News for Youse: Screw Axl—no Izzy at GN’R reunion, plus Phase 2 of IKEA Earth colonization begins

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      Would you like to live in IKEA town? The Swedish furniture giant has purchased 27 acres of land outside London, England, which it plans to develop into a residential area called Strand East—or Strønd Ekborg in the original Swedish.

      The company’s property development unit—which you never knew it had—LandProp (Lŏnder-prüp), promises a pleasing, car-free environment modelled after the “historic, chic downtown neighborhoods” of London and Paris, but actually modelled after Stepford with just a few grace notes lifted from Auschwitz.

      Once completed, Strand East will house 6,000 lűcky new residents (Ekborgians), who will mill about in chinos with blank smiles buying flowers in Strønd Ekborg’s many common spaces. And then, slowly, implacably, they will start to spread, Allen keys in hand, from one neighbourhood to the next. You won’t notice until it’s too late, or so promised IKEA foundermensch Ingvar Kamprad in a speech he delivered at a rally for party members last year.

      In an effort to make our world even sillier and more trivial than it already is, Peter Jansen PhD has built a working Tricorder—the handheld device used in Star Trek—for environmental data sensing, analysis, and recording, but really used in Star Trek to advance the plot as quickly and cheaply as possible.

      You can grab the schematics for Jansen’s funky, Nintendo DS–sized Mark 4 Tricorder—modelled after his favourite, the version seen in Star Trek: Voyager—right here. “Magnetism, pressure, or chemical structure,” reads Jansen’s website. “Imagine if we could see them as naturally as we see light or colour. Imagine if we could see what can't be seen...”

      Right on! And imagine if we actually had the time to build one of these things or even give the slimmest fuck about it. Can the Mark 4 sense my indifference? How about my seething rage? West Coast Tricorder jockeys, please note—Jansen’s Mark 4 doesn’t include a Geiger counter.

      Finally, original Guns N’ Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Steven Adler performed together during the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday, joined by Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy (who?) and Gilby Clarke.

      As expected, Axl Rose didn’t show up because, as he very correctly stated before the show, nobody has any respect for him and his crazy, fucked-up face and those cornrows. But lost in the brouhaha was the far more important fact that Izzy Stradlin didn’t show up either, meaning that Guns N’ Roses in any combination remains as significantly less cool as it was the day the guitarist walked in ’91. It was nice to see Adler up there instead of Matt “No Feel” Sorum, though.

      Comments

      4 Comments

      DavidH

      Apr 16, 2012 at 11:48am

      Adrian Mack seems inappropriately angry to me. Could it be the inappropriately swift exit of the Canucks from the playoffs (tomorrow)?

      Nobody cares about Ikea, the Tricorcorder is brilliant, and Slash was the brains in GNR. Dat's da facts, Jack.

      cranky mom

      Apr 16, 2012 at 12:06pm

      Hey check out Steven Adler's jeans! fashion don't.

      Gary N. Richards

      Apr 16, 2012 at 8:55pm

      Slash wasn't the brains, he wasn't even the original guitarist. That was Tracy Guns, hence Guns n Roses. I don't understand why so many people rally around Slash. Selective memories perhaps? Slash quit, and before you say, Axl was a dick and made him quit, if Slash cared about GnR, the legacy or the fans, he wouldn't have walked away so easily. Not to mention he was too strung out on heroin to care about much else.

      Pic

      Apr 18, 2012 at 7:36am

      Wrong. Slash (and Izzy and Duff) quit because Axl effectively stole the rights to the name Guns n Roses and turned it into a dictatorship. Not to say all off them were not at fault - but it's time to get over all of that Axl. Selfish Prick.