Yeah, I could see that working for Portland. Of course, it entails renaming the place "The Village," but that's already halfway there. In fact, I can even see you standing up to Sam, er, I mean Number Two, screaming "I am not a number! I am a free man!"

It would be a great photo. Mary Nolan would jostle to stand in front of Steve and Jefferson Smith would be resting his beer bottle on Steve's head.

The other night I came out to my car after stopping at the store and noticed that one of my rear tires was almost flat. The first gas station I went to (the AM/PM near the Aladdin Theater), the air machine had a sign on it that said "Out of Service." But I noticed it had a coin box attached to it.

It has been so long since I've had a flat tire, I asked the attendant, "Do you have to pay for air now?"

He said, "I don't know." I asked him a couple of easy questions just to see if he knew anything. Both times his answer was "I don't know."

I drove to a Shell station not far away. It was just closing, and the attendant there pointed to the air machine. "And if you need change, the coin machine is over there."

It cost me a dollar to put air in that tire. This whole episode reminded me of Steve Novick, from the gas station attendant who didn't know anything to paying a dollar for air.

I think it would be an interesting study to put one of these things in an area such as Waterfront Park where most people expect to have free garbage cans. If you stationed a hidden camera, my bet is that you would observe maybe 1 out of 20 people paying money to use it on a good day, and a much larger number leaving their trash next to it.

Is the jelly fish number 7? I think Sam needs to "take a number".
And those things on the top of the can that resemble turnbuckles?...can we chain, Sam, Randy, and "the Legend" to those in this week's hot sun? Or are they for parking bikes? For which there would also be a charge.

Next up? Probably this (straight outta Pittsburgh, the hipperest place in the U.S. this year*):

"The Underground World of Human Cyborgs"
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/

* http://bojack.org/2012/08/portlands_15_minutes_may_be_ov.html

If they're doing in The Netherlands, you can bet they're seriously considering it here.

It could be sort of like the parking meters... a win for the city by collecting more revenue, a win for the city by being able to monitor how much you personally discard and issuing citations or fines for violating some limit, and a win for the private contractor that gets to manage the whole Orwellian mess.

A win raised to the nth power, like the casino coming soon to the metro area.

Mojo, that's about right. Portland is already turning into a 24/7 Maker Faire, and I can see its young, edgy residents eager to leave the flesh behind...mostly because they otherwise couldn't get laid in Tijuana with a jockstrap full of $100 bills.

ID chips for pets, GPS, "for the children" ....
It is only a matter of time before we all have to have a chip with all our info iplanted some place.
No more going to the next town and starting over again as a virgin these days.

Portland: Where bicycling is free and a right, but everything else - INCLUDING breathing - will cost you.

Because everyone has a responsibility to understand - and pay for - their actual costs. (Except bicyclists.)

Looks like a potential jobs program:
+ 24/7 nearby guard ready to issue citation to anyone leaving their trash beside the can, instead of paying for disposal.

or

+ 24/7 surveillance developed to perform above function; big development contract for the system.

I can also visualize Steve Novick cutting the ribbon on more water projects getting us into still more deep debt furthering us into privatization and loss of our pipes and water rights.
By the way, he said months ago, he was for fluoride, is he still? People have a right to know who is for what here regarding the water we drink.