8 hilarious IKEA memes, videos and homage websites

Culture Steve Howard talks about IKEA’s super-sized sustainability strategies at TEDGlobal 2013. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Many companies have sustainability goals. But IKEA’s are quite radical. By 2016, the assemble-it-yourself furniture megastore — which is so much a part of our lives — will only stock LED bulbs. By 2020, IKEA stores will produce more energy than they use.

IKEA, what with its Swedish meatballs, is a part of the cultural conversation in a way few brands are. So could their sustainability efforts push the needle for others? Here, a collection of memes, homage websites, and fan-made videos that speak to how entrenched IKEA is in our lives.

The IKEA Monkey. Last year, a monkey wearing a coat was found wandering the aisles of an IKEA in Toronto. The people of the Internet jumped on board, creating an Ikea Monkey Twitter account, photoshopping the monkey into tons of photos, and tweeting with the hashtag #IkeaMonkey. On December 10, 2012, Canadian journalist Tom Podolec tweeted, “#IkeaMonkey is a Rhesus Macaque Monkey Approx. 7 months old. In good health; stressed. Jacket is wool and said to be his favourite.” The monkey’s owners were fined for having a prohibited animal.

The IKEA Song. What happens when you write a song about wooing a lady in an IKEA store? This video from singer/songwriter Brad Go.

Hot Malm. The best way to describe Hot Malm is as an “IKEA-themed porn parody site.” A pair of twin beds is captioned “Twin Blonde Malms,” a shot of a bed’s headboard reads “Hot Malm from Behind,” and “Check out the Pussy on this Hot Malm” refers to a cat on a bed. (MALM, remember, is an IKEA bedroom series.) Bonus: the Ikea Monkey sits in a corner of the website, with a speech bubble: “Feeling lonely? Click here now!”

“Fireflies” Parody in Ikea. And then there’s this, which a description would ruin, so…

If Ikea Made Instructions for Everything. A 2010 College Humor piece illustrates IKEA-style directions for creating a “HÖUSS,” “TRÜSST,” a “HÄDRÖNN CJÖLIDDER,” and more.

Herding Cats. IKEA itself can rival the cleverest parodists: in a 2010 experiment, the store released 100 cats into a UK store. Watch to the end—slow-mo shots of cats in IKEA are surprisingly moving.

Room 23. This quite remarkable four-minute short film, created in 48 hours as part of a contest in the Netherlands, imagines the lives of IKEA catalog models.

A store full of drama. And finally, we have to give it up to artist Guy Ben Ner. He shot this drama in IKEA  (sans permission) … with his real family.

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16 Websites to Super Charge Your English Vocabulary

It won't be an exaggeration if I say that English is the language of this world. Although Mandarin (Chinese) tops the list of most widely spoken languages, we know that it's English which connects people around the world. Hence, it can't hurt to get a deeper understanding of this ubiquitous language and work towards improving your grammar and vocabulary.

When it comes to online resources to improve your English language skills, there are millions of tools available. They range from software, tools, blogs, dictionaries, puzzles and much more. In this post I primarily mention websites which fall in the dictionary / thesaurus category. I'll preserve the other resources for another post.
Visuwords
Visuwords is an awesome visual tool to find new words and improve your vocabulary. When you look up a word in this tool, it shows a neat graph which connects that word to various other words based on different relationships between them. You can hover over each word to get its definition and also zoom-in and zoom-out using your mouse wheel. It's certainly an excellent dictionary plus thesaurus.

Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com is probably the most common and most comprehensive of all the dictionary tools available. Apart from giving the word meanings and pronunciation, it also provides various tools (like the dictionary.com toolbar), RSS feeds to improve vocabulary and word explorer podcasts.

Thesaurus.com
Thesaurus.com is a part of dictionary.com and gives an elaborate description of words, the part of speech they belong to and various synonyms and antonyms of that word.

Definr
Definr, as it says, is an incredibly fast dictionary. It starts suggesting the nearest possible word as you start typing a particular word. Most of the time you get the required word after typing 3 or 4 letters and then you can just click on the word to look up its meaning. Definr also provides some nice tools which make this service more useful.
Merriam-Webster Online
Merriam-Webster Online is a huge online resource for learning and improving your English. It provides dictionary and thesaurus which includes spanish-english and medical dictionaries. You can easily look up words and listen to their pronunciation. Further it provides other resources like crosswords and word games. It also has a visual dictionary which combines words with images.
MetaGlossary
MetaGlossary.com approaches the task of finding meanings of words in a different way. It aggregates various links on the web which provide an explanation to the term and shows the results. Hence it does the job of pulling definitions of the word from the entire web.
Thsrs
Thsrs helps you to get shorter synonyms of long words. Although it's not dead accurate but still can be useful at times. It also provides a browser plug-in to easily look up shorter synonyms of words with a right click.
Wordsmith
Wordsmith is a nice resource for new words, especially its ' A Word A Day ' newsletter, which is immensely popular and delivers new words everyday to your email inbox.
BBC Learning English
BBC Learning English is another comprehensive resource of not only English grammar and vocabulary but on various aspects of this useful language. It includes stories, pictures, quizzes and various communication tools to improve your English vocabulary.
ESL Quizzes
ESL Quizzes is a part of englishclub.com, a website which is a prominent destination for those who want to learn the language from scratch. Its vocabulary quiz section has some nice quizzes to help you learn new words and phrases.

