Monday, May 23

Page 4

Here's Tricky Augustine's recap of page 4. Reposted due to technical difficulties.


Scavhunt 2011! Congrats to BJ for a well-deserved victory, to all the

other teams for breaking every official and unofficial record of

awesomeness, and cabal members both new and old for keeping the dream

alive in our silver anniversary. Below are some quick thoughts and

reflections on page 4, my page.


44. A creepy doll. That always follows you. That has a creepy eye.

That's always open. A creepy doll. That always follows you. That has a

pretty mouth. To swallow you whole. [3 points. 5 bonus points if it

freaks out a Judge with an appearance during an unexpected Scav

moment.


Notes: I’m not quite sure if this item is better if you know of the

Jonathan Coulton song, or if you don’t. In any case it’s catchy, and

there’s a youtube video of Neil Gaiman playing the tambourine part

somewhere. Actually, I have to admit I have a pretty low tolerance for

creepy dolls, to the point where a completely non-creepy doll might

have been a more difficult item. Still, these were great.


Best Completion: Personally, I have to give it to South Campus who

dropped their freakish stuffed deer-rabbit hybrid on us from on high

as soon as we entered their headquarters. Also, Breck’s managed to

make Judge Cynthia cower for a bit, which tends to be a pretty good

standard for shit-freaking. Finally, I was able to make Judge Citron

squeal by sneaking up on him with BJ’s. High comedy.


45. School dance photos of tenured faculty. Special consideration will

be given to powder blue tuxedos, beehive hairdos, and leisure suits.

[3 points each, 4 photos max]


Notes: Considering I’m never happy with how I look in most

photographs, I’m actually quite happy with most of my school dance

photos. It turns out our faculty should be as well. Man, 80s prom

dresses were awesome.


Best Completion: I’ve been sworn to secrecy on many of these. To get

sort of a general idea, check out Charles Lipson’s facebook profile.

There were beehives, there were leisure suits, there were blue

tuxedos, mistakes were made.


46. Trivial Fursuit: the internet-fetish trivia board game for ages 12

to adult. Very adult. [12 to adult points]


Notes: Pun items go in and out of style depending on the season, but

considering that only one letter has been changed, I was pretty happy

this got on the list. More than a few scavvies came up to me and told

me that this was their favorite item of 2011 to do. I’m glad.


Best Completion: All of these were just great. And the best part was

how there’s a non-zero chance that the converted Trivial Pursuit games

will all be returned to various dorm commons areas with questions

about Agony in Pink and Evangelion Hentai


47. The dress Miss Frizzle wore the day she taught Sex Ed. [13 points]


Notes: I had a lot of great teachers in my time, but I wish they had

worn themed-dresses when introducing volcanoes or whatever. Sadly, it

was only now that the dream has come true. Worth. The. Wait.


Best Completion: Again, all excellent, especially those that made sure

not to puncture the air bubble on the attached condoms (They’re still

good!). In addition, Snitchcock’s came accompanied with a video that

was as hilarious as would be likely to ruin the political career of

all involved, would it be publically released. Take my word on this

one.


51. A basketball hoop that's a rib cage. A RIB CAGE! [12 points]


Notes: I’m not sure the Judge Cabal knew this was a 30 Rock reference

when I proposed it and it was passed. Then again, I have a quota of

skeleton items I try to get on the list every year. 12th times the

charm, right? I don’t know what was better, the basketball hoops or

the way I was able to force a meme by pure power of shouting… A RIB

CAGE.


Best Completion: With all due respect to those who valiantly ate their

weights in Rib and Bibs to complete this one, I have to give it to

MacPierce, whose interpretation combined the phrases “deer carcass”,

“roadside butchering” and “thousand-mile skeleton transport” into

something new and terrifying.


52. Seventeen magazine's “Traumarama" column featuring the most

embarrassing moments of Ernest


Hemingway, Ayn Rand, H.P. Lovecraft, and Batman. [4 points]


Notes: Many of my sufficiently advanced creative-writing scav items

are indistinguishable from McSweeney’s articles that I’m too lazy to

write.


Best Completion: With all due respect to GASH’s Batman, which did

Frank Miller better than Frank Miller does Frank Miller, I have to

give it to Snitchcock who photoshopped and replaced pages in an actual

Seventeen magazine, so indistinguishable that it eventually lead to a

fellow judge picking up the magazine to look through it and eventually

getting really confused.


