I never met Ryan Davis. He never knew me, although I tried to get him to. Thanks to Twitter where chatting with celebrities and anyone else is a few keystrokes away, I've replied to him several times on whatever he tweeted about. I can't remember specifics but I think one involved burnt salad.

But I really felt I knew Ryan, the funny, in-your-face co-founder of Giant Bomb. Part of my daily routine is to visit the website and see what the crew of co-founder Jeff Gerstmann, Vinny Caravella, Brad Shoemaker, Alex Navarro, Patrick Klepek and Drew Scanlon are up to next. To simply put it, it's a website focusing on the fun side of video games. Watching their Quick Looks and other videos and listening to their podcasts -- so young and carefree -- I felt a real connection with them, like everybody in their fan base.

That's why after the horrific news on Monday, it feels like something's been ripped out of me. There it was on the homepage: Ryan Davis, 1979-2013. I just stared at the computer screen in confusion. No way, I thought. He just got married. I saw those photos on Twitter of him so happy with life. This has to be a joke. But as the seconds turned into minutes into an hour and so forth, it was no joke. Crap. He's really gone.

A lot of well-deserved tributes and kind words have been written about Ryan, and more still to come. I just wanted to say he was an inspiration to me to start writing about video games, and I wish I got to meet him in person to say thank you for all the wonderful content and sharing his expertise with the world. Through tough times or after a hard day's work, listening to Ryan hosting the Tuesday podcast or performing a Quick Look always brightened my day. My condolences go to his new wife, family, friends and fellow Giant Bomb members for this sudden loss. That awkward cloud is going to hang above the Giant Bomb staff for who knows how long, but I'm confident in saying the show will go on -- Ryan wouldn't have it any other way.

He left us way too soon, and years of memorable moments will not be had. What's my favorite Ryan Davis moment? I can't pick one. There's too many to choose from. So here's a video of Ryan and Jeff cooking hot dogs. They look delicious.



Get even tinier thoughts at www.twitter.com/JeffHoard921.