Author Archives: Sonia Hogan
Dumb ways to die, and a journo who might cause me to commit one or more of them
One of the things I love about visiting Sydney is that I get to have some downtime and catch up on my cable TV viewing, twitter feed, emails and the like. I always thought that I’d have more time to do these things once I moved to Melbourne, but apparently that wasn’t to be the case.
So I’m sitting here getting a little wired on a combination of delicious coffee (my dad brews the best coffee, bless his heart!) and the 24 hour news cycle, when I come across a tweet from @neilhimself that directed me to this fabulous little ditty:
I absolutely love it. It’s gorgeous, and it has planted an earworm in my head that will surely have me singing along for days (mayhaps weeks, or even months!) I really did not see it coming, that it was a promo for Metro Trains. Best. Ad campaign. Ever.
I’m hoping that the sheer amount of cute in that video will help me counteract the positively gag-worthy feeling I’ve had since I encountered this exchange between President Obama and this fan-girl…*ahem* journalist on Fox News earlier today:
Really? REALLY???
Ugh. That was enough to make me want to use my private parts as piranha bait. Objective journalism is clearly alive and well, ladies and gentlemen.
The joys of renovating (or: How I learned to love Pinterest)
We’re currently in the process of renovating the kitchen of my childhood home back in Sydney. The process has been nothing short of educational but I’m pleased to note that nothing has gone wrong to date.
The planning process has also given me the opportunity to really figure out what I love when it comes to interior design. I’m a pretty old-fashioned kinda gal, and I’ll take an old-fashioned, country-style interior over a sleek, modern, lifeless form any day of the week.
I’ve had a lot of fun scouring the web looking for images to inspire our new kitchen. Google Images certainly makes the arduous task of finding relevant images much, much easier. But I’ve also found that Pinterest has become my second port-of-call for finding inspiration.
I boarded the hype-train and created an account a few months ago but I never really ‘got’ the whole Pinterest thing until recently and I don’t know why. I’ve kept physical scrapbooks filled with magazine cutouts and built up my own real-world pinboards in the past, so it was a pretty logical step to move into to the digital landscape, its vast wealth of images literally at my fingertips. I love that I can now be a digital curator of images without even having to try too hard.
I also love that there is this huge community that has built up around Pinterest. Strangers sharing images, liking and re-pinning to their heart’s content. Our pinboards growing and developing into a virtual representation of ourselves.[1] I wonder what Sherry Turkle has to say about it?[2]
My Pinterest account is still a little bare, but I don’t want to just pin ‘anything’. It’s not my style. I will generally pin something when the image really resonates with me. As my focus is on the renovation at the moment, my pins will be too but I’m excited to see where my newfound interest in Pinterest will end up.
You can follow me on Pinterest here.
[1] I read an annoying article arguing that Pinterest is “killing” Feminism because women were pinning images related to health and fitness and pretty things, and that this was somehow perpetuating the bad, bad, BAD social conditioning we’ve been exposed to for decades from the evil print and broadcast media sectors (srsly?) I was pleased to see the overwhelming backlash that the author received in the comments section. Yay for common sense and freedom of the individual to pin as they please!
[2] Sherry Turkle is one of my absolute favourite academic writers and has been researching and writing about online identities for over 20 years. I’ve just received her latest book ‘Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other‘ from Amazon and I’m just itching to start reading it!
Pride Hard – a review for Buzzcuts / Melbourne Fringe Festival
As the Community Manager for Australia’s #1 business review website, I’m no stranger to giving my opinion. So, when I found out that one of my assignments for my radio production subject this semester was to review a show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, I was pretty excited to say the least.
I’m delighted that I was able to review PRIDE HARD, the deliciously comedic brainchild of Rob Lloyd (host of Live On Bowen, a show I crewed on earlier this year) and Kelsey Gade.
The show itself was fabulous (and no, I’m not just saying that!) A really funny and original mashup of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the classic 80s action film Die Hard. While I’m a bit over the whole mashup concept itself (how many more classic novels can be “mashed up” without it just getting silly?) the show was actually a breath of fresh air for the genre. Rob and Kelsey bounce off of each other so effortlessly and the accents and facial expressions and characterisations were all fantastic. Clearly, they’re both excellent actors who collaborate well together.
My review starts being aired on 3RRR today, but you can also listen online if you don’t have access to the station.
And if you’re in Melbourne, go and see the show! It’s well worth it!
Breaking old blogging habits
I’ve started a number of blogs over the last 12 years. They generally begin well but usually end with a string of posts apologising for not posting and promising that I’ll get back to it soon, first over a period of weeks, then months.
Finally, the ultimate blog death: silence.
Sometimes I would call ‘redesign’, tinkering with templates and widgets trying to reinvigorate my blog (and my motivation) with a new look.
Ultimately, I’d end up deleting the blog entirely. Then, after enough time had past that I’d forgotten about my bad blogging habits, I’d start again (ad nauseum, until I finally ended the vicious cycle and stopped trying to blog for a while).
I’ve done a lot of research about blogging in general over the last couple of years and I think I’ve finally worked out what’s been going wrong:
- I haven’t been disciplined enough with my posting schedule;
- I haven’t been realistic about the amount of time I can actually devote to posting; and
- I’ve spent too much time blogging about random things and have lacked focus.
Now that I’ve given myself the opportunity to reflect on previous experience and identify these issues, I’ve decided to give blogging one final go. I’ve given myself a focus, but I’ve also allowed myself some leeway to write about the things that interest me that aren’t directly related to it. I’m also going to lower my expectations about posting, and just do my best to post regularly (at least twice a week, but if I can post more often, then great!)
I’m excited to accept the challenge that I’ve issued to myself. I’m hoping that (in time and with enough perseverance!) this blog will become a useful resource for other like-minded individuals who are learning to map their way through the ever-changing media landscape.
Fingers crossed!