(no subject)
I think I'm going to crawl out of my skin tonight. I feel like a nice bloody slither through the streets of Binghamton late at night is really what I need.
Is it really December? This time of year gives me the willies for some reason. The rest of winter is okay, but between mid October and late December, hoo boy. You better watch out. I will bite your head off. I will chew through your neck, crush your brain stem with my teeth and rip your sensory apparatus apart.
Nah, not really. I'm a pretty easygoing guy.
I was thinking today about how my sisters and I used to fight over who got to push the "walk" button at intersections back when we lived in Queens. That was a big deal back then. Imagine being two feet tall and being able to stop cars! Man, those were the days.
And then a few years ago one of my sisters posted a link to a New York Times article. Apparently the city disconnected most of those buttons in like, 1980, years before I was even born. The button-request from a pedestrian was preceded by too many other routines such as input from sensors and timers to have any real effect on traffic signals, and disrupted automated systems that were put into place. Of course, they couldn't just get rid of the buttons; they'd have a million angry New Yorkers all like, "Hey, why'd they take away the button? I gotta wait to cross the street now?" So they left them in. And nobody noticed, because no one was crazy enough to sit at a stoplight and figure out all its patterns and test whether or not the button was actually working. They kept it a huge secret, and then I guess some statute of limitations expired and the New York Times made it public on like, page ten of the Metro section. And all those times we drove my parents and my babysitter crazy because my sisters and I had to come to blows over what we thought was the ability to influence traffic signals.
Today I pushed a walk button at an intersection in Binghamton. It took about ten seconds for the signal to change. I think the buttons here are fake, too. And if Binghamton didn't have the most ridiculous traffic light configurations I'd ever seen, I'd get to the bottom of this.
Is it really December? This time of year gives me the willies for some reason. The rest of winter is okay, but between mid October and late December, hoo boy. You better watch out. I will bite your head off. I will chew through your neck, crush your brain stem with my teeth and rip your sensory apparatus apart.
Nah, not really. I'm a pretty easygoing guy.
I was thinking today about how my sisters and I used to fight over who got to push the "walk" button at intersections back when we lived in Queens. That was a big deal back then. Imagine being two feet tall and being able to stop cars! Man, those were the days.
And then a few years ago one of my sisters posted a link to a New York Times article. Apparently the city disconnected most of those buttons in like, 1980, years before I was even born. The button-request from a pedestrian was preceded by too many other routines such as input from sensors and timers to have any real effect on traffic signals, and disrupted automated systems that were put into place. Of course, they couldn't just get rid of the buttons; they'd have a million angry New Yorkers all like, "Hey, why'd they take away the button? I gotta wait to cross the street now?" So they left them in. And nobody noticed, because no one was crazy enough to sit at a stoplight and figure out all its patterns and test whether or not the button was actually working. They kept it a huge secret, and then I guess some statute of limitations expired and the New York Times made it public on like, page ten of the Metro section. And all those times we drove my parents and my babysitter crazy because my sisters and I had to come to blows over what we thought was the ability to influence traffic signals.
Today I pushed a walk button at an intersection in Binghamton. It took about ten seconds for the signal to change. I think the buttons here are fake, too. And if Binghamton didn't have the most ridiculous traffic light configurations I'd ever seen, I'd get to the bottom of this.