I’ve been pondering doing a scavenger hunt for a while--I wanted to for my birthday and then guess what happened there, and there was some giant one being held by Misha Collins a few weekends back,but it was like 12 or 24 hours or something and I was occupied during chunks of it. But there was one on ThingsToDoDC that was Clue-themed, and I signed up. (Alone, alas, since yet another attempt at recrutiing others didn’t go well.)

However, it all worked out. They assign you to teams if you don’t bring your own, and I think they said they had something like 55 people and about 7-ish per team. The folks on mine were all very nice East Coasters, one of whom (Glen) is on a new Bravo reality show called “Camp Getaway.” He said the filming had ended by October but they had to film some confessionals while in quarantine. One lady, Tara, is a federal agent/personal trainer, who sounded quite busy and was enjoying having her first week off in ages. Pam the team captain (“That’s all I want, a couple of hours of fun in my house”) had her daughter along, and her daughter was great on coming up with stuff, particularly old mystery books.

They give you a long list of objects to come up with, some of which presumably is found in your house or your teammate’s husband sends her flowers (Pam the captain didn’t have time to really thank him!) or your other teammate goes out to buy and get curbside service from (Tara drove out to buy an Encyclopedia Brown book and said she was going to make her kids read it later). Some of which need to be made in the moment. Some involve dress up in your house. Point totals were allotted to things.

They also threw in a few random challenges, like playing “Match Game” for awhile, or asking that someone’s pet put on a show (Pam’s dog was put into a rainbow costume, adorable), and some kind of weird cooking thing came up that I missed half of because I was out of the room. And there was a guessing/elimination of person/weapon/room going on too.

For the record, here’s the list of stuff:

1. A list of all team members’s contact info (if you win), and team name (“Mauve Marauders’).
2. One mysterious fact about each member: I said that I am a chaos magnet.
3. Clue board game
4. Dice
5. DVD of mystery movie, the earlier, the more points (Pam had Thin Man DVD’s)
6. People dress up as Mustard, Scarlet, Plum, White, Green, Peacock. I ended up doing Green because I at least had a green shirt.
7. Actual mustard
8. Something scarlet
9. Sherlock Holmes book
10. Candlestick
11. Plum
12. Write a story that stars all of your teammates, each one writes one sentence and should end with a 2020 presidential candidate helping you win Clue. This worked out because thanks to those “Hope Never” whatever books, Biden is now a detective :p
13. Clue app on someone’s phone.
14. Revolver, candlestick, lead pipe, dagger, rope, wrench
15. Peacock (yes, I dug out my peacock bathrobe for this)
16. Something embarrassing Mr Green would wear: this was a green dress, not me.
17. Joker card
18. 3 menus from Chinese restaurants
19. Pool stick/ball/cue from billiards room
20. Encyclopedia Brown book
21. Male driver’s license with “scariest picture” (Glen by default)
22.. Ugly hat worn by female member: I volunteered but Tara had some kind of border patrol-y one?
23. Business card with a Clue character’s name preprinted on it
24. Physical copy of today’s newspaper with the word “clue” in it: this was one of the few we could not find, even those who actually had a real newspaper in the house.
25. A “tour” of a room in your house that looks like a billiards room, kitchen, library, study, ballroom, lounge, cellar, dining room. I turned my bathroom into a ballroom, see below.
26. Ketchup
27.Aa “play” that shows how you think the crime was committed in German--everyone does one line, obviously done via Google Translate.
28. Translate the word “clue” from one country of all seven continents, one per person, also done via Google Translate.
29. One team member’s HS yearbook with the word “clue” in it--those with high school yearbooks were totally unable to find this either.
30. Completed wedding registry online for 2 characters in the game--Glen created one for Mustard and Scarlet, asking for all the household weapons.
31. 1 page description of the team captain’s hometown with pics
32. One team member dressed as a detective in the end, trench coat preferred--I did that one.
33. Mysterious painting worth more than $100
34. Scary ghost like picture of a team member’s deceased relative
35. Team picture as clue characters drawn in crayon--I did that one since I found crayons.
36 One team member showing off juggling skills--happily, Glen did this because I could NOT find three balls of around the same weight/similiarlty to do it.
37. Pipe
38. Lit match, had to remain lit while you said the entire alphabet. I did NOT do that one!
39. Actual camera
40 strawberry ice cream
41. Netflix envelope--I actually still have this.
42. Selfie or pic taken by youngest team member in a getaway car, taken today. This was an amusing photo.
43. Description of someone you wanted to kill in freshman year of college. Glen had a vomity roommate.
44. Brass instrument
45. One team member playing grim piece on piano/keyboard: Nellie pulled that one out, we were much impressed.
46. Full cup of hot coffee, half an inch from the rim--Glen made that at the end.
47. Ace of spades card
48. Bubble gum, must blow bubble--that was Pam.
49: Demonstrate that you own squeaky shoes.
49. Fingerprints from one person--Tara the federal agent.
51. Bible
52. Blockbuster video card--the third and last thing we did not have.
53. Stuffed animal looking like one of the Clue characters--I did this one, quickly crocheted a dress and wig for my little stuffed Groot. (See all my Clue crafts here.)
54. A flower--Pam’s husband sent her some for her birthday.
55. Blown up balloon
56. ID the last posted picture on the ThingsToDoDC Instagram
57. 6 rolls of toilet paper from 1 person (someone else besides me!)
58. Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew book
59. Performance of 20 seconds of Beethoven’s 5th from any team member--Nellie again.
60. A different board game made by Parker Brothers.

