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2001-11-15 Entry: "Journal Hunting"

I've been looking for a reasonably regular journal to read. Up until now, I've just had the two on my "check daily" list: Eccentric Flower, and Ellen's journal. I've been reading both of these for quite a while, and have been looking for a third that I like to add to it. I've found a couple of "maybe's," but nothing has really clicked yet.

I'm not entirely sure why I read the two I do... Ellen's is usually while checking to see if the Saga of Tuck has been updated yet... this is definitely worth a read...

Columbine's however... well, I guess I just like the style (and her opinions frequently gel with my own)... she tends towards the grumpy, depressive end of the emotional spectrum in her entries (but vociferously denies that she's like that in real life), and at least in the last couple of entries has been moving towards accepting the fact that she can be a little geeky in public where people can see (entries here, here, and here) and no-one's really going to mind. I'm not really one to talk on this, as looking back at the previous entries, quite a lot have been at least a little geeky - having discussed my love of really bad TV sci-fi at length; and reading Columbine's Star Trek entry, I realized I could even fill in the crew compliment of the Enterprise-D - mainly because it's one of those amusing items that stick in my brain. You see, early on (second series I think), Data quotes the crew compliment as 1014. Then, late on (sixth or seventh series), the figure is still 1014, regardless of deaths, transfers, births, etc.

Anyway, back to Journal reading... I tend to stick to the more opinionated journals (rather than the perfectly readable and often amusing "this was my day" type) as they give me more chance to think things over and possibly modify my own position on things - see, my opinions aren't going to change without input on where I might be wrong...

The biggest problem with trying to find new journals is lack of good ways to find them... other than taking the two I like and seeing if they link to any I also like, there aren't any good showcases... Diarist.net has hundreds of them listed, but with no decent way of browsing through them (other than the tried and tested "ooh... that has an amusing name, let's see what that's like" approach). Various other lists exist, but there's no real way of judging style without diving in to each one and reading a few entries... I need some sort of rolling showcase...

But anyway, enough of web inadequacies; these are the current candidates in no particular order:
Sweet as a Biscuit - Kymm seems to be read by a lot of people, so I should really see what all the fuss is about.
Celluloid Eyes - One of the two "other people's" journals Columbine hosts. I'd list the other but it keeps crashing Netscape, so that one's out.
Seeking the Alien Shore - Not sure where I got to this one from; I found it buried in my bookmarks file, so must have read it at some point...
The Indiana Jones School of Management - I'm not sure whether this is a journal or a weblog at the moment (but it passes the cool name test).
And honorary mention goes to Utopia with Cheese, which is really Columbine's weblog, but gets on here as it's not a regular read at present.

Now I just need to decide which (as I haven't really got time during the work day to read all of these, and update my own...). I may (or may not) keep you posted.