2023
A shelf made of scaffolds. Weighs just under 400 pounds. Held together with ratchet straps. Please note, this shelf is a tip-over risk and must be attached to a wall securely with the hardware provided. Seriously. This is not IKEA. Do not ignore the “must attach to wall” thing. These are very heavy and dangerous scaffolds.
2023
For the high-performance office. There’s only one way to tell this cabinet is supercharged, and it’s not how smooth the drawers slide. You can tell this cabinet is supercharged by the Italian luxury sportscar manufacturer decal on the upper right. Once again, it’s not how smooth the drawers slide. Though they do slide pretty smooth.
2024
A clearly valuable domain that A.I. companies will definitely want. Competitive offers only please. As a reference point, OpenAI paid over $15 million for the domain Chat.com. But frankly, Chat.com doesn’t have anything to do with safety, and it does nothing to put people’s minds at ease about the dangers of artificial intelligence. So I wouldn’t call it a perfect comparison. It may be useful as a starting point though.
2024
The dumbest Apple Studio Display ever. Made with authentic Apple parts but not affiliated with Apple at all. I like to think Steve Jobs would’ve smiled at this. Right before issuing an aggressive cease and desist letter, and swiftly filing numerous injunctions against me personally, of course. That man did not play around. Or so I’ve heard. He’s never told me that personally.
2023
A burgled burglar mask. Some burglars claim to be burglars, but you shouldn’t always trust them. One way to verify that the burglar you’re looking to hire is legitimate, is by checking their mask for an anti-theft security tag. If it doesn’t have one, they may have paid for it honestly. And you never want to hire an honest burglar. That would just be plain stupid.
2022
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, it became dangerous to use digital period tracking apps. Which was all of them. Except Period Tracking App, the only period tracking app that tracks your period for you and only you. Because it’s paper. And you keep it in your bathroom. Once your app is marked, please avoid sharing photos of it on social media. It’s also very important to not let government officials in your bathroom. If your privacy is compromised by a government official being in your bathroom, please dispose of your app completely by lighting it on fire. You can always download a new one here for free anytime.
2020
A clothing brand made to be worn by non-essential workers and sold to benefit essential workers. The first release featured a colorway to benefit pandemic relief workers called Pandemic Black. Please only wear while working from home. Seriously. Do not wear WORKFROMHOMEWEAR out and about. Not even on quick errands. Not even if it’s chilly out.
2024
Authentic moments of hunger. Which you can tell by the fact that they're posted on BeReal. And everything's real on BeReal. It’s just a bonus if your face looks flattering from the angle you scan the restaurant QR code from. Bringing up the menu is the goal. Getting a nice photo of yourself while doing it is simply a nice to have.
2024
Never leave your headshot out on the internet in public. If you do, you shouldn't be surprised if it gets defaced by punks or youths. And if it happens on LinkedIn, you might be dealing with a wiser type of vandal. A CCO, or even a Founder maybe. You’ll never know for sure though. Unless someone in your #network was there to catch the responsible party in the act. That being said, please send tips or information to russ@russrizzo.com.
2024
An Instagram profile that never loads. Unless you tap a loading highlight. Then it loads right away. Every time. Unless you don’t have any service. Then it really doesn’t load. This issue is currently being worked on.
2022
An unwelcoming welcome mat. Beacuse some entrances aren’t for entering. Some entrances are just there because that’s how the house or apartment was designed and changing the entrance into a solid wall would be a lot of work. Not to mention the monetary cost. Labor and materials are expensive these days. It’s a lot easier to just let your guests know which entrance to use. Which is definitely not the one by this mat.
2021
Things that happen on every trip to IKEA. Drawn on IKEA bags. Framed in IKEA frames. Unfortunately IKEA doesn’t make markers that rival the quality or brand recognition of Sharpie markers. So the markers used on these were not from IKEA. Hopefully that doesn’t lessen the value of them though. I should really just rewrite this and not talk about the markers. It’s probably best if I don’t mention Sharpie at all. They’re not even that prestigious anyway.
2023
For placement only. Still waiting on final copy. Once the creative department has some options, we’ll get everyone else's opinion. You can never have too many opinions. After the entire group has come to an agreement, we’ll present the option we like to the client, along with a bunch of other options we don’t believe in as much. This shows them how many ideas we have. Naturally, we’ll end up moving forward with one of the options that wasn’t as good but we showed anyway. After a few rounds of revisions to that one, we’ll finally get to very safe copy that everyone on both sides feels whelmed about. And that’s what will ship to the tattoo artist. Assuming legal clears it of course.
2017
A side project to help generate ideas for side projects. Or not-side projects. Really anything idea-based, because ideas in general are often a unique rearrangement of two things. Or sometimes, more than 2 things. I bet there’s some ideas that are probably a combination of, like, 200 things. But they don’t make generators for those. Unless you count brains I guess.
2018
The life of a man dedicated to the craft of walking. The following is a review from an unnamed critic: “There’s not much to say about Mr. Walker, other than wow. Wow, wow, wow. Believe me, if I could give it another word, I certainly would. Do you think I like writing reviews with only one descriptive word? No. It’s honestly one of my least favorite things to do. Right up there with laundry and aerobics."
2018
Letters from a man in search of his new favorite sports team. His name is Rich Blizzard, and it’s unclear what happened to his old favorite sports team. I bet they had a falling out or something. Things like that tend to happen after a string of poor decisions by upper management. Not saying that’s what happened with Rich’s team. Just that it tends to happen.
2018
There’s nothing technology can’t almost fix. Almost is definitely the key word though. This solution didn’t provide much warmth, but it did provide a nice crackling sound and a very consistent fire appearance. I didn’t even have to go mess with the logs once. I do wish it gave off some warmth though. Winter in New York was cold.
2017
An online game that measures NHL knowledge by asking if a randomly selected player shoots left or right handed. It’s extremely easy if you know the handedness of every NHL player off the top of your head. If you only know some, the game is harder. And if you don’t know the handedness of any NHL players at all, it’s basically a series of 50-50 guesses. And you know what they say about those. I can’t quite remember the quote, but I think it’s originally from Wayne Gretzky or Michael Scott or someone.
2017
Advice for eating dinner with your father. If you are not currently eating dinner with your father, feel free to take this advice anyway. It’s really advice for eating dinner with anyone. It also applies to breakfast and lunch too. Not even just meals, actually. It applies to not-meals too. Sure, the name of this project is very specific. But the advice itself is much more general. Honestly it’s the generalist.
