Diana the Valkyrie's Newsletter - May 1998
A hard man is good to beat
March winds (yes, had those, plus some rain), April showers (had those, plus some snow) bring forth May flowers. I guess this is flowers in the sense of rivers and floods, right? On the fourth of May, I heard the first cuckoo of summer. On the fifth, I heard the curious noise a cuckoo makes when he's shivering with cold.
A new story by me. Read ShyGuy's "Pulling the Valkyrie's pigtails", then read my version of the same thing, "Pulling the Valkyrie's braids".
We have a Japanese section, with a story in Japanese, about female Ninjas.
I opened up the fifth bookshelf of miscellaneous authors.
Moto pits Superman against various Valkyries, and we discover that Kryptonite isn't his only weakness.
Dawn wrote to me this month, and said that she's got a new tattoo. It isn't the usual small rose or whatever, no no! Dawn has one of Cancuz's Valkyries tattooed on her left shoulder, and she's at least 10 inches tall. Go look in Cancuz's gallery to see the pictures of Dawn, and you can also visit her web site.
This is the same Valkyrie that I use on the box that I use to send out videos. Look at cancu039 and cancu048, then look at Dawn Whitham's back. And next time you see Dawn, tell her you're a member of this web site, and could she please show you her tattoo?
Congratulations to Cancuz; he's the first artist from this web site to appear in a tattoo on a famous FBB.
There's a new Movie Theatre, the Lift-and-Carry and Feats-of-Strength Movie Theatre. Many thanks to Jeff Urband of Liftnet for this material, and is you like this sort of thing, you should be sure to get a copy of his catalogue.
The great news here is that I've given Sandra the Librarian another task each day, to make a list of all the AVI, MOV and MPG files she could see, and to sort them by how long they've been up. So you can see the big list of all the movies (about a thousand), you can see what's become available in the last month, and in the last week. Sandra will keep that up to date every day, so you won't have to go looking in all the different Movie Theatres to see what's new. I even did one that will show thumbnails and descriptions, where they're available, over the last week and over the last month. It isn't sensible to do one like that over the whole lot, the page would take for ever to load.
Why aren't thumbnails available for all the clips? Well, something I discovered when I first saw the list, is that there's small clips being posted to the newsgroups too, and Sandra picked those up and listed them. So when there isn't a thumbnail, she just shows a generic Valkyrie picture.
Anyone accessing anything on the old "diana.announce.com" server, needs to change any bookmarks they've made, so they say "hilda.thevalkyrie.com". Hilda means "battle", and Hilda is the server that is used by people running web sites under the auspices of the Valkyrie (like Lasse's female strength feats, the Tall Pages and so on).
Hilda is just Freya wearing a wig, for people who like to know about that sort of detail.
The old "diana.announce.com" name will still work for a while, but is being phased out.
We're also planning to move the main site to Greta. That shouldn't change any addresses, Greta will wear a wig and be www.thevalkyrie.com. I'll tell you more about this after the move.
Sandy Bouwman is newly on the list of wrestling women who keep their travel schedules on this site.
ShyGuy has his own message Board now; a stalwart of the Chatroom under a different name every day, but he's usually recognisable by the fact that all his names begin with the letters FBB (like FriendlyBritishBloke). Except when they don't.
The men on that Message Board have started some sort of association to defend Valkyries! Well, whatever floats their boat, I suppose. I do like a man who's a bit feisty, their eyes flash and they look so cute.
There was a kerfuffle about Sherry Volante - specifically, her claim to be the great April Roseberry under a stage name. This, I think, has now been resolved; Sherry proved that she knew things about April that wouldn't be known by a stranger, such as the name of the man who manages the gym where she works out.
Lisa Houston has her own Message Board now. And also Colette Guimond. And there's a board for discussing the freedom-of-speech issue.
Saxon came in and bade a fond goodbye; he's going to be away for a year, he didn't say where. And Rhys is going home, back to Connecticut, and very pleased he is too.
sub has taken up weight training. He's hoping that in a year or two he'll be able to put a weight onto the bar. He strained his back even so; people are suggesting that he change over to an aluminium bar, and a hollow one at that.
ShyGuy has been inspired to do the same. He was boasting about his 30 pounds curls when Andrulla popped into the room, and told people about the new pictures on her site of her doing curls. "How many pounds", asked someone, and she replied "175". ShyGuy plans to put his weight up to 35 in due course.
On May 5th, I unveiled the /colour command, and from around 6pm, you can see people playing with it. /colour black or /colour red or whatever. And then I added the /everyone command, which saves you a lot of "Hi Jim, Fred, Diana, Sandy," etc etc etc.
