Swimming in Champaign – The Digital Playground of Sean McDevitt

What Do You Love?

// February 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Comics, Film, Food & Drink, I ♥, Music, Sean, Tech, Television

Nothing says love like spending four days with your family and your girlfriend and feeling like it was far too short. I love my family, but I unfortunately don’t get to see them as often as I’d like. While I do get to see the two and a half hours away girl on a more regular basis, it’s never quite enough. Sigh.

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and I thought I’d share a few things I love, but leaving out some obvious choices like friends, family and the two and a half hours away girl. What do you love?

KISS
Rock and roll super heroes… is there really anything better? You know, there are people who love KISS and there are people who LOVE KISS. I love the band, but I don’t have a basement dedicated to everything KISS with a pinball machine, a glass case full of pictures, magazines, trading cards, model kits, lunch boxes and who knows what. My collection pretty much is music, movies and books about the band. In fact, I just recently bought the Peter Criss solo album on vinyl the other day.  Still haven’t played yet.

Skyline chili
I have to thank my friend Andy for turning me on to the pleasure of heating up some frozen or canned Skyline chili. This isn’t just your run of the mill, average chili. It’s a spicy, flavorful chilidog topping first and then a bowl style second. I like mine with a handful of oyster crackers and cheddar cheese. I know you wanna try it.

Coffee / Tea
When I started drinking coffee, I’d take it with like five sugars and a ton of creamer. My co-workers at the time called it a milk shake. So, I started drinking it black. A perfectly brewed cup of coffee doesn’t need sugar or creamer. Unfortunately, I rarely come across a great cup of perfectly brewed coffee. I usually just add a few packs or spoonfuls of Splenda to take the bitterness edge off. On the other hand, tea is best with the right combination of heat, tea and sweetener. My favorites lately are Ginger Peach Decaf and Cinnamon Apple Spice.

Sleeping in on Sunday
Only the deeply religious would argue with my belief that everyone should sleep in on Sunday. I don’t go to church and haven’t in quite some time. I don’t need the social aspects nor do I feel the need to fill up some spiritual hole. To each their own, of course.

My Droid Eris
Easily the best phone I’ve ever owned. I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do, but my Eris already has exceeded my crappy Blackberry Storm. Next purchase will likely be an iPhone on the Verizon network, but maybe not. HTC + Google + Verizon Network = WIN.

Apple hardware and software
Working with Windows is a collection of frustration wrapped up in a desperate ringing of the hands. To do any basic work like word processing, email and web browsing a PC is adequate enough. However, if you want to do any other kind of work like photo manipulation, graphic design, layout or website creation, Windows sucks. If you like to build your own workstation with all your own parts and spend the time tweaking everything to your own personal settings, an Apple just isn’t for you. However, if you want a computer that just works like it should, buy an Apple.

Water parks
I think it might have been Walt Disney World’s Typhoon Lagoon that turned me on to water parks. There were a few waterslides around my hometown and I did happen to meet the two and a half hours away girl as we were heading to a water park, but giant tube slides and tall speed slides just didn’t exist. Pretty soon, my daughter and I will be heading to Key Lime Cove, an indoor water park in Gurnee.

The Godfather
I have only two movie posters in my apartment, Blade Runner and The Godfather. Both are movies I came to late in life. I tried to watch both, but never truly understood either until I had some experiences of my own and a bit more maturity in my tastes. Of the two, The Godfather is my favorite. The Italian-ness of the family reminded me of my own extended family to a certain degree. Not the mobster part, but the family comes first part.

The Legion of Super Heroes
When I was a kid, my Dad let me go up in the attic and pull out a dozen or so of his comics. He had boxes of comics, all bought for nickels and dimes, of his own money. I was consistently drawn to a group of young heroes from the future who all came from different worlds and had specific super powers. They fought intergalactic bad guys, had relationships, sacrificed themselves for the greater good, had easily one of the largest supporting casts in all of comics and made an enormous impression on me. I’m looking forward to reading the new series coming out later this year.

Mirror Universe/Parallel World Stories
My favorite Star Trek story involves an evil parallel universe where our characters are evil doppelgangers. My favorite comic book story is one where the Justice League meets evil counterparts from a parallel world. There’s just something about taking the heroes we know and love and twisting them, usually by adding an awesome goatee, into bad guys.

So, there you have it… ten things I absolutely love. What about you?

==

LINKY GOODNESS

• MTV finally drops “Music Television” from its logo.
• Teaser trailer for The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-sec.
• Night launch of the space shuttle Endeavor
• Justin Van Genderen’s Star Wars travel posters.
• All nine of the planets in our solar system are represented in these wonderful posters by Ross Berens.
• Trailer for the documentary The People vs George Lucas.
• Words, Just words: 4 Famous cases of Plagiarism. One is a case of plagiarism committed to falsely prove a case of plagiarism, believe it or not.
• Through a new service called iSites, you can take all of your life feeds and have an iPhone app created just for you. The cost? Only $25.
• An Intellectual History of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. It began in 1964, which makes it older than any of the models in this year’s edition.
• Now online, the fab Oscar nominated-animated short, Logorama.
• So you know, 15 things you never notice on a US dollar bill.
• Gorgeous, designer Odardo Fioravanti’s tribute to Galileo’s telescope.

