Diana the Valkyrie

Diana the Valkyrie's Newsletter - July 1998

A hard man is good to beat

June

We British talk about "Flaming June". This is an expression used when it's raining and you wanted to go play tennis.

Valkyrie on holiday

It'll soon be time for the Valkyrie to take a couple of weeks off. I go away on July 17, and get back August 1st. But I'll be leaving behind a team of Valkyries to update the site and keep it running. Unlike last year, when there was a hiatus while I was away, this year there will be new stuff going up even when I'm not here. Valkyrie magic. Any email you send me will be answered with a standard message, which deals with the top eight questions I get asked.

You're probably wondering where I'm going. To a place where there's no internet connection, no telephones, just sun, sand, Sangria, sea and other things beginning with "S". Floating on the briny deep, oscillating around the ocean blue. Yes, I'm going cruising on the Med again. At least I'll be able to tell the time this year, thanks to Clepsy. Ting-ting!

While I'm away, all emails will be answered with an automatic answer explaining this, and giving the answers to the top ten questions I get asked. When I get back, I'll have about 1000 emails to deal with, so don't expect me to emerge for a few days.

I plan to do a lot of reading, while toasting myself to a light golden colour.

New and updated Galleries

A Gallery of Greta Garbo, of course; how could I have a server named after her without doing a Gallery!

The Library

I added a Supergirl section. How could I possibly not have a Supergirl section! Well, she had a litle part on the Wonder Woman page, so I took the two that were there, added a few I had scattered around, and Jonial provided the majority of the stories. Thank you Jonial.

And, of course, there's a Supergirl Gallery.

Marknew has just started a new series, about a world where the men are weakened by a virus, and the women strengthened by the same malady.

Great news for fans of Sandi Stone - part two of "Sandi and the Terrorist" is out.

New artists

Smiley draws some wonderful Valkyries. So good, that they're beginning to find their way all over the site.

The Movie Theatre

Seven clips from Thigh Spy. That's turning out to be very popular, the number one download on the web site. And people seem to like the video, too! Which is good news, it means I'll do more.

And more Lift-and-Carry, and more Feats of Strength, and stuff from the Women's Wrestling Convention 1998.

The Shopping Mall

"Thigh Spy" has just been launched, starring Heather Fine and Kandor, a must-see for scissors fans. From Diana the Valkyrie Video, price $40.

Ladybumps

If you haven't heard of Suzie Sparks, you're missing a treat!

The links

I'll say it again. I didn't drop the muscle and fighting links, I just moved them to separate pages, to make the links page a more managable size.

New Server

Greta is now in action. You don't have to change anything, don't worry. It's still http://www.TheValkyrie.com and http://www.Ladybumps.com

But I replaced the old server named "Diana", with a new one that runs at twice the speed, and with 70 gigabytes of space (Diana had a mere 30 gb, of which 10gb was in use). Greta is also closer to the internet backbone. Like, attached to the tree trunk instead of being out on a branch. This will mean less things (routers, bridges and whatnot) between me and you, and therefore less things to go wrong. I haven't fogotten the 24 hour outage I had a few months ago, which was caused by one of the things along the branch breaking. And with the move, I also have a generator that kicks in when there's no electricity. And more bandwidth. You might remember from the membership page that I had a T1 on the site (that's 54 times as fast as a 28.8 modem). Now I have six T1's feeding Greta. It's like having veins that are six times thicker, you can pump more down them.

Freya helps Greta, by looking after the Message Boards and Chatrooms, which are cpu intensive, leaving Greta free to concentrate on sending stories, pictures and video. Freya has a T1 of her own.

Diana isn't being retired, though. I'll add some more hard disk, and she'll be a backup system, at another location, so if Greta sprains an ankle, I can bring Diana online in a trice. So if that happens, then while we bandage up Greta's ankle, Diana will carry the load.

If you're interested, you can read more details of the history of the web site, and the move.

Later ...

Well, Greta sprained an ankle. Six hours after taking up the load, she fell over. We helped her up, but she fell over several hours later. So we put a bit of a brace on, and then she went for 24 hours, but fell over. So we did more things, and gave her another go on Thursday 25th.

Obviously this isn't good enough. So I've brought everything back to Diana for now, and we'll be doing major exploratory surgery on Greta before we put her back again.

The move will be easier next time, though. We've fixed a lot of the small stuff that needed fixing, and we've now got experience in moving a massive web site like this.

