You can read a somewhat extrapolated version in the Library, under "Valkyrie at Sea". I got back after two weeks to find about 1000 emails as expected.
Some countries don't have the open attitude that others have. In the UAE, all access to the internet goes via government proxy servers, which means they can control the content. And they've blocked my site!
People who are finding that other people want to decide which sites they can visit, might like to visit http://www.anonymizer.com/
There are several sites like that. They works by, you access their site, they access the one you want, and the page is passed back to you (with a few of their adverts on). It means that the page you're accessing doesn't know where you came from, and the proxy you're going through, doesn't know where you're going. Obviously, you should only use this service in countries where it is legal to do so.
On 6th July, Sonia Fernandes and Little Man announced that they are An Item. They met via the web site, and then in person, during Sonia's tour of the US. I've started looking at hats to wear. I mean, that's the whole point of a wedding, isn't it? So we can all show off our hats? Well, that and the other reason, of course.
You'll have noticed that I've changed a lot of the thumbnails in the Galleries, and you may have wondered why. When I did NewsThumbs (see under newsgroups below), I told Greta to make the contact sheets as small as possible, for fast loading. She did that; she made 30 thumbnails in 25 or 30 kb, and that slightly surprised me, because I was expecting about 40 kb.
So I had a think about it; why were the contact sheets that Greta made, 25% smaller than the ones I made? She was using the same thumbnail size and jpg compression. Then I realised; the three-dimensional effect that I was using, added some vertical and horizontal lines to the contact sheet, and to store those lines was costing an extra 25% of file size, and therefore 25% extra download time. Now, the 3-D effect makes it look prettier, but is it worth the extra loading time? Those galleries are one of the most used parts of the web site, and the contact sheets in them account for a very large percentage of what people are loading. So I decided that saving 25% of that download time would be a good idea. So I told Greta to redo the thumbnails over most of the web site.
The pretty 3-d effect is gone (oh well) and the picture name underneath is a lot smaller and harder to read (but I can't think why anyone would care that the 18th picture in Jane Doe's gallery is called jane0017.jpg). The thumbnail picture itself should be just as good as it was before; poor resolution and quality, but good enough for you to see what the picture is about. And the pages will load about 25% faster. If you see a generic thumbnail of a Valkyrie, that means Greta couldn't understand how to read the file, so she couldn't do a proper thumbnail. I don't think that happens very often; where it is a nuisance, I can still make good thumbnails myself.
A whole new femdom group of Galleries.
Look out for my serial "Valkyrie at Sea", all about a Valkyrie who goes on a cruise and finds herself sharing with the Cabin Mate from Hell.
And I'm calling for volunteers to write story reviews. You'll have to be really literate yourself; someone who really enjoys reading, and can look at a story and rate it objectively. I mean that just because the topic of the story isn't exactly your cup of tea, you shouldn't slate it. But if a story is badly written, rambles without a point, inconsistent, badly spelled and ungrammatical, then it should be given a low score. Ideally, the criticism will include some constructive criticism on how the author could improve. The review should also give a summary of the plotline (without giving away any surprises).
Volunteers for this, please email me at valkyrie@thevalkyrie.com
Reviewed stories will be given a rating of from one to five stars; five stars meaning "Top quality" and one star meaning "Readable".
If you want some guidance in writing, have a butchers at Diana the Valkyrie's Writing Guide.
I've got a whole new thing called NewsThumbs for looking at the pictures from Usenet (the newsgroups). Some newsgroups have hundreds of pictures each day, but so many of them are spam. You don't want to waste time downloading some picture that you'll immediately delete.
I got the idea from TwoPossums in the Chat Room, thank you 2P. He told me he used a service to access newsgroups, which costs him $8 per month. So I asked him why, since he can get the same newsgroups from me, and it's included in silver membership? So he told me, because they show thumbnails of the pictures, and you only download the ones you want.
So I thought about that, and had a chat with Greta, the Graphics Valkyrie. "Greta, can you look at each picture and squeeze it down small into thumbnails?" And she said she could, and she reckons she can get 30 thumbnails in a 25kb block. She says its just like crushing a man between her thighs, only faster.
