Cults/Secret Societies

A subject that I seem to be hearing a lot about lately is on cults and secret societies among us. There was the whole Scientology thing, made most public by the recent South Park episodes. I also happened to read Angels and Demons a couple months ago (written by the same author of Da Vinci Code), which talks a lot about secret societies dating back hundreds of years in history. And just this morning, I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune talking about how most of the sushi restaurants we eat at, get their sushi from a company that is closely connected to a Korean religious cult.

I guess I always believed that these things existed, but never really thought about them much. They made for good stories in movies (like The Skulls) or TV (the Simpsons' Stonecutters episode), but I just figured that kind of stuff was exaggerated for effect. In my mind, either those cults or secret societies used to exist and aren't really active anymore, or maybe they still exist, but don't really have any influence on "mainstream" society.

Now, I'm not so sure that I should take the subject so lightly. The sushi-Korean cult connection was especially surprising, since I love sushi and I go to sushi restaurants pretty often. Last weekend I went to Mirai in the city for the first time, and loved the food, but now after reading the Trib article, all these nagging thoughts are popping up in my mind.

When I was enjoying all those delightful fatty tuna rolls, was I providing financial support to some wacko who holds mass weddings and believes he is the Messiah? Worse yet, what if one day these crazy cult people decide to mess with my food in some mind-controlling or mass poisoning campaign, how would I know? Is it too late, am I already programmed to assassinate the Malaysian president at a fashion show at a later date?

There was also this Scientology article I read a few weeks ago, where this investigative reporter guy joined the group for a week and then reported on his experience. I don't know the credibility of this guy, but some of the accounts are very disturbing. And I'm not just talking about the wild stories they believe in, or the fact that the "religion" was started by a science-fiction writer, it goes way farther than that.

He describes about how everyone who joins has to reveal all their personal secrets, which go into a file that they can bring out to blackmail or discredit the person if they try to quit. Or how they have trained experts available at helping you max out your credit to pay for Scientology "treatments". How once you get sucked in, they can pretty much make you do slave labor as punishments if you piss off any higher ranking members (or as they call it, levels of Operating Thetans).

Then there's the discussion of secret societies like the Illuminati and Freemasons in Angels and Demons. Based on the inaccuracies and misleading facts I learned about when researching Da Vinci Code, plus the fact that it's a fiction novel, I would probably put the least stock in what's in this book.

Even so, I think some of the general "facts" mentioned are worth considering and thinking about. People formed these secret societies for a reason, and the fact that they have survived and perhaps thrived for so long says a lot. They obviously know what it takes to support themselves financially, and assert their interests in the political system.

How much of our banking system is run by those in these secret societies? What about the chancellors and professors at major universities, are they members too? Is it true that our senators, governors, and even our Presidents are members of these societies? Did they get to power because of their secret ties, and are their actions as government officials, bankers, CEO's, professors, etc., heavily influenced by the interests of these societies they belong to?

I don't know if I'll ever get those questions answered, but all the doubts that come up when I think about these things leave me feeling unsettled. I could be paranoid, but if any of it's true, I wonder if I could even do anything about it anyways.

Am I going to shun the entire educational system because I think I'll get brainwashed by cult ideology? Should I boycott all banks and store all my money in the form of gold bars, so that I'm not supporting some secret society? Most importantly, am I really going to stop eating sushi?

The answer is, of course, no way, I love sushi. Gonna keep eating it until I die, whether it's of natural causes or as a victim of religious cult's purging mission. Yes, I guess it's true, as they say, "ignorance is bliss".

Who Are The Ad Wizards That Came Up With That One?

Everyone knows that sex sells, and it is no surprise that plenty of commercials have always used sex appeal to sell their products. But one thing I've been noticing recently is that the way that it is used in more recent commercials has kind of changed, at least I think they have.

