Now That’s Ridiculous
There is a dead link on my blogroll, but I can’t quite bear to remove it quite yet. That would mean admitting that Mr. Dave’s Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate New York is truly gone.
[Pause for the stunned silence.]
Mr. Dave is fine. He’s alive and well. But over the past few days his marvelous blog appeared to be converted to invitation only. And only recently the message from Blogger simply states:
The blog you were looking for was not found.
After reaching the man himself via email, I have confirmed that this is no technological glitch. This isn’t part of transferring his blog from one platform to another. This is the end.
Here is what he said:
I just kind of decided that I was done blogging, I have got a lot of other demands on my time right now. I think there are a plentiful of other local blogs that can fulfill my niche.
Well, Mr. Dave and I have been known to disagree. And while I can respect the demands on his time, I couldn’t disagree more with his conclusion.
This was my verbatim response:
Sadly there is no other local blog that fulfills your niche. Your keen eye and sense of daring are unmatched by anyone I’ve seen locally. And I’m not one to hand out compliments.
I mean if it wasn’t for you I never would have tried that green minty shake at McDonalds, the eggnog shake at Stewarts, or have been tempted to try that deep fried burger in Delmar [shudder]. I’m going to wait on that last one until I’m truly despondent.
Please let me know should you get the itch to start writing again. Even if you don’t have the energy to deal with a blog of your own, I would be honored to put up one of your stories as a guest post on the FLB.
While this is a loss, it is not terribly surprising since just a few months ago Mr. Dave announced that the Ridiculous Food Society was going to have a bit of a hiatus. As it turned out, the hiatus was a good bit shorter than expected. But still, it was evident that Mr. Dave had been questioning his commitment to the blog for a while.
The surprising part was to see that the entire blog was taken down.
And to me, that is tragic.
Mrs. Fussy suggested that I link to the Internet Archive. I’ve been told that nothing on the Internet ever dies. Data is persistent. Nothing can be erased. Nothing really goes away. It’s like Cocoon.
But amazingly I couldn’t find The Ridiculous Food Society anywhere on the archive. And I only found one page in the Google cache. For those who missed out on this unique local blog, I did happen to stumble onto a content aggregator that has captured the last month of Mr. Dave’s posts, but without their corresponding photos.
At least it is something.
Hopefully Mr. Dave sticks around and continues to read some of these local food blogs. He’s been an invaluable help for me, as an outsider, in trying to understand the culinary landscape of my new home. And seriously, I have to try that deep fried hamburger at Swifty’s in Delmar. The picture he posted just looked too damn good to pass up. I’ll just make sure to do it after my next round of blood work.
Nobody could tempt me into eating foul and disgusting things like that man.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
This is indeed sad and terrible news. I for one looked forward to each and every new entry on Mr. Dave’s blog. I hope he is reading these comments and realizes just how much his blogging will be missed, and hope that he will change his mind. Until then, I’ll have to get my daring acts of culinary mischief on my own, be it watching Andrew Zimmern, or trying something truly unique from the Asian markets, or other venues, but it will be few and far between.
Sobbing in my bacon flavored food.
llcwine
My heart is breaking :(
I’m truly sad that the Ridiculous Food Society is no more. It was one of the few blogs that I checked(stalked is more like it) everyday. I hope that Mr. Dave will reconsider his decision and rejoin the blog-o-sphere some day. There really is no other blog like it for the Capital Region.
Since this is not the first (or second) time Mr. Dave has decided to quit blogging altogether, I’d say that leaving the link available is a good idea.
Mr. Dave is missed when he leaves, but I never really believe him when he says he’s going away forever.
A Mea Culpa-
Kerosena, have you been talking to my wife? She said the same thing. However, you are wrong with one of your assumptions…
Daniel, I am not being facetious when I say that I was truly touched by your concern for my whereabouts when I closed up shop. In fact, you (and a couple others) are pretty much responsible for the future blogging endeavors that I have decided on.