While we were talking, Narella stopped by with her spam-sword, and she asked if we wanted her to do her chopping thing with spam, so of course we did. And then Sandra mentioned that she thought she could probably recognise invalid email addresses that people post from, so we roped her into the thing too.
Go look, NewsThumbs is up and running. And there's also a Message Board for discussions about this new thing. I'll be interested in suggestions for it; how long should I keep old stuff (the longer I keep it, the more disk space I'll need for it). Which newsgroups should I have there?
Everyone who's seen it says it's the coolest thing they've seen. I could take several hundred newsgroups, and keep the pictures for a long time, if there's demand for it.
So now TwoPossums can spend the $8 on important things, like new socks.
I made a Boxing Movie Theatre for just those clips.
If you haven't heard of Mark Eden and Lolo Ferrari, it's time you did. I also updated Roberta Pedon. And I finally got the dating on the Galleries working, so you can see when I update them without me having to remember to change the list.
After a week of good work, Greta (that's Greta the Server, not Greta the graphics Valkyrie) decided to hiccup again. CRASH!!! Which means switching everything back to Diana temporarily, which is why Diana is still there. It's good to have a backup, but it's not good if you have to keep using it.
After a kick was administered, Greta was back in action, but it's time for surgery; a motherboard transplant is my plan. Meanwhile, when Greta is out of action, I move the site back to Diana, and then back to Greta whenever possible. This might show up as things apparently appearing and disappearing; hopefully you won't notice, because I've now set things up so that Greta is a mirror image of Diana..
By the middle of July, I got to the end of my tether, and ordered a whole new server, to be called Joan. Joan will be faster than Greta, and will have 108 gigabytes (these things just keep growing, don't they?). Good old reliable Diana has been carrying on regardless. We summoned Greta back from New York to give an account of herself and updated her kernel, and she's been running steadily ever since as the main server. But still, I'm not sure I trust her, the way she behaved.
So the plan now, is for Joan to travel to New York and do the job that Greta was meant to do; the problem with New York is that it's a long way away, so Joan will need to be a very reliable lady (like I'd hoped Greta would be). Greta isn't going to lead a live of ease, though. My plan is for Greta to carry the NewsThumbs load, but operating out of Washington, where it's easier to keep an eye on her.
On August 1st, we had an outage. Blame the phone company; they cut the wrong wire, and the whole Washington site was cut off for several hours. Now you see why I'm so keen to move the main server to New York, I think I'll get better service there (if only Greta hadn't ...).
I've added a bit to the search page. Most people already know how to search the web using the various search engines; I've added a handy way to use Altavista, Excite, Webcrawler and WhoWhere (searches for people).
We've moved Nicole's chat day to Thursday at 7pm. We changed the day because Wednesday is the day she does wrestling training, and we made it an hour earlier so that Europeans won't have to stay up so late.
By Two Possums
I walked out of the computer room the other night and Heather asked me how the Chat Room was. I just shake my head and laughed. The Chat Room was the Chat Room and if you've ever been there you know what I mean. To describe what goes on there some nights is like trying to describe a Hockey game played by Hippos who normally play soccer to a blind man who doesn't really care. It can't be done. And the Hockey game probably made more sense. Well blind man this is how the game went.
Several of our dear and brave members laid their lives on the lines this month so that the rest of us could live vicariously through them. They took on some of this industries toughest women. Ghost spared with Mayra. TomNine took on the awesome Nicole Bass and is a move that will forever place him in the wrestling hall of fame and made him our hero, Sub spent a week (yes sports fans you heard right) an entire week with Sandy Boaman. Frankly I, for one, am surprised the man has lived to tell about it.
Two members got a year older this month. JoanneK celebrated her 28th and HardbodyPaul turned 30. Now even though they are both older than me they both managed to make me feel old and I hate them for it.
Now for those of you that haven't heard him gush, and gush he has, Sen is in love. She is a Basketball player and he met her via the Internet. This makes it a little more kinky and I believe that is just fine with Sen.
Our prayers and goodwishes go out to Rhys who had his heart operation this month. Catheterization and Angioplasty. I don't know what they mean but it sounds bad and that is good enough for me. Glad you are okay Rhys.