On May 9th, Ghost did a special. He had a session with Nicole Bass, and he logged in to the chatroom sitting on her shoulders, the laptop balanced on her head. You have to read it, I'm not going to try to describe it. Look at about 10:15 pm and thereafter. Rhys was gobsmacked.
Rhys has returned to Connecticut, back to his home. He's been looking forward to this for some weeks now.
On the weekend of May 22/23, sub visited Sandy in Florida, and he was allowed to log on while there. Then Sandy came on, while sub was kissing her feet. I think sub had a rather good weekend!
Sonia's back from America, and in fine fettle. She came on as JambeDeFer, and I immediately guessed it was Sonia (legs of iron) and blurted it out. Oops! Never mind. She explained why ShyGuy had been absent for a couple of days; he was recovering from the go-karting and wrestling. Apparently, he beat her at karting, so she took her revenge in the wrestling.
In the last week of May, we started seriously filling up the chatroom with FBBs. For example, in my regular weekly chat session on May 24th, we had Sandy Boumann, Lady Victoria, Lisa Houston, Colette Guimond, Zee the Pitbull, Andrulla Blanchette. If you visit the archives, you can see it was like a big party. it wasn't planned, it just happened.
You might not want to read the archive where Scooby gets given an enema. I wouldn't do it to a dog, normally, but Scooby's a toon, so it's different. May 28th, 6pm, you can read it.
Right at the end of May, Clepsydra started telling the time using ship's bells. Morning Watch, Forenoon Watch, Dog Watch. If you want to know how it works, look in the archives. This is to honour the increasingly nautical flavour of the chatroom in the last few days, partly on account of Captain Corcoran (out of HMS Pinafore) and his Bosun ShyGuy.
Shy Guy will be adding his account of May in the Chatroom, and Blasterman has volunteered to write up June in the Chatroom.
The Little Chatroom
This is experimental. It uses java, which means that it's a lot faster than the regular room, but it also means that WebTVers can't use it (and the Valkyrie wants to look after WebTVers, not just people with computers).
There's two problems I'm trying to solve. The first, and most important, is that the chat room is getting so full of people now, and all of them wanting to talk at once, that sometimes it's difficult to follow the flow. At some point, there's a limit on how many people can chat and still be comprehensible. And, at some point, I need to divide the chat into two rooms.
It will be easy to put up a second room. The problem then is, people will (I guess) hang out in *both* rooms in case something interesting happens in the other one. Which means that just setting up a second room, won't actually solve that problem. I'll have to put a hard limit on the number of people in each room, but that will encourage people to check in early and just stay in, even if they aren't doing anything. It also means that if someone loses connection for whatever reason, then they won't be able to get back in. Oh dear. The problems of success! I'll take suggestions if anyone has them. It isn't a technical problem, it's a design issue. I suspect that this might be the first web site chat room with this problem, or is it? If you've seen other web sites solve this problem, let me know how they did it.
May was a good month in the chat room, which sprouted both medical and nautical themes. However, the main theme would seem to be new faces.
Sir Texas B. Biceps made it out of the messageboards into our company, and has been a good companions ever since. Likewise, Lisa Houston, a.k.a. Lady Dragon, appears to have finally vanquished her PC problems, and can now roar loud and long. We have our Warrior Poet, always at hand with a handy quote, usually from a certain great band, with a name more than appropriate for our growing congregation. 2Possums has an intriguing name which I must inquire further into sometime, whereas Rob had a crisis of nickname, until we persuaded him that 'just Rob' was ideal, easy to type, clearly identifying him, and functional, since actually is his name. Why didn't I think of that way back.... Oh well. Prodigy is Scooby’s new playmate, and Harley has made it across from the stage a few times too. Lunch time chat is getting crowded!
We have had numerous others pop in for just a chat or two, and we hope to see them again too, particularly Remi, Colette and IrnGal, a.k.a. LadyVictoria. With great company like this, you wonder why I keep coming back?! Also sighted this month were the returns of a couple of old friends, Saxon and victim. It’s great to have you back guys.
However, biggest impact this month must be our new Captain, Corc. Fresh from the success of his G&S production, the good Captain has guided the coffee lounge Pinafore through trouble waters and smooth, survived two attempted sinkings, and even a little open heart surgery! But his biggest claim to fame must be his impact on Clepsydra, our resident timekeeper, who has now taken to quoting the time with a distinctly nautical theme. Congratulations Cap, that's the first response Clepsy has given back, and I'm sure Hudor will be jealous.
