Recently, Portland Community College banned smoking of any kind on its campuses. The problem? Attaining the image of a brooding emo kid deep in thought is much easier to pull off with gentle clouds of lusty lady tobacco softly puffing from the end of the cowboy killer delicately placed between your lips. If you can’t smoke on campus, why not stroll to one of the nearby residential areas right off campus?
You knew it. We knew it. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein knew it. Portlandia is not an accurate portrayal of Portland. So, why was it that when a recent poll revealed that Portland residents care about topics like the economy, people were shocked?
Did you know that Pioneer Square Mall is not at all retrofitted against a rampage of rabid rhinoceros? Or how about Voodoo Donuts possibly collapsing at the prospect of not having the capacity to handle a convention of Oprah fans with a mad-on craving for No Name donuts? How about the Portlandia statue being able to resist the vicious attacks from a pack of crazed flying monkeys fresh from Oz?! Whenever there’s a disaster somewhere in the world, there will inevitably be comparisons regarding the unpreparedness of other cities to that disaster. In this case, Portland’s public schools are not prepared for a 9.0 magnitude earthquake like the one that hit Japan.
One of the many great things about Portland is that it’s big enough (without being too big) and techie enough that we tend to be a test city for lots of new technologies. Unfortunately, AT&T doesn’t feel we’re ready for the next generation of cell speeds (4G/LTE).
Remember how in the movie Ghostbusters, ghosts started appearing right before the Ghostbusters actually formed their team? In light of the recent string of really bizarre burglars, we’re starting to wonder if Portland’s going to get its own superhero soon.