Come on, you know you’ve thought about building your very own version of Back to the Future‘s Delorean. And now you can — well, no you can’t, but here’s some fodder for daydreaming: an IKEA-style guide to putting together a time-traveling car, complete with the obligatory toilet reference. If you enjoy this one, chances are you’ll like CollegeHumor’s other IKEA guides, for making Dr. Who‘s Tardis, Star Wars‘ lightsabers, and dinosaurs.

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We know what they say about people who live in glass houses, but do you think that applies to plastic bubbles as well? The Bubble Hut, one of several bubble structures offered by a French company called BubbleTree, is designed to allow you to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors while sitting pretty indoors. We want one. It’s kind of like John Travolta’s sadsack digs in the The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and Wayne Coyne’s infamous space bubble gave birth to a baby biodome filled with white furniture from Ikea. Click through to check out more images, including some interior shots, and let us know in the comments what you think of the concept.

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Today at Flavorpill, we were thrilled to see that the Sassy Gay Friend meme has hit Tumblr. We learned that sometimes a bomb scare is just a stuffed toy horse. We watched cute little kids reenact the horror that is E!’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians. We met the 7 Don Drapers who came before Don Draper. We enjoyed Roger Ebert’s list of 100 great moments from the movies. We were excited to hear that a print publication is actually launching a book review section instead of shutting one down. We tried to decide which female action hero’s closet we’d most like to raid. We decoded the secret symbolism hidden in these clever logos. We weren’t sure why IKEA would want 100 cats roaming around their store at night. And finally, we watched a baby monkey ride a pig backwards, fall off, and get right back on.

It’s not like IKEA doesn’t give us ample clues as to how strange they are — in the form odd toys (fairy god-frog, anyone?) and lamps that look like eye charts. But who knew they had it in them to mount a full-scale contemporary art installation? Behold the aptly named Surrealistika, which juxtaposes IKEA’s kitchen appliances with a giant birch tree.

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Subway systems are a perfect location for advertisements for two reasons: one, commuters spend a lot of time within them; and two, potential customers are held captive, either waiting on the platform or squished on the train just looking for an excuse not to make eye contact with the person next to them.

We’ve found some advertisers who’ve thought of some pretty creative uses of this underground space. View all ten examples after the jump.

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IKEA has had a profound effect on our everyday lives; at the very least, hordes of us have acquired a BILLY bookshelf or gone in search of meatballs after losing our way in the showroom. After coming across an online quiz this fall that asked us to guess whether photos were of minimalist sculptures by Donald Judd or pieces of cheap modern furniture, we started wondering about the ongoing interactions between artists and the affordable design powerhouse.

If IKEA has seemingly digested the forms of Minimalism, what do artists see when they look at the blue-and-yellow behemoth today?

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So we’re going to go out on a limb and guess that Banksy isn’t a big fan of affordable Swedish furniture. Or maybe he just doesn’t like people who buy their art at IKEA. This latest piece from the anonymous graffiti artist went up near Croydon last week; another unconfirmed Banksy had been spotted in the area in late August. As Arrested Motion points out, the punk in the piece looks a lot like this one found in Banksy’s recent Bristol show. More images after the jump. [via My Modern Met] Read More »

We know you love us, but it’s impossible that you’ve read everything that we’ve posted this week — unless you’ve got a really boring temp job, subscribe to our RSS feed, or have internet access in a low-security prison. To that end, here are links to ten of our most popular stories of the past week. Enjoy these links, and have a happy holiday weekend!

1. What Do You Think of Sean Lennon’s Recreation His Parents’ Famous Rolling Stone Photo? 2. Miru Kim: Exploring Urban Environments, Nude 3. Crossover Artists: Branching Out with Lynch, Byrne, and Atwood 4. Video of the Day: Ikea Heights 5. Pic of the Day: Modernism for the Down-and-Out 6. Five Reasons We Love Cate Blanchett 7. Daily Dose Pick: Jeni Spota 8. From Great Jones Street to Garden State: Six Essential Rock Fiction Reads 9. Exclusive: Mini Interview with Lorrie Moore, Patron Saint of Our Bookshelf

Ikea Heights is a web soap directed by David Seger on Channel 101 that’s secretly filmed inside of a Burbank IKEA. It’s not as a cute as those scenes from 500 Days of Summer where Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt play house, but some of the dialogue is rather inspired and there’s a big plot twist at the end of the pilot. Plus: How impressive that they managed to shoot inside the store without getting caught/kicked out! [via Buzzfeed]

Today at Flavorpill, we made an “ass” out of “u” and “me” thanks to a new art project, Haters + Lovers. We ate dinner with Frank Bruni at Babbo. We went shopped at Ikea circa 1965. We were sad to hear that Parker Posey has withdrawn from the cast of This, a new play by Obie Award winner Melissa James Gibson, due to Lyme disease. We wondered who would win in a gumshoe showdown: Facebook or Nancy Drew. We were proud of our alma mater, NYU — we’ll take white Wayfarers and peaking at 17 over more typical douchery any day of the week. We added “stay at a medieval-style hay hotel” to our bucket list. We loved the poster for Ti West’s upcoming horror flick The House of the Devil. And finally, we said goodbye to Ellie Greenwich who died today at 68; one our favorites by the classic songwriter below.