Aaron Clark: Personal Webspace

At Katsucon 2004, some friends and I hosted a panel on the subject of psychology and sociology in anime. It was a topic we were short on expertise and credential, but still managed to provide a sufficiently engaging open forum for people to discuss anime on a higher level than usual. To this day, I still view the panel as a flop, but there was one very special aspect of it that I'm still glad for. At the end, just before we cleared the room for the next panel, we reiterated who we were, and when I stated that I was from EvaMonkey.com, a voice from the front of the room squealed in excitement something like "Are you serious...? OMG, it's teh Eva Monkey!".

This is how I met Travis Farren.

I've met quite a few people through conventions and the Evangelion fandom. Some more interesting than others, but none quite like Travis. It's an obvious statement to say that someone is unique. Everyone is. But in Travis' case, he was about as unique as you could be. He was a person who I palled around with at conventions, talked with over messenger, email, and occasionally over the phone. Despite the fact that I was only in his physical presence as many times as I can count on one or maybe two hands, I enjoyed every chance I had to interact with him.

Needless to say, I was excited when I saw his name pop up on my phone Wednesday morning while I was settling in at work. Travis was like that, he would call at the most unexpected times, and ultimately, it wouldn't matter what the message would be, just that it was coming from him. But when I answered, it wasn't his voice on the other end, it was his mother's. She told me that Travis had passed away, and that she thought I should know.

I was in disbelief for a brief moment before my stomach dropped. She told me that he and a friend had been jumping from a footbridge into the James river, and that Travis had had a seizure while swimming back to shore. You see, Travis had developed epilepsy in his junior year of high school, and the adrenaline rush from the jump and the change in temperature had triggered the seizure.

I expressed my condolences to his mother, and then we hung up. I eventually found myself in the main conference room to be alone, as I had started to cry a little bit. My boss came in to wire some cable, and he asked me if I was okay. I explained to him, and he told me that I could cut out if I needed to. I did what I could on one particular project, and made arrangements to leave.

I went home, packed some things, and made the five hour drive down to Roanoke in time for the second viewing. It was a very strange and uncomfortable experience, as I didn't know the family and felt very out of place. It took a little while, but I managed to find his mother to express my condolences and thank her for telling me. It was at that point that it all came out and I wept uncontrollably.

I didn't understand at the time why it affected me so much. It was not until the funeral the next day that I realized how truly special Travis was to everyone, including me. He really was the light of everyone's life, and what a shame it was for that light to be extinguished at such an early age. He was only twenty years old.

While I was raised catholic, and it shows, I'm not a religious person. So when someone dies, to me that's pretty much the end of it. All that is left is memory, and the things left behind. I'm not comforted by a belief in an afterlife where we can be together with people again who have passed before us. But a part of me struggles with a belief in things happening for a reason. And this is one of the truest cases of this.

Early in the month, Travis messaged me saying that he had a Red Cross Book laying around that he no longer wanted, and that he was going to sell it to get some cash to buy Metal Gear Solid 4. He asked me how much it was worth, and if I knew anyone he could sell it to that would appreciate it. You see, he didn't simply want to eBay it, he wanted that book to mean something to someone. I replied that I would like to have it, as I had not gotten my hands on one yet. We both gasped at the blasphemy that The Eva Monkey, master of all things Eva, had no Red Cross Book amongst his expansive collection. We agreed upon a price, I paypalled him the money, and he shipped the book off to me. I got it about a week later, and he tossed in an extra little photo-holder-type-thingy, and a note which was true to his character. Two weeks later, he passed away.

He wanted that book to mean something. And he didn't mean it that way in the time, but part of me feels like he gave me that book for a reason. For that was the last exchange I ever had with him, and now it means so much more than just an uncommon book. It's my last memory of Travis. And I'll always cherish it.

Goodbye Travis, I'll miss you.

So I broke out my DVD of Iria: Zeiram the Animation last week and rewatched this glorious six episode OAV. The DVD itself was an old one, in good shape, but an early DVD that wasn't encoded as well as it could have been. It had no special features, just the episodes with either English dub, or Japanese with subtitles. It didn't even go to the menu on start-up, it just went right into the first episode in English. There's something oddly quaint about that, kind of like VHS and cassette tapes, or "This film has been modified from its original version.", or the Videogame Rating Council, the precursor to the modern ESRB. And as I've come to find out, this DVD was first printed in July of 2000, and is now out of print. As I watched through the credits on the sixth episode, I noticed the production date of 1994, making this anime fourteen years old this month.

At this point, I feel weird. I remember watching this on the Sci-Fi channel when I was fifteen. That was ten years ago, and at the time, it was more or less brand new. Yeah, it was about four years old at the time, but if you consider that it took a lot longer to get stuff from there to here back then, it might as well have been brand new. Moreover, this anime is now "classic" by today's standards. It uses no CGI, no 3D, just honest to goodness hand drawn animation.

So, again. I feel weird. And this feeling isn't relegated to anime, there's a bunch of stuff that I remember being new and fresh during my childhood and adolescence that I'm now astounded to find out how old it actually is.

Hi. It's been awhile. In fact, it's been nearly five months since I've blogged. Sadly, that's not a record for me, if we were to look back at previous lapses in journal activity. Quite a bit has changed, and it's no doubt worth the time to sit down, do a bit of composition, and share with everyone out there just what exactly has transpired in the my life since last you heard from me.

