Urban Catwoman

Maybe it was the alias that grabbed me, or perhaps it was the gothic layout, but no matter, once we started reading Urban Catwoman we were enthralled. The brainchild of this feature site is a 28-year old Canadian (from Ontario) who refers to herself only as Catwoman. She's a bit of a comic in her writings which date back to April 1998, though they're updated almost daily, so there's plenty to read.

Urban Catwoman, however, is only a small part of a much larger "website that came into being in the summer of '97." The website, like her journal, is all Catwoman and is definitely worth your time. Given a thorough surf, you'll find all sorts of extravagance littered throughout, from "Catwoman's Coca-Cola Tribute," to "My Night at Blockbuster" (a movie review) as well as her own Astrological profiles (a favorite pastime of hers).

However, her journal is the gem of it all. There is something to be said about her entries which range from the ludicrous ("I dreamt that I was in space, y'know...like the Shuttle or something! Only, there was dog there and the suits we were wearing were made of plain old plastic... then I snapped the plastic bubble helmet over his dog head and attached a cord to the outfit...and [then] we were playing out in space with the dog. And it hit me: this is the first space-dogwalk!") to the earnest ("What I wish for this Christmas? That for once, my Grandmother could see the beauty of it... that my Mother stays lighthearted and enjoys being in love again just in time for Christmas, that my best friends enjoy Christmas however they spend it. That my sister can take a moment to be with just me and allow the unspoken happiness of being together at Christmas just hang in the air around us.")

All in all, there's plenty to choose from, and if you're not certain where to start there's even a 'Best Of' section where you'll find entries ranging from 'Diet Coke' to 'The Smurfs.'

The only complaint we could find was that the navigation sometimes was a bit sloppy (pages occasionally wouldn't finish loading, etc.), however, this may be attributable to the fact that it's posted on GeoCities and it's easily remedied by hitting reload.

All in all, Urban Catwoman is a one classy journal and well worth the time to read.

Obsidian_In_Amber

"ob·sid·i·an: a dark natural glass formed by the cooling of molten lava."

"am·ber: a hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin (as featured in jurassic park)."

"obsidian into amber. somewhat like a mind that's been submerged so deep into obscurity, that only by continuous decay can it become free... secede from its cocoon... discover itself." This is how Agent 102, the artisan behind Obsedian_In_Amber (OIA) first describes his journal in OIA version 1. There are two versions to be seen and understood if you're up to the challenge.

Version 1, also known as Obsedian_In_Amber, begins in February of '98 and continues through April when he felt inspired to change the layout. "If this is your first time here, you could check that out, but the quality lacks compared to this," so the Agent explains in Version 2. Now we wouldn't go so far as to say it sucks, however, the nice thing about Version 2 (as opposed to its predecessor) is that we couldn't find one entry that resembled a previous one. That's to say that the layout for every entry in Version 2 differed from the previous ones.

In Version 1, the layout is static and we found the writing was more level headed than in Version 2, where Agent 102 gets a bit outlandish. It's in Version 2 that you'll find everything from e-mails to IRC chats to poetry and stories as well as a liberal pinch of downright nonsense. When we started reading, we felt a little disorientated at first; not at all unlike Dorothy must've felt when she was whisked away to Oz. However, like Dorothy, after spending sometime there we felt right at home and were even a bit disappointed when we finished reading the latest entry as we found we'd have to wait for an update.

Topics covered are imaginative and range from movies, television and books seen and read, to sports and erratic thoughts that just come to him. However, we couldn't help noticing that a number of the Agent's writings somehow or other always mentioned a mysterious woman that the Agent refers to only as 'Bunny, Wondergirl' or some other alias (this is especially noticeable when college is in session). It's a definite passion that you can't miss and an apparent mainstay of his since he began writing OIA. It's almost, in and of itself, enough to keep a reader coming back wondering 'will boy get girl?'

