Friday, March 28, 2008

Hunt Postponement

I have sent out emails to the local hunters I know in KK, informing them about the postponement of the Sutera Harbour-Angkatan Hebat Treasure Hunt 2008 about a week ago. This is to follow up with the latest news—that the hunt is now tentatively set for the 29 June 2008 as per this link.

The date of the hunt had been changed several times already. Therefore I can't say for certain that the new date will not be changed yet again. At any rate, I shall regularly keep in touch with the organisers so that I can inform you all of further changes, if any, in the date of the hunt.

In this connection, and in response to the popular request for me to clerk the Sutera this year, I wish to thank you all for your confidence in me—especially Hunters "R" Us, the "Breakfast" hunters, and Anne and her friends—but perhaps for the moment I shall work on my field exposure for a change. If there is still an opportunity to clerk the hunt next year—and I can't see why not—I shall be pleased to torture you people again! Be assured that I still have lots of interesting tricks up my sleeve!

Obviously next year is still a long way from now. That is good, because I will have even more time to come up with more ideas. By the time I do my KK Challenge 4 in July/August later this year, I would be ready to unleash some of those new ideas. But only some! After all, KK Challenge 4 is also intended to attract new hunters in KK. The rest of my new ideas I shall keep for later, just in case I really get to clerk the CNY Hunt in the west next year. I have this pathetic wish to give those masters a good time, you see. Alas, that depends very much on whether I am able to find the time. I shall try to make it...

In the mean time, we're quite dry of hunts in KK between now to the end of June. Of course with my over-flowing question bank right now, I can easily organise a hunt anytime. However, I feel that our local hunters deserve a different taste and style in the questions or format. May I therefore suggest that Team Main Tembak throw in an unofficial hunt to keep the fire going. I'd like to mention here that several new teams which joined my KK Challenge 3 in January are already calling me to ask for more hunts. It would be quite a shame if these people lose interest in the end.

Well, Main Tembak, what say you? Shall the hunters prepare for an April hunt, hmmm?

7 comments:

CK said...

haha.... you FINALLY write Main Tembak officially here asking them to clerk a hunt!!! yeah......... the long overdue Trash Hunt friends!!!! in a way, im happy that Sutera Hunt was postponed cox I hav sth on tat day. plus my bday mah hahaha....

anyway, v r in serious hunger of hunt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cornelius said...

Yes, CK, the KK hunters have become that desperate for hunts.

Right now, I have come to a point where I am not too overly concerned who sets the hunt. If there is one, my team will surely join.

Having said that, however, I have been throwing the idea to some of the top teams in KK. Unfortunately, the popular answers that I have received so far are either "no time to set the questions" or "not good enough to set questions". Since I am very new to treasure hunt, I only know of the team members of Main Tembak as the team in KK with the ability to set hunt questions. I have therefore suggested their team here.

By the way, although this is the first time I've openly suggested Team Main Tembak to clerk a hunt, actually I have been pestering them for quite a while now. I am just hoping that many more would support the idea in this blog. Who knows with a stronger support, that will provoke them to rise to the challenge?

But if there are other teams which would like to try setting hunts, I am sure they are most welcomed to do so.

Cornelius said...

Oh yes, CK, I'd also like to add that I am becoming even more ambitious now—I'm trying to encourage some people from the west to come over to set Mandarin hunt in KK. From my limited knowledge, it has never been done here before. But I am fairly certain that it will be well-received.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to join because I have close to zero ability as far as Mandarin is concerned. I only know very, very few Chinese characters, notably the mahjong characters, and the numbers one, two and three (smile).

A Mandarin hunt in KK would be a refreshing change. I am sure it would be a success. Maybe one of us should approach one of those Chinese dailies to suggest the idea to them.

CK said...

yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i would like to welcome Mandarin hunt as well. i know there's quite a few in the West but never get to participate.

i didn't hav formal chinese education but i would definitely love to participate. hehe... my chinese better than you... at least i can read paper and novel... though im familiar with the mahjong tiles too hahahahah

Anonymous said...

Postponed again?? At least it's still on rite? Corny, might as well do the KK Challenge 4 somewhere between now & the Sutera Hunt or it would be a DAMN boring April, May and 93.3333% of June. 3 mths to wait for a hunt is way too long compared to the hunts in KL. Thats why we are 15 years behind them!! How r we goin to improve with the current situation?

I suggest you take the lead and guide the local hunters, organizing more hunts with quality questions in order for us to give the KL Grandmasters a run for their money.

My teammates CK & Leslie did suggest to try out to clerk a hunt......when??? haha may be will try out in our closed IEM hunt.

Cornelius said...

Actually, Teo, I am convinced that we are much further behind than the 15 years. We have 2 to 3 hunts per year. KL has 40 to 50 hunts per year. I think I read somewhere on Mike's blog that last year's winner of the SunHunt accummulated over 40 hunts within a year. Taking the number of hunts into consideration, we are easily over 20 years behind KL hunters.

Having said that, however, I have also noticed that not all the hunts are of "high quality". In fact, many of those hunts are designed to attract the crowd. The business aspect of the sport is still the prevailing force, you see. Which means the questions are designed to be "mild". In a typical KL hunt, only about 5% to 10% of the questions are tough. I suspect the tough questions rarely breach the 20% mark when compared to those "mild" questions. But of course I may be wrong. Exceptions are probably the MENSA hunts and the SunHunt Masters.

Furthermore, I've also noticed that there're quite a fair number of poorly-crafted questions—even by "well-established" CoCs.

Whatever the case is, I'm convinced that Sabahan hunters will still need a long time to catch up. Not many of us are really serious enough in the sport; at least not as serious as some of those masters!

Cornelius said...

Regarding the KK Challenge 4, Teo, I am trying to push for Main Tembak to organise their Trash Hunt first. I owe it to my own team members for their field training. It bothered me very much that during the recent KK City Hunt, my team members were still unable to tell an anagram indicator when they saw one. If I have to carry them forever, then we will never ever be able to challenge the masters. That's why it would be good if Main Tembak can organise one soon.

In the mean time, I will also try to get hold of some hunt questions from KL hunts (they have plenty of them)and discuss them in this blog—if only for the benefits of our Sabahan hunters. I feel it's the least that we can do in the absence of actual hunts in KK. Discussions of hunt questions in the RR Blog have helped me tremendously. So it would be good if I can also do something similar in this blog.

I visited Mike's blog this morning and saw that there's a hunt yesterday. Apparently there was some "drama". Perhaps there's plenty we can learn from that particular hunt. At least I'm sure there's a lot I can comment!... hahaha!

Teo, I'm interested in the IEM hunt you just mentioned. I'm toying with the idea of joining the hunt for the sake of the experience. Never mind about the prizes. I wonder if there's room for outsiders to join for the fun of it, but not eligible for the prizes. We hunt for the sake of hunting and enjoy the makan, if any. What say you?