My rig

Ok. So I've shown other people's rig but never post my own. I just completed an overclock on my processor and eager to show it. SO here's my very VERY fast personal computer.

This is the setup. Most of them are black. I should've wait a while for the black version of monitor to be released, but at least the base is black.


Next, the computer case. It's an old Cooler Master Centurion 5 black case I got in 2006. It's simple, has ample space and most importantly keeps the component inside cool. Unless I upgraded to multiple graphic card, this case is perfect for me.

Here is how the inside of the pc looks like. I've labeled the cpu cooler, graphics card, sound card and HDD for easier identification purposes. The cooler is a Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX. The outward vent fits perfectly with the side hole of my case. It sucks air directly from the outside to cool the processor. The hard drive is the most expensive part in my pc for me. It's a WD Velociraptor 300GB hdd. It cost me $300 but believe me, it was worth every penny. It's currently the fastest sata hard drive in the world. A laptop drive would spin at 5200rpm, a normal desktop at 7200rpm, but this baby spins at 10000rpm. That's almost twice that of a laptop drive. The result: faster loading time, quicker access time of files, faster copying and opening of files.

The graphics card is a GTX 260, overclocked to perform similar to GTX 280. The graphics card as the name imply handles the graphic of computer. It's also the most power hungry component of the pc.


Next is the Razer Barracuda AC-1 sound card responsible for the sound. Similar to the graphic card, an integrated component is enough to produce an acceptable sound. But for a better quality sound, a discrete card is required. Also the card will lift some of the burden from the processor so the pc can run faster.
Here's the monitor, speakers and mouse. Also my phone already covered in my previous post. The monitor is a Dell 20" monitor with integrated 2.0Mp webcam and mic. The webcam quality is great and the picture looks amazing. The screen is also a glossy finish similar to dell's high end laptop model. The mouse is a Razer DeathAdder on a Razer Mantis surface. A deadly conbination of speed and control that I need in my everyday computing (LoL). The 2.1 logitech speaker outputs decent sound quality. Although I'm hard pressed to replace them since they haven't give me any problem since I bought them almost 3 years ago.

On the left is the Razer Lycosa illuminated keyboard. I really like the glossy finish of the keyboard fitting with my table. The illuminated keys bluish glow looks awesome and menacing at the same time. The keys are rubber coated to prevent slipping during heavy gaming. Also, the keys are low profile, meaning only a small keypress is required to type similar to a laptop keyboard.

The media control is a plus. You can see the rubber finish on the keys from this picture.





Finally, my overclock processor. I can't actually show you the overclock processor. But below is the picture of the speed of the processor taken from a screenshot of the desktop. As you can see the default core speed reported by Windows Vista is 2.8GHz. The right shows the core speed overclocked to 4.00GHz. Since the processor is a quad-core, they can perform 4 simultaneous tasks at 4.00GHz each. The cpu doesn't have to slow down and share their speed to run multiple programs. I can run a movie, some word docs, YM, youtube video, virus scans and I won't notice any lag whatsoever. Sweet huh.

Bros before Hoes

I've been away from home for so long now. I wonder how my siblings are doing, especially my brothers. As I said in my previous post, I'm the eldest of 4 boys and a girl. My parent was so determined to have a daughter and finally they got her on the fifth try. So, I'm dedicating this post to my brothers that have survive my dictatorship until now. This is an introduction to my brothers in Malaysia.

First off, Reza Zachary, the stylish one. If you notice, his first name is just a rearrangement of my first name. And to keep true to my family's tradition of having at least two z's in their name, my parents gave him Zachary as a second name. Cool name, though not as cool as Ezra; don't you agree? He was supposed to be born in Michigan like me, but my mother had to return to Malaysia for some medical reason. So he was born in KL.
When we were kids, we used to fight each other almost everyday. I would win everytime, but in the end would lose to my parents hands. I also used to make fun of his face when we were kids since I was the cute one. Now, it's payback time. He was offered a modeling career TWICE by talent scouts. Once when he was walking around KLCC at the age of 15. Obviously, he turned down the offer since he was still in school. Another time was when he was hanging around Bukit Bintang. This time he had just finished his SPM and was eager to join. But, my mother would not let him saying he's not familiar enough with KL. That was true since he spent most of his teens in boarding school in Negeri Sembilan, unlike me that went to day school and knows all the roads in KL. My parents (my mother actually) still won’t let him be as free as me. I have no curfew; he, on the other hand, needs to be home by 1am.
The one pet peeve I have is that he used to like wearing my clothes. It was bad enough that we were forced to wear the same design shirts(albeit different color) when we were young, now he wants to wear the same clothes I'm wearing. But he can mix and match them to make them look good together, unlike me that just throw on 1 shirt and any jeans I can reach. He's 19 now and already gone through more girlfriend than I ever did. His current one is a rich girl that is cute, but come on brother, you can do better. I want a sister-in-law that is a model.


