The print book publishing business was growing by huge margins and raking in ever-growing amounts of money—until now. Ikea has ruined it. Why do Swedish people love lingonberries but hate the printed word?
Hey Ikea, are you selling us closet organizers or baby filing cabinets?
This too hot for television IKEA commercial currently running in Spain is way too hot to air on television in America, but thanks to the internet you can watch it anyway.
Sick of hearing about Sweden's excellent healthcare and education, and looking at Swedish people's glowing, high-cheekboned faces? Well you'll be happy to hear that they're falling for a ridiculous trend: sleeping on nail beds.
The Way We Live Now: Under the thumb of the papacy. The Pope is calling for some super-Illuminati to rule the world economy. No need, dude; we had one already, called Ikea. And it's laying people off.
• Rumor has it that Gilt is doomed: "Employees are looking for new positions, services are being canceled, and the end is in sight." [TFB]
• Yesterday, Charles took a pounding from Times critic Frank Bruni. Today, the restaurant responded by covering up the windows with Bruni's review. [GS]
• Tom Colicchio appeared on Charlie Rose's show last night. [CharlieRose.com]
• The 50 best new restaurants, according to Travel + Leisure. [T+L]
• A roundup of eating options at the new Yankee Stadium. [GS]
• The IKEA in Brooklyn is turning Wednesdays into "$7.99 rib night." [Eater]
• Another thing to steer clear of: packaged sandwiches from Walgreen's. [ML]
• How did we not know that today was National Eggs Benedict Day? [GS]
The first-ever IKEA store is opening in the borough of Brooklyn tomorrow, a development which has the local media all atwitter. Close to 40 people have lined up for the chance to be the first ones in the rapidly gentrifying Red Hook neighborhood to buy mass-produced Swedish furniture. To celebrate the occasion, the gruff and hilarious Park Slope guy who goes by the name of Blognigger (just to make you uncomfortable) has posted his own Onion-esque take: "Red Hook Blacks Line Up to Rob First 100 IKEA Customers." But he doesn't forget to make the scheduled robberies a multicultural endeavor for the Curbed.com-reading gentrifiers themselves, too:
Before dawn yesterday morning a small group of fans of affordable Swedish design (read: people without jobs) began camping out in front of the Ikea in Red Hook. Why? The home furnishings chain is giving out an Ektorp sofa to the first 35 in line when the store officially opens tomorrow morning. Sleeping in a tent for two days to earn a couch hardly makes much financial sense—with a retail price of $399, they'll collect about $8.31 in free couch for every hour they spend on line—and when you factor in the inconveniences (Porta Potty snafus, the hours of hand-wringing assembly time), you're talking about a fairly costly piece of "free" furniture that's liable to break the first time you sit on it. That might explain why there are as many reporters on the scene as people waiting on line, which might also make this the most cost-effective marketing gimmick in Ikea history.
There's less than one week left until Ikea Red Hook's June 18th opening, and the store couldn't be opening at a better time, really. Between the sweltering summer heat (free air conditioning!) and rising grocery bills ($4.99 Swedish meatballs!), you could basically spend an entire cheapo day lounging in Ikea's living room sets and napping on Ikea's beds, just like you'd do at home. Or you could be like two guys in California and take it one step further by throwing an actual dinner party in the store. The practical jokers organized an entire semi-formal dinner party at a Sacramento Ikea store, complete with invitations, a sit down meal, wine and coffee, board games, and after-dinner drinks in the outdoor garden when the store closed at 9. It was a dinner party with no cleanup required. They tossed out the wine glasses afterward (which they'd purchased downstairs before the party) and headed home—and Ikea employees didn't seem to mind one bit. A party at the new Brooklyn outpost has even more potential: It will stay open until 10, leaving you an extra hour for Boggle. Video from the stunt after the jump.
Popular pretend-life game The Sims is now selling $20 add-on packs of virtual IKEA furniture to decorate their virtual houses. Advertising like this in video games seems, on its face, to be a win-win business proposition; companies get captive, slack-jawed audience for their virtual ads and products, and game developers get a new revenue stream where none existed before. The only problem: nobody really knows whether these types of ads work. Oh, and the other problem: The entire concept is incredibly sad.
Progress marches on with the inevitable opening of IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn. That will mean no more seventh-circle-of-hell bus rides to Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the dreaded Port Authority IKEA bus. (That experience was perhaps best summed up by this essay, titled "Yellow is the Color of Fear.")
[Brooklyn Paper]
Okay, look here, Municipal Arts Society. We get that you're all invested in protecting historical beauty and charm and architectural salvaging and whatever else it is that you do, but you've chosen the wrong battle now. Do NOT fuck with our Ikea in Red Hook, or we're gonna get Swedish on your ass. By which we mean, lingonberries and that disgusting baby shrimp salad sandwich they sell for, like, $2.99. And that is a threat, not a promise.
Yeah, $40 is definitely too cheap for sex.
