With One Hand Tied Behind My Back

Back in my fresh faced days of Eve, the crop of public faces in the community was significantly different than it is right now. A lot of the current crop of Eve's eFamous that many of us look to for information and conversation about our favorite game hadn't even begun playing yet, and a lot of the folks we looked and listened to back then have since faded from sight.

Loxyrider (now CCP Loxy), StevieSG, spiralJunkie and
makeup girl Nicole during the weekly EveTV days.

For me, back in my early days, one of those guys was a player known as spiralJunkie, though his real name is Tom Meneghello. He started off as a DJ on Eve Radio long before I arrived on the scene in 2006, and was one of the pioneers of EveTV in it's infancy. He was there in the studio filling the chair in the early Alliance Tournaments many of us are used to seeing CCP Soundwave occupy, and was the host of the short lived EveTV weekly series that introduced many of us to StevieSG who has also moved on. Eve may never fade, but her faces sometimes do.

Know the name or not, spiralJunkie is a pretty big part of Eve's history. It could be argued that the Alliance Tournament we have today is due in large part to the foundations that were laid all those years ago by Tom and the rest of the crew. The work was shared, but Tom was one of the main faces of it. In a lot of ways, Tom is the kind of player I've always strived to be in my coverage of Eve: That grizzled old vet that still finds the time to play, enjoy, and understand the game he spends so much time talking about, which is something I find missing from a couple prominent members of the Eve media community these days.

Here is a clip from AT IV when Band of Brothers, winners of the first 3 Alliance Tournaments, had their unbeatable tournament setup pwn faced by a team of 10 Thoraxes. You likely have this match to thank for the present AT rules not allowing more than 3 of any one ship to be fielded on a team. spiralJunkie comes in at the studio bit at 5:02. You may also notice a current or former dev or 2 on screen, but all were players at the time.

 
So whatever happened to spiralJunkie anyway? Well, he's still around, and I've managed to catch up with him every few months over the years. He's had some health issues since he dropped out of the public eye, and a medical condition he has caused him to have a pretty bad stroke back in 2010 where he lost the use of his left arm and leg. He's since regained some use of his leg, but his left arm is still a no go at this point. The dude is a gamer though, and still finds time for the hobby he loves.  

The reason I bring him up now and he gets his own blog post is because he's in the process of trying to put together a resource for people gaming with various disabilities. The guy is a dedicated trooper and finishes what he starts, but he's going to need some help and exposure for this project. He recently made a guest post over on Dr. Joseph Reddington's blog that I encourage you to read if you want to know more about him and what he's trying to do.

As far as what you can do, you can help us spread the word a bit. If you know any disabled gamers, hook them up with Tom's contact info (contact@ouchmyface.org) and lets help him get the information and resources he needs to get this project on the ground running.