Author: Teel

For those of you who missed the Superbowl commercials this weekend, most of them are available online at http://www.ifilm.com/superbowl. The fancy advertisements are really the only reason I have any interest in the event at all. I missed most of the first half, which contained many clever beer commercials, apparently. Still, I saw about half of the new Britney/Pepsi sequences, which certainly made up for any other weirdnesses I missed. Take a gander for yourself; the superbowl is truly become the home of the outlandish commercial.

So as I was riding home from work yesterday, I saw that they were planting fiber on Maple street between University and thirteenth. Which is good. Presumably, this is COX planting fiber for high-speed internet access. This is three blocks from Wilson, where I live. Looks like they got at a couple of blocks done in under a day, so they should be tearing up Wilson in just a couple/few weeks to install fiber. So theoretically, I could have internet access in March, right? Woo hoo! That’s only about a billion years after I expected to have internet access set up at my house, so it’s not as bad as having to wait for the sun to burn out, I suppose.

I usually don’t notice the color of my skin. But I was dialing the phone and being frustrated by IKEA’s phone tree, and I noticed a tiny spot of blood on my left hand where my index finger joins the hand (on the top, at the knuckle). It was a deep red hue, very vibrant and rich in tone. Next to my skin, it provided quite a contrast. My skin seems mostly to be varying shades of grey and a sick yellow-grey-green. Hints of pink somewhere underneath, but only where the skin is thin, at the knuckles and if I turn my hand over, on the palm. Where I can see blood vessels running under my skin they are only faint hints of tiny blue worms burrowing under skin and over bone inside me.

Slowly, as the tiny spot of blood dries to a more dull brown, now only hinting at the brilliant red it once was, the contrast begins to disappear against the grey on grey on grey of my workspace, and now my hands seem a little more human. Compared to a cold, mechanical array of shades of grey that they build computers and keyboards and even the lightly mottled surface of my desk with, through and through, under the harsh white lights, my hands begin to look like flesh again. Maybe something of my job is beginning to get to me and I’m turning into a cold, grey automaton everyday I sit in front of this array of flat grey surfaces, but at least I’m not gone quite yet.

So, I’ve been reading a few blogs recently where people mention their fascination with or loyalty to or … generaly positive regard for IKEA. One guy recenly went to the largest IKEA in the US, as kindoof a tourist attraction to him. I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was a customer of theirs before. I’ve never seen advertising, and I didn’t know why. I had the impression initially that they were based out of northern Europe and offerred primarily catalog sales in the US. This seems to be mostly true, but they also seem to have quite a variety of locations in the US. Many in California and on the east coast, and a couple in between. None in Arizona.

Which is probably why I really don’t know anything about them, have never seen any advertisement for them, and don’t know anyone who owns anythign IKEA.

Anyway, as long as they offer catalog sales and the people who like IKEA seem to absolutely love it, I thought I’d take a look. I went to IKEA.com and they basically don’t offer internet sales unless you already have a catalog. So I tried looking for a way to request a catalog online. They have a page for that. Except it says it doesn’t work. Except then it still pretends like it’s going to work. Except it doesn’t work.

Anyway, I figured if I can’t request a catalog online, it’s probably a simple matter of phoning them up and giving them my address. They want my business, right? So I started looking for a phone number… Tried the Customer Service page, tried the Contact Us page, I don’t see a phone number. Tried going back to the USA home page; no phone number. What kind of a business are they running here? I can’t order online unless I already know the specific details of what I want, and I can’t find out the details unless .. what? I have a catalog with the phone number in it?

Eventually I found a number on the “Home shopping” page. For placing orders. There was a complex phone tree in which there were no options even accepting that IKEA might want new customers, but I eventually just hit zero and got an operator who was glad to take my name and address. Man O Man, that was much tougher than it needed to be.

I realize IKEA is a cult, but don’t cults usually want new members? Maybe I’ve got that backwards. Oh well. A catalog is on the way. I can’t afford new furniture right now anyway, so I really won’t be joining their cult right now, but … maybe they knew that.