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Meeting Minutes 8/18/03 NOVADWVS met at FCGC to watch "Happiness Patrol" starring Sylvestor McCoy and Sophie Aldred. The following group members attended this meeting: Amy, Benjamin, George, James, Jeffrey, Karolina and Lee. This was a short program and was finished by 9:15. The next meeting is scheduled for September 15th at the FCGC, please consider joining us at that time! In October and November our meetings will be held in alternative locations, probably on the weekend as the Govt Cntr is not available. This may allow those who can't normally make it on a weekday to join us. 7/7/03 Hello all! Tonights meeting included myself and Cathy arriving at the same time. I left work early and was too hungry to wait for Dave's pizza so stopped by Lido's and bought my own pie and some soup (mmmm, Italian Weding Soup!). Then Dave showed up with Pizzas from Papa Johns. Alas, I again forgot Benjamin's aversion to pork on Pizza so unfortunately, he didn't get as good a pick but we'll make sure all is well for him next time. Sorry again Benjamin. Finally, in rapid sucession James, Amy, Benjamin and Lisa E. arrived and we started the meeting with the consumption of food. BTW, the pizzas were Meat Lovers and Chicken Alfredo. The Chicken Alfredo was a very interesting flavour, but I digress. During this time Dave and I hashed out some ideas for our co-term, but more on that later... When the food was almost gone, we started the feature: Dragonfire, staring Tony Selby as Sabalom Glitz, Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush and the famous 20 Aug duo Sophie Aldred and Kent "Sylvester McCoy" Smith. (Peter "Davison" Moffet was not in this story.) We then went to the filler. Blake's 7 -- the final episode! Benjamin would not like me to give away the plot. However, Amy had to leave at 9pm and since Cathy was not keen on S4 of B7 she headed out too. Alas no Karolina this meeting! :o Anyway, James, Benjamin, Dave and I sat through the rest of the B7 finale and then Benjamin and James headed home while Dave and I scanned a final draft of our proposed schedule. Again, more on that in a moment... 5/6/03 The following individuals attended the NOVADWVS Meeting last night: Amy, Benjamin, Cathy, George, Jeffrey, Karolina, and Lisa E. The main story watched was "The SunMakers" starring the fourth doctor (Tom Baker) and also featuring Leela and K-9. We also watched some clips of interviews and parts of episodes and bloopers with the 2nd through the 7th Doctor. Most of the attendees of this meeting enjoyed pizza which was delivered to the meeting room. Other points discussed were the possibility of a weekend meeting in Virginia Beach! (Are you still willing and able to host this meeting Bob??) 4/7/03 Concise Meeting Report, as told by Pizza 2.0 Pizza's log: While Amy, Benjamin, Lisa E., Cliff and Dave awaited my arrival, and to a lesser extent Jeffrey [ ed. The pizza was joking here, I know y'all were happy to see me. ;) ] I sat baking in an oven since 6p15. Aparently, I had a twin who to save my life had transplanted me with Bacon from his disused Green Pepper. He was a 5 cheese, tomato and chicken with ricotta cheese in lieu of tomato sause. I, a meatatatian, with pepperoni, saussage, hamburger and my transplanted bacon. I knew I would be more popular than my brother but my brother being cheesy would hopefully appeal to some at the meeting. To avoid HOV penalties Jeffrey left work soon after my conception and took the I295 north to I395 and then Maine ave. to the Rockcreek Pkwy and out I66 at 6p30 as planned. He drove all the way to Idlewilde village and the Tyson's Station Ledo's Pizzaria which served as my hospital. I had recently popped out of the oven with my twin brother and now my adopted father was to take me to my destiny. The fee for the adoption of both of us a mere $23. Dad, unfortunately, was unable to aquire drinks at the hospital and attempted to forwarn the gathering 5 at the Government centre while he made a hasty ascent along I66 towards the hall in which I would meet my new friends. Alas, I missed the exciting video featuring someone named Louise Jameson that they all seemed to like, but on arrival I was definitely the hit of the party! My brother and I enjoyed meeting Amy, Cliff and Dave but were sadly shunned by Benjamin and Lisa, much to our sorrow. They then