All I Do Is Dream of Chocolate

Started off a cloudy but warm and humid day with the two remaining Scooby Doo episodes. Actually, both were What's New, Scooby Doo? shows I'd seen before, probably during the show's original run on the WB. "Uncle Scooby and Antarctica" takes the gang to the frozen wastelands of the south to return a penguin Scooby's become attached to home to his natural habitat. When they arrive, they discover a science lab built over the penguins' breeding grounds and the scientist who ran the lab kidnapped by a shark-like monster.

"Reef Grief" has one of the most creative monsters of the entire franchise. A creature that looks like it's made from coral attacks kids taking part in a sand sculpting contest in Australia, including Shaggy and Scooby. It's up to the remaining members of Mystery Inc. to find out why the sculptors are disappearing...and how the monster relates to other mysteries of the Great Barrier Reef.

Made a gym run after the cartoons ended. It was past 11AM when I arrived. Everyone must have been getting ready for lunch. There were only a few people on the treadmills and bikes, and no one on the weight machines. I upped the time on the bike and did the leg machines and got a pretty good work-out in.

When I got home, I had a spinach-mushroom omelet for lunch, then baked Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies while watching the classic musical Singin' In the Rain. Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is a huge star in late 20s Hollywood. He has everything he could want...except for love. His frequent leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is a nasty diva with a Brooklyn accent that would make sour cream curdle. When he has a close encounter with actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), he begins to rethink his ideas of love. He's not the only one doing rethinking. Even as he moons over Kathy, sound pictures are taking Hollywood by storm. Don, Kathy, and Don's goofy best friend Cosmo (Donald O'Connor) come up with a way to make Don's newest movie a talkie hit and bring Don and Kathy together...but then Lina gets wind of the plan...

When people think of movie musicals, this one is usually high on the list. It's considered to not only be one of the top musicals of all time, but one of the top movies, period. While the songs are mostly from MGM musicals of the early talkie era and the 30s, the numbers are clever, sweet, and joyous, perfectly matching the witty script. My biggest kudos go to two smaller numbers that perfectly exemplify this movie's spirit - Don and Cosmo's hilarious "Fit as a Fiddle" early on, a genuine comic vaudeville ditty, and Don, Kathy, and Cosmo's delightful version of "Good Morning," danced all around Don's odd Art Deco living room.

Work was pretty much the same as yesterday - quiet when I came in and when I left, busy during rush hour. I shelved candy during the down time.