If not the best weblog in the world, certainly in the top three.

July 2, 2000 4:27 PM

If not the best weblog in the world, certainly in the top three. For all of us who think that there's no good blogs out there, I point to defense exhibit A: Ethel the Blog. It is, indeed, one of the best websites of any definition in the world, and I envy Steven K. Baum's mighty intellect greatly. I already reviewed it at my review blog, but because I know how low the traffic is there, and because this is indeed one of the best websites in the world, I'm posting it here. I don't know Steven. We've never met. He is not paying me to say this. This is purely for the public good. And now, quite possibly, the best blog in the world.
posted by Ezrael (10 comments total)

I created an account at Metafilter (after saying I never would) just to follow up on this post. Ezrael is right. Ethel is one of the best weblog-type-entities going these days. Definitely check it out. Whenever I need to remind myself of what I'd like to be doing with my site, I go there (and a couple of other places, too, admittedly).
posted by Medley at 5:46 PM on July 2, 2000

I heartily concur; I've been following His Ethelness since we both started blogging in October '99, and sang his praises on my site when he reminded me of one of my favorite movies of all times: "The President's Analyst" in my first experience of the "wish I'd blogged that" syndrome.
The depth and breadth of his interests and knowledge and his ability to clearly explain the truly obscure so well that he can make the reader feel as familiar with Lionel Fanthorpe as Stephen King (and realize that you'd more enjoy reading the latter). When he (usually) approaches a topic I am unfamiliar with, he makes me smarter; when he (rarely) covers something I already know, he makes he feel like a smarty. And his "coverage" of last fall's Texas A&M bonfire disaster was one of the first best examples of how a single blogger can outdo the entire "establishment media" on a local news story. Verbose, opinionated, sometimes way beyond cranky, but never dull, even when writing about "ontogeny and phylogeny", Steven Baum is a curmudgeon for the 21st Century.

(And welcome to MeFi, Medley; now that it's got you, remember alternate tagline #5: "more addictive than crack". I await your next hundred comments. Now if we could only get Mr. Ethel to join in.)
posted by wendell at 6:53 PM on July 2, 2000

Wow - that's really well written.

It seems like many indivuduals (like myself) often 'blog for the sake of 'blogging. Not because we wish to effectively communicate with others, but because it's simply a hip thing to do.

Mr. Ethel has given me much to think about . . .
posted by aladfar at 8:09 PM on July 2, 2000

Hey, it's not that great... I didn't see a single link to a Budwiser "Whassup" parody on the entire page!
posted by dogwelder at 8:24 PM on July 2, 2000

I could've sworn P.G. Wodehouse had done a "Whassup and Jeeves"...
You may resume welding dogs.
posted by wendell at 11:44 PM on July 2, 2000

Your check's in the mail, Ezrael, and muchos thankos to the rest of y'all. Ethel owes its existence to my getting tired of posting on a local usenet group. Being compelled to get the last word, I'd post something and then waste days crushing each and every infidel who dared differ from that which obviously originated on stone tablets. And since I couldn't have them declared enemies of the state and summarily executed, they'd keep coming back. I'd also attempted on several occasions to keep a personal journal (for private use only) and found that wholly unsatisfactory as well as downright nauseating to reread at times. The weblog format seems an ideal compromise format for keeping track of various mental peregrinations (that I want to peregrinate back to eventually), advertising the work of various creative types whose notoriety has shrunk to undeservedly low levels, and for the massive amounts of spleen venting demanded by my inner asshole. Oh yeah, that substance thing fits in somewhere, too. Anyhow, my appreciation for such nods is as fulsome as my ability to express it without reaching for the dramamine ain't.
posted by baum at 11:35 AM on July 3, 2000

How can anybody go to Ethel the Blog and not follow it up with a visit to Mermaniac is beyond me.
posted by bjennings at 5:41 PM on July 3, 2000

Very nice stuff, Steven.

You *think*. And then you write. And you're funny -- in a dry, Monty Python meets Douglas Adams sort of way -- in the bargain.

More proof that David Ogilvy was right: long copy works. And it's interesting that most of the *replies* in this thread have been longer than the MetaFiltarian average, too, I think.
posted by baylink at 11:40 AM on July 4, 2000

Well, Bill, I guess one of the reasons I didn't post a follow-up to your blog is because I didn't know it existed. And because I hate show tunes, and indeed musicals, with a firey, volcanic passion. However, the article on the Bowie Knife mishap was interesting and amusing. Get me to a hospital.

Bay; Then again, some of us are just wordy bastards anyway. Like m'self. I can't shut up, is my problem.
posted by Ezrael at 9:09 PM on July 4, 2000

fuck this
posted by Cavatica at 9:38 AM on July 5, 2000