c m i k e s e l l d o t c o m

I am a fairly clean person. I like to think that I don’t live in squalor. Apparently, I’m wrong. VERY WRONG.

I live in a wooded area, and apparently because there are about 17 feral cats that live around my quadplex, that means there are about 1,000,000 fleas that live around my house. Well, I guess about a month ago, some fleas hitched a ride on in to the apartment. I started noticing whenever I would sit on the couch that I would get little bumps on my ankles.

I first devised a plan to capture and kill some of these fleas, in order to make sure they were in fact, fleas. I setup the (ingenious) home remedy of a suspended light-bulb over a pan of soapy water. I caught 10 or so fleas the first night. This confirmed that indeed, my problem is fleas.

Jarad, my roommate has not been bit by fleas yet and was perplexed by all this. I explained to him that there were on the couch, and he rarely sits on the couch for extended periods of time. This satisfied him and allowed for me to move on to stage two in the war.

I laid down a layer of Boric Acid in the living room in an attempt to at least kill the fleas that have made their home from my home. This seemed to have worked. What I didn’t think about, or forsee, was that they would, like the carnies they are, move their home to the next spacious dark place they could easily jump to.

This brings us to last week. The ankle bites and now, head bites had begun. This time, stemming from MY BEDROOM. NOOOO. This weekend I spent a good deal of time cleaning my room from top to bottom, vacuuming washing all my clothes, sheets, towels, and laying down a thick layer of boric acid in the room. Last night I set up my flea trap which consisted of a lightbulb in the middle of the room and the pan of soapy water again. I would literally go to my sink (which I had filled with some soapy water) and dunk my head in, scratch my scalp, and pull my head out to find a few fleas wriggling around in the water 3 times yesterday.

Now on top of all this, and also possibly the cause. I’ve had an on-again-off-again third roommate since January. A raccoon took up residence in my attic sometime in January. We have been complaining to our apartment complex (Oak Run Apartments in Austin Texas. DO NOT EVER LIVE THERE). They had done NOTHING to help with the raccoon problem except ONCE when they sealed up the hole he was using to get into the attic. All this successfully did was SEAL UP THE RACCOON in the attic. It eventually found a crawlspace allowing it to escape out of another hole in a neighbor’s roof.

I’ve repeatedly told the complex management they need to do something about this pest, they’ve done the bare minimum. A few weeks ago the placed a trap in the attic to catch it. It has now been trapped and escaped a total of three times. Last night was the latest trapping. I REALLY hope that it was taken care of today or else umm… I’ll be pissed? yeah

so needless to say, I had a hard night’s sleep last night, what with a light on in the middle of my room, a raccoon rattling a cage above me all night, and getting bit by fleas (probably fleas that originated from the raccoon) all night.

All of this aside, I’m seeing Islands play tonight. WOO

(for those of you using rss, there are videos embedded, so click “go to source” to see the post)

Michael Showalter Plug Awards Mixtape Doc, pt.1 from Super!Alright! on Vimeo.

Michael Showalter Plug Awards Mixtape Doc, pt.2 from Super!Alright! on Vimeo.

Also, very cool that Super!Alright! did the videos!

Season two of This American Life started recently, and I happened to catch episode one.  I love this show so much.  I haven’t been brought to tears in a while, but I’ll admit that this show brought me there.

You really should check the episode out.

This American Life

Zach Galifianakis has a movie coming out.  Finally he has a starring role in a movie

Watch the trailer here.

Cracked.com (yeah, I know, I was amazed to find something hilarious on cracked.com) commissioned a webcomic artist to make as many comics as he could in a 12 hour period.

This is the amazing result.  I love the themes throughout it.

I haven’t laughed at a webcomic this much since Lost in Appleton (rip *sadface*)

Currently, I’m in Beijing China for a conference, and this town is pretty nuts.

First and foremost, I don’t see how they are going to clean up before the Olympics. You can’t see the sun. There’s no such thing as a clear day. The smog is so bad. I now feel bad about laughing at people wearing those SARS mask things. You pretty much need to.

I was told that the conference would be in the Hotel I’m staying in. Not true. I then had to come out to the AMD Beijing office to make sure the computers they built up were up to par with what I would be showing off.

I wasn’t expecting the city to be as large as it is. It’s hand’s down the biggest city I’ve ever seen, and I’m from Houston!

I would say something like “the downtown area of the city is so big that you can’t even see all the skyscrapers from high up in my hotel”, but the reason you can’t see the far off skyscrapers is again because of the smog.

I’ve picked up one thing. When you agree with something, and normally would say “yea yea yea yea yea” Chinese people say “da da da da da da”

The cab driver that took me from the airport to the hotel ripped me off. Don’t ever get into a cab that doesn’t have a meter, lesson learned. I mean honestly I could have been taken somewhere, robbed and killed. Don’t accept a ride from someone who’s walking up the escalator with you. I paid pretty much $80US for a ride. It was a long ride, but today, I took roughly the same length ride, and it cost $18US

ahh naivety, I’ve got it in spades.

Working from a cubical in China = working in a cubical in the US + a lot more noise

Best Engrish seen yet: “Please keep mind of oldsters and young on escalator”

Well internet, it comes that time when a man has to realize that he could possibly die.

I’ve come to that point in my life.  I leave for Beijing China in a little over 24 hours.

This does have my nerves rattled a little, because I’ve never been on a flight this long, nor out of the United States (not counting a border town in mexico).

I hope that I make it back alive, and I will let you, the internet know if I safely arrived in China, when I do arrive there.

if I do happen to die while I’m over there.  I love you all.  If I don’t die, then I guess I hate you all?

Why does there have to be clear and definite opposites?  I don’t know, but I can’t argue with nature.

giggles!

In an effort stay true to my word, I took your suggestions (michael’s to be specific) and here’s the best cmikesell bowl cut I could do.

Sorry mikejonze, but the professor is exactly the haircut you described, and the nick nolte mugshot is not possible with my hair.

Edit: Also, yes I shaved my beard too.  I get sick of looking the same way for too long.

Well, my company decided yesterday to cut 10% of the workforce over the next month or so.

I still have a job as of this writing, and should have a job at least until May 2nd.