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Small Talk: a.k.a. 'The Meet Market'


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Right now the lunar eclipse is almost complete - this is so cool!!!  Not looking blood red but maybe in a few more minutes.  

 

ETA: OK, now it does have a red tinge to it.  I'll be really tired tomorrow but it was worth it.  

Edited by Worsel
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^ and just the opposite for us!!! It's still partially cloudy, but we got to see it at around 10 pm!!!! *weeping tears of joy*

It definitely had red. I took photos, so hopefully one of them turned out decent.

With this and Once premiering...It's been a pretty good night. :)

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Wasn't sure where to put this, but I just saw, only for a split second before navigating to another page on the board, something funny in th Promoted Stories section at the bottom of the board. It was a photo of Charming stabbing Hook in the AU, and I think it had the word gay in it. I guess Hook did have a bit of a painful look of ecstacy on his face with Charming standing behind him. LOL But Colin's "in pain" face has always looked like something else. Has anyone else seen it?

Edited by pezgirl7
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Anyone else have any Halloween movies they try watching in October?

I just discovered that the Disney Channel app has *some* of its trademark Halloween movies on it. I just got done watching "Under Wraps." I haven't seen this movie in years. Harold is the cutest mummy ever. I adore him.

The app also has "Can of Worms," "Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire," ALL the Halloweentown movies, "Now You See It," and "Twitches."

*sighs* That's my childhood right there. Wish they had some of the other movies, but I suppose I'll have to see if they'll be on the Disney Channel at some point (at a reasonable hour).

Otherwise, besides the Disney Channel Halloween movies, I also aim for Scooby Doo (Zombie Island is a must), some Harry Potter, Hocus Pocus, the Tim Burton movies, some of the other Halloween-ish movies on abc family, and some of the movies they show on tcm. I don't get through them all, but if I have the time, I'll try!

Oh, and Ernest Scare Stupid is a must for my family too.

Basically I love all of the "kiddish" Halloween movies.

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I can't think of any particular Halloween movies I like to watch. I'm usually so busy at that time of year, and the fall TV season is in full swing, so there's never any time to just sit down and watch movies. I do like the old Disney "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" cartoon. I'm probably going to skip the annual Halloween party this year because I'm singing in a concert the next evening and am a soloist, so I don't want to take any chances, and I have to sing in the 8 a.m. church service the next day. Maybe I'll dig out the DVD of The Others and watch it that night before going to bed early.

 

I have occasionally pulled out the Halloween episodes of Buffy for Halloween-season viewing.

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I always appreciate a good Hitchcock film. While not classically Halloween fare, they are pretty creepy. I like Rear Window, Psycho, Dial M for Murder. I also like Halloween and Scream. Also really good is Arsenic & Old Lace.

I love Arsenic & Old Lace! We have it on vhs. Cary Grant is hilarious. I love his comedies.

I love Strangers on a Train too. It may not be Hitchcock's very best (like some of the editing doesn't seem top notch), but I still love it. The suspense scene at the carnival always gives me chills.

That's why I like te ol'timey scary movies. They don't have blood and gore, and basically rely more on the atmosphere itself to be scary. A good example is "The Haunting" from the 1960s. Mother of pearl, I did not sleep a wink after I saw that movie for the first time.

I'm pretty sure I saw a tweet advertising some of the movies tcm was going to show this october. I'm pretty sure Disney's Ichabod Crane was one of them (along with the Ghost & Mrs. Muir--yay! I love that movie).

Casper has such a beautiful score. I love the music.

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Ooh, I looked it up, and TCM is showing The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad on Wednesday, Oct. 28. I shall have to set the DVR, as I'll be out that night. They're also showing both Witch Mountain movies (the originals, not the recent remake), but I think I'll avoid them because I had a huge crush on the kid in them when I was a child, and I think it might be too weird to see the movies again from an adult perspective. I think he really was a kid in the first movie but was a tween in the second. I saw the second when I was maybe 9 or 10 and at that time, a 12-year-old was an older man worthy of crushing on. Then I saw it again when I was about 13 and my crush was utterly deflated.

 

One movie I do like watching around Halloween is Little Shop of Horrors (the musical version). It's fun to sing along.

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Yep. October 28th seems like a good night to watch tcm. My parents like the old Race to Witch Mountain movies. I'll hae to skip out on watching Ouat, but I think I'll survive. Sounds like Friday nights will be good too. #TCMHorror y'all.

