As many of you probably do not know, our annual Scavenger Hunt takes place this weekend. In my humble opinion it is one of the coolest events of the year, even inspiring a quasi-religious devotion among some participants.
You can find the ScavHunt Website here. It includes past lists, the rules (for example "4. Props. All props must be mad props."), and even past websites. This one was particularly funny.
For those of you who have never heard of ScavHunt, for shame! It's one of the most important things we do.
FYI - Really Important Things about the University of Chicago:
- Core Curriculum
- Overall academic experience best described as "really damn hard."
- Scav Hunt
The Scav Hunt - An Overview
Some components of ScavHunt do not change very much from year to year. I will talk about all of them. I will be making use of last year's list, which you might want to print out or at least have nearby.
1. The Scav Olympics - Bizarre games created in the bizarre minds of the Scav Hunt Judges. (Lists of past judges are here and here.) Last year (see page four of the list) the events included starting a fire with no hands, Ye Olde Sock 'Em Bopper Jouste (in cardboard armor, on broomstick steeds), ultimate Street Fighter Thumb Wars (hosted by M. Bison), and more. The year before the events included a 'hack-off' (think Zoolander but with hackey sacks), a refrigerator toss (see item #8 - it's too obscene to reproduce on a family blog like this one), and a tossing competition using an atlatl. (Sorry, no pictures from the Scav website.)
2. The Road Trip - Every year a small group from each participating team goes on a road trip. As stated in the Scav Hunt Rules, road trips cannot be more than 1000 miles (round trip), but that gives us quite a bit of space. Last year the road trip took participants to Branson, MO and then to Little Rock, AR. Road trips also have a theme. This is important. If you are reading last year's list, you should turn your attention to item number 44. As I heard from one of the Scav Hunt Judges last year, they were driving through Missouri and Arkansas trying to find a theme for the Road Trip. They knew (since they were in Arkansas) that they needed to involved Bill Clinton (obviously!) when all of a sudden they passed a nuclear waste disposal facility. Immediately it was clear to this judge: the theme for the Road Trip would be Mutant Presidents - "Jabba the Taft, George W. Bush with Kuato Cheney [this is a reference to Total Recall], a Martin van Buren who is more sideburn than man [i.e. Chewbacca Van Buren] and of course, Octo-Lincoln [i.e., eight-armed Lincoln], who drive around in their trusty vehicle, the General Ford." The Road Trip involves a large number of items which are not concentrated in any one place on the list. Looking quickly over last year's list I think items 4, 16, 18, 44, 60, 62, 92, 95, 96, 126, 127, 134, 142 and 175 are for the Road Trip team and no doubt there are more which I have not seen. You will see, for example, that item 95 awards four points if Jabba the Taft is photographed or videotaped "licking the caboose at Toad Suck Square." Toad Suck Road is in Conway, Arkansas, so Toad Suck Square cannot be far away (though I can't find it on the google maps image).
In 2005 the road trip basically took a tour around Lake Michigan, stopping in Madison, Milwaukee, several places in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and then back to Chicago via Grand Rapids and Indiana. If you are looking at the 2005 list, the item to look for is #196 - all Road Trip participants were characters from Disney cartoons and the car itself was Monstro the whale. Other road trip items can be found at items 46, 86, 127, 130, 163, 173, and 190.
3. The Scav Party - Always held on Friday night in the center of the quad. Every year the party has a theme, but this is given to Scav Hunt teams by the Judges at their first meeting (or, if you have been reading along in the rules, "The Captains' Hootenanny"). The party itself was item 47 in 2006 and 181 in 2005. Normally this is a great deal of fun, though we will reserve judgment this year before hearing back from our informants about how it actually went. Word is that the party will be run by ORCSA. We might make a variety of comments about this, but we'll be diplomatic and say that ORCSA is not known for throwing (or supervising) great parties, if you get what we mean... In their defense they are probably just following orders.
4. The Items - I have saved this for last because, despite all the fun which can be had with the three items above, the meat of the Scav Hunt is in the rest of the list (as I hope you have seen for yourself by now by reading it). Another note - the Dean of Admissions frequently features in at least one item on the Scav Hunt list (he is most frequently called "The Dean of Love," if you are searching for the items). Hours, days, weeks and months go into coming up with the Scav Hunt list. It is frequently an inspired thing of beauty, best illustrated through the many, many, many pictures available here.
Some good items from 2006:
#21. A Celebrity Death Match between two Core authors [i.e., Locke v. Hobbes, Locke v. Durkheim, Marx v. Aristotle, &c.]
#26. Show that the Dean of Love [see above] really does love your mom, or your grandmom and has the t-shirt to prove it.
#89. Find the most radioactive place you can get on campus without breaking any rules, laws or safety regulations. Record the radiation level in mu-rad/hour.
#96. An Obama-signed Obama sign. A Keyes-signed Keyes sign. An Obama-signed Keyes sign. A Keyes-signed Obama sign. [Note: just about everyone in the world has probably forgotten that this man ran against Obama in Illinois, despite not actually being a REAL resident of Illinois (and in case you are wondering, the final vote was 63%/27% favoring Obama).]
#177. A playable copy of Dick Cheney's Duck Hunt for the NES.
#221. The Ayn Rand-McNally Atlas of Hyde Park.
#272. Playable 3-D Tetris.
Good items from 2005:
#23. Using only a blood pressure pump and an alarm clock, construct a fully functioning lie detector.
#32. A dirty limerick about semaphore, in semaphore.
#88. Religions of the World Breakfast cereal, with bonus points for fun kids games on the back.
#99. A license plate with a registration number which is both a. uninterrupted by letters and b. prime.
#158. Vegan haggis. Yum! Yum! Yum!
#200. Given an x in the set of milkshakes and a y in the set of boys such that if the limit (as x approaches y) of (x-y) = 0 then Abs(y-e) is less than Abs(my yard). Prove that my milkshake is better than yours. [The list itself is written with the proper notation.]
#203. A Will to Power Bar.
And of course there are many, many, many more (this one is too good to leave out). We hope you now have some idea of the flavor of what is to come this weekend. We hope to provide you with pictures!