SHOUTING AT THE SEA

“I’m more comfortable in my imagination than I am in actual human discovery. The best days of my life are when I’ve dreamed about a sexual encounter with someone I’ve already been with. When that happens, I cannot lay off myself.” — John Mayer

COLOPHON

Sean McDevitt could really use a working Legion flight ring.

I Can’t Fight This Feeling

// January 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // I ♥, Music

I’m laying on my couch as I write this and my iTunes has just shuffled to REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling.” It’s a song that I’ve kept in my heart for one person since I added it to the first mix tape I ever made for her. Yes, I’m talking about the two and a half hours away girl. It may not be “our” song, but it certainly is “my” song for her.

I close my eyes and it’s the summer of 1985. I’ve just turned 17. I owned Thriller, Pyromania and Shout at the Devil, a Member’s Only jacket and a pair of black and gray parachute pants. Sunday nights meant going to the Refinery for teen night and drinking Coke flavored water and hoping to dance with that cute girl from Mr. Chapman’s World History class.

“Even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight.”

Not to get too melodramatic, but my life changed in July of 1985. My parents let me go on a day trip to a water-park that no longer exists in Collinsville, IL. My friend Mike Wernsing invited me and he drove. Along the way we’d be picking up a friend of his and her brother. I can remember it like it was yesterday… walking into that McDonald’s and meeting the two and a half hours away girl for the first time. It was magic. She was sitting in a booth waiting for us and while she may have given Mike a big hug she couldn’t take her eyes off me.

All the way the way to the park, she turned around in the passenger’s seat to chat me up in the back. I don’t remember what she asked or what we talked about. All I remember are the feelings… I really like this girl. She spoke in rapid fire half-sentences. She bounced from topic to topic like a rubber ball. I loved the way her eyes were this not quite shade of green.

After the water-park, we went to the nearby mall, got something to eat and walked around. The chemistry between us was so strong. We had fun laughing and joking around like we were old friends when in reality we had barely met. The silly sexual innuendos of virgin teenagers (a giant green snake comes to mind) were met with “come hither” smiles and knowing winks.

“What started out as friendship has grown stronger.”

We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and from that moment on we were connected. The letters poured in from her and receiving an actual hand written letter was better than gold. I still have every letter she sent me. I’m sad my daughter will only have a hard drive full of emails instead of real ink on tattered paper kept in a shoe box like her old man.

I can remember begging my parents to call her on the phone and then spending three or more hours with her talking about everything and nothing. I would bemoan my fear of asking this one girl to dance at the Refinery and she would complain about her current boyfriend or cheerleading. It didn’t matter.

I would visit her infrequently. A three hour drive from college just to spend a few short hours and get my first kiss from her was worth every second. Of course, we always danced around a real relationship. In our sweet, innocent and “scared to death of ruining our friendship” way, we took far too much pleasure from holding hands and talking on the phone late into the night. What might have been…

Today, after many years and far too many dead-end paths taken, we are together. At least as together as we can be since we remain two and a half hours away. I can’t see her as often as I’d like and nowhere near as often as she would like. Our arrangement isn’t perfect and maybe it never will be.
Our friends and family sometimes have a hard time understanding why we continue this relationship when it doesn’t really appear to be moving in any direction. I can never adequately explain it. It’s just the way we are wired, I guess. Our hearts are intertwined and our chemistry, found 25 years ago, hasn’t gone away.

I miss her. I love her. And I can’t fight this feeling anymore.

==

LINKY GOODNESS

• How to blog. A sample post – and an inspired satire.
• Don’t bring a samurai sword to a police standoff.
• Mike and his whole family recap the last five seasons of Lost.
• The definite collection of “Enter Sandman” covers on the web.
• Actual football played in a 60-min NFL game: about 11 minutes.
• Roger Ebert’s list of the best films of the decade. It’s an interesting list; several items on there that you didn’t see on a lot of other lists.
• Do you know you aliens?
• Coke’s Happiness Machine.
• If you’ve been looking for a portable round fireplace look no further.
• Sex explained graphically. Not written or drawn out, but using ink pens.
• All 101 episodes of Lost streaming on Hulu.
• 15 Big Cheats and Fakers. That includes plagiarists, parodists, impostors, con men, lip-synchers, and those who take credit for other people’s work.
• Geek Dad picks 100 quotes every geek should know.

SHOUTING AT THE SEA

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.” – J. D. Salinger

COLOPHON

Photo by stevefaeembra

Post inspired by the following: