Are You Game? - The Next Athon

I asked about a week ago for suggestions for the next athon, the periodic quests to do a lot, or as GWiv says, nothing sez excess like excess. A couple of people suggested something akin to a scavenger hunt, and I think that is a pretty cool idea. Hopefully enough others do too.

The idea will be to break into teams: find, document and eat from the most varied places in the Chicago area, and then meet up to compare notes, eat, and perhaps re-visit a couple new finds. I am very open to adjustments, suggestions and whatnot, but here are the details as I conceive them right now:

The event will be on 10/30/04, once again on the longest night of the year. If that date is really hard for a lot of people, we can move it to the following weekend, 11/6/04.

We will break into teams of around 4 or so, enough to be able to fit into a car.

Teams will be divvied up on a random basis. I think this is necessary for a few reasons, for one thing, I think some competition will be fun, but too much competition will be bad. For another thing, I want to avoid any sense of one team be "better" or "cooler" (unless the team has RST with them ). Finally, I think this may help encourage new hounds to intermingle.

I have this idea that the teams will be selected at some open forum to ensure no funny business on my part in team selection. In other words, all the people will have to come forward by such and such date. There will then be a lottery with David Stern officiating to pick the teams. The exact procedure is unknown, but it will be random.

There will be at least a bit of lead time for the teams to practice, plan and otherwise get ready. Research and such is highly encouraged.

The "game" will run from like 10 AM to 8 PM (or something like that). During that time, each team will try to go to as many different ethnic places around Chicago. At each, they must both document their visit via an item from the place, a picture or something like that AND eat at least one thing at the place.

The place can be a store or a restaurant

Ethnic is used in its broadest sense, and it includes food from any country as well as specific regional variations within that country. In other words Chinese can include Szchuan, Cantonese, Chiu Chow and Shanghai.

American regional counts as does soul food. You can go to a hot dog stand, a beef place, or a deep dish pizza place as an example of "Chicago" food, but you only get to do this once. Meaning, once per ethnic group.

It DOES NOT INCLUDE styles of restaurant - A diner/grill cannot be counted as an ethnic place. You cannot include a French Bistro and another French place. You can go to 3 pizza places: NY, Chicago, and Italian, but then cannot go to NYC Bagel and count that as NY, Johnnies and count that as Chicago and some other place and count that as Italian.

When in doubt, any worthwhile argument about how a place fits as ethnic may carry weight.

There will be a sliding scale of points awarded to each place visited. So, that there will be more points awarded for certain factors including whether the place has ever been posted about on Chowhound or LTH, if you took public transportation, how unique generally the place is, and other factors to be determined.

We need at least 8 participants by 10/24/04 to move forward.

There will be prizes for the winning teams.


Any questions or thoughts?

Rob

Sounds like a great idea Rob. Unfortunately, we are having people over that evening, so I'll have to pass.

Hi,

I could do 11/6 as I have a prior commitment for 10/30.

Rob,

I would love to participate, but I have a pool tournament 11/5-11/7 so I could only join in the fun on 10/30.

Flip

Count me in for either date

I'm in for 11/6. 10/30 I may have a conflict. By the way, while ethnic food locational knowledge is obviously key to this scavenger hunt, so is having a maniacal driver. Although based on her Edens land speed record trips to the Loop, Cathy2 probably is right up there, I really think you want ME driving your car. 'nuff said.

November 6 is good for me. Not the 30th.

Rob -- I noticed you state times of 10 am to 8 pm. Are you sure you didn't mean 10 pm to 8 am (to take advantage of the extra hour on October 30). Of course it won't matter on 11/6 ... but just wanted clarification.

JimInLoganSquare wrote:Rob -- I noticed you state times of 10 am to 8 pm. Are you sure you didn't mean 10 pm to 8 am (to take advantage of the extra hour on October 30). Of course it won't matter on 11/6 ... but just wanted clarification.

Well, my thinking was that the "teams" would have their time to go out and hunt places down. Then, everyone would meet somewhere, perhaps Jimmy's for some ribs, and compare notes and finds.

Then, people would or could venture out some more, perhaps re-visiting some interesting finds. So, for instance, say your team found a really cool and interesting Mexican restaurant specializing in Oaxacan food, and no one (on the boards) knew about this place before. So, now, the combined groups might want to head off for cups of hot chocolate and plates of grasshoppers (so to speak).

Or just party on...

Rob

PS
Looks more like 11/6 right now which means we lose the extra hour. Also, we need more people to make this work.

Sadly, I can do neither. Soccer on 10/30 and Albany on 11/6. Have fun!

I could go 11/06, although scavenger hunts, like crossword puzzles, frustrate me. Can we make it easy, with lots of eating?

VI,

I can make it for half the day on the 30th, or most (all) on 11/6.

I see you're giving points for a novel approach ("other factors"), so here's mine. I'm going to wear blinkers and ear plugs so that two major senses (eyes, ears) are stoppered. I'll have The Wife drive me to a remote location and drop me off (she's tried to do this before). Then I'm going to just start walking and stop at a place that smells good. I realize there's not much team spirit here, but I've never been much for sports. I will, however, have a tape recorder with me, and I'll talk through my experience, have transcripts made, and post those. Did I win yet?

Hammond

Hammy,

You've got my vote, in fact if your wife would let me know when and where, I would change my schedule to come and watch this event.

If it is a slow news day, who knows you might even garner your most recent 15 minutes.

I'll sign up -- and volunteer to bring/lend my digital camera which seems to be the sine qua non of the event.
>>Brent

Well, 2 things about this upcoming athon.

First, even though a lot of the regular hounds have a)not signed up b)told me how stupid they think my idea is, I have no intention of not going forward with this project. I think the key things about this project is that the competing small groups will drive the discovery of some cool places. Also, I think that there will be a certain amount of flexibility in small groups that big groups cannot do. Besides, there will be time for the groups to merge.

But, I cannot make 11/6 because of soccer committments, nor can I make 11/13 or 11/20. I am suggesting a date of 11/27, during Thanksgiving weekend. I am sure some people will not be around that weekend, but it is also a time where people have a bit of extra time on their hand. And by Saturday, everyone is tired of turkey.

Based on one suggestion, I will try to add some "objective" aspect to the adventure. In other words, there will be things that the team will be asked to identify/find as well as things they will find on their own.

Please, the 24 hours of chow is still much discussed, as in the recent Reader article, but one thing that is not mentioned is how much that was a group effort. All the participants made input on where to go and how to accomplish eating in 24 hours. I need help in making this as worthwhile.

Rob

I'll be there on the 27th - dieting on Thanksgiving to prepare for the great event.

Hi,

I will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Going out may be a welcome diversion or I may be in a cloud of fatigue. Is there any reason why it couldn't be December 4th away from the overwhelming T-day weekend?

Hi,

Are we still considering November 27th?

Regards,

I really do not know. I am very torn.

Cathy2, this was before you were on Chowhound, but when I start pushing for the first 24 hours of chow, it took several attempts to finally get the ball going, so on one hand, I keep on thinking I should just defer until there appears enough interest. On the other hand, when there's no interest...


I got too many things going on in the next few weeks to do it on November 27. If I decided to go forward with this, I'll propose a new date in early January.

Cathy2 thanks for the help.

The trick is for you to follow Nike's lead and "Just Do It." Set a time, place, and give us a plan. Build it and they will come. I'll be there if I can.