Anyone here watching Indian Summers on PBS? I'm not sure if I'll watch all the episodes. The costumes, etc. are gorgeous as always, but I missed a chunk when I was getting a glimpse of the super moon and I don't know if I want to go back to watch what I missed. It's not as complicated as Wolf Hall with it's 25 Thomas's, but I can't keep track of the characters. There's Alice and Ralph, who give me slight incest vibes, Ralph's girlfriend, Molly Weasley, the witch, the witch's nice husband, their young son who feels neglected by his dad...etc.

My mom kept confusing the witch with Alice because they have almost the same hair color.

Edited by HoodlumSheep
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I watched the first episode of Indian Summers. I was very tired when watching, so didn't absorb much. I mostly was eyeing the costumes and was curious from a cultural/historical perspective. My neighborhood has become Little India over the past few years, so I'm suddenly surrounded by a culture I know very little of. I've talked with some neighbors about life where they're from, and I recognized some things in this that rang true from what these people said about their own background. It's also interesting seeing something set in India that's not in one of the major cities. I don't recall seeing a lot of things about the mountains before.

 

There's a new WWII-related drama starting this week, opposite OUAT, which was one reason I finally got a DVR, since PBS isn't available On Demand.

 

In other "entering the 21st century" news, I finally have a good TV set-up in my bedroom. I'd had my old 13" tube TV that was in my college dorm room in there, mostly using it as a monitor for setting the VCR. But this summer my parents redid their house and got a larger TV, so they gave me their old one (as payment for doing a lot of tech support for them), which was a little larger than the TV I had in my living room. Then I got the DVR but got to keep my old cable box. Yesterday I went to Ikea and got a new stand that will hold my old living room TV and assorted other stuff, so now I have an HDTV with a cable box and a DVD player in my bedroom. I seldom watch TV in my bedroom, but I can now if I want to. Mostly, I'll have the news on while I'm getting dressed, but I imagine I'll enjoy it if I get sick. If there's a big December cold snap, I may stay huddled in bed for a marathon of those cheesy made-for-cable Christmas movies on Lifetime and Hallmark. I may not do a lot of Halloween-themed viewing, but I'm a sucker for those so-bad-they're entertaining Christmas romantic comedies.

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I feel uncivic-minded, but I'm cranky I have to report for jury duty tomorrow. And be there at 8 a.m. Last time I got called for jury duty, I ended up on a jury. Luckily it was a short drug-possession case. A friend got put on a jury for a two-week murder trial that was really grisly & upsetting.

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I just found out that Marcus theaters here in the Midwest is having a Disney film series, and this weekend they'll be showing The Little Mermaid, my favorite Disney film. But I have to work on friday and will be going out of town on Saturday. :( Maybe I'll go to see Tangled in a few weeks, and I just saw The Princess Bride will be showing too in November!

http://www.marcustheatres.com/marcus-specials/family-friendly-films/disney-enchanted-tales

Edited by pezgirl7
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I feel uncivic-minded, but I'm cranky I have to report for jury duty tomorrow. And be there at 8 a.m. Last time I got called for jury duty, I ended up on a jury. Luckily it was a short drug-possession case. A friend got put on a jury for a two-week murder trial that was really grisly & upsetting.

 

I got put on a jury for an attempted rape trial once. I noticed two things about jury selection.  Every myth about the type of people who get selected is BS and that they seem to favor the selecting people who have prior jury experience.  I figure any time in the future that I actually have to report, odds are much greater that I'd have to serve. 

 

What was really unnerving was that the trial was in a courthouse famous for an escape that ended in multiple fatalities and the bailiff who was clearly positioned to guard the defendant slept through most of the trial. 

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I don't know what jury selection you've been a part of but that wouldn't work in my county.  They put instructions to the jury in a way that its clear that they know all the tricks and that they've been used enough that they don't even accept/believe  legitimate reasons not to serve much less BS ones that are aimed at getting out of jury duty.  They gave everyone a list of twenty or so to stand up and read the answers to and then picked the jury.  None of them left an opening for that kind of thing if someone was going to try it.

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They ask questions for what would disqualify you to serve as a juror. I firmly believe in jury nullification and if I believe the law is shit, then I have a constitutional right to refuse to convict. This is particularly true of the drug laws in this country. No prosecutor or judge wants to put someone on the jury who would refuse to convict not on the basis of guilt, but on the basis of whether I think the law is crap. That's a fact. It's not a bullshit excuse. It's a I'm not willing to put someone in prison for something I believe they should never be in prison for. End of story. 

 

It's the same reason why in capital cases, prospective jurors are asked whether they can find someone guilty knowing the result may be death for the accused. If I say no to that, I'd be excused because this would be a version of nullification. 

