Uptown Kinkos at about 1:00am, I come out and some guy, neatly dressed, is just standing by the back of my bike, leaning against the pole. It's not a street corner, mid-street, nothing there. I go to my bike. give him a look, he walks across the street and around the corner and everything seems intact.
I start to ride away, a second guy, says hey, passes, and as I get to the intersection I notice over my shoulder that he's looking over the lock of the other bike that was there. I u-turn back at him, he moves on and gets into a tiny car (if he's thinking of grabbing it, it won't fit anywhere in or on it). I let the people in the store know to watch their bike and move on.
I tried to think of possible legit reasons, and all that came to mind was drunken curiosity, but these were 2 plain looking guys that you would have passed a thousand times in the street. Maybe just late night paranoia on my part.

that falls under I.J.D.L.R.

It Just doesn't look right.

Your instinct was good. In the least a "I see you" look is in order.

You should take a picture of them next time. Video would be good too.

Yea, and ask them to strike a pose.

like this:

MADonna by ebbmart, on Flickr

or this:

pole pose by ebbmart, on Flickr

Lacking in video/cam on phone...but it CAN play the "Fridays" ringtone in truetone.

Please dont. Ill do anything.

if it can play "Friday" instead we can start talkin

Was the lighting good enough at 1 AM for thief photography?

Stuff like this is discouraging.

Well lit area for the night, but will now carry cheap digital around so that even if the light is bad, they will see the flash.

I like this idea. What better way to stem theft than to make the potential thieves paranoid that they may get recorded for posterity at any moment.

Heck, there might even be a product in this idea... a top-tube or h-bar mounted, motion sensitive device that maybe looks like a cycle computer or bike light, but would snap a shot of the rider and record GPS location if not deactivated by the code, and then use the city WIFI to upload to a police or 3rd party website. If you find that your bike is missing, you look at the website for your bike ID #, and see if there are any shots/location data.

Just ride a bike that isn't a thief magnet. Sigh, I just bought a new bike, and sigh, it's chrome. (bike thieves have the mentality of a 13 year old from 1985 where it's like...OMG it's chrome!)

So I'm screwed. Oh well, it didn't cost me too much.

I want a sticker for my bike that says "City of Minneapolis Bait Bike" with the police shield on it.