Wow, aren't I pleased I kept Diana in place!

Later later ... (June 27)

Well Greta's been going for more than 24 hours now. Too soon for optimism. So, I've moved the wrestlers calendars and the poll to Freya, which means that if I have to move back and forward between Diana and Greta, those won't be affected. If someone updated her schedule on Greta, and then I switched to Diana, it would seem to disappear, by having it on Freya, I won't have that problem.

Also, I've given Greta a mirror, so whenever I update Diana, Greta can see the update and go get it. It means I can keep both of them up to date, in case I need to move again. And it's a great way to have a backup; I was intending to do it anyway, but just not quite so soon.

Later yet more ... (June 30)

Greta's been doing great for more than four days now, I'm beginning to breathe easily again. The mirror works well, after I did some mending on it. Things are looking stable, so I can go on vacation and not worry ... and if anything does go wrong with Greta, Diana can step in at ten minutes notice.

The Clubhouse

TomNine has his own Message Board now, for discussing all aspects of sessions, whether wrestling, lift-and-carry, muscle worship or whatever. TomNine is one of our most experienced sessioneers, so take advantage of his knowledge.

And Tex has his Tall Tower (everything is big in Texas) for discussions mostly revolving around F/F wrestling, although Tex has indicated that he's also happy to talk about various other things.

Lisa Houston decided not to do a Message Board any more, so I'm taking that down.

But Heather Fine is back with her own Message Board!

And Pandora's Spanking Speakeasy is now open for all forms of spanking and corporal punishment.

Also the Knights now have their own Round Table. All they need now is a good Quest to carry out, anyone got any suggestions?

In the Chatroom

ShyGuy had a crisis, but we all pulled him through it.

Clepydra started welcoming people to the chatroom, and saying goodbye when they left.

I opened up a new Chatroom, the Tea Parlour. A Tea Parlour is a place where you take tea. Tea isn't just a drink, you know. It isn't even just a meal. English Tea is a major occasion, a performance to rival the Japanese Tea Ceremony. June afternoon on the lawn, with strawberries and cream. March afternoon at the Dorchester, with pink champagne. September at the orchard in Grantchester, after a punt down the Cam. March in Devon, with clotted cream and scones. Yummy.

This Tea Parlour is another chatroom just like the Coffee Lounge. Why have two rooms? Because in May and June, we started getting the chatroom so full of active chatters, that it was hard to follow all the different conversations that were going on. We only use the Tea Room when the Coffee Lounge gets too full for comfort.

I thought of dividing the chatroom by subject area, but since the subjects discussed cover such a wide range (from Mixed Wrestling to Gilbert and Sullivan, poetry and quantum mechanics, farce and number theory), it really isn't practical.

Here's a report on the Chat Room in June, from cub reporter Jimmy Olsen (whose secret identity is Blasterman).

June Chatroom Summary, by cub reporter Jimmy Olsen

June is the month we spring into summer. Winter has become a distant memory, warm temps are prevailing. This June the weather was not all that heated up. An ever growing number of chatroom members produced an abundance of hot topics to chat about.

On June 9th an all time record was set in the chatroom, 19 chatters at the same time (some of us consider this record unofficial because Warrior Poet may have been 3 of the 19). Slower typers like myself were sweating to keep up with the chat. Our small "Coffee Lounge" was bursting at the seams (especially when Tex brought in his horse). It was standing room only and thank goodness Diana would not stand for it. Our guardian Valkyrie wasted little time dealing with this potential problem. Despite the warm weather she rushed to obtain the necessary permits, and in no time she constructed the "Tea Parlour". Now we not only have more room to move around and chat, but we also have the delightful option of tea or coffee. A warning to non smokers though. The Tea Parlour can sometimes resemble a small casino. Cigar smoking members can be found playing blackjack there at any given time.

Our FBB guests also made a major contribution to the rising June temps. Visits by Andrulla, LadyDragon, Sonia Fernandes, Lady Victoria, Michele Falsetta, Sandy Bouwman, Zee, and of course the awesome Nicole Bass (complete with new boobs), were all responsible for the mercury rising in June.

The month started with a big scare for all of us. One of our most colorful personalities "ShyGuy" decided he was going to leave us. Thanks go out to all members especially "Saint" for their efforts to bring him home. I suspect Diana's expertise with a lasso helped too. In any case we are very happy he's back.