Edited by KAOS Agent
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I got a jury questionnaire a few weeks ago. I filled out the online survey and in our state, they actually let you push back your service if you have kids and don't work. I just needed to push it a few months until both kids in were school so who knows if they actually send me a summons or not. When I lived in LA, I got a summons once a year. It was like clockwork -- Oh, it's been exactly a year? Let's send her a new one. Only had to report for duty once though and after sitting around in the jury room all day, the lawyers agreed to a deal and I never had to see the inside of a courtroom.

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They decided they didn't need any new jurors today and sent us home after a few hours. Yay! However, I managed to miss a step down near the courthouse and twisted my ankle, so I'm now sitting at home with an ice pack on it. The universe giveth, the universe taketh away.

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The last time I was called for jury duty (around this time last year), I was in the back row for selection, so a lot of people ahead of me would have had to be struck for me to end up on the jury. For a while, though, I was starting to worry because people were kind of getting ridiculous with the things people were saying, obviously trying to get out of it. Like, the judge went through the requirements and people kept raising their hands saying they didn't qualify, and the judge finally pointed out that them not qualifying not only got them sent home, but it went in their record and might affect them in other things. Like a few people were quick to raise their hands to say they weren't actually legal citizens, and the judge said that if they got out of jury duty for that, they would be struck from the voting rolls. A surprising number of people were claiming to be illiterate or not to understand English. The thing is, all that stuff is on the summons, and if it applies to you, you can call, and then you don't even have to show up. They also talk about it in the orientation video in the central jury room and give you a chance to talk to the judge there and go home. So these people showed up and even made it to the courtroom before they suddenly remembered that they weren't citizens, were illiterate or didn't understand English -- and yet they understood enough to show up at the right place on the right day.

 

And then in the hypothetical questions to determine attitudes, people were acting like they were being expected to render a verdict right then and there, based on the type of evidence that might or might not be presented, with no information about the actual evidence. The judge finally got frustrated enough to point out that these were hypothetical situations and that in the trial they would be presented with evidence. We were not having the trial at that moment, and no one was going to be held to any kind of verdict based on their answers to these questions. I was starting to get worried that in spite of there being 70 people ahead of me, they would have trouble finding 12 people with any sense whatsoever in that crowd.

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I've been called at least six or seven times over the past 20 years. I've lived in 3 states and been called in every one. I got out of showing three times - once when my husband and I were stationed overseas, once they recalled me in the time window they aren't supposed to be able to, and the other I deferred when I was a stay at home mom and breastfeeding. That was only supposed to be enough to defer but was cancelled instead. I've never gotten to voir dire, though. Cases always settled or they it enough jurors before they got to me.

I feel like I must fit some algorithm they use to pick invites. My dad has lived in the same place since 1972 and never been called whereas I have my record of calls.

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I get called every year and a half to two years, and only once did I simply spend the morning sitting in the central jury room before being sent home. That was when I got called for civil court. I prefer that one because I can take the train instead of fighting traffic, and they even give you a voucher for the train. Criminal court is in an area not reached by train, in a really scummy part of town, and driving there means fighting bad traffic, and paying high rates to park in a garage designed by MC Escher. At criminal court, I've always ended up going through voir dire. I've ended up on three actual juries (2 criminal, 1 civil), with one hung jury, one conviction, and the civil case got dropped after the first day of testimony (the plaintiff's testimony for another lawsuit was entered into evidence, and in that one she claimed that all her problems were from that case, and none were from the case we were hearing -- oops). I've had a few lucky breaks with being far enough back that I was out of the running, and once I had a good reason for them to strike me (I recognized the incident from having read about it in the newspaper, even though it was a couple of years earlier -- I don't think the judge believed me at first, but called me to the bench so other potential jurors wouldn't hear, then when I was able to list things from the newspaper account, I was sent out of the courtroom immediately). They have such a high no-show rate in my county that not only does just about everyone called end up at least going up to a courtroom, but a lot of the time, even if they end up settling and send the jurors back down, they get recycled and have to go to another courtroom. I've had that happen once.

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This is an incredible visual.  Thanks for bringing some excellent mental images to entertain me on my train ride.

 

That made me laugh, too! 

 

The jury clerk said they called in 70 jurors today, and only 35 showed up. That's a really bad no-show rate! 

 

I lucked out in that this is an administrative week for the criminal court, so it was just civil court going on, and there was only one new trial scheduled to start. I think they must have settled. 

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The jury clerk said they called in 70 jurors today, and only 35 showed up. That's a really bad no-show rate!

 

In Los Angeles County if you don't show up for a jury summons you might get a one thousand dollar ticket. I'm safe for another 18 months at least. Showed up for jury duty but was not chosen for a case.. well, I was but they reached a plea deal before the trial started. So we got to go home. 