Next, Mohd Adzwan Adza. The d's are silent to make it easier to pronounce. Also born in KL. He's the nerd of the family. The only one in the family that wears corrective eyeglasses. Not since birth however; actually while in high school. A straight A's student in his school. He even got a scholarship offer before the real SPM results are out. Currently, he's still waiting for his SPM result. He is the tallest member in the family. Maybe because he was adopted by my aunt since a baby, he had more room to grow. Being the only child in my aunt's family, he can have everything he wants. But he still turns out to be a great brother that shares. We tried to spend time together every school holidays and treated him with the same way as the others. Heck, I punish him like the others if he did anything wrong. As I am the ENFORCER. Anyway, he prefers to hang out with Reza since they are like-minded. He is my mother's hope of having a doctor in the family after I refused to do so and opt to be an engineer. He's 17 now and still single as far as I know. About his taller stature than me; when people asked why, I always answered "the eldest always sacrifices his food so the younger can eat, thus they grow quicker".


My youngest brother, Azri Azizi. The sportsman of the bunch. He's special to have 3 z's in his name. It was me and Reza that wanted him to have Azizi in his name. "Azizi" was the name of our favorite character in a cartoon once. Another weird thing is, he was born blond. His hair was golden yellow and I thought he was the wrong baby. As time passed, his hair darkened and finally stayed somewhat black. It's still more brunette than black. He used to be the fairest member too. But too many soccer practices made him dark. Now, he's active in his high school's rugby and archery team. Always fighting for my attention with my youngest sister. Since I helped in raising both of them, they should be thankful.
Still the most "jambu" member, I used to "use" him as bait to lure girls at the mall. And it works. They would come and wanna touch his brunette hair and all. He was too young to understand at that time. That is my shirt he's wearing in the picture. Here's another dude that likes to wear my stuff. Although, I don't care as much since I can't wear them anyway when I'm here, in the States. He's 14 and currently in boarding school.

I also have a youngest sister, Syazlin Suhaizan. But I'm not gonna post her picture. I'm overprotective of her. Any guys wanting to see her need to go through me, and all four of her brothers. I'm starting to think she's gonna have a hard time finding a bf that's up to the task. Not that I have to worry much since she's in Seri Puteri, an all-girl boarding school.

Finally, I just wanna say to my brothers and sister. I miss you guys. I'm miss smacking you guys for fun. Because you know, without the pain you guys would not have become these wonderful human beings.

Serious - Scars on Broadway

My favorite band of all time, System of a Down (SOAD) is currently in hiatus. Two of the members decided to form their own side project band. Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan formed Scars on Broadway with Daron as the vocal and John on drum. There are still some SOAD "sounds" in the songs, but mostly they're quite unique.

Although they sound great, I still wish SOAD will regroup and does a kick-ass tour. Watching them live in consert is still my top wish when I'm in the states.

2 into 1

If you still haven't figured it out yet, I like to tell my story through musics. Mostly through metal musics since I believe they're a true representation of human emotions. Unlike those always happy, high school musical, childish pop garbage. I can always find a song in my 5000+ mp3s that's similar to my day. But, sometimes I let rock music a chance to tell the story. Here's "2 into 1" by Army of Me.

I know it sounds foolish
But I live in hope
That one day all of my friends could be whole
For now you are broken and feel so unsure
Wherever we are, we can’t go back to where we were
And I want to fly straight into the sun
I want to burn the two into one
I know it sounds foolish, but I’m still in love
Although I surrendered
I’ve not given up
So if there is something that’s making you stay
I’m standing right here
I won’t walk away
And I want to fly straight into the sun
I want to burn the two into one
And I’ve forgiven you
It’s all that I can do
It seems you have no choice when you love someone
I want you to know, you’re whiter than snow
I want you to see, to forgive is to breathe
And it’s something you need
Forget what you’ve done
I want to burn the two into one
Two into one, two into one, yes
Two into, two into one

Trivium - Throes of Perdition video

This video was just released last week.



It's almost 6 minutes long. The guitar solo is a little short from the normal Trivum's masterpieces. The drum part at the beginning is sic. An awesome song indeed.

The tale of the evil one...

It's been a while since i've updated this blog. Nothing interesting happened recently. I just got the idea of putting the first half of my life in writing. Maybe it'll be an interesting read, though I'm just doing it so I would appreciate what I have until now.