Anyway, we came in third, which I was not expecting, so huzzah! I’m a little confused on the prize though: the prizes were to get into the night time events they were putting on this weekend, and we were supposed to get into tonight’s “Duelling Pianos,” but they never got around to sending the link invite for that. I was rather confused, but on the other hand, I wasn’t feeling strongly about doing that one way or another anyway. They did mention sending us invites to luaus in a few weeks, I’d be more into that. Oh, whatever. But by that point I was in the throes of watching “By Jeeves!” anyway.

After getting my walking around the apartment for 90 minutes in (whee) I watched this weekend’s Andrew Lloyd Webber show, By Jeeves. Now, I've read probably at least most or all of the Jeeves books back in the day, but I confess I was a bit startled to see the start of this show. Bertie Wooster is voluntarily getting on a stage? And playing a banjo? And knows how to play a banjo? Bertie's always been an upper class twit with no particular advantages or skills, other than having hired an extremely clever butler, and usually in the books, the only time Bertie ends up on a stage is involuntarily, and usually at the machinations of Jeeves (say, as a scheme to expose Bertie to a bunch of young girls so as to get over the idea of wanting to be a parental figure).

But in this show, Bertie's about to enthusiastically play the banjo and finds out that lo, the banjo is suddenly gone and it will take hours to get another (per Jeeves), which segues into Jeeves forcing Bertie to act out/relieve past events, namely the Gussie Fink-Nottle/Madeline Basset Incident. Which is, admittedly, one of the most memorable Bertie Wooster incidents--any time Bertie gets accidentally engaged to someone he can't stand, it's memorable, and this one and Honoria Glossop would be the most memorable incidents I'd probably put on a stage myself. (It's in there, post-engagement.) But it seems kinda...odd... to do it in framing story/deliberate acting out like this? I guess that explains why nobody knew this show existed before this weekend? Jeeves is a famous enough guy that it seems weird that a property involving him would go relatively unknown.

Bertie is politely unthrilled at being forced to drive an imaginary car out of a sofa and boxes while making his own vroom-vroom noises on a stage, for the record. He's even less thrilled when his ex-fiancee Honoria shows up with the love light in her eyes. "Would that your brain was as active," she says, after calling him attractive.

Anyway, this becomes a mashup of everything, involving Bertie's forced engagement to Stiffy Byng so she can marry Stinker Pinker (who I was amused at in this one, btw, breaking a chair at the start and being super awkward), and a lot of random singing. "Love's maze is a mad hatter's party time" seem to be some sample lyrics. I did enjoy when Bertie finally unleashes his anger on Jeeves in the second act in song, though.

Notable casting: The guy playing Stinker is perfect--large, blonde, hunky--and Honoria is played by Donna Lynne Champlin of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

There is an extended sequence in which Bertie has been persuaded to wear a pig mask and fake burgle the place, and then everyone sings about going after the pig to the point where I wonder, are they actually thinking he's a real pig and not a guy in a pig mask? "With a badly bruised libido, exit Wooster, rapido!"

