The Austinist

The Beanbag Chair Of The Future: A Review Of A Piece Of Furniture That Appears Briefly On The Real World

As you watch the next episode of The Real World, eyes glued to the television like a loyal member of the Viacom Special Forces, you may notice, if you are incredibly detail oriented, that one of the items of furniture in the Real World house is a gigantic beanbag chair. This chair was made by a company called Sumo Lounge whose core business is the making of gigantic beanbag chairs. The beanbag chairs are also distributed by Sumo, which is located in Canada, the land of beans and also bags.

Because Sumo Lounge recognizes Austinist as the coolest web site in Austin, they sent us one of their beanbags chairs – a Combo to be exact – so that we could review it for the site. “A review of a beanbag chair?” we said. “That seems kind of silly. But we will take the beanbag chair anyways, because we are greedy and like to get things for free.”

It is a testament, then, to the quality of the beanbag chair we are currently sitting in, that this review is appearing on the site. This is one hell of a beanbag chair. It is really almost silly how comfortable it is, and how much we like sitting in it. And we are not even living in a dorm room.

More, including sexxxy photos of Austinist contributors and an exciting contest, after the jump!

The “combo,” and we gather that this name indicates that the 2 pieces we received are actually a combination of the “Omni” and the “Otto,” consists of one large squarish beanbag, and one smaller, roundish beanbag. The large beanbag, though squarish, can be squished into a variety of shapes – a couch like shape, a chair like shape, and a horse-like shape. The smallish one is mostly for resting your feet and/or bong and/or laptop on.

Austinist’s Katie Spence computes while sitting on a Sumo.

Our initial thought was, this beanbag chair is far too large and also requires something like a couch or a wall to lean against to be of any use at all. How wrong we were! After standing the beanbag on one of it corners, and then beating it repeatedly with a drunken fist, we pounded the beans into a shape perfect for the cupping of a human bottom. No extra support necessary!

We have done the following things on our Sumo, and done them better and in a more relaxed way because of it:

1. Typed on a laptop
2. Played Halo 2 on the XBox
3. Taken a bong hit
4. Slept

Our major and only real complaint is that the large beanbag occasionally has to be fluffed to maintain its shape. However, it seems that, once properly fluffed, the chair can go for hours without adjustment. But what pillow like object does not need to be occasionally fluffed? And what better use of all our pent up aggression?

This is one sturdy beanbag chair. It is made of ballistic nylon, which we think means it can take a gunshot to the face without blinking. The beans, whatever they are, do not smell, and seem to be keeping their shape well, even after several weeks of constant use. Importantly, the chair is fun to sit on. We have seen, in scientific test after scientific test, that most people prefer to sit on the Sumo, even when premium space is available on the couch. It is, in our opinion, the ideal chair for the Austin slacker lifestyle: comfortable, easy to clean, and low enough to the ground that you will not hurt yourself when you fall off in a drunken stooper. Plus, OMG, it is on MTV.

A CONTEST!

The kind folks at Sumo Lounge have offered to give one of our lovely readers a free combo! To enter the contest, send an email to benbrown@gmail.com that includes a tale of how your life would be enhanced by owning a giant beanbag chair. The author of the most creative email, as judged by a celebrity panel drawn from the staff of this website, will win a Sumo Combo, valued at nearly $250! The winning entry, and all entries we find funny enough to share, will be published on the site one week from today on Tuesday, July 5.

Fractious’ Alex Brown takes a nap. This is not a simulated nap.

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