First, let's talk about work. I was working at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, doing helpdesk type stuff, including (but not limited to) setting up audio-visual equipment, taking and filtering technical requests, and supporting the main operator line of the Library of Congress. It was a shit job. The pay was alright, but it didn't merit the commute, the odd hours, or the stress involved. What ultimately pushed me to the breaking point was a combination of two main things: health, and an overnight rotation. I was sick for weeks. I just couldn't recover from this hacking cold, and I was having some combination of chest pains, stomach cramps, and headaches every day. The other part was a rotation that would have forced me to work 8:30pm to 6:30am four days a week for two weeks every few months. Not exciting prospects, especially considering how much it would have interfered with all the other aspects of my life, including Spriggs, and more importantly, my relationship with Christina.

So I put in my two weeks at the end of March, and was like "Cya!". I didn't bother getting another job, I just pulled up anchor and left. I didn't know where I was going to end up, but I knew I'd find something better no matter what. I took a few days to lounge around my apartment, play some video games, and just generally de-stress. After the first week of unemployment, I seriously started looking for jobs, and midway through the second week, I found a fit. So in case you haven't heard, it's official, I am now a professional web designer, and I have business cards to prove it. The company is called r2integrated, and it's situated just fifteen minutes down I-83, in the Canton area of Baltimore city. What the job ultimately means is that I get higher pay, work more reasonable hours, get more sleep, have more free time, less stress, and I'm actually using some of what I learned in college. It's quite literally better in every conceivable way from working at the Library of Congress.

So... yeah. I'm a professional web designer. It is neat.

Aside from that, the other big thing in my life right now is the Halo machinima that I've been working on. Yes, that Spriggs thing. It's been a weird ride. As of right now, I've not kept good tabs on our view counts, just that I know it's something over 3 million video views. Hell, our views on our YouTube channel just passed 1 million, and our first episode on Machinima.com's YouTube channel is getting pretty close to a million views. I also like that our subscribers on YouTube has passed 5000. We've got an actual fanbase going, and we might actually take this somewhere. We officially formed a company back in March, just before I quit working in DC. Within the next month, we'll be setting up a dedicated studio in Alex's new place, getting some HD capture equipment, possibly obtain funding, and quite possibly enter into talks with Microsoft about becoming licensed to use assets from their games for profit. Very exciting times. I'm currently a professional web designer, and if I'm lucky, I might also be a professional filmmaker within the next year as well. And if I'm really lucky, I'll get to be both at the same time!

I haven't been an avid gamer for a number of years now. I'm afraid to estimate just how much money I spent on gaming during the height of the PS1 and PS2 life cycles. Suffice to say it was probably a lot. It was a good time for gaming. 3-D graphics changed everything, and the CD format made games far cheaper and more profitable. The hype the PlayStation 2 generated had me sold on it before it was even available for pre-order. It was the first system I saved for and bought for myself with money that I had earned. And being one of the few who had a PS2 for months after launch only sweetened the deal. From there, it was pretty much downhill. Struggle and strife in college and a severe lack of money led my gaming habits down a dark hallway and eventually disappeared. It didn't help when the next generation came around and the systems proved expensive and hard to come by. Sony pretty much killed the PlayStation brand with the PS3, and I wasn't sure whether I should get a Wii or an XBox 360.

With the development of the Spriggs machinima, and a degree of financial stability, I picked up a XBox 360 with money I got for Christmas. It's weird, owning an XBox after having doled out so much incredulity for the first system. Primarily, I got the system so I could pick up Halo 3 and have another system available for production of Spriggs, but doing a bit of gaming was also a big part of it. I got Beautiful Katamari from my sister for Christmas, and I also picked up Halo 3 and Armored Core 4. The system I got also came with Forza 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Most of these games I've not really had time to sit down and get engrossed in, but what time I have spent playing them has been very satisfying. I'm also really enthused with the 360's ability to function as a media center. And combined with the speakers I picked up from home, I have a nice little entertainment center going. I just wish I had a larger display or a projector, and some sort of video switcher to tie together all the game systems simultaneously.

It's been fun getting back into gaming. It's weird how little I've missed it over the past several years. It makes me question whether or not I should try and resurrect other interests, like anime, Evangelion, or hell, maybe even my interest in Magic: The Gathering, which I abandoned a good seven years ago. I am going to make it my mission to geek out as much as humanly possible. It is going to be glorious.

• Batman Begins on DVD
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1 DVD set
• Lunar Legend Tsukihime, complete DVD set
• Gunbuster, complete DVD set
• VNV Nation "Empires" CD
• Beautiful Katamari for X-Box 360
• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Optimus Prime Toy (small)
• Umbrella
• Long Sleeve Shirt
• Checks for $40, $50, and $200
  

Not quite gifts but I still consider them Christmas loot:

• Mega64 Version 1 and 2 DVDs - They were on sale for Christmas. I couldn't refuse.
• Shirt.Woot Zombie Hunting T-Shirt - Zombies are awesome. And now I have a shirt to declare to the world how awesome I think zombies are.
• Speaker system - My parents got a high-def Sony LCD TV for Christmas, and apparently my father is satisfied by the sound output of the unit's built in speakers over his old set that he was using before. Being short a decent pair of speakers for various purposes (Movies, Games, Music, Computer, etc) I was more than happy to take them off him. Yeah, they're probably older than I am, but they still sound great.