You ever get friend requests from random people? I did once, from a girl name Michele who was friends with my older brother. I’m glad I accepted her friend request because she was posting a lot of fun stuff and we had a lot in common. Then we both started blogging and eventually hanging out. Michele is one of my good buddies now! She took a bit of a blog break, but now she is back! I asked her to participate in Q & As!
2. How did you get started and what made you want to start a blog?
After leaving a job in the corporate world back in 2012, I was itching to be creative//start writing again. I was working on my teaching degree + felt like everything I did was for an assignment or task someone else needed me to complete. Decided to start a blog + the rest is history.
3. What are your favorite things to write about?
I really like sharing things I come across in my daily life, which are usually posted in Things I'm Loving Lately. I'm also a music nerd, so I like posting songs I hear in my travels.
4. What is currently your favorite thing at the moment?
Zoning out for at least thirty minutes each day with a different record. Technology takes a back seat, I relax + just listen.
5. What are your future plans, expectations & dreams for your blogging endeavors. Warmer weather is arriving, so I'd like to get some solid shots + capture the beauty//culture on the island. I also want to get more recipes up, since I have a ton floating around my desk. Not sure what the future holds, but as long as i'm enjoying myself + what I blog about, thats all that really matters.
Follow Michele's links and check her out! If you would like to participate in a future please contact me!
Its time for another installment of Q&As!!! Ingrid is a sassy teacher with a passion for pop-culture. Her blog, Hey Its Ingrid is all about her life and she also makes some super rad pillows on her Etsy shop. Let's learn more about Ingrid!
Well, my name is Ingrid (if you couldn't tell from my usernames LOL) and I'm 25. I was born and raised on Long Island though I plan to eventually spread my wings and leave in the future. I'm a teacher but I'm currently subbing until I find a classroom of my own. I live off coffee and I love the internet. You can usually find me snuggled up in my dinosaur onesie binge watching a new series on Netflix. I think I'm a tv addict, but it's totally fine. I do venture outdoors every once in a while. I recently got back into horseback riding so that's exciting! I guess you can classify me as a nerd. I love to read, play video games, and go to the movies. Podcasts are something I've been into lately. My favorite is the Nerdist.
3. Tell us about your blog & Etsy shop. What inspired you to start? What are your goals for these projects?
My blog.. oh my poor blog. I have to admit I've gone through stages with it. I've been blogging before I even knew it was blogging. When I was 13 I started a livejournal and a blurty which I love to go back and read and just laugh at myself. My current blog recently received a makeover and I hope to start back up hardcore. It had so many great entries and the one day last year I snapped and deleted them all. *face palm* But really it's just a blog that I like to talk about anything and everything that's going on in my life. I guess you could call it a lifestyle blog. I really need to get better about posting though. Oops. :)
My etsy shop was a total accident. I already had the shop because two years ago I made and sold feather accessories. Once that stopped.. it just kinda sat there. One day I really wanted a certain throw pillow for my room but the ones I found online were way too much money. I said "Pfffft, I can make one myself!" So, that's what I did. I posted a picture on instagram and people really liked it. So I made a few more which were characters from favorite shows and movies and more and more people liked them. So I threw them up on the shop and sales just started happening. I have a ton of ideas for more pillows so keep an eye out. I also do custom orders. :)
4. What are some of your favorite pop-culture obsessions? How have they inspired your Etsy creations?
My number one favorite is Doctor Who. Anyone know who knows me knows that it is all I every want to talk about. I actually designed some new pillows that are many of the monsters from Doctor Who so keep an eye out for those! Don't Blink. ;) I hope to be able to go to the Doctor Who experience in Cardiff. It's on my to do list. :D
Oh, and Sherlock! Mannnnnn, I don't know enough people that watch Sherlock. I am constantly trying to convince people to watch that series. It's brilliant and just so well written. The cast is fantastic too. I definitely fangirl over that show. Now that I think about it, I should really make a Sherlock pillow.
5. What are some of your favorite blogs ? What do you like about them? And why should we read it?
Like I mentioned before, I do love the Nerdist. I love that he started off with a podcast and has gone on to do so many great things. He has a website, youtube channel, blog, podcast, hosts tv shows, and now has a tv show of his own. Chris Hardwick has created an empire from one simple thing and I admire that about him.
I also recently stumbled across http://www.geekgirlpenpals.com/ I love this site! You answer a few questions about things you love and they match you up with a fellow nerdy pen pal. Each month has a theme and you get a new pen pal each month. I signed up for February so I'm really excited to meet new people from around the world.
6. Any fellow Etsy shops that you are loving right now?
I recently made some purchases from Geek Ink Designs. I've always wanted a tattoo but I am constantly changing my mind as to what I want. This shop sells awesome temporary tattoos and they're all nerdy! They have some fantastic doctor who ones. (I ordered the tardis)
Thanks for talking to us Ingrid! Now go check out her blog and her fantastic pillows! If you would like to get featured on Q & As please email me for details.
