I bet you want a ridiculous project to accomplish over the next few days
ScavHunt has commenced! I'm not doing too much this year -- more than last year, less than the previous year -- but of course I read the list over and I've put in some hours at my team's HQ. This year I defected from the FIST (which I still love regardless) to the Grad Student/Alumni team (at least partly because I find it so hilarious that I was invited to join notwithstanding the fact that I am neither a grad student nor an alumna).
Some dedicated people on my team managed to rent one of the unused storefronts on 55th Street for our HQ. Location, location, location! We're right near the dollar store, some Thai restaurants, and the hookah lounge.
If you should happen to review the list and be interested in helping us out, I'd love to hook you up to our awesome site and encourage you to go crazy ....
Some of my favourite items this year (I highly encourage that you Google references you don't recognize):
14. Scav Hunt has the hardest time getting up those impossible hills in Hyde Park. If only we had a funicular to ease our ascent ....
21. Remember when you were in elementary school and you had to make a model of a volcano out of papier-mache and baking soda? Well, do that again. Only really big. There is a limit on the number of points you can win, but there's no limit on how big your volcano can be.
33. Have a potato break the sound barrier.
40. A bust of Abraham Lincoln made out of pennies.
46. I just love puppet shows. Make ready your miniature temple and chinampas because we're reliving Tenochtitlan's former glory as well as its precarious downfall. Of course the show would not be complete without puppet Cortez, puppet Montezuma, and ritual human -- err, puppet -- sacrifice. Catch is, the city has to float.
56. A zeusaphone.
71. Fix the CTA! Duct tape together two different stations of the El.
76. Spend a night at a major Chicago museum, a la From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
79. The prank call of Cthulhu.
89. Greetings, Aperture Science Test Subject #3252613. You need a friend, one that cannot speak, and thus will never threaten to stab you. Please construct a fully-functional weighted companion cube. For the best one, there will be cake.
110. A recreation of Michelangelo's "Birth of Man" or Picasso's "Guernica". In tooth marks. On your back.
124. A computer virus that does little to my computer's ability to function but scares the living hell out of me. [Windows 9.5 points]
135. A robot programmed to love. [3 points per tear that your robot's cuteness draws from my eye. -300 points if 'love' involves a vibrator]
136. The Blues Brothers set future Chicagoans up for a major disappointment: since moving here, I have never once seen enormous groups of strangers moved, as if part of a flash mob, to spontaneously burst in elaborately choreographed song-and-dance numbers in iconic locations. Fix that.
157. Exit, pursued by a bear.
176. Present an appropriate mom with a bumper sticker that says, "My Child is a Nobel Laureate." I think you know what font it needs to be in.
179. A genuine copy of The Pleasure Prison of the B'thuvian Demon Whore. Bring evidence that you have survived it and displayed a level of sophistication that is beyond the ken of the mere hobbyist gamer. [1d20 points] (Yeah, I'm on this one. I may dress up like Krunk, the barbarian from the frozen wastes.)
181. Egon Spengler, painted in the style of Egon Schiele.
184. Wearing a black and white striped shirt, a black toque, and a burlap sack full of money with a big dollar sign on the front, go into that bank. And buy a savings bond. [15 to Life points]
194. Pocket rockets. Pockets made of rockets. Pockets® made of rockets. Rockets made of Pockets®. Rockets made of rockets. Pockets made of Pockets®. Pockets® made of Pockets®.
205. You gotta taste this! This is... oh, it's got a kind of... mmm, it's burny, it's melty... it's not really a smoky taste. It's kind of like a certain... Psh-ah! It's got like this "Ba-boom! Zap!" kind of taste. Don't you think? What would you call that flavor? Lightningy? Yeah! It's lightningy!
215. A blank check with a 19___ pre-printed in the year field. (Do you have one? If so, you should totally send it to me!)
257. A pipe that can both blow bubbles and smoke tobacco. [3 points, 7 bonus points if it can do both at the same time. Double bonus points if it can blow bubbles filled with smoke. As a University of Chicago scholar, you can accomplish this]
258. A tar gun. A feather gun.
260. Build a working lightbulb from scratch.
1008. (ScavOlympics) Life size Battleship®. We'll need six human boat pieces from you, to be divvied up and placed as you wish. You'll need a goodly supply of water balloons.
