Today's Password is "Leaderboard."
Yeah, that's the word that first confronted me when I first logged into my computer. Leaderboard. I'd stumbled into an email coup d'état without my Sandinista barista or even a simple cup o' joe. I was a caffeine-free in a complex world.
"How many of you know what a leaderboard is?"
A friend email polled a group of us to prove a point. I think my divorce started the same way.
Friends, AOLians, Countrymen,
Lend me your monitor! I come to bury Rob, not to praise him.
How many know what the reason I remain married to him is?
Made of sterner stuff,
MyUnwife
Yeah I am great Caesar's corpse. I'd died and was cast. Sorry sometimes the venom rolls off the tongue like a bitter bard. I'm not, It's just the coffee. If I'm up more than a half hour without it, my day is shot. The aroma in my nose now is the odor of distraction. It's all this leaderboard business. I know Cesar didn't have one. If he did I think we'd all agree Brutus might be first the list. Cesar did have a cup of coffee. I'm sure of it.
I know what a leaderboard is. Will that knowledge bring me a Juan Valdez's donkey in a mug? No, but it will make a friend feel betrayed. It explains her reply:
"et tu? You are so off the coffee of the month list!"
Yeah, only 2 emails into the day, and it's a replay of the opening scenes of my divorce. I needed to slow this down. I mean the only reason I knew about a leaderboad was from all the chess club tourneys and fantasy gaming conventio—I mean the…er…uh...football tourneys and beer drinking conventions. Was it possible I knew a word that wasn't common?
Inconceivable: The sound my coffee pot makes when it sputtering out the last drops of fluid and my coffee mug isn't there to catch them.
I mean leaderboard? Isn't that like one of those compound words they taught us on Electric Company as kids? You remember the 2 silhouetted faces with a vase in between. The lips on one side would move to pronounce half the word then the other side lips would counter the other half word and a complete word would materialize on the screen as they repeated the whole word together.
"Leader"
"Board"
"Leaderboard"
"Caffeine"
"Addiction…"
Yeah you get the idea. I needed to get the idea myself; I'm starting to twitch. Like the protests of MyUnwife, was this just another word I'd taken for granted? I should have gotten coffee, but I decided to look up the word instead. Inability to think straight is an early warning sign. Biting the heads off of squirrels comes next.
My 20 year old desk dictionary seems to think "Leaderboard" doesn't exist. Score one for my friend, I think you can put her on the Leaderboard now.
I tried hyperdictionary.com. They search a few different dictionary databases, including a "dream dictionary." That couldn't hurt. Hyperdictionary shrugged. Then again they didn't know what a hyperdictionary was, so I'm not sure they can be trusted.
I trust Google. If you type "google" in Google they'll tell you where to go. If you type "define google," they'll tell you, "The dominant search engine, at this writing." They're humble too. They obviously know almost as much as I do. I decided to try a second test to be sure.
"Define MyUnwife." Google didn't know how to do that; we were on equal ground.
"Define Leaderboard." Google thought for a moment then told me, "A horizontal ad unit that measures 728x90 pixels." Well that wasn't what I thought it was. I went to the check my friend's leaderboard reference. No it wasn't even close to those many pixels. Well now, I'm in a stand off with Google. "Intravenous coffee injection." Nope, nothing.
While we weren't talking, I decided to prove Google wrong by buying a leaderboard. Amazon.com wasn't sure what one was, but they assured me it had to do with video games and golfing. Ok. I could see that. I shouldn't have to go as far as the Amazon to get somebody to agree with me, but I think MyUnwife would have suggested I go a little further. I'd just look dumbfounded. She's sharper than I am right now, she's on her second cup.
"She never had a second cup at home…"
"Because she was going straight for the vodka to numb you out."
"oh."
Finally I Checked with my buddy Webster. He's always got lots to say. He agreed with me; he did in fact have lots to say, and yes, leaderboard was one of those things. Mirriam said, "Rob," cuz we're close that way. "Rob, a leaderboard is a noun. It's a large board for displaying the ranking of the leaders in a competitive event."
"Thank you, Mirriam. One more question: I've been up a half hour now. Where can I find a squirrel?"
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