SomaCow 140: IKEAd, IKEAd!
SomaCow Media, Inc. is proud to present SomaCow, strangely not brought to you in this hour by IKEA. It’s a known fact that skynet is a pansy, when compared to the SKU tracking system that must be in place at IKEA.
Okay, this whole episode hinges on how freaking big that store is. It’s big. It’s just retarded big (we’ll get into that next time.) When God said, “Let There Be Light” he had to ask IKEA to move. The Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Headquarters suffers from structural envy when it gazes across at the IKEA store. Bags of Holding do not actually port to another dimension… They port to the cafeteria at IKEA. When Omega Supreme picked up Megatron and slammed him into the moon, he actually slammed him into an IKEA. The Borg actually drove around in a giant gray IKEA. Fun Fact: No one has ever seen an entire side of IKEA in one glance.
So, yeah. It’s a store. I went there. I talked about it. You should go see it, once. Bring food, not just for yourself, but for the thousands of dispirited vagabonds you will be tripping over that were not smart enough to bring their own provisions.
We also discussed the assembly of my daughter’s crib.
I am sure every little girl wants blood red walls, yellow shag carpeting, and a banker’s lamp! Seriously… I need parenting help. Mickey and J are no help, because they hate me. What do you do with a girl? Does she fish? Color? Should I just get her a Wii now?
Normally, I would spend some time here making light of our dear J, as he again committed social suicide this week by catering an imaginary wedding with fake meats for unmet clients in neverwhere. The dude does not have Peter Pan syndrome… He has Lo Pan syndrome. His soul swims in it. And by it, I mean pasty not-go-outsidedness. Seriously, folks. Friends do not let friends get so involved in an mmorpg that they are selecting imaginary wines to pair with the imaginary third course.
Imagine how sad it would be if he hadn’t gotten paid… I mean, he did get paid… Right? What?
I hate him so.
You know who I do NOT hate? These great bands!
- Sullivan - Goodbye, Miss Havisham
- The Flesh - In Paradise
- And a very special appearance by Jonathan Coulton with his song… Ikea . (You can buy the song for a buck)
And Mickey! Make sure you check out the fastest growing segment in internet introspection, it’s life coaching with Mickey at the :40!
sadly…im sure that is a tru story…except for the albino part…your prolly just white o_O
Candy/Krysi…
I am not allowed to talk about this on the show, but J is directionally impaired. The date was June 25th, 2004. It was my birthday. It was Mickmas. (Mark that in your calendars and buy gifts. You can also send donations to Mickey@somacow.com).
Since it was my birthday, I was beyond drunk. J was kind enough to be the driver for the night.
Being an albino Gypsy, I was equipped with a homing device at birth. It allows me to get as drunk as I want and still find my way home.
J did not believe me. When we came to a cross roads, I insisted that we should turn south. J, felt that, since I was so drunk, I must be wrong.
He turned north.
4 days later, I finally arrived home.
And HEY! i was at the wow wedding too! ^_^ J’s directions SUCKED ass…but it was uber! Hi candy!
First things first: When in Ikea, BLUE exit signs LIE! DIRTY DIRTY LIES! Second: Ikea is the 2nd most evil in the world…Vista being 1st…NEXT! Labrinth was a SUPER move! Despite the fact it had david bowe in it o_O NEXT: Dont ever tell me about ur thigh chafing..NEVER EVER! That was just scarey….AND AND AND! Its a shitty contest cuz it costs more than $50 to get the hell outta the store! oK. Im done now. ^_^ Lovely show boys!
Krysi
Ikea first opened on Long Island back in 1991, so I’m experienced. I think they are the pioneers of cheap, flat, assemble-it-yourself particleboard furniture. I’ve had many a coffee tables, bookcases, and chairs from there. It can be an intimidating place for the rookies. Here’s how you survive.
1. When you’re in the maze known as the showroom, and you just have to get out (God forbid in a fire), look up. The red exit signs will tell you how to get out. Now they’ll even point out the shortcuts.
2. Who needs to pack food when you have two places to buy food within the store. There’s the main restaurant (Swedish meetballs and lingonberry juice…yummy!), and the cafe by the cashiers (pick up some cinnamon buns to go!).
3. Where do those silly names come from? Well Wikipedia, the bastion of all knowledge pointed it out for me: IKEA products are identified by single word names. Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA.[3]
Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
For example, DUKTIG (meaning: good, well-behaved) is a line of children’s toys, OSLO is a name of a bed, JERKER (a Swedish masculine name) is a popular desk, DINERA (meaning: dine) for tableware, KASSETT (meaning: cassette) for media storage. One range of office furniture is named EFFEKTIV (meaning: efficient), SKÄRPT (meaning: sharp or clever) is a line of kitchen knives.
It’s not even 6am, and I already learned something today!
4. Not everything at Ikea is created equal. For example, you can have two chairs next to each other. One may last forever, the other may last a week. Kick the tires. Look at the materials. I’ve had both ends of the spectrum…some stuff lasts a decade, some stuff lasts a couple of months. Hint: look for solid wood like butcher-block. That should last longer rather than particle board.
OK. Time for the funny story. It’s 1997, Sunday afternoon, went to a Yankee game, and hit the Ikea in Elizabeth, NJ on the way back to Delaware. I needed an entertainment center. Nothing too big. Something for a TV, VCR, stereo, and a place to put the CD’s and video tapes. They had the perfect one for something crazy like under $200. Perfect. And since the Ikea in Elizabeth is within spitting distance from the port, you only pay half the sales tax, so that’s 3%. (There’s still no Ikea in sales-tax-free Delaware). So I go upstairs, find the one I saw in the catalogue, and I think I had to go to the furniture pickup, not the warehouse aisle, if I remember correctly. So this thing comes out in two long boxes on the flatbed. OK. I go pay, and then, because they’re afraid you’re going to steal their funky shopping carts, there’s posts all around the store, so I have to leave my purchase on the curb, and hope nobody’s going to steal it. Remember, we’re in Jersey, and I’m by myself. So I go get the car, my 1986 Monte Carlo. No, it’s not an SS. I tried to get the one box into the trunk, and it just doesn’t fit, and I have a second one to boot. Now I can barely lift it up over the bumper, and now I have to get this thing onto the roof??? I couldn’t do it. The store’s closing, and it’s starting to rain. Well, this Ikea employee must have felt bad for me, and heaved them onto my roof and ran off before I could thank him. I tied them down, and no my roof didn’t collapse on my trip down the Jersey Turnpike. I don’t even remember bringing them into my apartment, but thankfully I was in a basement, so gravity was working for me going downstairs. It took me two days to get the damn thing together, but it lasted through five apartments. By the last one, it was looking more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We slid it down the stairs, brought it to the curb, and it really didn’t take much more than a poke with a finger, and it collapsed like a house of cards. But still, that bitch was heavy!
Late for a WoW wedding… oh the levels of social fail that must entail.
Shawno - A tabletop? What in the name of God are you doing with the LEGS, man???
I have an Ikea tabletop in my shed, if anyone wants to buy it.
And those meatballs are tasty, no doubt about it.
I was at that wedding. Was fun! J did a good job handing out the munchies but the man gives crappy directions. I was totally in the wrong area for a whole area wondering where the hell the happy couple and guests were.