Be Excellent To Each Other

So sorry to hear this news. RIP Rev Owen.

Samuel L Jackson can fuck off from Mr T's bins if he thinks this is a private party.

I was told a few hours ago in ODST.

Like mentski, Dave and Richard, I've known him for a decade. He was a long-standing online friend which means a lot to me as that was pretty much all I had ten years ago when I'd just moved to the UK.

He was always posting with a wit and charm that I envied, an enthusiasm that I started to lose with age. He would leave me charming birthday messages on my Deadjournal when everyone else had deserted it. And he was always doing something cool.

RIP The Rev. Owen. I'm off to read your greatest hits on a.d. Already one of them has managed to make me laugh.

Bad times. I didn't know him too well apart from the odd exchange on here and Twitter but he once helped me out on a review for Fuel and was generally a nice, intelligent forumer. Definitely part of the 'excellent' in BeeX.

Shocked to hear this. Always seemed like a top bloke from his posts here. My thoughts are with his wife and family.

Fuck. RIP Owen, you were a top geezer and you'll be sorely missed.

Condolences to all those concerned

Jesus, only just noticed the thread. RIP Good Sir.

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed."

This is very sad, a real shame. I didn't really have that much to do with Owen but he always came across as a decent, intelligent chap and was excellent to others. My thoughts are with his family, really shitty thing for people to pass that young

I very much liked his avatar on here, it was neat.

Been trying to think of something suitable to say all day to no avail. It's rather upsetting.

His first ever post in alt.digitiser was Aug 2000. I was the first person to reply to him.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.digi ... er&lnk=nl&

Patience has posted the following

http://millarca.tumblr.com/post/1308910778/most-of-you-know-by-now

Man, i was just beating his geometry wars 2 high score yesterday, and then saw nickachu's tweet about this, but only really felt is was real right now.. sitting a bit shocked behind my desk..
all the best to mrs Patience..

I only met Owen once and barely chatted to him that night, but all the conversations he was involved in he came across as the same really nice chap that he always had on the boards.

Sad times.

Mr Psb pointed me here (thanks Mark) .. I also have known Owen for a decade .. via altdigi etc, livejournal and then he became a real life friend.

As everyone before me has pointed out he was a TOP BLOKE - a true gentleman and an epic hat wearer ..

My thoughts are with his lovely wife and his family, but also with you lot as he has left a big hole in the world that no one could ever come close to filling

Goodbye old friend and may the force be with you

Shaz (aka dilf)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=154985&id=753877122

Oh my god. This is.. well, like a lot of other people, I'm pretty speechless. This is horrible, horrible news and my thoughts are with Patience and all of her and Owen's family.

I only knew Owen from here and on WoS, but I always enjoyed his contributions to any discussion on here, and it was always nice to have a fellow protector of the correctness of Star Wars. He was, as DB has said, one of the few genuinely 100% lovely people you find on the internet, and I'm going to be eternally sad that I never actually got to meet him in real life.

As with others, I'm not going to be at the cottage but if anything else is arranged in his memory I would willingly be a part of it.

God, I thought I was having such a bad week, but things like this really put life into perspective. If nothing else, I think I need to start being a nicer person to everyone.

I've only just noticed this thread and announcement. Bloody hell.

Like many people here, I only really knew him via this forum, and I'm not sure if we ever managed to bump into each other at a drunken Beex Meet. I'll echo what everyone says about him being a thoroughly excellent chap though, and reading back through some inverty posts has raised a smile, which feels very odd.

My thoughts are with his family and those close to him. It would be nice to be able to help out practically as a group in situations like this, but I can't really think how.

The chip in fund is now at $5000. I'm so relieved that Patience should have her family with her very soon. They must be breaking inside knowing how their girl must feel, so many hundreds of miles from the comfort that maybe only they can give right now.

My thoughts keep going back to Patience.

Not much I can say other than my condolences to Patience.

. Both of these things.

I was thinking about this last night... Would it be inappropriate to enquire whereabouts geographically Owen was based? I appreciate he was an atheist, but presumably there will be a service for him of sorts and if it is not prohibitively far and the family don't mind, I think I'd quite like to attend. Obviously, if do-able, I'd happily render taxi services for other Beexers within a reasonable distance to myself? I appreciate his family might not want a small army of beared and non-bearded internet chaps around at such a time however, which would obviously be fair enough.

I'm not afraid to say I shed a tear last night...

So sad.

Kent, I believe. I am also awaiting news of a service.