ShyGuy had particularly nasty run in with Sonia this month. I was there for all the action. I'm not really clear as to what the man did but she seemed to think it was bad and that was good enough. I found this poor fool hanging from a tree. He was then made to wear a chastity belt for the rest of the week. Now I ain't sure how he took care of various plumbing problems and I don't want to know but ShyGuy assures me that they were indeed taken care of so it is safe to get near him. The Chastity belt did come off a week later and everyone was just a little nicer to Sonia from then on
Quite a lot of people dropped in to see us. Jazz and Mayra made they're debuts this month along with some new members that seem to be a great bunch of guys. A welcome addition to are little nut factory. Some old members came back to us as well after a long layoff. Among them was the much trumpeted return of Alexi. We also had a few odd appearances. In one particularly serial session God and Lucifer dropped in to chat with us.
CaptainCore was honored with some new titles that impressed the Holly Hell outta me. Tex made him a Knight, a Lord and a King. Cartman bestowed upon him the mantel of Reverend. Sub gave him a doctorate in Musical Comedy and Shy Guy made him a Fellow of some royal gobilee-gook or another. The good Captains full title now reads HRH, The Reverend Lord Captain Sir Core, KGST, DD, Farce, DMC. Now we are not sure if any of this is legal or morally right but Damnit we all think it is cool.
Now I have some Awards that I have to hand out.
Ghost wins the "Booted most times" Award. We are not sure why Ghost gets booted so many times. The best guess we have so far is that he just plain likes it.
We also have the Top Five Out of Context Quotes.
I'm not really sure how that last statement could look better in context but there you go.
It has been a wild month. Can't wait for the next.
See ya in the Chat Room. I'm going there now.
TwoPossums
By Diana the Valkyrie
Dear oh dear. I go away for a couple of weeks, and I come back to find various people
having gotten really upset at various people for reasons I can barely fathom. Hey! Don't take
a web site chat room so flaming *seriously*. It's there for fun. That's not to limit what people
talk about, but do remember the Golden Rule; we're here to relax and have fun. Sure, discussions of
the battle of Balaclava mixed with G&S, physics, metaphysics and deep philosophical debates
bringing in Russel, Kant and Heidegger is great fun (which reminds me of a song) ...
Emmanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, 'alf a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Source: Monty Python, the Bruces sketch.
The point of which is, don't take things so seriously, especially things that take themseves seriously. Scooby has the right idea.
Jazzmon made her debut in the chatroom, and got a good welcome from a few rather astounded folk who weren't expecting to see her.
You've already heard that "Thigh Spy" is now available. I plan to do more videos if that goes well.
Maybe you always wanted to sponsor an FBB, but thought that $1000/month is a lot of dough. Well, it is a lot, that's true. And maybe you thought that if you sent someone $10 they'd be insulted. But you know, it only takes a hundred insults like that, and you're looknig at a lot of dough.
Because it isn't an insult, it's a helping hand. It costs a lot to compete; a lot of time (meaning you can't do a regular job) and a lot of money for food and supplements. Yes, even food costs a lot, you can't just pop down to Ronald for a Big Mac. You have to have boiled white fish, steamed chicken, and other such delights. And vitamins, and supplements (read Flex magazine and you'll see all the adverts for Creatine and suchlike).
Anita has launched an appeal for help. She's just won the Southern States championship, and is setting her sights on IFBB North American Bodybuilding Championships to be held in Detroit, Michigan August 29th. And tomorrow, the world!
Women's bodybuilding doesn't attract the big bucks that other sports get, but the fans can help
make up the difference. Go to her page on and you'll
see how your $10 or $20 can help her achieve her goals.
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've spent some time running on Diana,
some time running on Greta, and why Joan is on the way to take the main load.
Oh well. If it was easy, it wouldn't take a Valkyrie, would it? And I prefer it hard.
I checked the
site statistics.
that Sandra counts up each night. About 115,000 pictures (six gigabytes),
4.5 gigabytes of video, thousands of text files (mostly stories) and a total
of about eleven gigabytes.
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