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I'm so happy. I was just out on my balcony watching a few dozen chimney swifts take a final spin before bed. I was worried because we used to get hundreds of them this time every year, and we didn't get them last year. I thought the new building management capped off the chimneys, but we seem to have a good number of them at the moment. Hopefully more will arrive.

 

They're pretty fun to watch. They swirl and dive around getting a before-bed snack, then the older ones start settling in to roost. Then, finally, boom. They're all in bed.

Edited by ABitOFluff
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My mom picked up a half-bushel of Galas today. They were on the yellow side and were pretty tasteless. She had gotten Zestars (a farmer's market version of the Honeycrisp) at the beginning of apple season a while back and those were kind of bland too. The Paula Reds she also picked were good though. Our area might be stuck with blander apples this year. It hardly rained this summer, so we don't really know why there's a lack of flavor this year.

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Hey, everyone. Just checking in. I've been lurking in the show threads, but haven't had anything to add. Since I stopped covering the show for TWoP, I've been watching on auto-pilot. It's kind of nice, until something happens that makes me wonder about past episodes. Apparently, writing 7,500 words on an episode helps me commit it to memory, whereas eating popcorn and swilling Diet Coke does not.

Your lovely and talented moderators gave their okay for the next part of this post. I'm writing again (for like pay and stuff) and it's about TV, but it's very different than what I used to do. I'm freelancing for TVSeriesFinale.com. I started October 1. The site runner used to do the majority of writing, himself, so there haven't been any bylines on my articles, but they're coming soon. We mostly cover series finales (hence the site name), pilots, season premieres, ratings, cancellations, renewals, development deals, etc. -- newsy stuff, i.e. no talky-meat recaps. TVSeriesFinale has a Twitter account under that name, so if you follow it, you'll see our links in your feed.

 

I hope this finds everyone well. I miss you all. In re jury duty: I was summoned little more than a year ago. I deferred for a year (in my state, we can do that without giving a reason). My new date was fairly recently. I knew it was coming, and kept thinking I had to find that dang letter, because I hadn't put the date on the calendar (on account of how I'd received the notice in a different calendar year). Then one day, I opened my email to find that my services weren't needed and I was free from jury duty, this time. Good thing, because I didn't see the email until the day after I would have had to report.

I've been called twice before. The first time, I made it to voir dire before being dismissed. The second time, I just had to hang out in the waiting room until I was dismissed. I wish I knew how our state summons potential jurors. I've been called 3 times in about 20 years. I have friends who have never been called. They're registered voters, too, so the thing makes no sense to me. 

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Has anyone been doing anything interesting lately? Or have anything planned for Halloween?

Our town had its annual Pumpkin Roll on the 10th. My family went on our annual fall color tour yesterday. The colors are still a bit spotty where we are at. And we're having caramel apples and watching The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special on abc tonight.

I'll probably just be passing candy out on Halloween.

I don't know what I want to carve in my pumpkin this year. Last year I did Ernest (you know, Jim Varney) and the dog creature from Ghostbusters. I was thinking of carving Slimer, but that depends if I find the right pumpkin.

Edited by HoodlumSheep
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Yep, happy Back to the Future Day! I can't believe at all the effort people are putting into this day/it's anniversary. We have the new clips, the Mock Jaws trailer, Pepsi Perfect, the USA today/times (whatever the newspaper was called) recreating the headlines from the movie for today.

That's a lot of effort.

Also, after reading certain posts, it kind of blows my mind how the events in BTTF2 will have all happened in the past after today.

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Also, after reading certain posts, it kind of blows my mind how the events in BTTF2 will have all happened in the past after today.

Yea, that doesn't make me feel old at all. ;) The other one that blows my mind is that the movie took place in 1985 with them traveling 30 years in the past and 30 years in the future. That means that we're as far away from 1985 as 1985 was from 1955, which is the year Marty traveled back to.

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Stop making me feel old! Back to the Future was the first video tape my family had when we got our first VCR. I think it was a bootleg, not sure where my dad got it. Probably the same place he got the bootleg Atari cartridges. :P

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I don't even want to think about how much time has passed since Back to the Future. I'm so old!

 

As for Halloween plans, I was thinking about wearing my pirate costume from last year to work at the church's community Halloween carnival next week, and to be honest, it wasn't so much because it would be fun for the kids as it was that I kind of wanted to go to choir rehearsal afterward dressed as a pirate. We're doing the John Rutter Requiem for All Saints Day, and that's our last rehearsal before the dress rehearsal with orchestra, and singing the Requiem (and the Pie Jesu solo) dressed as a pirate just seems like something that has to be done. But I found out I'll be running the cookie decorating booth, and I'm not sure that wearing something with big white cuffs will be such a great idea when working with black and orange icing.