Ninjawords
Ninjawords, like Definr, claims to be a very fast dictionary. Although it doesn't show words as you type like Definr but is certainly very fast in displaying the meanings and synonyms once you hit enter. It also has a random tab which can be used to play around and learn new words.
About.com's Quizzes
About.com's English Quizzes is a good place to find various quizzes related to grammar and vocabulary. It also provides listening quizzes for real time listening practice.
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus is a free-to-try visual tool which shows related words in an interactive map and helps you to easily find their meanings and listen to their pronunciation.
AskOxford
AskOxford is the online version of the famous dictionary by the Oxford University press. It's comprehensive without a doubt and includes various other vocabulary resources and a quotations dictionary.
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary stands out from the herd. It's a dictionary of slang words. So use this dictionary and don't miss out on slang words either. :)

Alpha DictionaryAlpha Dictionary doesn't directly show you the meaning of a word. Instead it searches all the available online dictionaries (most of them) and displays the results in the form of links to the meaning of that word in those dictionaries. So choose your favorite dictionary (if at all you have one) and click on the corresponding link to view its meaning.Each of the aforementioned websites tries to accomplish the same task in a different manner and hence helps you to further refine your vocabulary and get a stronger grip on the world's most cherished language.Do you use any other websites to improve your English language skills ? Let's hear about them in the comments. Written by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

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Start a Productive Workday With the Right Websites

Morning Light by chefranden

Your peak performance period is that space of time during the day where you maximize your focus, productivity and energy for two to three hours.Make the most of this period by prepping your workspace for instant action. Close the door and create a routine that both relaxes and motivates you.

A step in the right direction is to create a GTD bookmark folder with a short list of essential websites

Choose one website that you can quickly scan and easily pick out important headlines. Then spend five to ten minutes getting up to date on the world.

Constant interaction with co-workers is almost a certainty these days and building a relationship with them can be hard when you have little in common. Consequently, using current events is an easy way to invite people into a conversation and build a rapport.This bond between employees boosts productivity as friendly work environments allow staff to share tasks and information with a positive attitude.

Another option is to use services like Google reader because they allow you to create specific news feeds tailored to your tastes. However, avoid adding too many feeds and listing too many headlines as they can disrupt your focus.

Sites like Google News or CNN are better suited for quick productive reading because they condense their headlines into small specific categories on a single page.

Corporate intranet sites are effective tools in keeping employees informed on internal changes, competitive information and relevant industry news. Use this to your advantage and eliminate the need to compile this information yourself.

Products, offers, regulations and people are in constant flux. If you ignore this fact and are reactive instead of proactive, you will miss opportunities.

In particular, sales people face embarrassment when a client is better informed then they are. You need to know how your company stacks up against the competition if you are to remain competitive.

Google calendar is a great option for synchronizing family schedules into one easily updatable calendar.

You cannot give your full attention to your personal or work life if they constantly interrupt each other. During a workday, people trade thoughts and update schedules with their family by shooting emails, texts, or phone calls back and forth. This constant communication breaks up your focus and reduces productivity.

Avoid this situation by creating individual calendars for each family member and synchronize all the calendars together. This way, each family member sees how his or her schedule affects another family member’s agenda.

Start your day by comparing your personal calendar and work calendar. You can then decide how to divide your time, energy and attention at work and then home. A good tip is to forward “non-confidential” appointments in real-time from the office to the family calendar. Therefore, this avoids scheduling appointments that can wreak havoc at work and home.

You should take the time to plan your full day and ask specific questions like:

“Can I put in an extra 30 minutes at the end of the day or will I miss an appointment or dinner?”“Should I go all out on this presentation and use up my energy or should I push some tasks to the next day so I have the energy to spend time with the kids?”

Balancing work and a personal life becomes more manageable with open communication between all the parties affected. You eliminate frustration and anger when everyone works on a level playing field.

You can maximize your performance by choosing a period in the day when you do your best work in the shortest amount of time and use your sharpened focus to create an effective daily agenda that increases your productivity at work and home.

Philip Viana works as a Financial Adviser for a bank in Canada. He is hard at work developing the formula to a meaningful, mindful and happy life. He writes about productivity, financial advice, technology, and lifestyle at Burnthenegative.com or at his about.me page.

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