53. A dozen eggs, one prepared in each of the following styles:

scrambled, fried, poached, tamagoyakied, Scotched, tea-ed, century-ed,

blow-torched, defibrillated, spatula-bounced (five times in a row,

minimum), arc-welded, and Burning Man-ed. [15 points]


Notes: This came from a Seinfeld-like conversation I had at a

restaurant about how in diner speak “two eggs any style” really means

“scrambled or fried”, poached likely getting you some odd looks, and

anything involving chives being right out. Should have had a toast

requirement, too.


Best Completion: Not going to lie: this got a little repetitive to

judge by the end, especially since no team managed to get the full

dozen. My initial plan was to sample some of each, but round about egg

number 23, that plan was abandoned. Scav already gave me an eating

disorder, and I can’t imagine eating a gross of increasingly cold eggs

would help that out. Anyways, GASH probably had the best tamgoyaki,

Snitchcock the best scotched egg (along with the prerequisite British

team member who went totally anglophile in explaining the majesty of

sausage coating an egg), and Max P. gets points for indulging me by

arc-welding the egg right there at judgment.


54. A relief of a famous literary scene, carved entirely from its

print source. [22 points]


Notes: The above was inspired by the obviously-photoshopped Diary of

Anne Frank poster seen here:

http://thedailywh.at/2011/03/23/this-x-that-30/ Desperately wanted to

see something like it in my hand.


Best Completion: Man, I guess I really getting wishy-washy in my

old-judge age, as I cannot seem to pick a favorite one for this

either. Shakespeare, Homer, Cervantes, Tolkien and others were

represented and represented wells. Probably the item I most wanted to

swipe from teams, though most made it clear they wished to hang on to

their work, and would have bit me had I tried it.


56. A box of cryptozoology animal crackers. [5 points]


Notes: Scav may have a special love for the hodag, but frankly, all

mythical beasts are up for grabs in my mind.


Best Completion: Any team that didn’t use glue to stick theirs

together, meaning I could actually chomp down on the chupacabra or

whatever. They know who they are…


57. You're at the movies with your date, but you can't seem to enjoy

M. Night's latest when you're too concerned about whether you should

be holding hands. Create an armrest-sized system that will allow both

parties to give clear signals ranging from “Why don't you go get some

popcorn?" to “Start sliding into second, homie." [8 points]


Notes: I have no clue why movies are considered such a good date

location. There's no conversation, the food sucks, and there's a

non-zero chance you'll have to watch something by Seltzer and

Friedberg. Let alone the battleground that is the armrest.


Best Completion: Especially loved BJ’s, which took the “signaling”

aspect to the next level. I had never before considered what the

unique symbolic equivalent for “start sliding into second, homie”

would be, but trust me, they got it.


59. One of the Captain Crunch whistles made famous by John Draper. [20 points]


Notes: Nerd lore time: John Draper was a phone phreaker in the 1970s,

using specially designed “blue boxes” to trick phone company computers

into giving him free phone calls. He went by the name Captain Crunch,

a reference to a whistle included in boxes of the cereal that just so

happened to play at 2600 hrtz, the frequency that, when played into

the AT&T phone system, would allow someone to use a toll-free number

to make numerous free long distance calls. Probably the most obscure

item on my page.


Best Completion: Sadly, I did not get the actual whistle in my hand,

though many teams came close. Blint, I believe, was able to get a

picture of the actual John Draper with his own whistle in front of

their logo. Very cool. Scampi modified a whistle to be pretty darn

close to 2600 hrtz (or so their team oscilloscope displayed). Finally,

Max P. convinced me through a series of photographs and shipping

orders that the genuine article on the way to campus, but was delayed

in transit. They’d better have it when I come next year.


63. A complete copy of A Fragment Out Of Time. [25 points]


Notes: This is the work generally considered to be the first work of

slash fiction, featuring the original slash couple Kirk and Spock. The

author never gave permission for it to be reprinted on the internet,

so you could only find this in obscure collections of science fiction

material. Hard to fine erotic Star Trek literature with important

nerd-history value? That’s a good go-find-it item in my mind.


Best Completion: The teams that completed this did so by calling in

connections at various college fanzine collections and, if failing to

do so, resorting to library breaking-and-enterings. I’m glad no one

got arrested but, let’s face it, attempted larceny of Star Trek slash

fiction would’ve been a hell of a thing to come up on a background

check.

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