Vaunted Madness is down to its Sweet Sixteen. Spearheaded by Section H Deejay, Brian Hoskins, Section H has been participating for the past few weeks in a self-run tournament of silly games. Every student participates, broken out in “country” quartiles, and then each student also turns in their brackets, hoping to be the one who correctly predicts who will be the Vaunted Winner!
Brian sends out his weekly updates to the section. Here are some wonderfully-stated highlights that Brian reported from this past week’s events:
To begin the week, VH (Vaunted H) took a break from Vaunted Madness to open a fresh canof whoop-*ss against the other 10 unvaunted sections in the HBS Olympics.
VH predictably dominated the events, breezing to a first-place finish in theathletic competition. Robert Kimmel put it best, “The ‘Who’s Your Daddy’cheer we did in the beginning really epitomized the entire event because not only did it show that we are better athletes than all the other sections,but we are also their daddy.”
As for this week’s Vaunted Madness activities, the Canada/Mexico/S. America/Europe bracket opened with a Germany vs. Sweden grudge match, with Chris Knop falling 2-0 to Niklas Wijkander in the X-boxfight competition. Wijkander described the impetus for the win, “He wasa ctually beating me in the warm-up, then he made some wise crack aboutVolkswagen being better than Volvo. Something just cracked inside of me.”
Meanwhile, Kristen Hatto and Oscar Gil squared off in an epic battle of the Americas. The original mile run competition was changed due to Gil’s unexpected “foot injury”. Gil, an ex-Venezuelan cycling team member thought of the next most fair competition: cycling. Five minutes of debilitating cycling resulted in an unexpected draw, so the two decided to settle the competition in a more manly game of rock-paper-scissors. After Hatto pulled the 2-0 upset, Gil declared, “non sum qualis eram.”
Heavily favored Max Yacoub held rank against Amanda Provost in the milk drinking competition, handily engulfing one pint of milk in approximately 30 seconds. While Provost insisted there really are cows in Canada, Yacoub revealed his secret, “Coach always tells me to visualize. Be the enchilada, be the cow. Well, today I was the cow. Andit felt great.”
The US East bracket opened the week with the much anticipated Pat Brannelly vs. RJ Sheedy Twister match. The wily Brannelly twisted and grappled his way to a hard-fought victory over the upstart Sheedy. Brannelly credited his grappling suit with the victory, “Most people don’t realize that a snug fitting leotard can make all the difference in the world.
I think RJ finally realized the fallacy of wearing khaki pants with that fateful ‘rightleg red’ call.” Not even a leotard or cool navy sword could save Brannelly in his next round match up, as he finally met his match against the fiery redhead Amy “Mad Dog” Rabinowitz in Battleship. Rear Admiral Brannelly lamented, “I thought for sure that Bravo-Niner would be a hit. She used deceptive practices with her fleet just like Admiral Nimitz did in the Western Pacific against the Japanese in WWII.” Petty Officer Gittleman responded, “Sir, that’s a hit. She sank our battleship.” Nicole Palczer continued her winning streak by upending Rubik King Eric Mogelof in OT in the tongue twister competition. Afterwards, Palzcer inquired, “How many boards could the Mogelof hoard if the Mogelof hoard got bored?” Dante Anderson showed off her salivary skills in vanquishing Des Lovell in the saltine cracker eating contest. One dozen crackers later, Anderson told a touching story about growing up in the rural South,”Mmmph…mmpph…water…mmpph.”The Australasia/Africa bracket kicked off the week with a second round holdover between Lucy Foster and Monika Shrestha in the one-legged hop. Foster hopped her way to the top, defeating Shrestha by a full four stairs. Foster recalled her childhood hopping contests, “As you can imagine, there’s not much to do in New Zealand besides play with farm animals and practice the one-legged hop. I never found goats to be very friendly, so I was more of a hopper myself.” In another tournament surprise, Jun Jang revealed that not only can he spell like a champ, but he can also hula-hoop. Julia Tcherkassova posted an excellent time of 1:25, but it was not enough to match an incredible 1:55. Tcherkassova lamented, “I ran the numbers before the competition, and it looked promising. When he started hula-hooping on his kneecaps, I knew I was in trouble.”
The US West bracket rounded out the week’s events, pitting Amanda Renteria against Ali “Motamed Ali” Motamed in the bench press. Motamed floated likea butterfly, but he was stung by the bee, as Renteria dispatched him by lifting 90.5% of her body weight. Eric “The Thriller” Hiller downed Valerie Santos in a victory by acclamation in the Wonder Bread eating contest. Santos stated, “Wonder Bread has like NO nutritional value. As if!” In the next round, Hiller matched intimidation to acumen in ousting tournament co-chairman Barry Gittleman in the stock picking contest. Gittleman brushed off the loss, “Sure, he can pick a few stocks here and there. But see if that helps him when he’s in a metal tube 10,000 leagues under the sea, and his commanding officer issues an all systems alert for the imminent launch of nuclear warheads against the Russians!”Congratulations to the Sweet 16. Be sure to cheer our tournament hopefuls on this week as they compete for a chance to make it to the Vaunted Valhalla, the Final Four (this week). Good luck!
