I'm new to the whole Wi-Fi thing. I landed my first laptop a few weeks ago. Being able to sit in a McMenamins while simultaneously chugging a Terminator and reading Boing Boing is still a trip for me. The future is now, man! Sure, we still don't have flying cars, Meals-in-a-Pill or utopian yet dystopian societies reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World but this will do nicely. Who needs soma when we've got an opiate of the masses like this?

Now CIty Hall and a company called MetroFi Inc. are about to launch phase one of a plan to blanket the city in free Wi-Fi on Tuesday. Hot damn! Will it be enough to get us to stop bitching about the OHSU tram, the potholes, the construction projects downtown, PPD or that short-lived plan to sell off Mt. Tabor park? Only time will tell.

Who knows? If the city's diabolical plan to shut us all up works, maybe they'll finally be able to do away with all those pesky ""open communications" slots at council meetings once and for all.