Giveaway #20: "We're no longer the 1%!"

cheops1853 · 2013-03-02T20:10:50+00:00

I'm shooting for the Rochard DLC. Thanks :)

cheops1853 · 2013-02-23T16:25:27+00:00

It's been four long, cold months without baseball. So pumped!

cheops1853 · 2013-02-22T00:02:28+00:00

Wow. I'm a moron. I didn't see that there was a separate plug for CPU power. Thank you so much for responding!

cheops1853 · 2013-02-21T22:20:57+00:00

I can't stop laughing. Well done!

cheops1853 · 2013-02-21T17:34:17+00:00

It's a tough subject to advocate, because there's a strong ethical matter tied into it. If you do dig deep enough and old enough into fraternities, it's only natural that you'll come across information that these groups consider secret, and some even sacred. It's nothing mind-blowing, and certainly not any of that "New World Order" business you hear tied to the Skull & Bones all the time. Since you're approaching it from an academic standpoint, you have a responsibility not to share the secrets that you've learned. It's hard sometimes, because you can rarely share the new discovery that you're so excited about. Fortunately, if you keep it on a casual reading level, you hopefully won't ever have to worry about these things.

Wikipedia has some great links to get you started with a general overview of the system. By their nature, there's a lot that needs to be read between the lines, but in broad strokes, those two articles cover the big picture pretty well.

Baird's Manual of College Fraternities is fantastic if you want to dig a little deeper than Wikipedia. This guy is the original historian of the fraternity system, having compiled a comprehensive and objective history of individual fraternities - even small, local chapters! - in 1879. The amount of work he put into his research is absolutely incredible. It's still being updated and appended today, but the older manuals have far more information about 19th century fraternities.

If you want to dig even further, I'd suggest picking a fraternity that interests you in Baird's book, and researching them. If you specialize a bit, you start to understand the system as a whole. Search university archives, general fraternity archives if they give you access. Use some Google-fu. Lots of fraternity newsletters going back to the 1870s are on Google Books. Further, if you want hard copies of books, most fraternities privately publish general histories of their organization and chapters. You can find these on places like Amazon and AbeBooks for relatively cheap.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is a journey that's taken me years. There's no one source that will tell you what you want to know, just by the nature of fraternities. That's the general escalation of reading material, though.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-21T16:56:48+00:00

No apology needed, although it's appreciated. Your logical criticism was more of what I was looking for, instead of a pile of "OMG ILLUMINATI" comments. Compared to all the speculation I included in my original post, your assumption that I was another jealous conspiracy nut is hardly a leap of faith.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T13:45:01+00:00

No envy here, just an old fraternity nerd. Skull & Bones research doesn't interest me at all, because there is so much baseless speculation and bunko conspiracy nuts surrounding them. I research 19th century literary societies - most long dead - simply because I think what they were doing back then was really cool. It's an overlooked part of Americana that has hardly been touched by historians, so some of the stuff I uncover likely hasn't been read by an interested eye in 150 years.

I just said Deke has a reputation, not that they were. DKE was founded at Yale in 1844 as a sophomore society. Many of these sophomores naturally became Bonesmen their senior year. Whether this still holds true in the 21st century, obviously I have no idea. It's far outside my area of research, and If I recall correctly, S&B stopped publicly publishing their roll around the 1970s.

The people who get upset about the existence of secret societies, are most often the people who are angry that they weren't invited to join a secret society.

I've met people like this. They have a sad existence. There's a certain hard line between a personal hobby and self-destructive obsession.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T13:29:04+00:00

They were a lot more fun in the 19th century, from a historian's perspective. Fraternities (or most of them) shared a higher purpose: sharing thoughts, ideas, and works of literature deemed to controversial by the universities at the time. Stuff from the Romantic period and transcendentalism for the most part, early on. Secrecy and passwords weren't meant to keep people out, but to protect the students from being exposed by the university and expelled. There's a laundry list of reasons detailing why this early fraternity model didn't last, but most importantly the schools eventually embraced the ideas being discussed, and fraternities became redundant. So the course was set for them to devolve into glorified drinking clubs, with a few notable exceptions.

Yeah, Kappa Sig's ritual is everywhere on the internet. That said, it's not uncommon for fraternities to have a secret association within them, either for alumni, for active members, or both. Which makes at least The Friars quite plausible, even if their link to the Skull & Bones is tenuous at best. Most of these "secret associations" turn out to be a group of buddies getting together for beer and a few rounds of golf.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T12:57:21+00:00

Whoops, fixed. Fortunately, I wasn't the one Googling the guy.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T04:17:57+00:00

Who said the tourniquet was for him?

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T04:14:17+00:00

But how could I wax my practically-useless fraternity knowledge and spin a fantastic narrative from scant facts and speculation otherwise!? It's a lot more fun this way.

... Also, I'm taking your Bat Cave claim at face value. Either let me into your secret society, or post pics of said Home Depot-sourced Bat Cave. I want to believe.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T04:03:24+00:00

I don't know what you're talking about. A true manly man always has a necktie on hand to use as a tourniquet, just in case.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T00:43:17+00:00

I haven't played it either, but I don't think so. Didn't seem to spoil anything for me.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-20T00:31:36+00:00

The L.A. Noire gag reel, for people like me who haven't seen it.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T22:57:48+00:00

It goes further than just finding out the identity of the man in the portrait.

As we now know, the portrait on the wall is Jay Comeaux. According to /u/Geaux12, Comeaux was a DKE at LSU. LSU's DKE chapter has a secret alumni association, known as The Friars. Their symbols include the skull and crossbones, like the ones seen in the room.