Yes, their house is in Marden, Kent.

Well it's the other side of London to me (I'm based in Hemel Hempstead), but definitely do-able.

Mimi, would you be able to find out if they're having a service and, if so, if internet strangers were welcome to attend?

I shall try and find out the details and possibility of some Beex folks attending at an opportune moment x

Thanks Mimi. I'd like to go too if it's at all possible.

If anyone would like to contribute, they are having a raffle to help to raise funds;

http://sweetlibertine.com/2010/10/13/ra ... -patience/

Also a guy named Neil Gaiman has re-tweeted about the chip-in, apparently this is good.

Yep same here mate, it hurts

Thanks, I am sure some from ugvm would like to attend also

Just reading about the things that internet types are doing for Patience is heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time.

God, this is awful

I started reading through some of his posts before and found conversations we'd had recently... had to stop, I'll look through them again when I get home. The winds taken from my sails and I never even met the bloke. Patience must be devastated, and this is not long since the heartbreaking news about their pregnancy. So, so sad.

Never know what's around the corner, eh? Got to make the most of everything while you can.

Z- someone from a.d linked me to his first ever post last night, and the first ever reply... from me. I nearly started reading that at 4am this morning. Probably a good thing I didn't.

The friendships you build online can sometimes be stronger than real life, if you get the chance make sure you meet your online friends in person. Life is too short

Same here. I'd not met him, so you'd think that it might not have affected me too much, but I was a bit of a mess last night. Maybe down to him being a similar age to me, but probably more to do with knowing that him and Patience seemed to be a perfect match from reading his posts and that she must be utterly distraught right now.

Yeah, like a lot of people others here, I never met Owen in real life, but I've known him online for about a decade through Usenet, Deadjournal, Twitter and various gaming forums. He was such a genuinely nice guy and I just can't believe he's gone. I always enjoyed reading the things he wrote, whether it was his enthusiastic blog posts about the latest iPhone games, a rant about non-inverted camera controls, some alt.digi insantity or a chapter from one of his NaNoWriMo novels (which were always better than he thought they were). He was funny, charming and friendly and I'll miss reading his words.

I must confess that I am surprised by how much this has all bothered me. Never even met the guy. Poor Patience.

Not that this needs a point to prove it, but that Owen and Patience met online is as good an indication that this can be true as any that has ever been.

I met him, and he was lovely, but I'm also surprised at how hard this has hit me.

I guess that everyone who I've known and liked that has died before has been older, and not a part of my 'peer group'. Parents, grandparents, etc.

The majority of people I care about are in their 30s, and it just makes you think about them all. Eeesh.

I'm just so happy that people have managed to raise so much money for Patience. I can't imagine what she's going through.

I had an urge yesterday evening to visit Rev Castle in Minecraft. It did my heart proud to find a number of other Beexers having the same idea.

Having to explain to young Cookie what was going on was a bit of a heart-in-mouth moment.

His "I've proposed to Patience" post from 2006: http://therev.deadjournal.com/2013392.html
His wedding post: http://therev.deadjournal.com/2042652.html

He was only a 3 weeks younger than me.
I feel really sad for Patience for all she has been through this year to lose her soulmate

To think only days ago he was participating in the Word with Friends Tournament, and asking me when the next round would start.

I'm glad that the fund has raised a lot for Patience's relatives to come over and be with her.

Oh I didn't even think of that! I just gave him a wee call. He sounded sad about it and said he was looking around Owens castle last night but couldn't find his way around very well without Owen to show him

It was Most Sad.
There's all sorts of hidden stuff around and under his castle, he mentioned it a few times that he hoped people would go for a wander and find things. I feel bad for not having done so before

Nice that he's left things to discover though, eh Kalmar?

So weird living in this technological age, there's so much left behind now.

Very much so.

Very sad. I've never met him in person, but he was always a top bloke online.

He did a couple of reviews for me on SavyGamer, and did a bang up job on both of them:
http://savygamer.co.uk/2009/10/23/age-o ... ds-review/
http://savygamer.co.uk/2009/10/23/deadl ... ii-review/

Do you think it would be appropriate for me to link to the fund on SavyGamer? I'd want to do anything I could to help.

I think that's the most practical help we can give to Patience right now.

I think it would be ok, I have linked to the fund on my blog site & ugvm

And we have linked on this one.

Yes, please do. All links appreciated.If you visit the link to the fund there is also instructions on how to embed the widget, if you wanted that rather than the link.