Posted on 11/30/2004 8:43:04 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
With a quick glance, it looks just like any other pedestrian crossing sign -- a yellow, diamond-shaped sign with a person walking.
But a long stare at the sign and there's something strange -- a Hula-Hoop around the pedestrian's body.
Across the country -- and now Chicago -- these unusual pedestrian crossing signs are popping up and leaving people scratching their heads as to who left them and what they mean. The signs have also appeared in New York, Washington, D.C., and even Utah's Arches National Park.
"I figured it was done as a joke," said Paul Puskar, who lives near one of the signs on Chicago's North Side. "If the Hula-Hoop is actually part of the sign I'd like to know what it means. Although I haven't seen any pedestrians with Hula-Hoops walking across the street, I have been on the lookout.
"They would be a great threat to traffic as it would be difficult to hula and walk across the street at the same time, especially while wearing a winter coat."
Decals used
The signs are real pedestrian crossing signs that have been altered by someone slapping on a transparency of the Hula-Hoop.
City officials say they aren't sure what the signs mean, but fans of a Colorado music group may have some idea. Internet blogs and chat rooms that have noticed the signs point to the fans of String Cheese Incident as the main culprit.
The band -- a jam band that plays a mix of rock, blues, bluegrass, funk and salsa -- has adopted the Hula-Hooped pedestrian as its mascot. The group is now on tour and passed through Chicago late last month.
Link to band
According to the band's publicist, the band doesn't condone its fans defacing city signs, but said the tradition dates back to the band's earliest days in the 1990s. It was then that the fledgling band could barely get two dozen people to attend a show. Some of the band's friends decided to do something to generate some interest and fill the empty bars.
"They started to bring Hula-Hoops to encourage people to dance," said Carrie Lombardi, the group's publicist. "People still bring the Hula-Hoops to shows."
Some people credit String Cheese Incident with bringing Hula-Hooping back into the mainstream in the early '90s.
But the stickers could land someone in hot water. According to Chicago city code, anyone defacing a city sign could be hit with a misdemeanor -- a maximum punishment of $500 fine and 30 days in jail.
That's better.
Us Cisco weenies prefer Hex.
Thanks.
01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 01110011 01101001 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 01110011 01101001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 00101110
Binary is so out of style.
l0l!
0100010001101001011001000010000001100001011011100111100101101111011011100110010100100000011101010111001101100101001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100011011011110110010001100101001011110110010001100101011000110110111101100100011001010111001000100000011100000110000101100111011001010010000001110100011011110010000001110010011001010110000101100100001000000111010001101000011001010010000001100010011010010110111001100001011100100111100100100000011011010110010101110011011100110110000101100111011001010111001100111111
01010011 01101000 01100101 01100101 01110011 01101000 00101100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00101110
Those that understand binary, and those that don't
When I was young and first starting out on computers, we didn't even have two values in binary. We had to get by using only "zeros!"
Mark
Actually:
There are 11 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, those who don't, and those that mistakenly think binary and ASCII are synonymous
If you only knew how much I loathe you right now... LOL
There are 11 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, those who don't, and those that mistakenly think binary and ASCII are synonymous
Well in that case there really are 100 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary, those who don't, those that mistakenly think binary and ASCII are synonymous and those who couldn't care less one way or the other.
01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110101 01110011
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