I am precisely in the frame of mind to write eight random things, as I've noticed others doing. I won't play by the rules either, I'll just do it and be damned.

1. I saw carefully detailed pictures of a friend's brain a little while back. She was carrying a 3D scan from doctor to doctor which she herself had not yet seen, and my laptop was handy to do the viewing. I scrolled through it, top cross-section to bottom, stunned at the magic of being able to see those pictures, and the grimness of having had them taken at all.

Naturally, I stopped mid-scroll, put on my best backyard mechanic voice, tapped the screen at a random point, and said "Yep, there's your problem, right there."

2. I am currently plagued by police patrols occurring everywhere I drive, right when I want to put my foot down and get someplace. I haven't had to grit my teeth and back off the juice this often since I was dating that one girl.

I am in the market for a satisfactory explanation for the police phenomenon, but please, only one attempt per person.

3. Random unexpected decor hanging in the home office where I'm typing, #1:

The mounted horns of a steer my grandfather killed, probably fifty years ago. The sketchy story I have of this: the steer had done his work well for quite some time on the farm Grandpa managed, so when the time came, Grandpa handled the necessity himself and mounted the horns out of respect. They hung in his workroom; they now hang in mine.

4. Actual dialogue excerpt from my week:

"Based on what you just said, I think Sylvia Plath would happily take her head out of the oven to repeatedly stab you in the genitalia."
"Thanks, I was wondering how I was gonna get someone to say that to me today."

(If this is a 21st century movie reference of some kind, don't fucking tell me. I cherish it just like it is. At heart, I like to think of myself as a motivator.)

5. Random unexpected decor #2: A tambourine my bride played on stage for a while, back before we met, also hangs on my wall. I have not seen her touch it in the decades I've known her, but I like to keep in mind that I have a tambourine girl on hand in case of a tambourine emergency.

6. Whenever I have a difficult time facing a task I need to do, a problem I have to solve, I have a little litany I mumble to myself. "Let us look upon the problem humbly, and see what it has to teach us." The royal we tends to let me lead myself a little better, and the general sentiment works as well for the tedious as for the terrifying.

7. Random unexpected decor #3: Pinned to a corkboard, a front row halfcourt ticket to an NBA game for the local franchise. It's the only pro basketball game I ever attended, and I see no point in going back - what, I'm going to get a better view?

(As you may have gathered, there is not a lot of visual coherency in my office. I need something, perhaps a rug of some kind, to tie the room together...)

8. The work task from which I'm currently hiding, which will shape the working lives of some number of my colleagues for some number of months, is projecting future effort needed to accomplish a particular project within +/- 20%. To do this, I am being given a quality of information about the desired project outcome which, industrywide, typically results in projections accurate within +/- 80%.

Getting this right or wrong, therefore, will likely be the difference between working 40 hour weeks and 60-70 hour weeks for the same salary, for me and for several players to be named later.

9. Historically, the actuals for everything I do run about 12.5% over initial estimates.