consumed my while they watched some video called "Doctor Who". During this time web-goddess Karolina who does NOT make mistakes arrived. ;) She however was pinched by 'the man' [ed. the pizza here is refering to the Gov't] and was short on cash. That meant that the total for each was $5 with daddy covering the rest. Lisa finally did nibble on my brother, but didn't like his tomatoes so he still felt a bit meloncholy. I was indeed popular and when it was all over, there was only 1 square of me remaining, though my brother had 5. Cliff then packaged my up with my brother so we could play and then daddy took us home. Daddy, Cliff, Amy and Karolina then chatted until 10p about all sorts of strange concepts, including something about ***** **** **** [ed. I have asked the pizza not to divulge this information] that made Cliff blush. I arrived home where the nice Ms. Shi nibbled at my brother and me some more. Daddy then introduced us at work (obtaining the proper papers allowing me access) and then put me in a nice, cosy, toasty oven to warm my weary, chilled bones. My brother and I came out as before, tasty and yummy and daddy finally held us tight in his mouth as he massaged us with his teeth... Signed, Meaty the Meatful Pizza. 3/17/03 Jeffrey turned on the Simpsons Lisa E. arrived and agreed with it Cliff came and helped me move some tables Dave showed Benjamin to the door -- good to meet you Dave! Benjamin showed tape to the door James graces us with his happy return Cathy came with cookies! Mmmm cookies! (Doubtless to feed the purple Cookie Monsters a.k.a. Spirodonians in their cloaks.) Amy arrived with backup Tape. We tuned in a little pre-bushy Friends mysteriously appears and we discuss Jenifer Aniston makes as much as 1 episode of DS9 and it only cost 60% of her salary to pay for an episode of ST:TNG; meanwhile Doctor Who had a budget of 1/10 of that or about 5% of Aniston's salary per episode. Tried to order Lido's Pizza Failed Tried to order Domino's Pizza Success Medium Cheese; Large Meat; 2l Coke; Cheezy Bread -- $4 each Start the show Karolina arrived fashionable early for the next meeting; brings spiffy Telos Publising limited Edition Novella, signed! (Currently borrowing with intent to read) Famous Episode 3 begins Pizza Arrives Pause Episode 3 during opening credits More post bushy Pizza disappears in seconds! Cheeze not very popular. Resume story. More Cookie Monsters Gratuitous shot of Wester in Uninvisible form Story ends Cliff and Jeffrey and others help restore tables Jeffrey returns CDs to Karolina Meeting ends Jeffrey (alias 'The TimeHorse') 2/3/03 Last night NOVADWVS met to watch "Frontier in Space" a Jon Pertwee story. The following members attended this meeting: Amy, Benjamin, Cathy, Cliff, George (w/Scarf), Jeffrey, Karolina (dressed as the new ACE!) and Lisa E. (who will be selecting our stories beginning in April). The food for the evening was pizza and a few jelly babies. 1/6/03 January's meeting was held last night at the FCGC. Fortunately, the weather and road conditions remained good. The following people attended the meeting: Amy, Benjamin, Carl, George, Jeffrey and Karolina. We watched the last five episodes for Trial of a Time Lord. 12/2/02 On Monday December 2nd, NOVADWVS met and continued with the showing of "Trial of a Timelord" episodes 5 through 9. Amy, Benjamin, Cathy, Cliff, George, James, Jeffrey, and Lisa V. attended this meeting. Lisa E. popped in at 8 PM. Pizza was ordered for those who had not already had dinner. 11/23/03 November 23 - Anniversary Meeting of the Dr Who Program Around 11:45AM, Lisa and I (Benjamin) arrived at Andrew's townhouse. To park, you first leave the car sitting in the middle of the road while you get a visitor's parking pass. Then you find the visitor parking spaces (the names carefully covered over by leaves) and park the vehicle. Andrew has a very nice townhouse, and we all got ready for the meeting. We decided to watch the Who material in the basement, because that's where the DVD player is, and Jeffrey was going to show off his Region 2 PAL DVD version of The Aztecs. I had brought a tape with the first 3 episodes of An Unearthly Child (as aired on Maryland Public TV in July 1998). Doctor Who premiered at 5:16PM and 20 seconds GMT on 23 November 1963 with An Unearthly Child, the first episode of An Unearthly Child. It began just a tad late because a report