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May 18, 2007 1:43 PM Subscribe
The 2007 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt is concluded. Here is this year's hilarious and often cryptic list of items. [pdf!]
[Official Scav Hunt Page] [U. Chicago News.]
[Wikipedia.]
Cool. From the Wikipedia page I see there are two documentaries on the Scav Hunt -- The Hunt [2002] and Scavengers [2007].
posted by ericb at 2:06 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by ericb at 2:06 PM on May 18, 2007
my friend Joe used to be involved with this, and I saw some pictures of him in a few of those links. Hooray, I'm two degrees of separation from an FPP!
posted by jrb223 at 2:34 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by jrb223 at 2:34 PM on May 18, 2007
Hey, wait. Baby_Balrog lives in Hyde Park? wtf? and since when?
I propose a Jimmy's or Ida Noyes meetup when I'm back in Chicago at the end of June. Screw those north side trixies.
posted by felix betachat at 2:49 PM on May 18, 2007
I propose a Jimmy's or Ida Noyes meetup when I'm back in Chicago at the end of June. Screw those north side trixies.
posted by felix betachat at 2:49 PM on May 18, 2007
someone I know was involved in this - she's in the 'Phoenix Wright at the Law School' YouTube bit.
posted by mephron at 2:50 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by mephron at 2:50 PM on May 18, 2007
This is not a number--this is an item! Craft us a soap bubble that would scare the bejeezus out of Patrick McGoohan. [6 points]
Pure genius.
posted by felix betachat at 2:52 PM on May 18, 2007
Pure genius.
posted by felix betachat at 2:52 PM on May 18, 2007
I never really did ScavHunt because they never included anything I could find between the couch cushions while smoking weed. You always had to like, go places and shit.
There's a shitload of Chicago folks on here, I've noticed.
posted by The Straightener at 3:15 PM on May 18, 2007
There's a shitload of Chicago folks on here, I've noticed.
posted by The Straightener at 3:15 PM on May 18, 2007
Wait, Shoreland's still on the list. I thought they sold it a couple years ago? I fucking loved Shoreland BEST DORM EVER.
posted by The Straightener at 3:16 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by The Straightener at 3:16 PM on May 18, 2007
Not Chicago, but a Decaturian. If we get something going, make it a weekend and I might just be able to make it. I get sick of the only MeFi in the area being my ex-wife. A little weak in the enjoyable socialization arena...
posted by Samizdata at 3:18 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by Samizdata at 3:18 PM on May 18, 2007
They sold the Shoreland, but under terms that allow them to keep it open as a dorm for a while. The University just exercised their option to keep it open through 2008-2009, so it's not being turned into condos just yet.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:56 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:56 PM on May 18, 2007
I was there. It rocked. I played as an alum for the Snell-Hitchcock team. We won!
I was captain of this team for two years (we won then, too), so I would say I am a pretty die-hard scavvie. My boyfriend took two days off work for it.
This is one of those phenomena that is truly impossible to imagine from the outside. One can read the list and get a sense of some of the items, but the mindset of actually doing scav is a much more intense and immediate experience. You eat poorly, you sleep very little, you are completely wrapped up in the quasi-nationalism of team spirit, you are doing a million silly things all at once, you lose your voice from yelling, you have way too much fun to really think about the insanity of some of the things you are doing. It is for me a deep and almost spiritual form of play.
This year I was less involved but still managed to make some lasting bonds, act foolish in any number of ways, and end up exhausted and oddly disappointed to return to reality. I hope I am still doing this when I am forty, if my team will still have me back.
posted by mai at 4:02 PM on May 18, 2007
I was captain of this team for two years (we won then, too), so I would say I am a pretty die-hard scavvie. My boyfriend took two days off work for it.
This is one of those phenomena that is truly impossible to imagine from the outside. One can read the list and get a sense of some of the items, but the mindset of actually doing scav is a much more intense and immediate experience. You eat poorly, you sleep very little, you are completely wrapped up in the quasi-nationalism of team spirit, you are doing a million silly things all at once, you lose your voice from yelling, you have way too much fun to really think about the insanity of some of the things you are doing. It is for me a deep and almost spiritual form of play.
This year I was less involved but still managed to make some lasting bonds, act foolish in any number of ways, and end up exhausted and oddly disappointed to return to reality. I hope I am still doing this when I am forty, if my team will still have me back.
posted by mai at 4:02 PM on May 18, 2007
mai - I see that teams often have a common affiliation -- residence hall, etc. On average how many people are on an individual team and how many people overall participate? Or, is that difficult to ascertain?
posted by ericb at 4:14 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by ericb at 4:14 PM on May 18, 2007
#87 ftw.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:56 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by Space Kitty at 4:56 PM on May 18, 2007
I remember the hunt from 1987 when I was a 2nd year living at Woodward Court. We ended up road-tripping through Indiana, Michigan and into Canada. We made it back with a one-eyed piglet, a bale of hay, a book of matches from Hell, Michigan, a marriage license, and a bunch of other contraband. It was a tremendous time - I'm glad to see that 20 years later it is still going strong!
posted by scblackman at 5:04 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by scblackman at 5:04 PM on May 18, 2007
97: We give you a piece of chalk. You give us the flow chart of the history of rock according to Dewey
Finn—from memory, of course. Be ready to answer questions about it too, ’cause it’s a long way to
the top if you wanna rock ’n’ roll.
