It’s been a few days now since one of my online friends has gone away for an extended period of time. He doesn’t know exactly when he’d be able to get online again, though he estimated maybe October at the earliest.

When I first came to the Beast’s Lair forums, sssssz stood out as one of the “old-timers” with a bit of a curious streak. He was known as #17, short for “Security Bulletin #17″, short for “The Emergency Security Bulletin Number Seventeen Concerning User Safety.” Yeah… sssssz was that type of person who’d come up with a nonsensical name like that. But, then again, I respected all of the old-timers in their own right, anyway.

sssssz was one of the first people to greet me when I first visited the #beastslair IRC channel. In the channel’s infant stages, there were very few people to talk to, so I ended up talking to him quite a bit. Somehow, I got recruited into helping him with his Lexicon idea for the BL boards. (That somehow also spawned my own interest in using the PBWiki system for my semi-defunct Beast’s Index.) I also offered him any help I could whenever he ran into some weird computer problem, since I’m evidentally pretty decent at desktop support.

But, I found that I was helping him less as a person helping an “old-timer” and more as a friend rather quickly. He was very easy to talk to, quite sociable, eccentric enough to hold interest, serious enough to be regarded as trustworthy, and intellectual enough to be regarded with some respect. He knew what his capabilities and limits were, but also had wild ideas and dreams about stuff he could create or things he could do. So, despite all the chaos, randomness, and general craziness he tried to exude, he was really a good, middle-of-the-road person you could depend on.

Of course, it could just be me. But that is, and still is, my opinion of him.

So, when he privately messages me one day about his sudden leave, I was somewhat crushed by the news. I did know that he would eventually have to leave for some time, but I didn’t expect it so soon, and apparently neither did he. And no, I’m not gay for him or anything.

My first ever PhotoShop of anything was a birthday picture of Sacchin. I suck so bad that the picture took me at least an hour to insert those words, since most of the time was trying to figure out how the heck the program worked. I was much surprised, pleased, and even a little embarrased when he called attention to the pic on BL. I thought it was only fitting that I attempt something again for his departure. That’s where I came up with this:

Yeah, I know I suck. This took me like… 6 hours or so. Considering that I have all these pictures on-hand, and had gained a buttload of beginner’s experience when I edited a doujin once, I feel that it took me way too floogin’ long to do. Worse, I screwed up and didn’t save different PSD versions and irreversibly clumped most of my layers together. I’m not a great artist like the guy over at From the Wind, who can actually draw something. ::sighs:: I wish I could have done better, but there’s nothing I could do about it at the time.

To cap it all off, I stay up all night to send him one final farewell, but I decide to be productive and do some beta work. The dumb mIRC channel window didn’t scroll down when new messages were coming, and I completely missed his sendoff.

I hate my rotten luck.

So, here’s to sssssz, the Master of Entropy and Chaos. May he have a safe trip and do well in his endeavors.