on US President Kennedy's assassination ran a minute long. An errant news report in the 1970s started the claim that Doctor Who began *10 minutes* late, which was believed until the 1990s, when somebody checked the logs and asked people who had actually watched the telly that night. Since this was the 23rd of November, we decided to try to watch the first episode at exactly the same time that it had been seen in England. Since we are 5 hours behind England, 5:16PM becomes 12:16PM. At approximately 12:16 and 20 seconds (could have been a tad off, but it was great for theatrical spectacle), we started the tape. A late 1990s BBC Video logo appears (surprising, since this story was not rereleased by BBC Video in the late 1990s and to my knowledge BBC America had blocked efforts at getting new prints), and then the story starts. Lisa enjoyed the material, though occasionally one of the rest of us would annoy her a bit by chatting during the story. She has taken part in theatre, and most of the Hartnell stories do run exactly like stage plays. The picture quality on the tape was worse than I remember, with one bit that Andrew's VCR rebelled at and threw on a blue screen for. George called part-way through the story and wound up talking to Jeffrey over a headset. The food (pizza) arrived right after the episode ended. Now it was time for The Aztecs. Andrew warns us that APEX will sometimes stutter on DVDs, but the disc plays fine. I've never really been a big fan of The Aztecs. I know it's the earliest surviving Doctor Who story with true critical acclaim, but the story always runs a bit cold on me. I'm still not a fan, but it's much more enjoyable now that it's been cleaned up. The picture looks beautiful, and I didn't notice the alleged sibilance problems with the sound. To the question of whether the Doctor seduced Cameca or Cameca seduced the Doctor, the answer is - they're both guilty, it just spiraled out of control. Andrew has a good TV, and the player ran fine, so we had no trouble watching the story. Once we finished it, we had to decide what of the 90 minutes of extras we wanted to see. Jeffrey warned us that some extras were long and tedious, in his view. I'll go by my memory, and Jeffrey or Andrew can fill in the gaps (Lisa was rather tired by this point - long day on Friday). Making Cocoa - the original voices of Tltoxl and his lackey deputy priest reprise their roles in a color animated bit that is done in the South Park animating style (probably to keep it within budget). No swearing or raunchy bits - the animation is South Park style, not the content. Set just a couple of minutes after episode 4, the priests discuss their victory and the departure of the false Yetaxa. Then they get into a discussion of the Aztec way to make cocoa. I'd call it very strange, but I'd be understating. You have to see it for yourself to get a grip on what it was. You will notice that everyone who watches it with you will have dropped their jaws by the time it ends. Unearthing The Aztecs - a color segment from a 1970 Blue Peter program detailing the real Aztecs. We didn't watch much of it. Photo Gallery - great pictures. It now automatically moves from picture to picture, with a TARDIS dematerialization sound (Andrew muted the sound). Pictures are now full screen instead of in a box like most previous DVDs. Restoring The Aztecs - a nice feature on how the story had been cleaned up, damage removed, etc. It also tried to demonstrate the Vid-Fire process, but the people in the room couldn't tell the difference between Vid-Fired material and non-Vid-Fired material (which caught me off guard because you *can* tell the difference on the Tomb Of The Cybermen disc). More on that later. It included a beautifully restored clip of The Krotons, the only piece of Terror Of The Autons to survive in its original PAL color video format (looking superb), and the same piece of Autons as the film recording we've seen on TV. The people preparing Aztecs for DVD did a lot of work, and this extra helps put into context what they did. There were a couple other extras we skimmed, including the controversial one where several actors from the guest cast were interviewed. This was the extra that had to be censored to get the DVD a U rating in Britain. There didn't seem to be interest in watching the whole 30 minute feature, so we watched the first few minutes, then