My Name Is Dave

I hate to sound so disconsolate today - it's a word, I looked it up - but there has been another great loss in the blogosphere. And, with all due respect to my other friends who have decided to retire, this one really hit me like a sack of doorknobs. For on Friday, Dave at Garfield Ridge officially hung up his keyboard.

If you're a blogger and decide to check out his farewell post, be forewarned: after I finished reading, I was ready to quit, too. He makes some very convincing arguments concerning retirement.

But first, a tribute.

The best way I can explain Dave - "Dave." Imagine my gall, since I have never met the man - is in the use of a Seinfeld reference. Do you remember the episode where Jerry inadvertently lost Babu Bhatt's visa renewal application? In it, George was dating Cheryl Fong, an Asian lawyer who thought Costanza was as funny as I am.

*Crickets*

Any hoo, there was an exchange between Jerry and George about being funny:

George: Maybe you don't have to be so funny. I mean, would it kill you not to be so funny all the time? That's all I'm asking. This woman thinks I'm very funny. Now you're gonna be funny, so what am I gonna be? I'm gonna be a short bald guy with glasses who suddenly doesn't seem so funny.
Jerry: I don't have to be funny, I don't care.

George: You don't?

Jerry: No way! It's completely under my control.

Elaine: No, it's not. You cannot not be funny.

And there it is. Dave cannot not be funny. Whether he's posting about his awesome trip to the set of Battlestar Galactica, or his routine flight home to D.C., he is always funny. It is something to which I have always aspired . . . pretty much without success, I might add. No other blogger has influenced me quite as Dave has, and I mean that in a good, non-Boy Scout Leader way. My Q&A is a direct rip-off of his Garfield Ridge Post Office, I utilize the phrase "Avenge me!" often, and I think dirty, stinking apes are funny.

To say he is a true giant in this industry is a gross understatement. At 32, he has written more interesting posts than I will by the time I have reached the age of 99. And, although he is my younger by six years, I have always looked up to him as a sort of blog big brother. Yet, he thinks of himself and his blog as a "character actor, 'the J.T. Walsh of the blogosphere.'"

Cripes, if he is a "character actor," then I am the second assistant key grip.

It is with a heavy heart that I place the (RET) next to Garfield Ridge. Like my other retired blog friends, I will not remove the link, because there is way too much funny over there that people have not seen. And believe me, it needs to be seen.

Thank you so very much for the constant entertainment, Dave. I am truly honored to be one of the many bloggers singled out in your pre-retirement "Thank You" post. Godspeed sir!