... And I couldn't be more sad.

I've never really been one to get emotional when I hear about people dying. I've never really lost anyone close to me so I guess thats why, but hearing about Ryan passing yesterday has brought me to tears a couple of times. I haven't been able to think a cohesive thought since I read about it and I'm still not sure where to start typing. The worst part I guess is that I have nobody that I can talk to about this. Nobody I know knows about Giant Bomb or who Ryan Davis was. Nobody will get why I'm upset about "some dude on the internet" dying or will know just how much of the guy ment to me.

Trying to type a post about the man is proving very difficult which is upsetting me even more. There aren't really words to describe the man. Ryan Davis was one of the happiest people I've ever heard and has brought joy to my life on nearly a daily basis 7 years. He seemed so excitable and quick to laugh and make fun. Hearing that laugh has turned the shittiest of days around faster than anything else I can think of. It was infectious and it's brought me to tears and given me a pain in my side countless times.

One of the greatest effects Ryan has had on me is my inability to pronounce the word sword "properly". It will be "Sa-wowrd" until the day I die. I don't know what that says about me or about Ryan, but it is something that pisses off people I know so bad and I love it, which is probably the way Ryan would want that to be. But fuck man, I'll never mispronounce executable and it'll be Bat-min forever. I will miss hearing him talk, so very much.

Another thing I'll miss is the URLs. Who the hell buys cocainemountain.com? or batmanbatmanbatman.com? I guess nobody now. I hope Dave will keep up the tradition.

Ryan has had a profound effect on my taste in music, be it for better or worse. I am heavily invested in the idea and theory of summer jams. Ryan was a guy I'd have loved to have a drink with and just hear stories from. Hearing guests on live shows, interviews and bombcasts talk about the shit they would get up to as a result of a night's drinking with Ryan.

It's gutting to think that this happened not even a week after his wedding. Knowing how upset I am and thinking about how much he's affected my live, I can't but think of his wife and what she must be going through. I remember Ryan missing a hotspot in 2006 because of taking his girlfriend to Disneyland for her birthday. The kind of guy who brings is girlfriend-turn-fiance-turn-wife to disneyland for their birthday is a serious keeper and probably one of the happiest and nicest people on the planet. He struck me as a wonderful guy from that point on and someone I'd have loved to have got to know personally.

Ryan and Vinny have both been people I've looked up to for the longest time and seeing them settling down and start families gave me hope that it'll happen to me and to us all, but now one of those role models is gone.

When I first went to college in 2008 and until well after I left in 2010, Ryan and the bombcast were a crutch that got me through the day.

A lot of people site books, or albums, or trips, or movies or games for getting them through dark periods in their lives, but for me it was Giant Bomb and the bombcast.

I went through 2 bad years of college in a shitty situation, in shitty apartments with shitty classmates and roommates, far, far away from friends and family. But once a week, I got 3 hours of laughs and stories and my life wasn't shitty.

I would listen to nothing but my back catalogue of bombcasts and I even went into the back catalogue of hotspot episodes and listened to all of those up until all the Giant Bomb staff had left. It's really sad I guess but the bombcast was seriously the highlight of my week and was the only form of social interaction I heard besides awkward conversations with people in class.

I couldn't believe it when I saw the post on facebook with the link to Matt Rorie's piece. I honestly thought it was some joke, about him getting married or being away on his honeymoon. I was shocked when I read it and really didn't want it to be true. I hadn't been paying any attention to my twitter feed, but wow was it going crazy when I went over to try and see if it was true.

Eric Pope was in a frenzy and it really got to me when I saw his icon was the one Ryan had for the longest time. I kind just sat staring at my feed for what felt like hours. I remember seeing EnemyNanner's tweet last week about sending her big brother over to wake Ryan up and thinking the very dark thought of "Oh man, what if he's dead, that would be fucked up." When the giantbombsquad retweeted it lastnight in the middle of all the outpouring of emotion it knocked me for a loop.

Later today, a bombcast is going to appear in my itunes library and it'll appear for all of you too, in some shape or form and its going to really hard for me to press play because I know that the first words I hear WON'T be "Hey everyone is Tuesday, July the 9th Twenty-thirteen and you're listening to the Giant Bombcast, I'm your host Ryan Davis." We'll probably hear the old bombcast music that Jeff has on file, we'll probably hear Jeff introduce the crew and we probably won't hear any emails.

But we will probably hear stories, we'll probably hear the biggest impacts Ryan had on members of the Giant Bomb staff and we'll hopefully, all of us, get to have that catharsis for a few hours, together.

Ryan, where ever you are, I hope you're going great man. I hope you are having the most fly, mother fucking time. We all miss you so very much.

Rest in piece.