tried to fast-forward to the infamous bit. Jeffrey discovered that the subtitles still worked when the disc was played at 2x regular speed, so we could fast-forward at that speed without worrying about missing the segment. We saw it. The word that got the segment in trouble was bleeped efficiently. The subtitles are without the word as well, but you can see the holes from where the word had been. (The discs had to be delayed by 2 weeks in an emergency when they discovered that the copies sent to reviewers still had the profanity in the subtitles. The story was being released with the U rating, but this word would require a 12 rating, and you can get in big trouble over there by releasing a title with the wrong rating.) It's around 3:00 or so, and Lisa and I were going to leave by 3:40. For fun, we decide to watch Blackadder: The Cavalier Years, a 15 minute Blackadder special made in 1986 for Children In Need which has never aired on US TV. Andrew has the complete Blackadder boxed set, but the box and the discs do not say which extras are on which disc. Andrew tried disc 2 (Blackadder II), and it was on there. We congratulated him duly. After the bit of Blackadder, we bid our goodbyes and the meeting wound to a close. We'd all had a good time. Now, about Vid-Fire. I'm sure almost everyone on this group knows that Doctor Who was traditionally recorded on Video Tape for broadcast (405 line tape till part-way through the Troughton era, 625 line tape thereafter, with a few rare 16 and 35mm film exceptions). Some inserts might be done on film and copied onto the video tape. Video Tape was expensive, so after broadcast the episodes were camera recorded onto film (usually 16mm) for overseas sales and archiving. The video tapes wound up being recycled, leaving just the film recordings. The British Video system has 50 frames a second, while the film has 25 frames a second, so that every frame of the film recording is 2 frames of the video that are locked together, taking out much of the fluidness of the movement from the video sections. Vid-Fire essentially reproduces the lost frames from the material on the surviving frames, and reproduces the fluidity and Video look. See http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/ and its article on VidFire to understand exactly what they're doing. At the end of the day, a film recording of a program shot on video which has been properly vidfired will regain the look that it had when it first aired on British TV as a video tape, enabling people to see the episodes as they looked in the 1960s. Portions of the episode which were originally recorded on film don't get the treatment, because they didn't look like video the first time anyway, and the treatment doesn't change their looks - they look like they always did. But why didn't we see this at Andrew's house? Certainly on the extras, you could tell which stuff was film, which stuff was video, and the film recording of something that was originally video. But why did The Aztecs all still look like film recordings, albeit beautifully restored? The answer is that we were watching it on an NTSC TV, and the type of converter used by the DVD player to play PAL on NTSC. The effects of VidFire don't come across as clearly in the NTSC format, and they don't come across at all if the information is lost in the conversion from PAL to NTSC. Most multi-region players have cheap converters from changing NTSC to PAL and PAL to NTSC. Now, they are marvels - the picture and sound looked very good. But they aren't perfect, and it seems that VidFire doesn't convert well. Had we been watching on a PAL TV, we would have seen the effects of VidFire clearly. If we had been watching the VidFire clip on the NTSC Tomb Of The Cybermen disc, the effect is there, but less noticable because it is all NTSC. If my house is ever available for a meeting (very unlikely), I could show this clearly - we have a multi-region TV which can work in PAL format - hook it up to a multi-region player and you could show a PAL disc in PAL format, a PAL disc in NTSC format, an NTSC disc in NTSC format, or an NTSC disc in PAL format. Unfortunately, the DVD player we have here doesn't have a fix yet to make it multi-region. VidFire is also hard to see on a computer, because the computer generally makes it all look like film. At the end of the day, VidFire is likely to be a feature that the British and the Australians will enjoy the most, with a shrug from most of us Americans who don't get the full benefit. We have to settle for enjoying the rest of the cleanup. Ok. Maybe that wasn't so brief. :) 11/4/02 November's meeting was held at the Fairfax County Govt Center. Eight people attended this meeting: Amy, Carl (new Member), Lisa E, Benjamin, George, Karolina, Joe (new member) and Lisa V. We welcome two new members: Carl and Joe and hope to see them at future meetings. The story viewed was the first 4 episodes of "Trial of a Timelord", a Colin Baker story consisting of 14 episodes. 