These are a few of my favorite blogs.

Part One in an occasional series.

Steve Leveen's blog Well-Read Life

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but Bookczuk, that all round wonder woman, deserves my eternal praise for introducing me to Levenger. Levenger's Circa journals and awesome stationery products, not to mention their wallets and bags, are all supremely well designed. I love my Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase, and my travel journals, in Circa covers and rings, are treasures to pull out so that I can relive and relove my trips.

Levenger's founder keeps a blog. You'd think it would be a new product advertisement, a promotion for the company, a sales tool. And it is, to a tiny degree. But most of all, it's a wide-ranging look at all the things that make up a life dominated by reading and writing, quality design, and a keen eye.

His latest blog entry is an expedition back down the supply chain to find the origins of the excellent paper that is used for the notebooks, journals, cards and so on that makes up much of the product line. A log blog. He's also blogged about libraries, books, shipping Christmas orders - a whole range of things. And he does it with grace and style, illustrated with appropriate photographs, full of links. An eminently readable blog.

Hard to classify it, but if anybody reading this is into reading and writing, take a look and let me know what you think. I don't often recommend blogs, because there are so many around to fill up my scarce spare time, but this is one I love.

Roundabout routing

Roundabout,
originally uploaded by skyring.

I could fill my blog with these. Screenshots of the ridiculous routings that the despatch system GPS advises.

This was one afternoon last week, and I was heading along Constitution Avenue (my car indicated by the red circle/black arrow icon) when I got a job, with the pickup point on London Circuit. London Circuit, as the name implies, is an octagonal street, and as I didn’t recognise the street number and didn’t want to go the long way around, I hit the “Navigate to Pickup” button. It usually gets the pickup spot correct, because it knows all the street numbers.

But it likewise usually makes a hash of the route. The above is a typical example. I’ve moved further down Constitution Avenue from the point where I asked it to calculate a route, but it wanted me to turn left down Coranderrk Street, go once around the roundabout on Parkes Way, come back onto Constitution Avenue, make a right turn onto Allara, a left onto Bunda, follow that around and then make an illegal trip through the bus interchange before finally turning left onto London.

Not surprisingly, I ignored this advice, proceeded straight down Constitution Avenue to the end and made the right onto London, where I u-turned to stop in the loading zone at the pickup point. About a quarter of the recommended distance. Sometimes I wonder if the advice isn’t aimed at maximising the journey, rather than minimising it.

That’s Ringbear, peeping over my screen above. He was telling me to bear right.

Vagaries of the crowd

Vagaries of the crowd,
originally uploaded by skyring.

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar (piknik is a free online photo editor) to put it all together.

5 - Post it with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in.

***
1 - Name of my band: William Hunter Kendal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hunter_Kendal

2 - Title of my first album: Vagaries of the crowd

3 - The original for the album cover is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/3331058606/