Exchanging Words

I stormed into Microcenter at lunch on Thursday ready for a battle over my incorrect chip. I knew what I was going to say, and I was sure I knew what I wanted. I found the glass case of memory in the back, and saw the kind I needed. Then I waited. The third “Do you work here?” did the charm and I finally found someone to help me. The kid stopped in his tracks when I mentioned what kind of computer I had, because the memory chip was for laptops, not desktops. “Is your machine like, old, or something?”

He tagged the item and led me to the exchange counter where I waited on line. The guys behind the counter processed my order while conversing about the woman who had been ahead of me, how she had a rich husband and a lot of nice cars that she bought. Before it was my turn, I was treated to the one young man's efforts to explain his qualities and why she should “get with” someone like him. Her two children wandered around oblivious.

After work I took a break to catch Shrek the Third. I enjoyed it, and laughed quite a bit at times. The animation was the finest of the trilogy and the line between reality and digital grows even thinner. The plot, unfortunately, had also grown thin so while I enjoyed the film overall, it was a collection of great moments strung together rather than the cohesive tales told in the first two. It seems to be a trend this Summer with trilogies. I think a first movie sets up and introduces characters, and is good until the second one comes along. With less time needed to explain who everyone is, they can launch into new territory more quickly, and with a third sequel a certainty, elements can set up future films and cliffhangers are not unheard of. But when two sequential movies are that good, expectations are always higher for the third one, and even the best franchise can lose a little steam. I'd still recommend it, though.

After the movie, I was relaxed and ready to tackle my “surgery”. Once more I opened the machine. The chip fit, though the force I needed to exert made me fear I would break it. When I closed the machine and reconnected the plethora of cables, it not only started but showed the new memory. I haven't noticed a major difference, but I was able to install most of the software that gave me problems the other day.

Words are so important. Whether dealing with machines or people, communication is key as is a good vocabulary. Do we speak the same language? Kev Bayer posted a list of 100 words every high school graduate should know. After high school, college, and two office jobs, I wonder how sharp my brain remains? As Kev Bayer did, I'll bold the words I do know:

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat

86 out of 100. Looks like I have 14 words to learn. Maybe I’ll try to incorporate them into future posts, unless someone bowdlerizes them. Hey, 87....