It seems that since Pat last tagged me, the random fact quota has gone up from five to eight!

Eugene, I hope I can offer my original 5, and supplement to get to eight here:

1. I would much rather wakeboard than waterski; I would rather sled than ATV; I gave up telemarking for the snowboard when I met my husband, but I’m not sure it was a good trade; none of the above compares to chasing down a flying disc with a defender in hot pursuit.
2. My first “real” job in the computer industry was a summer job where I researched Modem configuration strings for a digital whiteboard company. I didn’t actually have the modems — I just had to find the manuals, read them, and extrapolate what the strings would be. It was excruciatingly mindless.
3. I once got busted by the Moscow Police for attempting to buy a matryoshka doll from an old lady in the long tunnel entrance to a Metro station. It is illegal to sell wares in the metro tunnels, and whenever a cop shows up, all the old ladies selling things tuck everything into their coats in the blink of an eye, and melt into the crush of commuters. I was holding the merchandise when the alarm went up in this particular instance, and I didn’t understand what was happening quickly enough to react. The poor vendor whose doll I was holding ended up hovering beside me, terrified but unwilling to flee and sacrifice the merchandise. I did my best ‘dumb tourist’ schtick and the cop let us go – but not before advising me that (a) the item was overpriced, and (b) I had better buy it, to make up for the serious trouble I could have gotten the poor little old lady into.