Some dedicated people on my team managed to rent one of the unused storefronts on 55th Street for our HQ. Location, location, location! We're right near the dollar store, some Thai restaurants, and the hookah lounge.
If you should happen to review the list and be interested in helping us out, I'd love to hook you up to our awesome site and encourage you to go crazy ....
Some of my favourite items this year (I highly encourage that you Google references you don't recognize):
14. Scav Hunt has the hardest time getting up those impossible hills in Hyde Park. If only we had a funicular to ease our ascent ....
21. Remember when you were in elementary school and you had to make a model of a volcano out of papier-mache and baking soda? Well, do that again. Only really big. There is a limit on the number of points you can win, but there's no limit on how big your volcano can be.
33. Have a potato break the sound barrier.
40. A bust of Abraham Lincoln made out of pennies.
46. I just love puppet shows. Make ready your miniature temple and chinampas because we're reliving Tenochtitlan's former glory as well as its precarious downfall. Of course the show would not be complete without puppet Cortez, puppet Montezuma, and ritual human -- err, puppet -- sacrifice. Catch is, the city has to float.
56. A zeusaphone.
71. Fix the CTA! Duct tape together two different stations of the El.
76. Spend a night at a major Chicago museum, a la From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
79. The prank call of Cthulhu.
89. Greetings, Aperture Science Test Subject #3252613. You need a friend, one that cannot speak, and thus will never threaten to stab you. Please construct a fully-functional weighted companion cube. For the best one, there will be cake.
110. A recreation of Michelangelo's "Birth of Man" or Picasso's "Guernica". In tooth marks. On your back.
124. A computer virus that does little to my computer's ability to function but scares the living hell out of me. [Windows 9.5 points]
135. A robot programmed to love. [3 points per tear that your robot's cuteness draws from my eye. -300 points if 'love' involves a vibrator]
136. The Blues Brothers set future Chicagoans up for a major disappointment: since moving here, I have never once seen enormous groups of strangers moved, as if part of a flash mob, to spontaneously burst in elaborately choreographed song-and-dance numbers in iconic locations. Fix that.
157. Exit, pursued by a bear.
176. Present an appropriate mom with a bumper sticker that says, "My Child is a Nobel Laureate." I think you know what font it needs to be in.
179. A genuine copy of The Pleasure Prison of the B'thuvian Demon Whore. Bring evidence that you have survived it and displayed a level of sophistication that is beyond the ken of the mere hobbyist gamer. [1d20 points] (Yeah, I'm on this one. I may dress up like Krunk, the barbarian from the frozen wastes.)
181. Egon Spengler, painted in the style of Egon Schiele.
184. Wearing a black and white striped shirt, a black toque, and a burlap sack full of money with a big dollar sign on the front, go into that bank. And buy a savings bond. [15 to Life points]
194. Pocket rockets. Pockets made of rockets. Pockets® made of rockets. Rockets made of Pockets®. Rockets made of rockets. Pockets made of Pockets®. Pockets® made of Pockets®.
205. You gotta taste this! This is... oh, it's got a kind of... mmm, it's burny, it's melty... it's not really a smoky taste. It's kind of like a certain... Psh-ah! It's got like this "Ba-boom! Zap!" kind of taste. Don't you think? What would you call that flavor? Lightningy? Yeah! It's lightningy!
215. A blank check with a 19___ pre-printed in the year field. (Do you have one? If so, you should totally send it to me!)
257. A pipe that can both blow bubbles and smoke tobacco. [3 points, 7 bonus points if it can do both at the same time. Double bonus points if it can blow bubbles filled with smoke. As a University of Chicago scholar, you can accomplish this]
258. A tar gun. A feather gun.
260. Build a working lightbulb from scratch.
1008. (ScavOlympics) Life size Battleship®. We'll need six human boat pieces from you, to be divvied up and placed as you wish. You'll need a goodly supply of water balloons.