We were a small group tonight, but the conversation was lively. We were: Dean, Ferne, Don, Bob, Cathy, Lindsay, John T., and myself — Tomek. We started off oddly with golf, which none of us seemingly knows a lot about. It was a short conversation. But that got us to Tiger Woods, failed celebrity advertising campaigns, and how people with apparently a lot more talent than any of us make a living. I think at this stage there was a brief interlude wherein we discussed what our spouses would do to us if they discovered us philandering. Things, however, took a darker turn when we went from there into so-called childhood prodigies, whose childhood talent in reality mostly derives from parents living out their fantasies vicariously through their children, robbing them of their childhoods along the way. Dean proudly managed to invoke The Galaxy Song (“So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘Cause there’s bugger-all down here on Earth!”). Somehow we got on to artificial intelligence, machine learning and RPA/rapid process automation, and I gave an impromptu lecture on our digital future, and how we’re all doomed. (Walmart will always need greeters, right?) We took a moment to revel in humanity’s defects, which may be our salvation. We veered into politics but not our own; a question led us into a prolonged meditation on Brexit. As always, a good time was had by all.