Sightings

I saw a UFO this morning.

At this point people are probably going “Oh god! Don’t tell me he believes in UFOs! He’s insane! I’m never reading this blog again!”. To which I say “Of course I believe in UFOs! I’ve seen a number of them over the years, I’d be mad to not believe in them!”

The point of course is that when you say “UFO” you probably mean “alien spaceship”, and when I say “UFO” I mean exactly what it says on the box – an Unidentified Flying Object.

Now I suppose it’s possible that any given UFO could be an alien spaceship, but – as a person with a decent grasp of both interstellar distances and physics – I wouldn’t be holding my breath. While I’m of the opinion that some UFOs may turn out to be anomalous – which is to say they are examples of a phenomena currently uncategorised by science – common sense dictates that the vast, vast majority of sightings are perfectly ordinary objects (such as aircraft, birds, stars, clouds, planets, meteors, etc.) seen from funny angles or under unusual conditions. I’m sure for instance that what I saw this morning was a plane either taking off from or circling to land at Perth Airport, which is only five or so kilometres from the site of my observation, Bayswater Railway Station.

What I saw at 8:33 this morning was a shining, slightly ovoid disc traveling from right to left across the east-north-eastern sky for between 30 seconds and a minute. It kept level at about four fingers above the treeline, and covered a distance of about four fingers before passing behind a cloud and vanishing. A mass of thin, whispy dark cloud was blowing across the sky from left to right, and the object was passing behind it, occasionally vanishing behind pillars of cloud – I was careful to note that the object was moving relative to the ground, not just to the cloud. Its level of brightness varied up and down, but remained constant for the last ten seconds of observation.

There were a large number of people on the platform at the time, but no-one else seemed to notice the object – or if they did they just assumed it was a plane. Which it almost certainly was. I considered taking a photo, but really couldn’t be bothered πŸ™‚

So there we are. UFOs buzzing Bayswater. Tune in next week when I tell you about the thylacine I saw down by the river!

(Note: I have never actually seen a thylacine down by the river or indeed anywhere else :))

Lovely Spam

Enhance your Ewactwy Wo-um!

I’ve been getting quite a few spam comments on the Wyrmlog lately – which isn’t any kind of problem because my filters catch them all. I’ve usually been ignoring the contents but one today included a link to a YouTube video, which I decided to check out just for laughs (after all, what harm can a YouTube link do to your system?)

It turned out to be a video of a strongly accented man staring into the camera and talking about how great a particular brand of – shall we say – “enhancement” pills are, and how they increase “ewactwy wo-um”. Apparently other enhancement pills have all kinds of side effects, but these ones are side effect free, and have a really impressive effect on one’s ability to “ewactwate” – if that’s actually the kind of thing that particularly concerns one.

It was quite amusing, but I’m not going to reward spammy behaviour with a link.

Denys, Why U No Post?

Damn you Notch!

On Sunday Ryan did a very evil thing. He showed me Minecraft.

I have strenuously been avoiding even seeing Minecraft ever since it came out, on the assumption that I would become instantly hooked. As it turns out, I was completely right.

Expect a more regular posting schedule once I’ve mined and crafted myself into exhaustion πŸ™‚

A Black Spot on the Sun

Bloody clouds!!

So, my plans to observe the transit of Venus were stymied by a massive slab of overcast that rolled in over the city just before sunrise. Justin and I had been intending to take my telescope up to Kings Park to watch, but there wasn’t much point – we headed over to Maylands anyway and had breakfast at Milkd.

I ended up alternating between the Mount Wilson and Mauna Kea video feeds, so at least I saw it, if not exactly with my own eyes.

As Justin said, roll on the 2016 transit of Mercury!

It’s Budget, It’s Budget Time!

It’s budget day! The one day of the year when being a single, childless, mid-thirties, fully employed, tax-paying, caucasian male doesn’t actually pay off.

You don’t think that maybe next year you could include some kind of stimulus payment for people who quietly contribute to the economy without demanding child-care, educational support, unemployment benefits or family payments? Just a few dollars? Please? ;D

Neglect

I’ve been feeling so run down this last week that I’ve pretty much been neglecting everything – both online and offline. I didn’t even make it to the local dawn service yesterday – something I normally never miss – because I couldn’t drag myself out of bed.

On the subject of ANZAC Day, this photo of mine has had over 9,000 hits today, all of them coming from various utility pages on Flickr. I guess they must have put some kind of gallery up, but damned if I can find it.

Hmmm, over 9,000?

Sorry πŸ™‚

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

I fell over yesterday.

The reason that I see this as being at all blogworthy is that I almost never fall over. I trip over things with depressing regularity, but my sense of balance is so good and my reflexes so sharp that recovering equilibrium before hitting the floor is pretty much a given. It’s been almost ten years since I last thumped into the ground, so tripping over my own feet on the walk home from the train station last night is quite notable.

The reason for this remarkable record is – somewhat paradoxically – the fact that my ankles are rather sub-par in the whole “keep the rest of the body upright” department. As the result of an old injury they have a tendency to occasionally go on strike without warning, sending me plummeting groundwards while walking, running, or just standing around discussing Wittgenstein. This constant threat has honed my reflexes to the point where I can instantly recover my balance in all but the most dire of circumstances (the last time I fell was because I was in a room packed with junk and there was no room to maneuver).

Last night my left ankle collapsed so catastrophically that all my efforts to recover proved inadequate. I went down (somehow) on my right side, thudding into the concrete pavement, skinning both my palms and lightly bruising my arm and leg. I did however manage to roll into the fall, with the result that when the dust cleared I was sitting neatly upright and able to exclaim a loud “CRAP!” before getting up, dusting myself down and continuing on my way.

Of all the days to fall, yesterday was a good choice. Autumn has finally rolled in and the day was nice and cool. As a consequence I had got my heavy, wool coat out of storage for the first time this year and it absorbed a lot of the impact. Had I not been wearing this most excellent accessory I’m confident I would have scrapped quite a lot of skin off my right arm and been in substantial pain. As it happens I’m just aching a bit, which is easily dealt with.

So, let’s see if I can go another ten years without going arse over feet again πŸ™‚

Some final commentary courtesy of The Drowning Pool and America’s favourite Televangelist Benny Hinn

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