TomNine, despite recovering from surgery, continues to wrestle every FBB he can. In June it was Kasie Kavanaugh. Check Toms messege board for a full account. My great fear for Tom is that someday his heart will be broken when he rolls in on his wheelchair, his neck in a brace, his arm in a cast, and the FBB refuses to wrestle him.

In June a comittee was formed to determine if Alexei should become celibate. This comittee will report to Diana. If you wish to serve on it please contact Diana. Actually this should be an easy task once the comittee has seen a picture of Alexei's wife or girlfriend.

Sub is going to San Francisco with Sandy Bouman, and is helping her with her travel plans. Sub .... I think I speak for everyone in the chatrooms by offering you my whole hearted wish that Sandy enslave you and step on you the rest of your life.

Blastermans disease seemed to improve in June. His mouth and brain are begining to show signs of working in unison. For a while some of us believed that Diana was recieving government subsidies for allowing handicapped people a membership. Having a Valkyrie for a therapist has helped him greatly.

There has been talk about getting a group of members together to attend the Womens Strength Extravaganza that will be held in Hackensack, New Jersey in October. This folks, could become the event of the year. Imagine being in the same place as all your favorite FBB's, friends from the chat rooms,and maybe......a Valkyrie. I wouldn't miss that for anything.

A plea to whoever is stuffing the ballot box in our FBB of the month contest. PLEASE REFRAIN. It is not fair to those who want to know the truth,nor is it a nice thing to do. I wouldn't want to be YOU when Diana catches you. She's talking hosepipe and bull clips for the culprit(s).

Finally thanks to all my friends who helped to make June a great month to chat: CaptainCorc, Rhys, ShyGuy, Scooby, Blu, Tex, Saint, WB270, Ghost, Charon, Crystal, JoanneFan, JoanneK, PeepingTom, Richard, Vegasman, Byz, saxon, sub, and more I can not think of now. Yes and of course our leader the "Great Valkyrie". New members be prepared to meet a whole new world of friends eager to learn about you (especially if you're a female with muscles). We here all share the common bond of being drawn together by the magic of "The Valkyrie".

Cub Reporter, Jimmy Olsen.

WebTV

I bought one, well, I bought a NetStation, the nearest UK equivalent. It's wonderful and terrible. It's wonderful compared to a TV without one, and it only cost me £130. It turns a useless TV into something that does Email, Web and IRC. But the trouble is, A) the software is very buggy, so all sorts of things don't work, and B) compared to a real computer, the screen can hold so little text! Now I see why TomNine complains about Clepsy telling long jokes, a five-line joke fills up a WebTV screen, whereas on a computers, it's quite small.

Bugs? Yes, bugs. I tried to type a long line (100 characters) in the chat room, and it mangled it. It crashed me out of the chatroom so many times, I got fed up and stopped using it. So I wouldn't recommend it, except to someone who really can't get a proper computer. After it crashed out the third time, asking me to report the bug to Netstation, I knew that this was something I didn't really want to use.

I daresay that the US version of WebTV has fewer bugs. But the screen size limitation is inherent to a TV, which is only good enough to display maybe 60 characters across and maybe 16 lines down. My lovely 17 inch monitor will do several times that.

Diana the Valkyrie Video

You've already heard that "Thigh Spy" is now available. I plan to do more videos if that goes well.

Nicole Bass

You'll have seen the pictures and video that Bob Bass brought back from the Wonen's Wrestling Convention. While everyone else was having fun, poor Bob was lugging a video camera around asking people to say something. But he got some nice footage of the event. And now we're sending him to the Jan Tana, to shoot stuff backstage. Poor Bob! He might even have to go backstage.

Observant bunnies will have noticed that on June 11, Nicole had a boob job. We didn't video the event, but we'll have some "after" pictures.

Andrulla Blanchette

Andrulla spent June 14 with ShyGuy, training with him and showing him the exercises that will make him, well, not quite so weak and helpless. I've noticed that quite a few members of the web site have been inspired to start going to a gym themselves. Not to pump up to Andrulla's level, obviously, but to get more fit and healthy. And guess where's a good place to meet women who like building muscle?

Back Page

The move to Greta was the big news. You have no idea the logistics involved in relocating a major server like this, without missing a beat. Did you notice when it happened? I hope not! But I certainly did.

Because there's been problems - that's why we're still running on Diana.

I checked the site statistics. that Sandra counts up each night. About 100,000 pictures (five gigabytes), 4.5 gigabytes of video, thousands of text files (mostly stories) and a total of about ten gigabytes.

To the Library