Michelle Rubinstein and Anthony Viccora are two of my friends that are always creative and doing something. I remember them always mentioning how they wanted to start a podcast and once they decided to focus on discussing commercials, the Commercial Convo was born! A couple episodes in and they have discussed a few different ad campaigns, introduced some fun commercial based games with their guests and always take a moment for a television break.
I asked Michelle and Anthony a few questions about the podcast.
What made you guys want to
start a podcast?
M: Well, I really got into
listening to podcasts in 2008. I became obsessed with them and have always
wanted to have my own. I have always been intrigued with shows and interviews
done on the radio. There is something about just tuning in to hear a story and
having to use your imagination to come up with the visuals. We tried to make a
podcast with two friends of ours in 2009, but it didn’t quite pan out the way
we wanted it to.
A: I just thought it
sounded like a good time.
M: Ant’s a man of few
words, haha.
In the first episode, michelle,
you talk about where your interest commercials came from an AOL chat. Can you
talk a bit about that and how it led to an interest?
M: The AOL chat with
Yeardly Smith inspired me because it was refreshing to hear someone say to make
a conscious decision to tune into commercials and to not turn them off or
switch the channel. I really, at the time, had an interest in voice-overs, and she
explained that listening to different commercials can inspire you and help you
mimic certain voices. From that time on, I just always loved commercials and
looked at them in a different light.
Anthony where did yours come from?
A: I guess that I always
liked watching commercials, I never wanted to mute them or change the channel
but I never really considered how interested I really had been in them until
Michelle and I would talk about them. It’s funny because people always seem to
talk about how much they hate commercials but then end up in conversations
about which ones they hate and why or even ones they think are funny. I think
deep down everyone likes commercials to some degree or another, I mean nowadays
the entertainment value can be right up there with the television shows that surround
them.
M: It’s true! I really do
believe people love to talk about commercials to some degree.
Since the show starting you
guys must be watching commercials more critically. What are some of the things
that you look for?
M: Like Ant said, before
the podcast, we always watched and discussed commercials. Whether they were
funny, dumb or we liked the song used in the ad. That’s another big reason why
I love commercials, the music. There are so many times where I will shazam a
commercial just to get a song. We fell in love with the band Parov Stelar,
because their song“Booty Swing”
was used in The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas commercial. I’ve discovered
many bands just from watching commercials. Since we started the podcast, our
way of viewing them hasn’t really changed.
A: The first thing I always
look for is comedic value but besides that that, I always need the story makes
sense, (does that make sense haha?) I almost want to use the term plot hole to
describe what I mean. When something doesn’t make sense in the story of the
commercial it drives me nuts, I cant focus on the commercial and I lose all
respect for whatever they are trying to sell me…It’s hard to explain without an
example… there is a commercial for these lights that go on your glasses and
they show these situations where they can be helpful, they say “where are
Foster Grant Light Specs helpful” a woman is reading in bed and her husband is
trying to sleep that one is fine, but then they have a woman in a dimly lit
restaurant and she says “when I want lobster not liver” as if she was going to
just grunt and point at the menu and not exchange any words with the waiter and
accidentally get Liver…Like c’mon that doesn’t make any sense, it just drives
me nuts and I just lose all respect for the people who directed that commercial
and who wrote it and the fact that no one questioned that example…
What is your current
favorite campaign ad running?
M: I really always seem to
love Target’s campaigns. I think there back to school campaign this year is
really cute and simple. However, I just discovered AT&T’s new web-only
campaign for their Digital Life products. There are three commercials in which
someone is interviewing the home’s pets and they talk about how the house is
being controlled when no one’s home. It’s really funny, and I always wondered
what our pets think when no one’s home and we set automatic timers and what
not. It’s a cute POV..plus who doesn’t love talking animals? It’s the talking
baby commercials I can’t stand!
A: I would say a pretty
consistent favorite of mine over the last few years lately have been the Geico
campaign, not all of them are winners but for the most part I enjoy the heck
out of them, they usually do a pretty good job retiring the ideas before they
get too played out, an art that is clearly not something most people in the
entertainment industry don’t seem to understand, its happening too much in the
film industry, I mean the hangover is a trilogy, seriously how many times can
people see the same movie…getting back to commercials though the insurance
industry as a whole have been pretty entertaining to me.
M: Yeah! I love Geico
commercials. I also feel like they always do a great job and have a good
variety of commercials to advertise their insurance. Hey, it sold me. I have Geico…and
so does Ant.
A: Well what sold me was
the savings, I really did save 15%, actually it was more like 22% but still I
recommend them haha.
What is the worst Commercial
that just drives you nuts?
M: Referring back to my
comment about talking babies…The All-State commercial with the talking baby and
the Mime. I really feel that talking babies are just creepy and un-natural.
Even more un-natural then talking pets, haha.
A: I hate the same commercial!
Sometimes I’m surprised at how much it bothers me. What annoys me most about it
is that the first time I saw that commercial they hadn’t added in the baby
talking portion yet and I thought it was amazing, the mime I thought was very
entertaining and I enjoyed the exchange he had with them and his exit from the
conversation most of all. The next time it came on I literally stopped what I
was doing and watched with delight and as soon as the baby started talking my
smile immediately turned to a deep frown, the kind of frown that takes work to
put on, you know what I mean? It’s because of the muscles in your face aren’t
used to moving in that way, the commercial was ruined and now I cringe when it
comes on…
On the show you have your
guests take part in a commercial themed game.
