THREE WEEKS OR SO BACK, we discussed the latest online craze, the weblog--a kind of Website that contains little or no original content, but still expresses its author's personality and tastes through a carefully-chosen set of links to content on other sites.

Online journals are sometimes listed in weblog sites' link-lists of other weblogs, but they're very different. They're like weblogs' mirror images. They're all or almost-all made up of original writing, usually very personal writing.

Like the human race itself, web-journals are a diverse lot. Some are better designed than others. Some are better written than others. Some have a lot more to say than others.

But they all involve ordinary, usually non-pro writers taking an ongoing look at the worlds around them and putting short, pithy thoughts about them up for all to see.

(Well, maybe not "all": Some journalers include home-page disclaimers along the lines of, "If you personally know me, please do not read this.")

Some places where you can learn more:

• Pacific Northwest Journalers, a mini-portal page to the ongoing works of 45 regional first-person persons.

• The Definitive Source for Online Journals, a much larger list of journals and writings about them.

• Open Pages, a Webring connecting some 300 "people who share their everyday lives online."

• Why Web Journals Suck, Diane Peterson's long essay/rant about the exploding quantity and variable quantity of these sites. "Everyone says they want to be a writer--well, here's your chance! And few people seem to know what to do with this opportunity."

• Metajournals, "A 'Zine for Journal Writers." Blurbs and listings for journals new and ongoing, plus think-pieces about the whole phenom.

• Diarist.net, a "starting-point for both writers and readers of online journals." Includes links to "1,477 literary exhibitionists."

Some examples:

• Abada Abada by Jessamyn West. Thoughts about weddings, comix, bingo parties, life in Ballard, local music, and a group of "Women Who Make Things."

• Calamondin by Judith. "At the top of the list of small things making me happy today: snapdragon ikebana."

• Tremble by Todd Levin. "Bbecause of a diet of refined sugar (and spoiled meat), i have been incapable of focusing for longer than the 45 seconds it takes me to boot up my computer."

• Anita's Book of Days by Anita Rowland. "It's a very luxurious feeling, to be reading and enjoying a book and knowing that you won't be finishing it for a while. It's like sinking into a warm bath.."

• Dancing in the Fog by Celeste Foster. "The problem with literature is analysis, and the problem with analysis is writing the stupid essay."

• Words by Scott Anderson. "What could I have done to deserve this, I asked. Was I gloating about our recent turns of good fortune? Was I guilty of hubris? My god is a vengeful and capricious god."

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!: More live events for The Big Book of MISC. are comin' at ya. The next is Thursday, Aug. 19, 6 p.m., at Borders Books, 4th near Pike in downtown Seattle. Be there or be a parallellogram.

TOMORROW: Two new slick print mags, plus "social phobia" as a chemically-treatable condition.

ELSEWHERE:Day trading's described as "Doom for lonely grownups, a single-shooter fantasy with NASDAQ supplying the mutant targets"...

Recent highlights:

• Single men, America's social pariahs since way back.
• Could the world population start declining in the 2050s? Will there already be way too many people then?
• A potential civic task for the '00s, humanizing the 'burbs.
• New interior-design fads go back to the futurism.
• Art and leisure--strange bedfellows?
• The first and second parts of my journey into DSL Land.
• Imaging what Butoh erotica might be like; plus a strange MS Word bug and two very different "Seattle Music" Websites.
• The Internet might kill newspapers as we know them--maybe the best thing papers could hope for.
• Hip irony vs. the 'New Sincerity.'
• The first and second parts of my interview for an Italian magazine about the Seattle music scene today.