Guess you'll just have to tune into Obsidian_In_Amber to find out won't you?

stone*s obscurity.com

One the last sites we looked at is a piece of HTML mastery dubbed stone*s obscurity.com. The layout is to die for. When we stumbled upon it we found the design mesmerizing as well as a little unnerving because the first thing it did was tell us a few things about our computer including what our IP and Browser was. So, after we shrugged off the 'Big Brother' notion, we were inclined to find out just who the man behind the curtain was and this is what we found out...

The wizard behind obscurity.com is a man known only as Stone, which he points out really isn't his name. "It is more of an inherited family nickname, which I have adopted to be my 'online persona.'" Stone justifies his site as a place "to share what makes me who I am, give people a glimpse into my life, to make this place on the web my own and to guarantee you never get an 'error404' on my site." He goes on to account for the name of his site by asserting that it's called obsucurity.com because "that's kinda my acknowledgment that you people out there don't know me from Adam...It's all about self-glorification."

And that it is. We found Stone's writing to be rather narcissistic in nature. However, we also found that it was well written and designed. Each and every entry allowed the reader to begin with "Mood Music" that ranged from the Chili Peppers to Bing Cosby and everything in between. He describes it as something to "Listen (To) While You Read."

So, we played along and listened to a little Elvis as well as some Glenn Miller while we bellied up to his journal. What we discovered was an array of entries that covered included topics such as his daughter, film ("studio, indie & otherwise"), computers, and other prevalent thoughts. And though his writing is rather unpolished in respect to his coding, we found it to be down-to-earth; captivating in fact. His style almost reminds you of that egocentric friend you had in high school that you continued to hang around with, no matter how irritating he was, because you really liked who he was.

At length, stone*s obscurity.com appeared to us to be a masterfully designed site managed by a deviantly enchanting writer. A definite read you shouldn't pass over.

Snippets

Saving the best to last, we finish up this weeks column by taking a sneak peek at Snippets, the creation of our former editor, Cage, a suiting sobriquet for an engaging, yet elusive, individual such as he.

Even though I've been fortunate to know Cage personally, it still remains difficult knowing where to begin describing him or his journal which is unmistakably all-Cage. He's somewhat of an enigmatic being, a point that is evident throughout his journal Snippets. To someone who's not familiar with his writing style he might be considered depressive and egocentric. In fact, he believes some might even consider him to bi-polar because of the irrationality he often exhibits in his entries. However, appearances can be deceiving.

We found Snippets a light read that was easy to navigate through with only a sprinkling of javascript, so there's little need to be concerned with load-times if you're working with an old computer or browser. Moreover, the different lay outs depicted throughout Snippets are lucid, yet serene, and always characteristic of the time of year that you're reading about. And the entries... well, they're good.

Let's just say that the way we see it Snippets is a refreshing read in world where often times one finds journals that read like 'this.is.what.I.did.today.' In contrast, Cage comes off as both a humorist and a minimalist; the humor showing up in (his) writing style, the minimalism in his lifestyle which he often times depicts in an entertaining yet elusive fashion.

What's more, Snippets is constructed in such a fashion that normal questions like how he survived college ("by sponging off others for the last three years") or what he did for lunch that day ("sucking the tip of a frenchfry in order to discern it's spice of origin...my eyes focused on the lovely pregnant hostess weaving back and forth through the densely crowded 'chili's' restaurant") are answered in a manner that'll leave you chuckling or scratching your head. But, no matter what it does to you, Snippets will leave you wanting more.

We'll finish this edition of OnCommon by noting that there are myriad of creative columnists out there and oftentimes they're only a nom de plume to us. So, the next time you're out surfing the 'net for good journal we'd like to suggest starting your journey here at OnCommon. And if you've examined our selections for the week and are looking for more, why not check out our Diary Registry. You'll finds dozens more listed there.

Next:

Tune in a couple weeks from now because at OnCommon only 'The Neighbor' knows.