From what I remember, people used to always criticize beer commercials for always showing regular guys surrounded by hot chicks as they drank Bud Light or Miller Lite (I just noticed that, why does one spell it "Light" and the other spell it "Lite"?). The criticism was that the commercials were misleading and superficial - just because you drink a certain beer, doesn't mean you are going to get a lot of chicks!

I'm not going to argue that the message is stupid, but if you think about the way those commercials presented the message, they were kind of making those suggestions in a "subtle" way, if you can call it that. What they do is show the given situation in the commercial - and then it is up to the viewer to make that connection in their mind, presumably on a subconscious level. They don't come out and just say "hey, if you drink our beer/use our product, hot girls will be all over you", instead they simply show you that scenario and hope that you put it together and figure out the message. Not that it's a huge leap or anything.

Comparing that to some of the commercials I see today, I get the sense that the old advertising philosophy has been replaced by a much more overt, "beat you over the head" approach. Now, we see a guy using Axe body spray, immediately leading to a hot chick in an elevator, his friend's mother, or a bunch of cheerleaders jumping on him. Or we see a guy use a certain kind of aftershave or razor blade, then meets his roommate's girlfriend, who is immediately all over him, rubbing his face and calling him "Francesco". There's even a Harley Davidson commercial where a girl dates a bunch of guys but rejects them all, until the guy in a Harley comes along, and of course he scores with her.

I'm just waiting for a commercial for Microsoft Office to come out, where they show a guy using Corel Spreadsheet or something and getting rejected by every girl in the office. Then he starts using Excel, and all of a sudden the ladies are lining up to pivot his tables.

Whether it's a commercial for body spray, aftershave, breath mints, chewing gum, a motorcycle, brand of whiskey, or whatever it is, the message in these ads are much more clearly stated: "Use our product, and you will hook up." They don't just pose the scenario and let your subconscious mind make the connection, they basically come out and just tell you exactly what to think outright. The message is not just implied like it used to be, it's basically stated in a way that you have to be retarded to not understand.

Maybe I have overlooked old commercials that have done this in the past, but as I was sayinig, it seems like this is more of a recent trend. Ironically, I almost think beer commercials are more tame nowadays than they used to be, more about making you laugh than pressuring you to drink a brand to be socially accepted.

If it is indeed a recent trend, I'm not sure what exactly that says about our country's development as a whole. Does this mean that advertisers have given up on trying to make us think with their ads, by cleverly placing thoughts in the back of our minds? Have they decided that we are all like overgrown children who can be told what to think?

Maybe a more interesting question is, what's worse - when advertisers try to be sneaky and appeal to your subconscious, or when they don't even try to be subtle anymore, and simply make heavily exaggerated claims that can't be backed up? On the one hand, it would be nice to feel like they respect our intelligence enough for them to believe that they have to be clever in their marketing strategy. But then, if it's the same message they're trying to send, then why bother putting up the charade? No point in beating around the bush right?

One Ring To Rule Them All

Thanks to Chras's getting of tickets, and Anuj's driving/mini-grill, we had our first White Sox tailgate of the year, before watching the Ring Ceremony and the second game of the season vs. the Indians. It was a terrible game (Sox got blown out 8-2), a lot colder and windier than we expected, but everything else was perfect.

It's not often that you get to see your team receive its championship rings in person, but that was exactly what we got to see. Getting to remember the feelings of last year's run was great enough in itself, but I think the Sox promoters really did a great job of making it special. There was the cool highlight videos playing on the big screen, the free "replica" ring given to the first 20,000 fans to the stadium (it's nicer than it sounds), and the F-16's flying over the stadium after the national anthem, which were all very nice.

But the best moment for me the introduction of Aaron Rowand. If I had a favorite player from last year, it would probably have been Rowand, for his amazing defensive plays and just overall hustle. So of course I was sad when they traded him in the offseason. I won't write a whole long tribute for him like Dee Brown, but it was definitely cool to see him make it back for the ring ceremony. Judging by the crowd's reaction, I think a lot of other Sox fans felt the same way too.

