Off the Top

I was discussing the concept of nicknaming with a fellow this morning. I explained the nicknames doctrine to him and then remembered that there were a couple of points I was going to add to it. Here it is; points four and five are new.

1. You can’t make up your own nickname.

2. You have to dislike it at first. (But it can grow on you.)

3. It has to somehow be descriptive of your person.

4. Diminutives are not nicknames.

5. Jesus was the most famous nicknamer. (Consider “Peter,” “The Sons of Thunder,” “Paul,” “Abraham,” “Israel,” and Revelation 2:17.)

New pet peeve: When people say “SQL,” but they really mean “Microsoft SQL Server.”

We have a new anomalism. We’ll label this one Mr. Yuck.

Recently finished a book called Flying Tigers — the story of Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group (AVG). If you recall, they were the mercenary fliers who, in shark-nosed P-40s, defended Burma and China at the beginning of World War II. A few of the more or less interesting things I learned:

- Their kill ratios were probably inflated, although still quite good.

- The John Wayne movie was wildly inaccurate.

- Most things considered, it cost China about $75,000 for each Japanese airship the AVG destroyed — one of the few times in warfare when the things doing the destruction cost less than the things destroyed.

- The movie Air America was about an air transport group started during the cold war by Claire Chennault.

Tonight, we went to the cinema and paid the price of admission for only one movie. So we weren’t expecting to see seven movies: