Blogging the Hunt '05: Post 6. Thru SUN. 12:00 AM

EVENT

Saturday, Jess and I stopped at McDonalds on the way to HQ, and once there, put the finishing touches on Halliburton-Judson for:

SCAV OLYMPICS

2:00 PM on Saturday 7 May 2005 on the Classics Quad. For each competition, 30 points will be awarded for first place; 20 points for second place; 10 points for third place; 2 points for (3 < x < 9)th place.

ScavOlympics has gone through a number of incarnations over the years... for years it was held on the Midway just prior to Judgment, making Sunday sometimes painfully long, and effectively crippling smaller teams as they tried to present members for the events and gather their items together at the same time.

This was a primary motivation for shaking things up in recent years. The first evolution was ScavOlympics that were more physical and less mechanical... that required less preparation. For two years there were Wet Olympics and Ice Olympics, respectively. Last year, there were both Wet Olympics and Dry Olympics, but both were held on Saturday. This year, being relatively event light, featured only the one Olympics, held on Saturday. This was fortunate, due to some judgy errors in predicting the time for these events.

The theme, by the way, if them you must call it, was 'Projectilimpics.'

We began with the hack-off:

#6. Break out the footbags; it's a hack-off. Dirtbag to cepa, it's your choice. Each team will submit a circle of three to seven persons. Winners will be determined based on most impressive sequence of moves within a successful hack; it doesn't count if you can't pass it on. Ties will be decided by a game of ZAP.

This is the sort of thing I'd expect U of C students to be terrible at, but they were actually pretty good. This even also gave birth to my favorite quote from this years Hunt: "No fair! They've got hippies."

#1. Throw, launch, project, or otherwise send a watermelon as far as you can. [0 points if the watermelon breaks. 3 bonus points if all team members involved are dressed as Gallagher. 1 bonus point if one of the team members is actually Gallagher]

I was landed with this item, and didn't really know what to do for it. It's amazing how two one syllable words can cripple your ability to judge an item. In this case, "or send." Most of the teams had some sort of gimmick for there watermelon, such as running it to their team HQ or biking it to the top of the Hancock. My favorite of these, however, was the Vegans, who sent their melon to Don Ho in Hawaii, complete with online tracking.

Of those who actually projected their melons, Pierce had rigged a "cannon" which would have been terribly dangerous if it hadn't been thoroughly unignitable (you know I love you, Pierce). Palevsky funneled their watermelon down a sheet of plastic that kept moving, end to end, until it was out of sight. Several teams simply hurled their melons, often smashing them. The best of these attempts was Snell-Hitchcoch who had a Heisman looking athete-guy hurl their melon into the air, where it was then caught by team members flanking an enormous tarp.

The most viscerally stunning melon toss was F.I.S.T. They'd run a zipline from the tower atop Ryerson down to the street level of University, where it was affixed to the hitch on a pickup. The melon had been enclosed in sacks in a basket, which was hanging from several reels. As the basket raced down the line, picking up obnoxious speed, people scattered from beneath it. The basket tore through a banner lifted to stop it and plowed through a flower bed.

But the melon was uninjured.

Helen Keller Twister. Bring your blindfolded teammember to participate in a silent game of Twister. It might be a good idea to bring an Anne Sullivan, too. Your Anne may only touch your own Helen. Keep your Annes to yourself.

I don't think anyone expected this event to be "intense," but as teems crowded around to see their Helens twisted into ridiculous shapes, and occasional charges of murmuring (none of which amounted to anything), it seemed a fair mock-up of professional wrestling.

Here we moved into several less notable events, at least to my way of thinking. In some cases, I didn't even get to see the event:

An egg-drop event. Name that cheese. The refrigerator toss (which was cancelled, due to Frion). S&M Secretary type off (they used Harry Potter slash, by the way). Musical triplets. Another spin-sit-run-hug. A Mao tournament.

Among these events, two stood out:

Office Sprace. Start off by jumping to conclusions, then run through a gauntlet of modern workaday mishaps before venting your frustration on the office printer. Participants must provide their own starting mat and office equipment to be destroyed. Participants will be disqualified if they do not beat the requisite amount of flair.

