Shataina ([info]dragonladyflame) wrote,
@ 2008-05-08 21:07:00
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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. Dammit if Scav Hunt doesn't have 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.


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[info]crywolf
2008-05-09 03:20 am UTC (link)
56. I don't know if this fits within your deadline, but The Giant Singing Tesla Coils will be returning to DucKon this year (June 13-15). If you bring a can of Red Bull (or maybe other drinks), they may help you with 205. Apparently, it tastes a bit caramelized. Youtube search for Giant Singing Tesla Coils. Or Penguicon.

215. Can you download, modify, and print a blank check image?

258. http://www.feathergun.com/ http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_6rcrq

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[info]dragonladyflame
2008-05-09 05:09 am UTC (link)
56. The deadline is this Sunday. But we actually apparently got the actual zeusaphone guy to play for our team, so we're totally set on this one.

215. Sure, but having a real blank check would be better.

258. Sweet!

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[info]crywolf
2008-05-09 02:21 pm UTC (link)
Utterly cool. Videos do not prepare you for the awesomeness that is the Zeusaphones.

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[info]v1c1ous
2008-05-09 06:55 am UTC (link)
A friend of mine in college once wrote a computer virus that would cause your CD-ROM drive to open and close at random intervals. Wish I still had the code.

Also, 89 is a Portal reference, if you didn't know. It's surprising to me how much of a phenomenon it's become...

Anyways, good luck!

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[info]dragonladyflame
2008-05-09 07:12 am UTC (link)
Heh, I've actually watched the Portal trailer several times though I haven't played the game. It seems pretty clever and sarcastic, so I'm not surprised it caught on.

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[info]foxfour
2008-05-10 02:49 pm UTC (link)
you should really play it. also, there was a great feminist review of portal somewhere here… if i find it, i'll let you know.

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[info]dragonladyflame
2008-05-16 02:47 pm UTC (link)
Feminist ...? Oh God ... the double entendres ....

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[info]ithych
2008-05-09 02:45 pm UTC (link)
I don't have a blank check, but I do have a Nobel Laureate's mom!

My labmate's older sister worked for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who won the Peace Prize jointly with Al Gore last year. Her mom lives in Minnesota. Let me know if you want me to put y'all in contact with her (if you can't find a local mom).

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[info]ithych
2008-05-09 03:37 pm UTC (link)
Also -- 164. I made this to please you. But I get the feeling you don't like it. What's with all the screaming? Maybe I used too many monkeys. Isn't it enough to know I ruined a pony making a gift for you? [7 points]

Best. Jonathan Coulton song. Evar.

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[info]basseykay
2008-05-09 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Hey Lydia,

My friend Emily Houk says you have written a great song about weasels...

It's a small world. Also, I want to hear this song.

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[info]foxfour
2008-05-10 02:48 pm UTC (link)
that's a great list.

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Non-sequiter: Steampunk!!
[info]epinicion
2008-05-11 08:05 am UTC (link)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7391593.stm

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Re: Non-sequiter: Steampunk!!
[info]dragonladyflame
2008-05-16 02:50 pm UTC (link)
Wow, that's super neat!

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