Ikea and stuff

 Silence! Ikea you! There's other pictures here but most of these are from the giant Ikea store.

Putting it together yourself is the whole point of going to Ikea! Imagine buying a Lego set, and paying someone to put it together? Do you want to deny yourself the sense of accomplishment after you did it yourself?

That remote control is busted! And there's an old Playstation 2 controller! Notice the lack of analog sticks, and the cut wire. A rare sloppy deco job from the Ikea looks-like-a-real-house team.

Light-up pictures of the city outside the windows. Looks pretty good, right? I miss the city, I should go visit one of these weekends.

Wow it's like a movie set decoration. It doesn't do anything except give some color and texture to the background of the scene. But do real places ever have something like this? Well... they sell it at Ikea!

I totally want a canopy bed! Can you imagine all of the neat things you can hang up on that thing? Curtains,... lights,... little tiny Star Trek ships...

Zoom in and read the text that says "Reach for the stars, not the bars" as the plastic cover stops you from climbing the ladder. If it's not safe in the store, is it going to be safe in your house?

There was a floor-to-ceiling monitor in that closet with a looping commercial playing on it! It struck me as a very big screen, when you're standing right next to it.

I tried to be a subtle as possible when I took this picture... Are we allowed to walk our dogs in the Ikea store? Woof! Busted!

I'd ask for you to photo-edit something in this word bubble, but The Internet would probably just make me say a bunch of bad things. It might be funny to see if it would "go viral" and all of that nonsense.

So funny that the display frames on the wall have random pictures of the Ikea store and some guy with a forklift. That sounds like Minty's jam if I worked at an Ikea store! Let me take the pictures!

I remembered seeing these tiny fry baskets last time, and I was going to pick a couple up. No reason really. But all I could find was the one on display! The computer said "a few left" but nobody was interested in looking, and they would NOT sell me the single one for the display. Oh well. There was once a time when I would have gone full-"Karen" in this situation, but I just let it go this time. Good for me.

On the way back from Ikea we usually stop in to Edison Mall and there's a pop culture store there with all kinds of rare stuff. Check out those Tron Light Cycles back there! The bad part is of course they know it's rare and so it's $250 for the Light Cycle... ouch!

Obviously that's Dutch from the first Predator movie, and this package leads me to think this is from some comic book. On the one hand, it's cool to see Dutch again, but c'mon... why does he have a ridiculous giant metal arm? What comic book writer thought that was "cool"? How many pencils does the CIA have him pushing to need an arm like that?

Love Live! That's the show/game these characters are from. Maki and Hanayo were here, their school idol group has nine girls, so it's not just one figure you'll have to buy, you need all nine!

Usually the only cards sold as singles are from Magic, Pokemon, and YuGiOh. So when I saw these different cards in the case, I was intrigued. What's this game all about? It's got cute anime characters...

That's a pretty good Kratos statue, looks like he's right here! Didn't a new God of War game just come out? I've played a few of them a long time ago, so there's a bunch I need to catch up on.

Actual Japanese Pokemon expansion packs! Should I do some research on which set would have cards I'd want? I might be better off just buying the single cards if that's what I'd do. Ah... nevermind, that seems like too much work now.

Hatsune Miku soda! It says Cotton Candy flavor! Yeah! Oh... wait... $6 for ONE can?! What happened, when did we get to Disney World?

Nearby was a Hatsune Miku snacks box for $50. It says 18 snacks plus some stickers. Part of me was curious to see what was inside, but a bigger part of me said $50 for 18 snacks was too much.

That Ahsoka is a live-action version of her character from The Clone Wars cartoon series, which is an interesting artistic challenge for a toy. And that looks like Lando from the Solo movie, except the title says it's from the video game Battlefront II. So all kinds of crazy things going on here.

Everybody remember Galaxy Quest? This movie was so good, that people often consider it to be an actual part of Star Trek, even though it was totally a mockery of the classic sci-fi tropes. But it was done in such a genuine and loving way, that it winds up pointing out how great it was rather than the opposite.

Do you really want the word "Scream" in your business name? This looks like a joke name from the background of a The Simpsons episode, but this was really at the mall!

Gundam car! How many people take pictures of this person's car wherever they park? I mean, if you car looks this awesome, they gotta expect it at this point.

It's a Hello Kitty pinata for your other figures to smash. Smash Hello Kitty over and over again! I always think it's funny when toys get toy-merch for other toys. That sounded a little silly, but you know what I mean.

I think that truck is sticking out of it's parking spot... just a little. If you own a truck that big, you need to learn how to park! And that includes accepting the fact that you can't really park it in a normal spot. Sorry, that's the truck you chose for yourself.

GIANT FLY! Good thing it's on the other side of the window. We smacked the window a few times and it did not bolt away. So it's got some "attitude", too.

Kind of a shocker commercial for gum, even this poor guy is wondering how did he get caught up in this? It's okay dude, you don't have to do anything you don't want to! Forget the gum and just get out of there!

Croc Master G. I. Joe enemy comes with a crocodile named Fiona. Is that a Shreck reference? I don't remember if the original Croc Master's crocodile had a name.