Let me start by saying, the Ridiculous Food Society is gone forever! However, I decided it was a little unfair to let all of those old posts die with the blog.
I have started a new blog. I can’t promise that I will be maintaining the same topic and focus as before, or even that I will be posting regularly, but it is there. All of the old posts can be found at this new location, and you can read more in depth about my decision to 86 the Ridiculous Food blog.
I know I am getting really annoying with all of this, but again, I am always flabbergasted by the concern and well wishes of others. I think we may have gone and created a little community of sorts (even though many of us have never met). Anyhow, this is the new digs.
http://www.ladygiblet.com
As the editor of the aforementioned aggregator website, I’d just like to say that only by dint of sheer awesomeness did the Ridiculous Food Society make it into our blogroll. The idea was to collect just blogs from our area in the Catskills and blogs about Albany politics. But the RFS was too much fun to leave out. It was nice to get the odd deep-fried burger cropping up amid the umpteen posts on budget meltdowns, state parks closing and just how stabby Hiram Monserrate was alleged to be.
We shall read the new one, but the old one shall be missed.
Oh, and thanks for the link, Daniel. Glad to be of service.
I hope Mr. Dave reads this.
To Mr. Dave,
Your blog was refreshing, and truly stood out in terms of Albany blogs. I looked forward to reading your blog after each post, and you will be missed on the Albany Blogging scene. The best to you and yours, in all your future endeavors, and I hope to see you crop up again on the blogging scene in the future.
All the best,
~Erin
Revised after reading Mr. Dave’s comment:
YAY!
I liked his blog fine but it always bothered me that he misspelled “extraordinaire.” He spells it “extrordanaire.” I don’t know why.
I’m sad to see this. I didn’t quite know what to do when faced with the invite only page – is RFS just for friends now? Is it weird for me to ask to me invited? Well, now I know the answer. Sigh. Looking forward to checking out the new gig…
My grandmother died over 20 years ago. Her address and phone number are still in my rolodex.
Don’t erase the link till you’re ready, Profusser.
Thanks, Mr. Dave for making the blog available again. Although it won’t be new anymore, it will still be entertaining for time to come.
WOW. For the past week I’ve been clicking on Mr. Dave’s blog, hoping it wasn’t gone for good!
I moved to Albany almost 2 yrs ago and have been faithfully reading Mr. Dave’s blog ever since. I have tried many of his listed restaurants & always loved his honest opinions!
Don’t delete the link, keep it for respect!
Thank you for clearing this up Daniel. Mr. Dave – you and RFS will be sorely missed.
Now I see that ladygiblet.com has become invitation-only. How can one get invited? It’s too good a reference work not to have it available!
So glad it came back, even it’s not going to be updated. I haven’t quite finished reading my way through all of the back entries. And Mr. Dave we will happily follow you and read about what ever weird thing you feel like sharing. :) I suspect some of them will still be food related.
Ack! So Lady Giblet is invite only as well?? Please Mr. Dave, just put back up the back entries for the Ridiculous Food Society, even if you don’t want us plebeians to read the new stuff.
I was a faithful reader of RFS even though I have never visited New York. I came across the blog one day while perusing bacon-styled postings and fell in love with the content. I made the bacon rice crispies and thought about making my own sausages. Butter was created in my kitchen because of RFS. It was a lot of fun to read and I told people far and wide about it because it was my favorite food blog to read. I’m very sad that it’s gone.
The deep-fried burger post made the rounds in my office. I loved that post. I’ve also become a salt potato convert thanks to Mr. Dave. Despite my tendency to needle him from time to time, I really miss his RFS blog.
RFS was one of my all-time-favorite blogs. So much goodness (the Bears Steakhouse piece from 2011 was a classic, the church recipe books series, the Stewarts Peanut Butter and Butter roll, and so on). Looks like Lady Giblet is invite only. I hope that changes soon.