So, it all started when a baby boy was born in Borgess Medical Center, Kalamazoo, Michigan in the fall of 1987. The first child for the couple Zainal and Zaiton. With a slap on the butt, the child cried and was given to his mother to hold. That boy was later given the name Ezra Zaidi with the first name being suggested by his godparents, Mr & Mrs Smith and the middle name by his parent(maybe cuz it rhymed with theirs'). I'm gonna change to first person view now. So, I grew up rapidly with Augustus and a pair of latinas as my playmate since my mother worked as a babysitter.
This is a picture of my parents, myself and my grandma in Orlando Disneyland. I didn't even bother to smile to the camera.
So when I was 2 years old I went to Malaysia (cant say I return cuz I was never there in the first place) with my parents. My family lived in KL for 2 years before settling in Kuantan, Pahang when I was turning 5. Kuantan was a great place to grew up in. Not too busy like in the city, nor too 'kampung' that I cant get to taste fast food. I live in a small "taman perumahan" called "Taman Guru". It's closed from the busy traffic so you can literally play on the street for hours without worrying a car would ran you over. The yellow marker in the map shows where my house use to be, along Lrg karyawan 7. There was no LK 29 and 21 before, so the back of my house was a forest as in the picture. There lurks giant lizards, crocodiles in the river, and wild boars. My favorite pastime with my friends includes bicycle racing, fishing, "lastik burung" and catching insects (grasshopper, millipede, crickets etc).
When I turned 5, my parents sent me to Taski (short for tmn asuhan knk2 islam) Al-Huda . There I learned basic arabic, and basic islamic stuff. During the holidays, I would spent my days with my dear late-grandma in the Kampung. It was great to be able to bathe in the river all day, but I hated going to the toilet at night since it was outside the house and there's no electricity. I had to bring along a candle and a bucket of water if I needed to go too badly.
When I turned 7, that's when the fun begins. I was sent to a private school called Sekolah Rendah St. Thomas. It was an all-boys institution and was once a Church. I still find it funny that I moved from a Taski to an ex-church for a school. Nonetheless, it was an awesome school. Also at 7, I was chosen by the teacher to participate in a play for the song "Sing a song of sixpence". If you don't know, google it. I was one of the maid, in mini skirts and all. Then at 9, again chosen by the teacher to play the wife of a carpenter in a play. I don't know what's the connection between those two, but it really bugs me until now. Anyway, St. Thomas was a tough school. Only once did I get a top 3 in class. All the other time, I tried hard to maintain the top 10 in class.

As I got older, my interest grew for just catching insects, to lizards, birds and even snakes. These activities built my courage, that's why I'm not afraid of such things anymore. I started taking care of myself and my brother at 10 while my parents are at work. I learn to cook simple stuff like eggs, hash browns, burgers, and hotdogs. Although most of the time, my mom had already cook lunch beforehand so I don't necessarily have to cook. At the end of 1998, my family had to move to Selayang because my dad was promoted to head engineer in the newly constructed Hospital Selayang. So, I had to start my standard 6 in a new school. But that part would exceed the first half of my life. So I'm not gonna continue.

So there you have it. Maybe an interesting read for the interested. Maybe crap for the folks wanting Metal news. I'll cont with the second half if there's anyone interested. Until then, I'll stick with Throes of Perdition.

Super Bowl Weekend is over

Today is/was Super Bowl Sunday. It was an awesome game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals. I didn't have any preferences of which team that will win. My team, the San Diego Chargers, lost in the 2nd round of the playoff to the Steelers. In the end, the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII 27-23. Great job Steelers! Next season it's gonna be Chargers time.

Besides the football game, another important part of Super Bowl are the ads. Since the Super Bowl is the most-watched U.S. television broadcast, companies are gonna wanna introduce their ads in that short time slot. A 30-second slot would cost between 2.5 - 3 million dollars. One funny ad that caught my attention, but I almost missed it, is the 1 second ad from Miller High Life. That 1 second ad cost them $100,000 by the way. Companies like Pepsi and Coke can afford 3 ads a piece which is insane.

Enough about the Super Bowl. I bought Pizza Hut's Tuscani Lasagna today to consume during the game. That's more than 3lb of food that I ate alone, since nobody else wanna eat it. It's a personal-choice thing. Though not a delicious as my aunt's handmade lasagna, it's still quite good.

Finally, I got my U.S driver's license last week. Just wanna put it here. I had no prior driving class before. In Malaysia I just drive illegally without license, practicing with my friends. Luckily, I never got in an accident or stop by the police. It's so easy to get a license here. No problem getting it on my first try either. And it only cost $10. Let's just hope I keep my clean driving record.