By the end, Bertie gets a banjo...with muted strings, in kind of an "emperor's new clothes" sort of way.... I'm not sure why everyone shows up at the end in Wizard of Oz costumes, but I guess the logic is "why not?"

After that, I watched “Nerd Wars” featuring the return of Wonder Dave and Kristee from the Mental Health show, along with other comedians arguing over nerdy shit suggested in the chat.

Notable moments and quotes:

* Kristee owns a batlet (an honorable Klingon weapon). "This is going to be my apocalypse weapon, I'm going to make it."
* "I had a decent week, I got out of bed and showered, I'm not gonna brag but I showered more than once. I just wanna brag." -Dominique
* Stephen is wearing a mask and animal nose: "I have definitely not been playing Animal Crossing too much.” And apparently now he hoards in-game? "It's becoming a trash island and I kinda love it."
* "I am really good at masturbating now." -Wonder Dave. When asked if he was bad at it before, "I just kept trying to go hands free and it was always a mistake.”
* Marc the moderator: "It's in an era where we're doing weird shit."
* Rebecca: “I have gotten really good at sexting,” and "I had this plan to put on scales and glitter, but I ran out of time because of who I am as a person."

The first nerd war topic suggested in chat was “LaCroix vs. White Claw.” I barely know what the first is and never had heard of the second, so I kinda zoned during that argument. Someone voted for “claw croix.”

* "This comment has a very Florida energy." -?
* Someone infamously asked, "what's a merkin?"

The next topic was, “Mrs. Incredible/Elasticigrl vs Mother Gothel: whose onlyfans.com account is the better value in the time of covid-19?” Mother Gothel was the overwhelming winner, I believe ("Mrs. Incredible is just a stretchy mom."), but mostly because one of the comedians--Molly? did the following:

"I wanted to download a background of Mother Gothel porn but I didn't know how to do that, so now I downloaded that on my phone and I don't know how to put it on. And I can’t delete it.” Then Rebecca downloaded a bikini pic of Gothel. I can now add to my list of Zoom Safari: not only some kind of boobie-flashing Wonder Woman doll Wonder Dave had, but Mother Gothel porn.

* “Molly, can you explain "my ass is the lanterns in the sky?"

The final Nerd War was between four schools: the choices picked by the comedians from the chat ended up being the Finding Nemo fish school, the Xavier School, the Magic School Bus, and Springfield Elementary. Some chose to be positive, others chose to talk shit about the other schools. I think this line kind of sums it all up: “They all sound kinda awful, like you wouldn’t learn anything.”

Nemo:
* “You know what Nemo’s school did? They lost Nemo!”
* “Nobody in the Finding Nemo class accidentally downloaded vaginas into their phones.”
* “Fish are very cool and y’all suck.”

Magic School Bus:
* Magic School bus has “hanging out with Lily Tomlin on acid.”
“Carlos went into an esophagus and lived to tell the tale.”

Springfield Elementary:
* “Has a cool Scottish guy who mows the lawn”
* Wonder Dave: “Let’s take a look at Bart’s teacher, shall we?” He then put up a background of sexy Edna Crabapple.

Xavier:
* Cyclops has no aim and “they’re not teaching him anything.”
* “Their lesson for Rogue was “get gloves, bitch!”

Magic School Bus won, and the moderator announced that “You will win personally curated pictures of Mother Gothel.” Someone else said, “I would have tried harder if I knew that was the prize.”
“When Disney porn is involved, it’s a good show.”

In other news:

Both my mom and Jackie called while I was watching Nerd Wars. Jackie just wanted to know if I was seriously still alive. Mom wants to know if I am losing weight in quarantine (who the fuck loses weight in quarantine?! Also, how the hell would I know, I don’t own a scale) and how do I still have food to eat. Taurean hoarding?

I have finished the Arne and Carlos knitalong, so after all the blocking’s done, I need to figure out what to do with them. I’m leaning towards making a vest, but I may need to make another piece (there’s 27) of something to even it out. Now I am on to making my own hamster and hamster cage materials. Should be a great sight gag while on Zoom.

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