Strangeness and Awesomeness: Campus at 1 am on a Monday morning

I left my apartment about 12:30 am to go pay rent and fill out a timecard, and I saw two interesting things on the way.

The first, I was drawn to by the strange artificial beeping. It was around the corner of University and Third, and very very weird. Apparently, the crosswalk makes very loud sounds, announcing its own existence and informing you in a loud, masculine voice that the crosswalk sign is lit.

I hate it. I want it to die. And I never spend time near there. I could hear it as far away as second street, and nearly all the way to the belltower. What a way to ruin campus ambiance at night…

Anyway, the second interesting thing was a squirrel. But not just any squirrel. THE MOST AWESOME SQUIRREL EVER.

Actually, no, it was just an ordinary squirrel. Cute, gray, little puffy cheeks, etc. But what was awesome about him was that he was asleep in the hollow of a tree near the psych building, and his head was just dangling out, peeking out of the tree.

I wish my camera weren’t broken, I’d have taken about a dozen pictures of it. CUTEST THING SINCE PUPPIES.

Ok. That’s enough caps for me. Thank you, good night.

2 Responses to “Strangeness and Awesomeness: Campus at 1 am on a Monday morning”

  1. Tim Says:

    I hate crosswalk signs that do that they are all over Europe. I once informed an Irish person of my discontent at the loud and very irritating sound. Their reply was “how else would blind know when to cross the street”. My thought, unvoiced cause you don’t start shit in other peoples houses, was “if blind people can find the street I think they might be able to cross it”.

  2. the Pat Says:

    I visited a friend at U of I the other day and I heard almost the same type of thing. I heard a loud beeping sound created by a post which held the “press here for the crosswalk dude” button. It was just a loud “dink! dink!” So I pressed it. Same shit … and I thought to myself “GOD that’s annoying but it comes in handy for the blind.”

    So U of I (or at least the Champaign city municipal services) got it right by only making it voice when it’s needed. The dinks aren’t nearly as loud as you described either.