Sunday January 24, 2010
Fifth return
My friend and ghost-book author Marla Brooks invited me to be a guest for her Stirring the Cauldron online radio show's special Doctor Who edition, much to my surprise and pleasure, the longest running science fiction television series being one of my favourite topics. This would be my fifth guest appearance on the famous para-x Thursday evening program.

Monday January 26, 2010
Missing producer
Writer/film producer Mike Leier was Marla's show's producer for quite a long time. During and after my previous guest appearances, Mike alluded to a feature film project on which he was working, and asked after my interest of being involved. He and I maintained contact and I even proof-read his first draft, providing typographical and grammatical corrections and such for it to look better when presented to probable investors.
For Marla's show, Mike enjoyed finding audio clips to insert, so I obtained the links to various YouTube Doctor Who clips from which lines and/or sound effects could be edited for such use. I was aware that just prior to this date, Marla's show had been produced by our mutual friend Brian (host of Ghostology). Marla clarified that Mike had "kind of left" para-x: the Florida studio with which he works had sent for him or such; but also that his computer had crashed around the last time he'd tried to contact me. She told me she'd dig out his latest email for me if I needed it.

Wednesday January 27, 2010
An actor prepares
My friend (for whose dog I walk) and I had dinner, afterward stopping at Target to obtain some dog food, at which I also procurred some ice cream, just in case... Under easy to duplicate conditions, I can "grease up" my larynx and can do a perfect Dalek voice, without my having to use an electronic ring modulator as Nicolas Briggs uses for the television series and for the Big Finish series of radio shows.

Thursday January 28, 2010
Attack of the Show/s
The show went relatively smoothly, for the most part. Skype recently had "upgraded" its software, predictably making it just Less Simple enough to make it confusing as to how now to Add Someone, even if actively being added. I logged on at 5:45pm, and new producer Eric either had sent a previous add to me, or was in the midst of doing so. Either way, the software deemed I should not be able to fathom where to accept the add, at least not immediately. I found the right button finally and was set. Eric called me into the conference call with Marla and a different guest than I expected: Clark Ball, who I later learned was/is LeeAnne's husband (Marla later clarified she had asked Brian, but he turned down the guest offer: I figured I'd find out the following evening during Ghostology...).
The music inserts and such were extremely soft to me, I could only hope those listening and/or in the chat room were hearing them better. Marla actually is still a bit of a newbie on the series, never having seen any of the Classic Era stories, and comically mispronounced Gallifrey as "Gal-free."
Meanwhile, Clark was consistantly pronouncing Christopher Eccleston's name as Eggleston; for some reason I chose not to correct this bit of Luskinitis, but I did have to stop Clark the instant he added an R to the word Dalek: why anyone insists on saying Darlek is beyond me.
[I did not relate the anecdote of the gods-awful fan video "The Promise of the Time Lords" in which I participated in which the "performer" opposite whom I was playing refused to correct his mispronunciation of Dalek. As the Master I said my line that I'd brought along a friend, and I turn from him to watch as the worst fan-made Dalek ever entered.
"Ah yes," he replied flatly. "A darlek."
I knew his mispronuciation was coming, so I pretended to look confused, saying, "A what...? As I turned back to him I continued, "No no, Doctor, this is a Dalek... one of your fiercest foes..."
Ironically the thing was so badly made, maybe it should have been a Darlek, to distinguish itself from the actual Skarosians... The video recording was done so sloppily that I brought the raw footage to my best friend Dave to edit it as best he could with what was provided; we spent an entire weekend on it, MTSie'ing th'heck out of it. It got to the point we began refering to The Promise of the Time Lords as The Premise of the Time Lords. As it was, we had to insert footage from Dave's own fan video The Master's Dalek Plan (in which I played Roger Delgado's Master), just to create some illusion of story cohesion].
Meanwhile (back at Marla's show), time travel itself was discussed, but mostly we kept speaking about the series. Marla did a little Doctor Who quiz somewhat surprisingly in which no one in the chat room seemed to participate. It did have one answer utterly wrong (apparently it was the question that was wrong); asking where the TARDIS landed in the story Daleks in Manhatten. I correctly answered at the Statue of Liberty, but Marla's source had told her it was the Brooklyn Bridge. Clark and I suspected that may have been where the Daleks had initially arrived, not the TARDIS.
At around the forty or forty-five minute mark, whilst I was in the midst of saying something, Marla and Clark began wondering aloud what happened to me. I quickly spoke but they couldn't hear me. I hastily wrote into the Skype chat, asking if I was no longer audible, when Firefox winked off as well.
Suspecting maybe my RAM was full or such, I quickly rebooted. As it did, and I was noting only ten minutes remained in the hour, I called Marla on the phone but not surprisingly got her voice mail. I left a message though realizing she would not get it until after the show was over.
I had tried the ice cream trick but my Dalek voice was not as good as I'd hoped so I stopped that. Figuring I needed fresher ice cream (as with what I'd tried was mostly melted), and as my computer was rebooting anyway, I went to retreive some and learned my friend's Internet connection had gone down as well.
The instant my Skype was back on, Eric called me back in. I arrived to find Marla and Clark apparently implying they had had some substantial technical difficulties as well. With only a few minutes left I didn't ask as to what may've happened to them, as I could hear the podcast when it was archived. I just had enough time to relay the information about the upcoming Doctor Who convention GallifreyOne, and with the show ended, we could relax.
I stayed in the chat room through Mark Nelson's show Positively Psychic immediately following, which turned out to have its own set of problems; Mark's mic had a quirky and echo'y reverb, sometimes getting less but more often than not getting worse. For a time his guest could only be heard by Mark; we in the chat room were hearing only Mark's side of the conversation. At one point an unexpected electronic shriek had anyone using headphones yanking them off their heads. I quipped that live wires from the walls were attacking Mark, as Marla also wondered if someone was being electrocuted. Marla and I simply blamed the Daleks for the evening's technical issues...

