Welcome to the 79th annual Academy Awards. The red carpet is laid, the statuettes are buffed and the nominees (many of them also buffed) have been honing their startled, inpromptu victory speeches (assuming they win) and practicing their delighted smiles of failure (should the unthinkable occur).
Please feel free to make yourself at home. Look around and get your bearings: you are sitting in a low-lit salon, with a haze of cigar smoke in the air, cheap wine at the bar, and perhaps a few drunks in the corner who have wandered in from the rain. To your left you can find the live commentary, bringing you garbled updates of each new twist in the ceremony. To your right sit the picture galleries, which, like your hosts, will swell throughout the night as the the celebrities start wandering in (please look, but don't touch; they don't like it).
So kick back, make happy. Those two well-dressed individuals you see over there, right next to the drunks, are Sean Clarke and Xan Brooks: your hosts for the evening. From time to time one may even chip in with a conversational gambit, probably about nachos. Feel free to nod, smile, or simply ignore them. Chances are they'll melt away again without too much unpleasantness.