Anyways, I won't write that much more about the experience, having already written plenty about the Sox last year. So here are some pictures (taken by my new phone, in case you were wondering):

Dee Brown



The other night, I was watching Dee Brown compete in the three point contest for college seniors, leading up to the Final Four, and it occurred to me that it would be the last time I'd see him in that Illinois #11 jersey competing on the court. I thought it would be a good time to write a goodbye for my favorite player of all time.

Since I started following Illini basketball, there's been a lot of good players. No doubt that Dee is among the best of them, but I don't think anyone could say that he was the best on the court. Up until this year (the weakest Illinois team during his 4 year career), Dee Brown has never been the best player on the court. For one, his backcourt partner from day one of stepping on campus as a freshman, ended up being the #3 overall pick in last year's NBA draft. But even if you don't count Deron Williams, he also was far behind Luther Head, now on the Rockets, and Brian Cook, now on the Lakers.

Dee's never been our greatest 3 point shooter, rebounder, passer, or dunker. He was usually the shortest guy on the court too, which is kind of a problem when you play basketball. The one thing he was known for was being fast, with the nickname "one-man fast break". But being fast alone doesn't explain how he got to be so popular.

It's impressive, if you think about it. Growing up around here, everyone's favorite player was Michael Jordan, no question about it. But that makes sense because he was by far the best player in the league. Yes, he had the personality too, but if he wasn't the runaway MVP every year, he wouldn't have been as universally worshipped.

Some people just have that extra charisma that you can't necessarily explain. Dee is obviously one of those people. It's not like other players haven't worn headbands before, or worn long socks, but so many of us have come to almost seen it as a Dee Brown trademark. Other players have popped their jersey for the camera in the past and gotten criticized for taunting - when Dee does it, people love it so much that it ends up on the cover of Sports Illustrated:



I guess what I'm saying is, there's no single thing about Dee Brown that makes him my favorite player, and such a great representative of our University. I loved watching a lot of Illini players over the years, and I was always sad to see each one of them go. Not only the future NBA players I mentioned before, but also guys like Marcus Griffin or Sean Harrington too. And if you ask me, nobody was more exciting to watch on the court than Frankie Williams. Even this year's other senior, James Augustine, for all his frustrating foul trouble, will be missed a lot for his flashes of brilliance and how he seemed to win the opening tip every single game.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Dee is a god or anything. He's had his share of frustrating moments, taken his share of terrible shots, and I can't argue with people who say he's overrated, because he probably does get more credit for some things than he deserves.

I don't know if he'll succeed in the NBA, either. Not only because of his height, but his shot is too inconsistent and his midrange game is too weak at this point. At the same time, he has so many intangibles that I wouldn't be surprised if he worked his way into a star. Right now it doesn't look good though.



But when all is said and done, I don't think I'll miss any player more than Dee. We will get players with more talent, who will put up much better numbers and may even lead us to a National Championship someday, but nobody can ever replace #11. Goodbye, Dee, and good luck in the NBA. Whether you make it or not, you'll always be our beloved Illini.

New Phone

As I mentioned in the last blog, I got a new phone recently. For some people they switch phones pretty frequently. But I tend to keep mine for years at a time, so this is kind of a big deal. People know me. I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

What prompted the change was that the headsets on my old phone kept breaking. I went through at least 3 or 4 new headsets in the life of this phone. I blame the design of the plug, with all the little flimsy pins and awkward hooks on the side of the connector. I know they need it for data capabilities and stuff, but it was much better when it was just like a simple mini-headphone jack.

Ironically (or stupidly, depending on how you look at it), my new phone uses the same exact headset as my old phone, so I guess I can look forward to having the same problems in the future. But first, more on my headset replacement saga.



Both headsets pictured above were ordered online during the last couple weeks, after my last one stopped working. They were both advertised as OEM, had the exact same model number, Nokia HS-5, and the hardware looks the same, but outside of that, the two could not be more different. You can see the packaging is different, but more importantly, one works like it's supposed to and the other one is absolutely horrible.