9/?/02 The meeting this month was held in Falls Church, thanks to Amy for hosting the meeting. We watched a dvd "Rememberance of the Daleks" with Sylvestor McCoy. The following people attended the meeting: Amy (the host), Benjamin (story selector), Diane (co-host), George, James, Jeffrey, Karolina, Lee (new member - Banjamin's brother) and Lisa E. During the meeting we all snacked on pizza. 8/24/02 The meeting on Saturday was held in DC (Cathy's Apt) near the Van Ness Metro station in NW DC. Benjamin, Lisa E, Karolina, George and of course Cathy attended the meeting. We watched the complete story of "Tomb of the Cybermen" and the existing episodes of "Web of Fear" and "Faceless Ones". Cathy also amused us with a couple of Danger Mouse DVD fillers. During the meeting Lisa presented Benjamin with a birthday gift a Dr Who DvD and I can't at this moment remember the title. After the viewing the stories we discussed the September meeting that Amy (lives in Falls Church) has offered to host. She offered Fridays evenings or Saturday afternoon as choices. As we have had two meetings on Saturday, we are leaning toward a Friday evening meeting. All who attended the meeting at Cathy's Apt agreed that she was a wonderful host and the meeting atmosphere was very relaxed. Thanks Cathy for all the effort and all the treats and munchies that you provided. It was great! For those of you that couldn't attend - you missed a good one. 8/5/02 Last night (Monday, August 5th 2002) the Northern Virginia Doctor Who Viewing Society gathered at the Fairfax County Government Center to watch classic Patrick Troughton episodes. There was also a County Board Meeting and people protesting the tax hike referrendum, but alas the Board members and the protestors were not interested in seeing classic Who. First arrival was Jeffrey Jacobs, computer programmer, and newest employee at the Navy offices in DC. With DVD player in hand, he arrived at 6PM and set up for the meeting. Later came Amy, Lisa V., and Cathy. Benjamin and Lee Elliott arrived just after 7PM with the episodes, and were the final arrivals. A janitor stopped by around 9:45PM, but seemed uninterested in staying. Some of the episodes we were watching had less than pristine reputations, so we did have a little fun at their expense. (And now, the moment we can no longer avoid - The Underwater Menace 3. Etc.) We held out hope that more people might arrive, so we threw out the chronological order of the episodes and watched the easier to find episodes first. We winded up watching, in this order: The Underwater Menace 3 brief clip from The Two Doctors The Space Pirates 2 brief clip from Power Of The Daleks 4 ("Daleks conquer and destroy") The Evil Of The Daleks 2 clip from The Daleks' Master Plan 1 set to "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" and then we loaded up Mark Storton's VCD to watch the rare episodes. And the DVD player started it up. Without picture. ::Some fiddling with the wires by Jeffrey later:: The Faceless Ones 1, a brand new Who episode for most of us. Bit of a blue tint on the picture (this episode only) that probably comes from the source material Mark was using. Cruel way to write out Ben - he's walking around the airport terminal mid-episode, and then no further mention at all. Polly at least comes back with a new identity. Airport security is sure lax - I'd love to fly out of an airport that was this easy to get into. And we end with a shot of the back of the head of something - probably an alien. But we don't get to see his face. The Faceless Ones 3. They've traded Polly in for a younger model who knows how to wrap Jamie right around her little finger. We have an official who actually believes the Doctor that something is wrong. Seeing the interactin with