Web journalers are voting to choose the location of the next JournalCon gathering, slated to take place in the fall of this year.

Cities bidding for the event are San Diego, California, Chicago, Illinois, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Possible dates include Aug. 10-12, Oct. 12-14, and Nov. 16-18.

JournalCon is considered the largest gathering of online diarists, bringing escribitionists together to discuss their art, tools of the trade, and of course socialize. The first JournalCon was held last October in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Longtime diarist and Asian advocate Danny McGuffin and his wife received an incredible Valentine's Day gift today.

After months of documenting the road to parenthood in his birthing journal, Molly Caitlyn McGuffin entered the world at 5:32 this morning.

The young McGuffin's arrival was a little later than the projected Feb. 8 due date. Only one person apparently picked Valentine's Day in McGuffin's online baby pool.

Diarist Lonita Fraser has launched a storytelling project that she hopes will share portraits of places all over the world.

Terra Tales is focused around the idea of "thinking about a place and the way it makes you feel and then trying to let a reader feel the same way, but without talking about the place directly." Fraser said she's aiming for something similar to Derek Powazek's established San Francisco Stories site, but not limited to a specific location.

"Basically what I want to do is make a collection of stories about where people live and work something of a journal entry, if you will, but more story-like," she explained in a post to DIARY-L. "I'm looking for stories from all over the place."

The Terra Tales site, only recently opened, awaits its first entry but meanwhile features submission guidelines and other introductory information.

A new 'burb has been started for journalers who have kicked the habit.

iQuit is the brainchild of Charles and Claire. In addition to a member link list, each member gets a custom iQuit page, which features a count of days since the member's last cigarette, cigarettes not smoked since, and money saved as a result.

Member Sunshyn, for example, hasn't smoked for 3,266 days, and has thus saved more than $13,000.

iQuit has become an accidental counterpart to Smoke-Ring Journals, a webring for journalers who currently or formerly lit up with pride, founded years ago by Doug Franklin.

Younger web diarists are invited to join Good for Your Age, a new journal community for writers under the age of 21.

The 'burb was founded by 17-year-old Rachael Kendrick, a journaler and student in Canberra, Australia. In announcing the 'burb, Kendrick acknowledged that there are journal 'burbs for just about anything these days.

"I was thinking of one for red-haired, blue- eyed journalists with their moon in Capricorn who like beetroot, but it's already been done," she joked.

Good for Your Age, waiting for its first members, welcomes any journaler who updates at least once a week and includes a link on their page.

The host of Politically Incorrect recently weighed in on the phenomemon of web diaries during the late-night political talk show, and he's not impressed.

"Websites with people's diaries -- who cares?" said PI host Bill Maher, according to the transcript of the Feb. 5 broadcast. "What happened to the days when diaries were under lock and key? Now people get pissed off if you don't read their diary."

The sentiments were prompted by the presence of Ohio resident Darrin Farrow on the ABC program. Farrow had won a seat on the talk show with a $47,000 bid on eBay. Maher and another guest, Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly, both confessed they didn't understand internet culture.

"I think it's about ego, the internet. I think it's about people just wanting to share more than the rest of us really need to have shared with," Maher said. "I don't want to know every thought that's in everybody's mind."

"I think that the people who really get absorbed in this lose sight of what's going on outside they don't know what the weather is," O'Reilley replied. "I mean, they just get so absorbed in it. There's something almost frightening about it."

Maher went on to describe people who share their interior monologue, saying that "there's a reason why it's called an 'interior' monologue, because it should stay interior."

"I mean, you used to have talent before you were published," Maher continued. "You and you and me we all had to work really hard to get on television."

Dutch diarist Rien has planned a sequel to his first Voice Project multimedia CD.

"People generally felt the Voice Project was a new way to collaborate which beated the stuffing out of the old style journal collaborations," Rien said. "So I figured it would be a shame to let this idea die after just one round."

So last month, Voice Project Phase Two was launched. But instead of a simple repeat, the second round capitalizes on the fact that journalers are storytellers. Rien envisions a "spoken book," with contributors reading entries, short stories, poems and the like.

"I hope Phase Two will be as successful as its predecessor was, although I realize it is of a more serious nature and therefore it might be more difficult to participate in," Rien said.

Massachusetts diarist Jeff Gilson has started a "useless webring" for other online authors who share his name.

"Basically for shits and giggles, I set up a webring for those journalers, diarists, journalists, diarers, etc., who happen to be named Jeff," he notes in a post to DIARY-L.

Journaling Jeffs welcomes Jeffs, Jeffreys, Geoffreys... even people named Bob who call themselves Jeff for whatever reason.

Diarists in Austin, Texas are getting together once again this Friday.

Members of the [austexjournal] mailing list are inviting central Texas web journalers and their guests to join them at Trudy's Restaurant and Bar at Brodie Oaks Shopping Center at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 9.

Although the last gathering was in April 2000, list member Greg Bueno has recently mentioned setting a regular, perhaps monthly, meeting time and place.