Acronym madness

While I was reading Tom Clancy’s The Teeth of the Tiger on my return flight to New York, something kept grabbing my attention. In the book, Tom Clancy kept using the phrase ‘ATM machine’. Come on Tom, surely a techno-thriller writer like yourself won’t make this basic english mistake? ATM stands for ‘Automatic Teller Machine’, so what does ATM machine means then? ‘Automatic Teller Machine Machine’?

I guess people in general do not care what the acronym stands for as long as they know what they mean. For example, news reader on TV often refers surface-to-air missile as SAM missile. Or PIN as PIN number. Duh!

August 30, 2003 2

What a waste of money!

Apparently, due to Ron Dennis’s infinite wisdom McLaren is going to retain David Coulthard for another year! This is his 9th season with McLaren and he has still yet to win a World Championship, despite the fact McLaren had, in the past, provided the fastest car to him designed by Adrian Newey. And remember those cars had to be faster than the Ferraris by a large margin to offset their Schumancher advantage! And yet David Coulthard had only been driving like a second rated driver that he is.

Ron, stop wasting your money on this pretender and get someone like Montoya or Villeneuve! McLaren needs another Hakkenen-like driver. I know you have Raikkonen and he has blond hair, all ice cool and all that, but he is not experienced enough to take on Schumacher yet.

August 20, 2003 0

Democrat in disguise?

First Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for the governor of California as a Republican when his power base, the Kennedy family, is Democrat. Now even actor Rob Lowe joins his campaign, who is also a Democrat.

Is Arnie really just a Democrat in disguise? I don’t know enough to past judgement but it just make the whole process more entertaining. Not to mention that Rob Lowe may have confused his West Wing role with real life. What’s he going to do next? Sleep with a high class call girl?

August 17, 2003 3

What style?

On a rare occasion where I actually accompanied Leah to the super market today I spotted this while we walked down the frozen food isle, French Style Croissant. What style? Isn’t croissant from France? I am not aware there is another style of croissant. Chinese style croissant, anyone?

July 27, 2003 6

Hot, cold, boiling, freezing…

One of the strangest thing here in Oregon that I’ve found is that all the air conditioned premises are very cold. And it is not just the nice-and-dry comfortable cold. It is a freeze-my-butts-off cold, that makes you put on sweater or jumper after staying indoor for more than five minutes!

Why the hell do the Oregonian need to be that cold in the summer? One of my work colleague jokes that the cold AC remains them of winter! Funny but not when one considers how much energy the state consume to keep all these offices and shopping malls cold each summer. No wonder California has energy crisis each summer. I guess Oregon does not have energy crisis because they do not have as large a population as their southern neighbor.