The one on the left was ordered off eBay, from some vendor in Hong Kong or China. It sucks. The sound in the earpiece is all echo-ey, the person you're talking to gets buzzing noises, and if you try to jiggle the connection, the call gets dropped. The one on the right, I got off Amazon. Works perfectly, no complaints at all.

You would think that a headset is one of the easiest things to make as far as electronics goes. It's just a wire terminated into pins at one end and a speaker at the other. Can't really mess up design that badly right? But I guess you can, and quality still makes a big difference.

To make me more mad, I thought at least I paid a lot less for the eBay one, but after going back and adding it up, I paid pretty much exactly the same for both. The eBay headset was something like $1.99 BuyItNow Price + $7 shipping + $2 insurance = $10.99 total. Insurance was mandatory too, when did sellers start pulling that crap? Amazon, the list price was $8.95 + about $1.50 for shipping and $.60 for tax = $11.15 total. Would have saved on tax too, if Illinois didn't happen to be one of the chosen states.

I always thought it was weird how the market culture on eBay or late night infomercials are so different from "traditional" retailers, at least in the way they price things. You don't usually see Amazon.com or BestBuy.com mark down the prices on their products and then jack you by rolling the cost into the shipping and insurance. In fact Amazon offers free shipping for a lot of orders and still has a pretty low price on everything.

So why do the buyers on eBay let sellers get away with all the BS shipping charges and mandatory insurance? There's no way it costs that much to send a little piece of wire to my house. It's not like it even got here that fast either. And if I wanted my shipment to be "insured", I would have asked for it. Am I the only one who thinks it's mentally retarded to pay $2 for insurance in case my $2 item gets lost?

Anyways, moral of my original story, if you're buying a headset for your cell phone, don't trust Chinese people on eBay. Not only will they sell you a terrible product, but you can get the the same thing, except better quality, for almost the same price on Amazon.

As for my new phone, it's pretty similar to my old phone. Looks similar, about the same size and shape. But it has a lot more features - 1.3 MP camera, takes videos, stereo mp3 player, MMC flash card slot, bluetooth and infrared connections, and more. My favorite feature, though, is that it lets you use any mp3 as your ringer. I think it goes without saying which song I copied onto my new phone first.

I'd been holding back on getting a new phone because most of the new models have cameras, and camera phones are banned from my work facility. But this one got such good ratings and had all the features I wanted, so I just had to pull the trigger. I guess I'll just have to keep it in my car when I go to work or leave it at home during the day.

On the plus side, I'm hopeful that the convenience of having a camera with me at all times will lead to more pictures taken and posted here. Can't say for sure if that will happen, or promise that the pictures will be interesting, but at least I know a blog with pictures is better than one that's just filled 100% with my tedious writing.

One last note, I know I've ripped on a lot of companies before, for being shady or having bad customer service, but in an effort to be a little more fair, here's a positive recommendation for once. I've been with 3 different cell phone providers now, and in my experience, I'm definitely most satisfied with T-Mobile.

They haven't been perfect, but overall, I have to say they are much better than Cingular or PrimeCo/US Cellular. You'll have to check for yourself if their coverage is good in your area, but I get very few dropped calls where I live.

More importantly, their customer service is very good. The plans and contracts are pretty straightforward, without a lot of the silly hidden fees I had with the other providers. And their reps at the stores are generally pretty helpful.

If you call up 611, they do give you that silly Kramer-Movie-Phone-esque "Why don't you just tell me your question" system that we all hate. But you can always press 0 and go straight to a live person, which is what I do, and from there the people are usually nice and knowledgable too.

So yeah, if you are completely confused by all the wireless provider commercials out there that accuse each other of having dropped calls, fees shorty fees, or bad customer service, that's my opinion. T-Mobile gets a Dudo509 blogspot thumbs up.