Meanwhile, a medical theme would also appear to be vie for attention this month. I was the first to suffer an unscheduled enema as early as the 5th, inflicted at the hands of our hardworking chaos monger and cartoon dog, Scooby. Barely dodging a further two attempts later in the month, I had to wait all the way until the 28th before he got his turn, from the hands of our noble patron Valkyrie herself. Meanwhile, our newfound Captain found himself on the operating table facing a little unnecessary surgery, after the incident with the Valkyrie, the chocolate and an over- enthusiastic bosun that nearly sunk the room for the second time this month.
The big new toy of the month was Diana's addition of the /colour command, which those strange Americans have a hard time spelling. Don't any of them have a dictionary? Oh well. Installed on the 5th, the magic was out the box before Diana had time to announce it, and for the next few days it was not advisable for epileptics, or people with good taste, to enter the chat room without a stout pair of sunglasses.
The big event of the month, possibly the year, was Ghost’s entry to the chat room, live from a notebook PC balanced upon Nicole Bass’s head! At that moment, ‘stunt chatting’ was born, and possibly died a death too, as we still don’t know how to top that one! Congratulations are due to both participants for a very original stunt that was particularly poignant as it turns out that was Nicole’s last L&C session. Singing off with a high note, the best know to quit when ahead! ‘Always leave them wanting more’
The hot topic, towards the end of the month, was what to do about chat room overcrowding. Just as everyone was telling Diana she was worrying too soon, we got the Sunday Night Party of May 24th, where I believe at one time we had 5 ‘named’ female body builders in the chat room at once, and a few fans too! Sadly I missed that session, but I gather I wouldn’t fit through the door anyway. The problem is how to keep everyone involved, the benefit of a large room, while keeping individual conversations small enough for those involved to make sense of them, the advantage of multiple rooms. Anyone with ideas for this one can get involved via my messageboard (also new this month :)
On more personal level, this month was good to me too. On the 5th Diana taught me to count again, though by the 6th I’d discovered a couple more problems. One email led to another, so now I have a messageboard just for those amongst the chatting crew who just can’t let a topic drop, and anyone else who wants to get involved. The other high point was the memorial day weekend, where sub visited Sandy, Sen got to play with Anja, and I got to take Sonia karting. And a lot of fun was had by all involved! With that infamous Sunday night party I missed, it surely has to go down as one of our better weekends.
Scooby finally announced that his stereo is fixed, indeed, The Beat Goes On, and we are all keen hear his new music collection... (sorry, in joke)
Rhys, on the other hand, jubilantly announced his trip to purgatory in the South was at an end, and he was heading North for home comforts once more. What’s more, if you check the chat room now, you’ll probably still find him logging off after making his announcement... (Another in joke, Rhys is notorious for logging off at least six times before he finally leaves)
At one point sub appeared concerned about how his fate may be influenced inflatable bananas?! He expressed a hope Sandy B wouldn't read the archive, but Diana though she might hear about it through my review here. It would clearly be wrong of me to divulge the details here, but just a hint Sandy, you might like to check the archive for 26 May, around 7:30 PM. Oh, that warm feeling of carrying out a public service for a friend...
HardBodyPaul had a memorable session with Colette Guimond. It was quite entertaining to see him so nervous before the meeting, and then so full of how wonderful she was afterwards. He really made her work though! Paul is the L&C King! Maybe after a little hinting from Paul, Colette has now purchased a PC and has a messageboard on this very site! Thanks for bringing another special lady into our community Paul. You’re public spirit knows no bounds!
For a while Crystal and the Captain had a late night Tolkein Quiz thing going, though whether that still runs I don’t know. If anyone else wants to get involved, here is your starter for 10, ‘By what name was Mithrandir better known?’ Answers on a postcard please to...
Andrulla and Sonia both had trips to the States this month, and at one point we brits feared we’d lost them for good! Fortunately they have both returned now, though Andrulla sported some disturbingly vampiric tendencies for a while...
As ever, I never know how to end these things, so I’ll make a quick apology to all those friend I haven’t mentioned yet (sorry byz, T9, wb, Charon, Sen, JF, JK, Blast, Tex, Blu, Peeps, saxon(& karen) LittleMan, Clepsy, ...) but deadlines is deadlines, and mine was up 24 hours back!
See you in the chat room
The Shy One
Andrulla had a great time in America, and she met Smitty (from the Chatroom), and he escorted her around, and he had a great time too. Andrulla says she can't wait to get back to America, it's a wonderful country with such lovely people. Ask her about the Vampires.
I checked the site statistics. that Sandra counts up each night. over 100,000 pictures (5.5 gigabytes), 3.9 gigabytes of video, 3326 text files (mostly stories).
Someone asked what happens when I run out of space - it won't happen. I've still got more than ten gigabytes of free space, and the big new server for the site has arrived, with 50 gigabytes of space. I've calling her Greta; more about Greta next month.