Short Story Leading to Acrochallenge!

Hello there. I didn't make it to acromania last night, I enjoyed a very nice nap in the Comfy Chair.

So we'll try for tonight, with judging taking place tomorrow. But first, a little story.

Now, as has been stated in this blog before, one of life's great joys is getting a surprise in the mail. I got one such surprise yesterday, though it really shouldn't have been.

Remember back when I got the new computer? Of course you don't, you're not me, and I don't expect you to. It was around the end of September, I believe. Hopefully you will remember the pissing, moaning, and gnashing of teeth I blogged about concerning the fact that the new Windows, hell, I don't even remember what it's called at this point, oh, Vista, hated my Flip camera.

Well, Windows Movie Maker hated it, hated it with a passion, and every time I made a movie something horrible happened. That something was usually that my uploaded movie would have sound and no picture.

OK, it took me a month or two to realize I had to do something about this, and dear old Ed, leader of the Sauerkraut Band, told me the only way to go was Adobe Elements Premiere. Easy as pie, affordable, I'd be back to moviemaking in no time.

So I bought it.

It was neither affordable nor easy as pie, at least at first try. I paid around $100 for it, but it had the nifty extra of a coupon I could send in for a rebate, thus reducing the price to $80. I sent the rebate coupon as soon as I purchased the program, around Christmas, maybe a few days after.

I grew to hate Elements, found a nice video conversion program to convert my Flip camera files to something Windows Movie Maker liked better, and I was happy and Elements was on the shelf.

Then came the dreaded Band Video, where Movie Maker abandoned me completely, and I was stuck with Elements, which I still hadn't learned to use, but I learned it in one night and soldiered on.

I've made a couple more movies with Elements, and it's growing on me except for one thing. The titles. If you will notice, any movie I make with it has a black background. It's all they offer. And I can't believe a movie editing program you'd pay $100 for would have a distinctive lack of colored title backgrounds, but there you go. It is what it is, I suppose.

And so that's where I was. Or am. A whole saga in Comfy Chair moviemaking come and gone, and today in the mail I got a small envelope from Adobe. I almost threw it away, thinking it was some sort of junk mail, but opened it on a whim, and lo and behold, inside the envelope was a check for $20.

My wait six-to-eight weeks rebate had arrived, and in only six months!

I laughed a little, and should have been more steamed that it took so long I actually forgot about it, but hey, twenty bucks is twenty bucks, and I stored it away to be cashed.

And that made me think of an acrotopic.

You know the old saying "till the cows come home?" I do. Apparently my sister does not, because she says "till the cows crow," believes it makes more sense because cows don't crow. And yes, I've stopped trying to convince her, she seems happier saying it her way.

Tonight's acro is a fill in the blank. "I had to wait until ____________." There you go. You get to make your own new phrase equivalent to the cows coming home or crowing, whichever comes last.

All the other rules are the same. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronym they can, one that matches not only the topic above, but also the letters below. The letters are randomly drawn from the acrobasket. The acrobasket waits for nothing. Then tomorrow, that's Wednesday for you keeping score, at 10:00pm est, I shall be reading the entries and naming the winners.

So the acro? Fill in the blank: "I had to wait until ___________." The letters?

C D V E T

Now, stop waiting around and acro.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Well, American Idol's almost done, Amazing Race is done, My Name is Earl is now done (sadly, forever, fuck you NBC). I'm out from under TV shows for the summer. Well, except for Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. And Top Gear. And that horrible BBC Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat show. OK, I'm not out from under TV shows for the summer.