Where did you guys come up
with this idea?
How do you decide what kind
if games to play?
M: It kind of came to us
all at once. When we decided to make this podcast, we were in the car driving
and listening to the radio, and there was a commercial on, and I said” Wouldn’t
it be funny to have a show, that is just all commercials? I bet people would
hate it and we would be the only ones into it.” Then later on we decided we
should just have a podcast about commercials. We discuss them anyway…we might
as well record it. We then started thinking about different games we could play
with guests like “Who’s that voice” and a game in which you guess the campaign
from listening to the song from the commercial. I’m pretty good at guessing
voiceovers from commercials, and I thought that would be a fun game.
A: Yea we just thought it
would be fun to do with people, kind of test how critically they actually could
listen to a commercial, we also had a game where we just said the tag line to
see if the person could guess what brand it was for. It kind of shows how
commercials and advertising gets into your head without you even realizing its
there…actually its kind of creepy when you think about it haha.
I love the tv show interludes.
It's a clever little twist. Where did that idea come from?
A: I just thought it would
be funny…Really above anything else I just like to make people laugh and I’m
really into puns and pun like things which I feel like the TV break is about,
kind of flipping things around.
M:
Yeah, haha, sometimes I just let Ant have his moment to shine you know, humor
himself.
Michelle you have a degree
in communications and Anthony you have one in business. Does your academic
background influence your interest in commercials?
M: A lot of my major was
made up of Advertising and Marketing classes. Most of the time our homework
assignment was to just watch commercials and be prepared to discuss the latest
campaigns in class. I absolutely loved this, so just from that I feel I’m more
into commercials than the average joe.
A: I don’t know that I
would say my major changed my interest in commercials because my interest in
them really didn’t have much to do with what I studied, but I can say that I
find it difficult to separate the business from the entertainment or message of
the commercial…I think about what the business sells and how its doing or what
they represent…Take Walmart for example, I hate Walmart and I have expressed
this multiple times while recording and because of this anytime a Walmart
commercial comes on I have a hard time enjoying any aspect of the commercial or
even listening at all.
Where would you like to go
with commercial convo? Is it something you plan on doing for a while? How would
you like it to evolve?
M: Naturally, I would love
to be able for this to take off and become something like The Nerdist or Stuff
You Should Know, and just become a full time podcaster. Wouldn’t that be dope?
Haha, but we’re just having fun and doing it as a hobby for now. It can be hard
because of our schedules to keep up with putting out a new episode, so I hope
in time we get on a better schedule with that. But for now, it’s all about just
hanging out talking about commercials.
A: I’d like to sell out
Amphitheaters and concert halls world wide and have thousands and thousands of
screaming fans who cant help but hang on our every word, that would be kind of
cool…Joking aside I really just do enjoy putting out something that people can
listen to and hopefully get a laugh or two out of it, or at least enjoy. As
Michelle said our schedules are somewhat preventative at times but I’d like to
keep up with it for as long as we can…I mean it’s not like there’s going to be
a sudden drought of material, if anything I bet over the next few years commercials
become more entertaining, more controversial and even more relevant to our
generation, a younger generation and it will perpetually give us something to
talk about.
We were going crazy with anticipation, hence derp faces
Today was an absolutley gorgeous day and instead of enjoying the outdoors with the rest of our friends, Caitie and I stayed inside and awaited the big news... who is going to be the next Doctor?! They announced the new guy... Peter Capaldi. Cait and I both had a similar reaction, "meh." Its mostly because we are in bummer mode that this just means its real that Matt Smith is leaving. I think in the end it will still be amazing with Moffat at the helm.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog....
I took the month of July off from the blog-o-sphere, now that my life is getting back normal and routines are readjusting. Speaking of routines, I'm going to be introducing some new things on the blog this Fall. Along with the regular tutorials and crafty happenings I plan adding a few things into the mix. Here is what you can expect...
From blogging and etsy I found a lot of really cool people out there doing amazing things. Q & A will feature a new person and we'll talk about what there doing, what makes them tick and what we can expect from them in the future. If you yourself run a blog/shop or anything else and would like to be featured on Q&A send me an email!
Have you ever discovered something that you think is the most amazing thing and it makes you so happy that you feel like you have to tell the entire world about it? I'm not sure why, but it happens to me pretty often, so what better way to profess my love of something then on the blog-o-sphere! The best things will range from favorite apps, movies, snacks, etsy shops...pretty much anything I am currently obsessing over. Is there something that you are obsessing over? Do you think I should check it out? Then email me!
I often find myself on buzzfeed killing time reading compiled lists about 90s nostalgia or the most adorable corgi mix breads. Needless to say, I've fallen in love with making lists. So I decided I'd share that love here on the blog! You can expect to find lists of a variety of topics, from my favorite craft tools, to my favorite sci-fi baddies. The possibilities are endless! Any suggestions or things you would like to see on a list? Shoot me an email!