Calcareous nannoplankton Get It On and makes more nannoplankton. They then secrete calcareous plates called coccoliths around their Al Green beings --> From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, they get eaten. All the plankton that get to the bottom of the sea floor go there in the time honored way: Jumping Someone Else's Train, the feces train. Without poop, they would dissolve as they passed through the calcite compensation depth. We call this The Cure. For Preservation! --> After a Long Long While, since Time Is On their Side, You Got Them Rocking! Through Continental Drift, the trillions of calcareous nannoplankton become nannofossils, and become a rock of such proportions, it's a Twenty Flight Rock. Of Chalk! Not even the gods like the Rolling Stones are this awesome!--> After rising into Mountains in the Mist, such as Dover Cliffs or along the Rockies from the Western Interior Cretaceous Seaway, the chalk is quarried into Pebbles and Marbles, or a Sample in a Jar in my kick-ass laboratory. But most rockin' is when the rock! is given to little boys! for writin' and touchin'! Instead these little boys practice Chalkdust Torture, never dreaming of the Waves, or the Sparkle of the sun,or the Song the nannoplankton Heard the Ocean Sing as they drifted among the Phishes approximately 50 meters below the sea surface in the lower part of the photic zone up to 216.5 million years ago.
Like that? Hmmm.. probably should set nerdliness amp to "chill out"...
posted by barchan at 5:54 PM on May 18, 2007
Finn—from memory, of course. Be ready to answer questions about it too, ’cause it’s a long way to
the top if you wanna rock ’n’ roll.
Calcareous nannoplankton Get It On and makes more nannoplankton. They then secrete calcareous plates called coccoliths around their Al Green beings --> From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, they get eaten. All the plankton that get to the bottom of the sea floor go there in the time honored way: Jumping Someone Else's Train, the feces train. Without poop, they would dissolve as they passed through the calcite compensation depth. We call this The Cure. For Preservation! --> After a Long Long While, since Time Is On their Side, You Got Them Rocking! Through Continental Drift, the trillions of calcareous nannoplankton become nannofossils, and become a rock of such proportions, it's a Twenty Flight Rock. Of Chalk! Not even the gods like the Rolling Stones are this awesome!--> After rising into Mountains in the Mist, such as Dover Cliffs or along the Rockies from the Western Interior Cretaceous Seaway, the chalk is quarried into Pebbles and Marbles, or a Sample in a Jar in my kick-ass laboratory. But most rockin' is when the rock! is given to little boys! for writin' and touchin'! Instead these little boys practice Chalkdust Torture, never dreaming of the Waves, or the Sparkle of the sun,or the Song the nannoplankton Heard the Ocean Sing as they drifted among the Phishes approximately 50 meters below the sea surface in the lower part of the photic zone up to 216.5 million years ago.
Like that? Hmmm.. probably should set nerdliness amp to "chill out"...
posted by barchan at 5:54 PM on May 18, 2007
A friend of mine graduated from U Chicago about 10 years ago and I remember him telling me about the hunt. One of the years he was there, an item on the list was "legally change your name to 'The Admiral'" and someone did it. Fun stuff.
posted by sanko at 7:04 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by sanko at 7:04 PM on May 18, 2007
One of my friends was on the third place team this year. He's an alum and was part of the road trip team, so he traveled to Carhenge, the Corn Palace, and various other places dressed as a Kevin Costner character. I was jealous.
posted by MsMolly at 7:18 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by MsMolly at 7:18 PM on May 18, 2007
I still have Woodward's hand-sewn quilt of the flags of all the former soviet republics from 2000. Good lord, I'm glad YouTube didn't exist then.
posted by nonane at 8:04 PM on May 18, 2007
posted by nonane at 8:04 PM on May 18, 2007
Oh god, I just watched YouTube videos of this year's results for 3 hours.
posted by blasdelf at 5:27 AM on May 19, 2007
posted by blasdelf at 5:27 AM on May 19, 2007
Gee, when I was at U. of C. all we had was the Lascivious Costume Ball. My band played at the last and apparently most infamous of the traditional LCBs: The largest-ever Lascivious Costume Ball was held in May 1984, complete with strippers, “nearly naked” dancing, and 2000 participants. The following year, the Administration prohibited the Ball. It returned in a smaller, milder form in 1987. Closest I'll ever come to attending an orgy, I think.
posted by stargell at 9:04 AM on May 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by stargell at 9:04 AM on May 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
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After a couple pitchers I sauntered up to the table and was like, "Hey! How do I get to be a judge?" Actually, it was probably more like, "Ssshey - Hosha doee beyah jush?"
Anyway, one neck-bearded fellow stood up and shook my hand, and said,
"Well, there are actually three rather complex parts to becoming a new judge. First, and this is usually carried out before the beginning of the semester, -"
at which point I walked away.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 1:50 PM on May 18, 2007 [2 favorites]