the "believing" official and the head of the airport reminds me of the promos for the "Monk" series on USA or Ray's efforts to keep Fraser out of trouble in Due South. The second half of the episode suffers from frequent jumps. A few frames here, a few frames there - usually in mid-sentence. One case we have an un-noticable break - except that the Doctor's back profile has suddenly become Jamie's back profile. Ben and Polly are mentioned - they're still being looked for - but do not appear. At the end of the episode we enter, as Lisa V. put it, the Twilight Zone. And our believing official has wound up in a great deal of trouble. The Web Of Fear 1. Some of our group are very suspicious at the motives behind the opening bit with the open TARDIS doors and everyone hanging on to Victoria. Professor Travers (played by Jack Watling, Debbie Watling's dad) is an utter loon, even if he happens to be right. It makes sense that Jamie (18th Century) and Victoria (mid-19th Century) didn't know about the London Underground, but either the Doctor was playing dumb to let them be bright or he really needs to read a few more tourist guides about our Planet. It occurs to me now - wouldn't blowing up Underground stations bring down the buildings on top of those portions of the tunnels? The Charing Cross station is right near a bunch of bookstores, restaurants, and a big fountain. Could make a bit of a mess. Neat how they had the web take over the closing credits. Patrick Troughton took episode 2 off for a vacation, which must have left the kids rather alarmed, because this cliffhanger has him missing, presumed dead. Travers' daughter is played by the same woman who played Don Issigri's daughter in The Space Pirates, amusingly enough. Benjamin 6/3/02 Tonight's Meeting - A Review Hello. I seem to be alive here. Never have been alive before. Interesting feeling. I feel warm, comfy. The heat is coming from beneath me. I think it's called - an oven. Yes, an oven. I am being cooked - prepared. I feel my hair - I guess it's cheese - melding together from many strands into one large clump. My body (crust?) is plumping up nicely. I don't feel that large or that small - I guess I'm a medium. (Ding.) I'm being taken out of the oven. I guess I'm fully grown. OUCH! He's cutting me! Ow! Ooh! Eek! The cruel pain! So many cuts! Phew. He stopped. But wait, I'm being put in a box! And the box is being put in a bag! I've just realized something - I'M CLAUSTROPHOBIC!! Help! I'm still in the box in the bag. I'm being carted all over the place. I hear a car engine - well I assume it's a car - never actually gotten to see one from in here. We are traveling. The man is swearing - we are lost. Time is passing so slowly, and yet racing too. I hear the car stop - he thinks he has arrived. Rats - he's lost in the building. I hear conversation - he seems to know where to go now. A door opens. The bag is opening. My box is being opened - I am free! There's a TV program on. Masked man has kidnapped girl and young man in a suit. The girl seems awfully unwell. I wonder if she is sick. Wait a minute - part of me is missing! Where did I go? My parts must have been stolen while I was distracted by the quality television. I must demand my body parts back. I hear chewing. The cretins - I think they're eating me. Must escape. I am now half-gone. And there is evidence that a fellow man like myself - someone called "pepperoni and sausage" was eaten first - I'm not even the most popular sacrificial victim here. No legs. No weapons. Someone just took another slice - only 3 pieces of me left. Meanwhile on the TV, the creepy guy in the blue outfit is using the girl as a shield to confuse androids. I'll bet he's the kind of monster that eats people like me. Oh gosh - I'm down to just one slice. And I see a hand approaching ... Now look here, buddy. You don't want to eat me. (Nibble.) Ok, maybe you do want to eat me. But you shouldn't. You should focus on more worthy food targets - like wolves. Fish. Birds. Anything but me. You've eaten half of me now. Isn't that enough? Stop!! Phew. You stopped. I guess the monster menacing the Doctor caught your attention. Keep going, monster. Keep them busy all night. Wait a minute - closing credits. A cliffhanger. And you're turning your mouth back to me. No. No! NO! NOOOOOO!!!!! ... Benjamin F. 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