This was utterly unremarkable except for the "venting your frustration on the office printer." Which might have been the most beautiful thing I've seen. Ever. There's nothing like standing under budding trees in the shadow of Harper, as nine students take barbels, golf clubs, and baseball bats to a pile of old ink jets, Epsons, and a full size Xeros. Glass broke, toner scattered, there was clouds of schrapnel. One unfortunately overzealous team sent itself to the hospital with a cut on the hand.

Then we threw the mess away and left the quads as if nothing had ever happened.

Equally enlightening was the Kumarathon:

Harold and Kumarathon. Bring a case of White Castle Sliders and a PBR. First one done earns the title of "Non-Gendered Ruler of the White Castle" and a satisfied stomach.

I don't think anyone ended this event with a satisfied stomach. Brett, of BJ, the most incredible eater I've ever seen (who's featured on the Hunt, very smoothly finishing off a raw, 1.5 pound onion for his team), had eaten the 30 sliders, three beers, and three bottles of water in well under a half-hour. The other teams struggled on for the next two hours. One bowed out. Two vomited. Thirty sliders is a lot to eat. In the end, a small-framed girl from Pierce took second. I think we'd all thought at the beginning, "she'll be the first to go."

The final three events took place on the Midway. The first two, I only caught briefly: an atl-atl contest for distance, and the demolition of Halliburton-Judson (a cardboad model) with "weapons of Math destruction" (ie. calculators) fired from trebuchets. The best trebuchets, of course, were the largest, and so they had the most difficulty firing a flat object at odd angles at a small and distant target. But there's still nothing like seeing a cluster of trebuchets on the midway.

The last event, however, I stayed until the bitter end:

Spudzooka golf. Dress appropriately. Separate 'zookas for driving, chipping, and putting are encouraged, though not required. POints awarded based on strokes and style.

Potates were driven towards a lacrosse net from a distance of 150 yards. During the practice round, there was a hole-in-one. There were problems with seagulls flying down to eat the shards of potatoes. And there were problems with trying not to shoot the seagulls. But I've never seen so many sweet spudguns in my life. Broover and one other team (Pierce?) had powerful ignitables that echoed over the park like cannons, and Sam's smaller barreled pneumatic vaporized half of its own shells.

The event ended fittingly with a shot from a large barreled combustable with one chamber, fired toward the net from about fifteen yards shy. The potato sliced right through and went another ten feet to explode on the plexiglass siding of the hockey rink. I've never seen ten-year old, I mean, twenty-year old boys look so happy.

That was the end of Scav Olympics. Our two hour event had taken four-and-a-half. The judges withdrew to Ida Noyes for the dinner to follow.

Item #128. ¡¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo (belated-o)!! Roll your capitàn y cocineros into Ida West Lounge to serve a dish of historic proportions. Draw inspiration by conflating and celebrating all the Bizarre and Unique Holidays during the Hunt. Boogie shorts, tube socks, and absurd afros encouraged. Rollerskates are a must. [x points].

We didn't get much for this item, but then, perhaps we didn't deserve it. One team said, "this slipped under our radar." For several years in the past, teams have served a meal for themselves, their captains, and the judges on Saturday night (sometimes accompanied by a "date") but it's been out of vogue for at least awhile, and when we resurrected the idea this year, we didn't give it proper prominence.

That said, the Vegan brought a great pasta, and Snell brough burrito mix and a monstrous salad comprised of aspects of numerous holidays, including chocolate syrup, olives, oysters, and seaweed.) Shoreland, Pierce, and F.I.S.T. also came along and improvised their way in, and we manage to fill about fifty seats in the end.

Hey, no complaints. It was an informal, relaxing end to an incredibly stressful day, and a chance to spend some non-competitive time with the teams. Afterward, the judges went home to point event items.

I missed out on the annual "tour of the headquarters" because I had a screaming headache that had only gotten worse since morning.

I hadn't proven very adept at "holding down" this year...