... from a trash can.

Well, not really. But Somerville recently purchased 50 BigBelly cans of the Wall-E sort. You know, the kind that squishes incoming trash in cute little cubes, emits aww-inducing mechanical noises, and...well, ok, they're not that adorable.  They just text message the waste management people when they're full of crap.

Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick was so taken by the BigBelly cans that he has proposed blowing $21.8 million of  stimulus package funds on installing over 7,000 of these machines in all the state's parks.  Yes folks, that's your bailout stimulus money at work.