Phoenix residents think they may have been visited by UFOs Monday night. The four mystery lights hovered over the city for 15 minutes before disappearing. And, there’s video:

It’s a lot harder to be an alien visitor these days. Back in the 1950s, a UFO could appear over any mid-sized city, do some flips, blow up some cattle and leave. If anyone saw them, the aliens could rest assured that any witness would be dismissed as a maniac, a communist, or Ed Wood.

Now, every podunk in America has a video camera in their pocket, making visits difficult and necessitating clever disguises, like some groucho glasses or a funny hat.

I call this the ‘Mike Skinner Phenomenon’, which the Streets frontman brilliantly elucidates in the song ‘When You Wasn’t Famous‘:

Right see the thing that’s got it all f*cked up now is camera-phones.
How the hell am I supposed to be able to do a line in front of complete strangers
When I know they’ve all got cameras?

Of course, for that to work, you need to replace “do a line” with “visit Earth” and “Complete Strangers” with “Hapless Earthlings”.

Of course, they could just be sky lanterns. But that’s not nearly as cool.

UPDATE: It looks like yes, they were balloons. Or maybe that’s what the aliens want you to believe.

Gotta love fanboys. So endlessly inventive, even if their inventiveness comes at the expense of having a meaningful social life.

Check out this vid of a bunch of transformer costumes that actually transform:

Did I say no meaningful social life? My bad. You’ll have a social life, all right…only it will be exclusively with the 20 other people with the time and energy to make their own sweet costumes. Via Kottke.

I’m starting to come around to this new GI Joe movie. I’d like to say it had something to do with the director, or the script, or the potential for thoughtful commentary on the nexus of politics and armed intervention in a post 9/11 world.

But really, it has more to do with this:

And, a little of this:

Yo, Joe.

Seriously, this movie is like 94 per cent asses and armoured boobs. Which, actually, I don’t have a huge problem with. And if you’re wondering about the last 6 per cent, that’s 4 per cent Snake Eyes and 2 per cent Marlon Wayans and some guy named Dennis Quaid. Go here for more pics of the whole cast.

Looks like all the Russian denials this morning were a little uh…shall we say, Soviet?

Talk about a smoking gun…..

Slow day here at Nunc Scio central. There’s either nothing particularly interesting going on, or I’m too imbued with Monday malaise to be a wiseass. Actually, it’s probably some nefarious combination of the two.

So, I’ll tell you about my exciting weekend news. Yes, I am now a father. Not of a human child, nay: for that would be far to easy. Instead, I bought a new car. A shiny black VW Rabbit. Yes, I now drive a car named after a rodent. Check out the fancypants photo of it in action above.

I’ve discussed the phenomenon of male car parenthood with my more gear-headed friends in the past. I usually summed it up like so: I cannot experience the miracle of childbirth, but I can buy a new car. And really, the experience isn’t so much different. Cars are expensive, just like babies. They require attention and TLC. Both are prone to noxious emissions. True, one doesn’t soil itself, and the other doesn’t require insurance. But I prefer to look at the big picture.

Oh, and my car came with switchblade keys. SWITCHBLADE KEYS. To my knowledge, this is not standard equipment on a baby, late-model or otherwise.

Even without weaponized keys, it was definitely time for a change. My previous car, which I have now “donated” to my sister (much as one pawns of a case of Ebola) was a ’98 Ford Contour (Sport Model! Yeah, 24v V6!) with 340,000Km on it. I’m amazed it still ran, let alone never burst into flames. However, it did do fun things like make all the AC fluid magically disappear, and stall on humid days.

So, join me in welcoming my new ride. It is, as of yet, nameless. So if you have a suggestion for a new moniker, leave it in the comments.

So, I rode my bike to work for the first time today. Frakkin’ awesome. Beautiful weather, beautiful lake shore and that great feeling you get while doing something that might actually be extending your life, as opposed to hastening your journey to the grave.

But here’s the thing: it took me 30 minutes, door to door. It takes me about 20 minutes to drive, given decent traffic. But if I were to take the subway, which I do frequently, it would take me 45 minutes on a good day. That is, if the subway isn’t inexplicably delayed, doesn’t break down, or the $%#^#& union goes on strike.

Which leaves me to wonder. Why the hell does our transit system suck so bad? If we’re serious about getting cars of the street, we need to deliver some real value through the TTC. Like it needs to be faster. Or cheaper. Or somehow better. People seldom engage in society-wide changes in behaviour out of the goodness of their hearts. Social change is driven by better alternatives.

So, what to do? From my way of thinking, the idea of transit as a public utility has had its day. Sure, we could make it work, but that requires money. And to get more money, we need more taxes. None of the pantywaists who run the show seem willing to take that particular political hit, so we as citizens are forced to find our own solutions. I say privatize the sucker. Let’s get some competition going in the transit world to improve efficiency, increase capacity and control cost. To preserve equity in the system, the government can provide subsidies or even free passes to kids, students, low income individuals and seniors.  Simple.

But in the end, I’ll probably still just take my bike. Let’s face it: I need the exercise.

With a regularity you can set your watch to (if you used some kind of freaky, bi-weekly watch), my new theatre review is up on BlogTO. This week it’s on Death Ray Cabaret, aka the best darn sketch troupe you’ve never heard of.  Check it (and them) out.