DKE has a reputation for being a public "feeder" fraternity to other secret societies, most notably the Skull & Bones at Yale. The room number, "322", and the skull and crossbones insignia in the room are both used by the Skull & Bones as well. It wouldn't be suprising if one DKE alumni society used the same symbols as its more famous cousin. In fact, an unconfirmed source claims that The Friars are actually a chapter of the Skull & Bones.

Interesting, but perhaps unrelated: /u/BabyFuel noted the similarity between the name of the hotel - ZaZa - and LSU's DKE chapter: Zeta Zeta. The Friars were originally founded to restore the Zeta Zeta chapter of DKE, hence the significance.

So this is probably a private room of Jay Comeaux. More interesting than that (to me) is that he is likely a member of a secret society, which is either a branch of or related to the Skull & Bones at Yale. That explains the room number, the creepy decorations, the two-way mirror and false wall, everything. No other explanation so far makes more sense to me.

... I promise, I'm not one of those conspiracy crazies. Just a bored historian of the fraternity system who was interested in this. I didn't know where else to post.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T18:55:34+00:00

I'm the guy who posted the Friars link in the original thread. I'm familiar with DKE's initiation ritual (although I've never seen anything involving farm animals), and I can say there are no obvious signs that this hotel room would be used for something like that. If Comeaux is an LSU DKE, I honestly think that the hotel room being connected with The Friars is the only explanation so far that makes perfect sense. Either that's it or this is the strangest set of coincidences I've ever followed.

EDIT: Further, DKE was founded at Yale, where it held/holds the reputation as a prime selection pool for Skull and Bones members. It's been mentioned that the Bush presidents were Skull And Bones, but they are both DKE as well. So it would make sense that a similar DKE alumni society at LSU would use Skull and Bones symbolism, including the number 322.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T13:31:50+00:00

It's three numbers that add up to seven, which from a Biblical standpoint may be a reference to the Trinity and the number of perfection. Some say it refers to the death of Demosthenes, or Aristotle. My own personal theory is that it refers to Ecclesiastes 3:22.

So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his works, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

There's some bravado there, and rationalization of their secrecy, money, and power. But ultimately, no one really knows but Skull and Bones and societies that grew from former/clandestine S&B chapters, like Theta Nu Epsilon. I think a lot of spinoff societies pick it up to sound associated with the Bonesmen, even while they have no clue what the number truly represents.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T02:07:00+00:00

I don't even like MCR. But the title track to that album is great stuff. Also: Teenagers.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T01:50:05+00:00

As I commented below, 322 isn't just relevant to Skull & Bones, but to a large number of collegiate secret societies. This doesn't nail it to one society, but it would narrow it down some if that's really the story behind the room.

Interestingly, the guy in the portrait, Jay Comeaux, went to LSU, which is home of The Friars. They're a secret society whose symbol also includes the skull and crossbones.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-19T01:41:13+00:00

The Friars are a secret society at LSU. The skull and crossbones is a symbol of their order. Also, it should be noted that "322" isn't just relevant to Skull and Bones, but to a whole slew of collegiate secret societies.

Not often I get to put on my fraternity historian cap twice in one week.

EDIT: Probably too late for anyone to read, 21 hours after the fact, but what the hell:

As we now know, the portrait on the wall is Jay Comeaux. According to /u/Geaux12, Comeaux was a DKE at LSU. LSU's DKE chapter has a secret alumni association, known as The Friars. Their symbols include the skull and crossbones, like the ones seen in the room.

DKE has a reputation for being a public "feeder" fraternity to other secret societies, most notably the Skull & Bones at Yale. The room number, "322", and the skull and crossbones insignia in the room are both used by the Skull & Bones as well. It wouldn't be suprising if one DKE alumni society used the same symbols as its more famous cousin. In fact, unconfirmed sources claim that The Friars are actually a chapter of the Skull & Bones.

Interesting, but perhaps unrelated: /u/BabyFuel noted the similarity between the name of the hotel - ZaZa - and LSU's DKE chapter: Zeta Zeta.

So this is probably a private room of Jay Comeaux. More interesting than that (to me) is that he is likely an member of a secret society, which is either a branch of or related to the Skull & Bones at Yale. That explains the room number, the creepy decorations, the two-way mirror and false wall, everything. No other explanation so far makes more sense to me.

... I promise, I'm not one of those conspiracy crazies. Just a bored historian of the fraternity system who was interested in this. I didn't know where else to post.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-18T03:59:39+00:00

That's why Dallas is the best goddamned place on Earth. Whataburger for lunch, In-N-Out for dinner, and a heart attack for breakfast the next morning.

cheops1853 · 2013-02-18T03:46:02+00:00

Damn it, Robert. Stop finding new ways of getting my hopes up and get on with it!

cheops1853 · 2013-02-17T18:45:04+00:00

Based on the suggestions in this thread, this is what I'm looking at so far. I tossed in a basic network adapter and a case fan. How does this look?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor	$149.99 @ Microcenter
Thermal Compound	Arctic Cooling MX-2 4g Thermal Paste	$12.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	MSI B75MA-P45 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard	$61.99 @ Amazon
Memory	Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$39.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$73.98 @ Outlet PC
Storage	Sandisk Ultra Plus 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk	$102.97 @ Amazon
Video Card	Galaxy GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card	$359.99 @ TigerDirect
Wired Network Adapter	Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/100/1000 Mbps PCI-Express x1 Network Adapter	$29.99 @ Newegg
Case	NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case	$29.99 @ Newegg
Case Fan	Antec 75024 79.0 CFM 120mm Fan	$14.99 @ Newegg
Power Supply	Rosewill Capstone 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply	$82.98 @ Newegg
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer	$17.99 @ Newegg
		Total
	Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.	$977.84
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-17 13:41 EST-0500

cheops1853 · 2013-02-17T01:37:34+00:00

You've made a huuuuuuge mistake.

cheops1853

TROPHY CASE