The Whiteboard Chronicles: Santa's Lesser-Known Reindeer

The Whiteboard Chronicles: "Blank is the new Blank " Edition

The Whiteboard Chronicles - Chicken Edition

The Whiteboard Chronicles Part Deux

As the sign says, more awkward, strange, fictitious band names for your enjoyment. Who wants a double bill of Foster Wife and The Vast Deference?
-- Riff

The Whiteboard Chronicles

Welcome to the White Board Chronicles. This is a crowd-sourced list of funny (and we believe fictitious) band names. Feel free to pick a favorite. And if we see Uncle Dad's Tween Jug Band opening for Chronic Impact! The White Board's birth family will be honored.
-- Riff

Buying the Blogger

I thought this recent article in the NY Times about product placement (and disclosure thereof) in blogs was interesting. And, for the record, no one's even tried to buy off the Riff even once -- not even the makers of that really cool vodka mentioned in the article.

Now In Blogs, Product Placement, by J. David Goodman

My Personal Shout Out from Old Spice's Man on the Horse, Isaiah Mustafa

Read the full story behind it by clicking here.

The Proper Care & Feeding of Struthio Camelus

Adam in Ostrich Land from Thleen Things on Vimeo.

A Shout-Out From Schott's

Never beyond a bit of shameless self promotion, the Riff's piece about banning the "man-" prefix got a kind mention at Schott's Vocab blog at the NYT.

Tip Box: Why Is My JPG Smurf Blue?

If you're a hardworking slinger of inker and pusher of pixels in this day and age, you may have had to rely on the handout art of others to make that blog post work. And, upon trying to open said jpeg, it may have opened with an unexpected blue cast to it.

I won't get into what causes it (because I don't know, except that it has to do with file size), but here's the quickest fix I've found:

1) Open the photo using Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

2) Go to the Picture drop-down menu, choose Compress Pictures (on mine it's the very last choice).

3) On the right-hand side, click the Web pages radio button (second from the bottom choice).

4) Just above the OK button, you should see an estimated file size, indicating it's been compressed from something ginormous to something less so. Click the OK button.

5) Save the file (I always choose "Save As" so the original file is preserved -- just as a safety precaution).

And there you have it. Your picture as pretty as a ... picture.

-- Adam

Font Fashion. Politics Edition

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina uses the distinctive Futura light typeface in her "Carly" logo. HP's "one voice" branding strategy, circa 2008, was to exclusively use ... HP Futura light. Just thought it was interesting, that's all.
-- Adam
Carly Fiorina's Futura's so light, she's gotta wear shades (Los Angeles Times)

Facebook is a Vodka Cranberry, Twitter is Cocaine

Just stumbled across this hilarious comparison between Internet networking sites and various drugs, by Patrick Moberg. My favorite: "Myspace is huffing spray paint: Destroys any chance of looking credible. You will be perceived as having the mindset of a middle schooler, and probably do."
-- Adam

NSFW T-shirts from the 2010 Beard & Moustache Championships

I'm just back from a whirlwind 19 hours in Bend, Ore., where I was covering the first-ever nationwide beard and mustache championships, and among the local color that gathered for the event were folks decked out in all manner of follicularly focused T-shirts. Two of the not-safe-for-work variety appear at right. Note that these two people weren't at the vent together, mind you, but I'm sure if they met they'd find out they had a lot in common.
-- Adam
Photo credit: Copyright 2010 Adam Tschorn.

Mom and Pop Riff Star in Local Bank Ad

"Star Wars" Pancake Molds at Williams-Sonoma

Eat you with maple syrup, I will.

Feline Cuteness Alert!

Kneady Cats: Toast and Gracie from Adam Tschorn on Vimeo.

Meet Redheaded She Clown "Tomato McGrand"

Just ran across the video below. Apparently (and I haven't even attempted to verify the veracity of it) it's from a Japanese ad for a McDonald's burger called the "Tomato McGrand."

I've decided to call her Tomato McGrand and I imagine she's got a boyfriend named Big Max. Somehow I don't think she got that body eating hamburgers and fries.

Burger King's Quad Stacker

Yeah, I'm "researching a story" -- I think the "quad" stands for quadruple - as in bypass.
And I'm probably the only guy on the planet who can order one of those meat beasts AND a Diet Coke and keep a straight face ...