Overpriced goods, especially at Red Velvet Cupcakery

Whose idea was it to put a quaint, gourmet cupcakery on a college campus? Don’t get me wrong, I love cupcakes. They are a great dessert. What I take issue with is the fact that one tiny cupcake runs me $3. It seems like money grubbing, but when you consider that you can get 12 times as many cupcakes at a grocery store for less, why bother with Velvet? Sure, the flavors are “unique” but even then, they are not anything that gets my mouth watering.

There is at least the saving grace that every time I’ve been in there the employees have been helpful and attentive, but they’ll need more than that to pull another penny out of me.

— Jason Krell

*Bird chirping from Landmark Clothing and Frog & Firkin *

Enjoying a nice stroll down University Boulevard, or watching a football game on the patio of Frog & Firkin, a piercing bird noise pulls me severely from peace into a panic: the same panic that stirs when my grandmother’s cuckoo clock goes off in her cramped home. Maybe you’ve heard it and felt the same way.

Through investigation at Landmark Clothing and Shoes, I was told that, unlike my grandmother, the alarming bird noise was not the result of an unhealthy avian afinity. . The bird noise that interrupts your football game at Frog & Firkin every 15 minutes is actually meant to keep pigeons and other pesky poultry away. 

A specialized black container, no bigger than a shoe box, helps customers from being disturbed by birds invading their space, or worse yet, dropping some surprises. While more harmless than using metal spikes to keep the birds off shop roofs, yet still one of the more annoying things on University. But what would be worse: fake birds chirping every 15 minutes or the nuisance of birds crapping everywhere?

— Cecilia Marshall

Loitering people after football game halftimes

It may not happen this weekend, since the UA always picks a team they can stomp all over for their first game, but sooner or later, people will stop being loyal members of the ZonaZoo and start ducking out of games at the half.

And that’s where the problem begins.

All the uncommitted faux fans who use the game as a way to get wasted have lost their buzz after the first two quarters. Then they flood Chipotle Mexican Grill and make my process of getting a chicken burrito bowl with hot salsa and cheese and a bag of chips — just because I felt like splurging — into a 45-minute affair. Lines are wrapped around the corners of businesses. It’s really an issue.

My advice is this: Either stay for the game or stay classy on University Boulevard. All I want is to do is laugh while watching the flat screens at Which Wich Superior Sandwiches as a new batch of freshmen get kicked out of the game for trying to hop the fence. You are in my way.

— Jazmine Woodberry

Back-In parking

Remember when you first learned how to drive and parallel parking was the last foe you had to vanquish at the end of the driving test? Well, parallel parking may have been difficult at first — but at least it’s something that most people learn, and we all have to do it every once in a while. Back-in parking, however, is a strange phenomenon that’s pretty unique to University Boulevard.

As a result, nobody (including myself) knows how to do it without pulling forward into oncoming traffic, awkwardly adjusting five or six times, and finally backing up meticulously slow. I’m sure it’s a practical idea in theory, but in practice, back-in parking really backs up traffic, and is a major annoyance for everyone involved.

— Miranda Butler