 

I'm skipping the Halloween party this year because I have a lot of singing to do the next day and a very early morning the next morning. I'm planning a night in to watch Doctor Who plus probably the Ichabod Crane Disney cartoon I'll be DVRing earlier in the week, maybe one of those Hallmark movies I recorded earlier in the month. I likely won't get trick-or-treaters because I never do. My house isn't visible from the street and most of my neighbors are older single/widowed women, though there are new neighbors right in front of me who have kids, but they just came from India, so I don't know if they'll do Halloween. I'll have candy, just in case.

 

What I'm really excited about is the following week, when I'll be taking my fall vacation. I'm going to a state park in the mountains of eastern Oklahoma, where the fall colors should be at their peak. The park has a lodge, so I have a hotel room, with a patio that looks out over the mountains. There are lots of hiking trails. I plan to spend much of the daytime hiking and the afternoon and evening sitting on the patio and reading. It's kind of like camping, but with a real bed, indoor plumbing, satellite TV and WiFi. However, there's no restaurant on-site and almost nothing in the adjacent town, so the food situation will be kind of like camping. There's a refrigerator and microwave in the room and a grill on the patio, so I'll just bring stuff to eat and not have to worry about going out.

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I'm gonna try to keep tabs on the costumes I see this year as I pass out candy. Last year my favorite costume was actually a group theme. It was the most adorable family ever. The mom and dad were dressed as a king and queen, the little boy was a knight, and their baby was the cutest green dragon ever.

There's Halloween trivia tonight at our town's pizza place tonight. So that's where I'll be heading. Last year it was just my mom and I (team Gryffindor) against a bunch of retired, experienced quiz people (the ones who are always at all the town trivia events). We came in second (just one point shy) in a come-from-behind almost victory.

This year my brother (who has more knowledge concerning horror films and such) is joining us, and I have christened our newish team "Gryffindor's Revenge." And yes, I was inspired by Black Beard and his ships.

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Last year my favorite costume was actually a group theme. It was the most adorable family ever. The mom and dad were dressed as a king and queen, the little boy was a knight, and their baby was the cutest green dragon ever.

There was a family like that a couple of years ago at the carnival, only they had two boys dressed as knights and the baby girl was dressed as a princess.

 

Then there was one of my kindergarten girls who apparently told her mother she wanted to be a princess or a queen -- and she was dressed as Cleopatra. That's a win for the mom.

 

I was intrigued by an Indian (as in Asian) girl who was dressed in a Native American costume -- I was dying to know if that was her snarky response to people who got the kinds of "Indian" mixed up.

 

One of my former students was sad that I wasn't at the carnival last year because he wore a tweet jacket, bow tie and Stetson and had hash marks on his hands. No one got that he was the 11th Doctor in the episode with the Silence, and he knew I would have instantly understood his costume.

 

This event is a good way to see what's going on with the kids because just about everyone in town comes. They do "trunk or treat" in the parking lot and have crafts and games inside. This year there's also a chili cookoff for adults. I'm guessing we'll still be seeing a ton of Elsas and Annas, a few Olafs, lots and lots of Minions, probably some Star Wars stuff.

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We have a town trick or treat event where they close off Main St and the kids go to all the stores for candy. My gym usually does a Zumba 'flash mob' thing to Thriller some time during that event. I would love to do that and dress up as zombie Jane Fonda from the 80s workout video, but the inter webs are not helping me with finding a good striped leotard. I still have leg warmers, though!

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The cast for that live-action Beauty and the Beast is incredible. I can't wait.

 

ETA -- in a weird confluence of fairy tale-related things, I saw the guy who did the voice for the cartoon Gaston playing Lancelot in a production of Camelot, opposite Robert Goulet as Arthur. "Gaston" had a lovely voice and was really cute (I made extensive use of my opera glasses). I found myself thinking that maybe Gaston wasn't such a bad option for Belle. Then again, Robbie Benson was also pretty cute.

Edited by Shanna Marie
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Still trying to figure out my Halloween costume this year. Every year my office does a Halloween spooktacular with food and costumes. Last year, I won second place and a $50 gift card with my two-headed circus performer costume. This year it's weird, because a lot of people were let go with restructuring.  I work at home most of the time myself, but I think it would be good to go to the office Halloween party.

 

So, should I do Wicked Witch Elphaba or demon warrior--basically medieval gear with horns, fangs, and green face makeup, since I have green makeup already?

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