Monday February 08, 2010
Podcasted show available, mostly
On Marla's PodOmatic page, it jumped from her New Years Even show, to the February 4th edition. Marla conveyed that on the one hand her new producer Eric has no yet furnished her with subsequent [January] editions of her show; on the other hand, PodOmatic has thrown her a curve ball regarding band-width quota/s. I have to wonder why a site that promulgates Internet-proliferated podcasts and audio blogs would not have anticipated regular uploads from those with weekly (or more) shows. PodOmatic want some sort of premium upgrading to "accomodate" its users' uploading more than a single show per month.
Yikes; talk about how to lose users' [albeit free], accounts and fast...!
Marla did relay that Eric had reported the episode/s would be available on Para-X On Demand; however, it had not been there when she had previously checked, but upon my checking it, it seemed to have been updated there. On downloading it, however, it came up as the broadcast for SEPIA, even though the file name clearly indicated being Marla's Doctor Who show edition.
Later whilst listening to Para-X, Marla and I discussed it, and she indicated it was now up and correct. Eric indicated that "after a while" Marla's show would Kick In. I re-downloaded it, the link still being here; I checked it out and sure enough, this time the opening music kicked in (the opening music play three or four times notwithstanding), and it was good to go.
So listen or download, and enjoy.

Tuesday February 09, 2010
There's no R in Dalek...
Having missed part of the show, listening back to the hour, I noticed my audio was a bit muffled; the apartment lost its Internet connection at time mark 48:37 just as I had begun indicating the distinctions between the classic era/s and the current era/s. Had I not been speaking it might have been a while before they'd realized I was gone, and as their voices continued in my ear for a bit, I would not have been aware of a problem as well.
Back on the show Eric began indicating the next era's re-configuation of the TARDIS interior, almost as if that was a bad thing.\ I had already indicated my concern when the series was revived as I felt the "coral" configuation made the TARDIS interior look as though it were a hollowed-out urinal cake. Had I been online, I would have indicated how Steven Moffat wanted to "return" the series to a few of its classic era roots...
Eric mistakenly conveyed that End of Time part two was to be the first Matt Smith story, as opposed to it being David Tennant's last story, and the regeneration into Matt Smith.
Marla asked what she felt was a "girlie question:" if her guests were the Doctor and with all the heart-break of losing companions, would [we] seek out another companion. Eric felt he could/would stay alone; I was still offline and couldn't indicated the "need" of a companion to ask questions.
This shifted into their wondering over the Doctor's age (Marla even stated she felt I would know the answer to this, at 52 minutes); Marla wondered on the status of recovering me while at the same time I was desperately rebooting and learning at home the apartment had briefly lost its Internet connection. I was unable to clarify the Time Lord 12-regeneration, 13-body "rule" and the possibility of their trying to get around it or simply ignoring it.
Marla then asked [our] thoughts on the upcoming era, indicating her dislike for change as it is. Here Eric brought up what I would have; in his case slightly paraphrasing Patrick Troughton's Doctor explaining that Time Lords "are immortal, barring accidents" (Eric calling it living forever "bearing" accidents, but inadvertantly not taking into account that the sort of accidents to which the second Doctor referred meant life-ending...). Unable to recall the Deadly Assassin episode title, Eric also brought up the 12-regeneration, 13-body "rule." He continued that what he thought was an episode of the eighth Doctor (which would be Paul McGann, so I think Eric was a bit off on that), saying the Master had used all his lives. Had I been online I would have politely rebutted that at the end of Keeper of Traken, the Master obtained a new body (Nyssa's father), which I felt could be considered a new First Body.
At time-marker 55:07, just as Clark was stating his hopes the writing levels and production value would remain as high quality, Eric realized he'd lost both Marla and Clark as well, while at 55:32 I had popped back in, along with Clark and the briefly and suddenly-silenced Marla. With Eric unable to figure out what had happened, Marla blamed the Daleks, correcting herself that it was probably the Cybermen.
With the few minutes to go I was just able to get in the information on the then upcoming GallifreyOne Doctor Who convention.
Marla suggested another Doctor Who edition of Stirring the Cauldron once the new season has started (thought I'd suspect more along the time the upcoming season concludes).
Eric ended the edition with Eccleston's ninth Doctor's End of the World speech of the date and about the sun expanding: a shame he didn't use the tenth Doctor "definitive declaration", as Russell T. Davies (and the majority of fans) call it.