I know I will never own a Geodome 4, the North Face's geodesic tent that is available only in Japan and costs $1,635. Yet I desperately want to jump inside, hermetically zip up its flexible hatch, curl into the fetal position, and never ever come out. Unless there's a piece of freshly baked carrot cake outside.

[Photo: The North Face]

The Geodome 4 is serious tenting gear, given its price and its sleek dome design. The classic spherical polyhedron was first built by Carl Zeiss's chief engineer Walther Bauersfeld as a "planetarium to house his planetarium projector" after the end of World War I. Of course, it was later popularized by the American architect and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, who named it the geodesic dome. Walt Disney Co. popularized it even further by making the iconic Spaceship Earth the centerpiece of Epcot with the design help of sci-fi author Ray Bradbury.

But I digress. The North Face claims that, at only 25 pounds, the Geodome 4 is very easy to carry around. It also says that its four main poles and an equator rim make it very easy to assemble and disassemble, that its cable anchoring system makes it very resistant to wind. That may be, but I would rather build it inside my house to isolate myself from the world. "Spaceship Me," I'd call it. At seven feet wide and seven feet tall, there's enough room for me to fully stand up inside–not that I would ever do that, mind you, since I'd be curled up on the floor.