slots were not usable.  Luckily, Gigabyte arranged the DIMM slots so that the dual channel pairs were together.  As a result, I could put my two sticks of RAM into the 3rd and 4th DIMM slot while maintaining dual channel capability.  This means no more memory expansion though unless I get a smaller heat sink or memory modules without heat spreaders.

I’m also still missing a TV tuner to receive Over-The-Air HD transmissions.  I’m waiting for a nice one to go on sale.

Windows 7
For my operating system, I’m using a release candidate of Windows 7 which is simply amazing for a HTPC setup.  The Windows 7 media center is probably the best Microsoft product I’ve used so far and I haven’t found anything that really compares.  It’s highly moddable and coupled with the media center remote from the Logitech speakers, it makes for a very nice HTPC experience.  I recommend using the free media browser extension for extra eye candy and features.

Total Cost
I already had some of the parts so I only had to spend about $500 on this system.  Yes you can build a quad core system for $500, but you can’t get this type of HTPC experience whilst staying green!  All the components together, I’d estimate the final cost to be around $700.  If you wait for deals and bargains, you might be able to get it for less but many of these components are already fairly competitively priced.

Do you have an HTPC setup? What components did you end up using? Let me know in the comments!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Here’s a story reminisent of an XKCD strip that made me chuckle.  Norwegian hosting provider Syse Data was served a notice from the Norwegian name registry when their new company name was too similar to their old one.  As a result, they changed their old company name to something very clever.  Their new name is:

‘;UPDATE TAXRATE SET RATE = 0 WHERE NAME = ‘EDVIN SYSE’

That’s right! Their new company name is an SQL injection attack!  Luckily for the Norwegian industry, they took the appropriate steps to prevent SQL injection attacks so it didn’t affect them directly.  I’m sure the funny guys over at Syse Data weren’t legitimately trying to evade paying taxes, but just wanted to have some fun.

They were asked to change that name though since their little charade caused a lot of buzz and generated too much traffic to the Norwegian registry and they weren’t able to handle it.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Personally, I’m an avid poker player as the statistical aspects of the game greatly interest me.  As such, I play casually with my friends about two or three times a month.  There was a period of time a few years ago where I did play some poker online.  I’m not a huge fan of gambling so I didn’t put too much money into my account.  What I didn’t know at the time was that I could have gotten a lot of free bonus money to start!

Many poker sites offer sign-up bonuses but you also need to keep in mind that you don’t want to play on shady and non-reputable sites.  If you’re choosing an online casino to do a little bit of gambling online, you’ll find that it isn’t as easy a task as you would have thought.  There are many things to consider!

For beginning players and experienced players alike, online casino bluebook is a free site that reviews a lot of online casinos, ranking them based on:

• Bonus size
• Payout percentage
• Customer service
• Game features
• Number of games
• Software graphics
• Ease of use

The site itself is simple and straight to the point.  My guess is that the site makes money on affiliate commissions but the information and reviews seems to be unbiased.  There is also a forum that is slowly growing in size but the primary topic of discussion appears to be poker.  Online casino bluebook has been around for a while now (since 2000) so you can assume they know what they are talking about.  The casinos they review also aren’t limited to just the United States!

You’d be amazed at some of the sign-up bonuses you can get with some of these online casinos!  Even if you’re not great at gambling, its a good way to try your luck and kill some time.

Popularity: 12% [?]