IKEA FETISH

You know how some people are hooked on Ikea?

I confess that I have felt that… Ikea-lust. I sometimes keep the catalogue in the bathroom… which is where I was, sitting on the can, minding my own business, waiting for Godot or whatever, and gazing mindlessly at the front cover of the latest Ikea catalogue:

Wow – this weird vision hit me like a ton of bricks suddenly and I SAW IT!

I saw the subliminal advertising!

Check this out and tell me if it’s just me and my dirty mind. I think it’s a female figure bent over the sofa/bed/thing in a suggestive position. OMG – and the Ikea logo is right where her feet would be, just to make it more irresistible for foot-fetishists! Hey I read all that Marshal McLuhan stuff on subliminal advertising. I never thought too much of it, but here ya go – say it ain’t so!

Here is the “Ikea Rude Dog”:

If you want more fun stuff like this, click below and look at some of the outrageous stuff posted on grupthink.com

Here’s another crazy one – it’s a whole book written on the topic – I’m linking to a page with an example of what’s inside:

I LOVE MY LAVA LAMP!

Fred and I have a lava lamp on our coffee table – I LOVE IT. It’s like a fish-tank but it doesn’t die!

I’ve sometimes wondered if other lava lamp owners love their lava lamps as PASSIONATELY as I love mine (OK, ‘ours’ – if Fred and I ever split, there would be a custody battle, and that is true!).

It’s almost cult-like. There is a website calling itself the ‘lava lamp syndicate’ – we mad-about-lava-lamp-people walk among you. We are legion.

Go ahead and buy a lava lamp from Amazon (sometimes the banner below doesn’t show the right one – this link goes to the right lava lamp)- it’ll improve the day-to-day quality of your life!

There’s a whole ‘genre’, if you will, on youtube.com of FAST-MOTION lava lamps! I love these time-lapse lava lamp videos!

CALIFORNIA GOTHIC

Wow – I have found a gem on the Internet:

It’s a “Monthly Offering” – I’ll be staying tuned.

I just loved the one called California Gothic:

http://www.tongueandgroovela.com/media/essay_negron_cal_gothic.mp3

Is this guy brilliant or is it my imagination?

I love the bit in there about 70% of all people admitted into emergency rooms have more than one tattoo. Can that be true?!

FBI TIP

I was in Fort Lauderdale years ago on business, putting in long hours at the office with a business associate, and anyway, one night at about 8pm we left the office and went to a steakhouse to load up on protein and meet up with a friend of my associate’s, a guy he went kite-boarding with all the time.

So anyway, of course I was expecting to meet a physically fit individual at the restaurant – I can’t imagine a butterball body-type out there kiteboarding…. That said, I didn’t really expect to meet someone who looked just this side of one of those steroid-guzzling weight lifters.

This kite-boarding buddy was muscular to the EXTREME, with blond hair and blue eyes, like some kind of Nazi breeding experiment.

So anyway, as we were seated at our table, I was bracing myself for a night of himbo/beachboy conversation while we ordered our meat, potatoes, and beer, but it turned out that the muscular buddy was well-traveled, articulate, and generally quite interesting to talk to, not at all what I had expected (and I know that is prejudiced of me).

Eventually, after the three of us had swapped some funny anecdotes, and after I had answered all his questions about my work, life, and travels, I asked him what kind of work he did.

He said: “I’m an FBI interrogator.”

I said (I think): “Holy Shit!”

Apparently he specialized in squeezing confessions out of pedophiles, and I liked him more and more, as we finished our dinner. I wanted a cigarette afterwards, but both he and my business associate scowled at me and said there was no smoking at the restaurant, not even at the outside tables, nor around them, for that matter.

A bit later, as we said our goodbyes, the FBI interrogator leaned down to my face-level to tell me something personal. He said, “Hey, you know, I wasn’t trying to heavy you about the smoking, by the way. It’s nothing personal and it’s not my business. But you should know this: smoking is a sign of weakness.”