Blog Master G

It’s fun being a bit of an Internet celebrity. I really miss that part of having my blog be more public and findable by search engines. This week I’ve gotten to relive that exhilarating feeling all over again, thanks to the Chez Sophie saga, which I posted to my blog on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Times Union food critic and blogger Steve Barnes had posted a link to my blog, which drove my usual 30 or so daily visitors up above the 200 mark (nothing, of course, compared with back in the day when my blog got 20,000+ unique visitors per month — ahh, the good ol’ days!). Steve’s post has generated 10 comments so far, and by Friday, my original post had 20+ comments.

Coincidentally, New York Times blogger Pete Wells posted this week about the decline of good customer service in restaurants, and I added a comment with a link to my story.

My first brush with Internet celebritydom was in January 2004 when I got a mention in and link from Wired. I was then dubbed a semi-famous blogger (where’s my Wikipedia entry already, people? 🙂 ).

After moving to Saratoga, my blog was still easily findable, so I made a bit of a name for myself around town and was called a prolific blogger in a Saratogian article.

Then there were the non-blog-related brushes with local fame: appearing on the news during a peace vigil; having the back of my head featured in the Go section; and having my profile shown on the news during Gillibrand’s run for Congress. During the same time, Jen appeared on the front page of the Post Star, and I spotted my Dad’s head on the front page of the Saratogian in a crowd shot of the track.

But I digress. Back to the blog.

I don’t really look too closely at my referring site stats these days, but thanks to spirit’s tip this morning, I woke up to read this most awesome post by Si Punic, Sr. — who’s apparently my new biggest fan — of Little Sour Lemons. The post is all about the Blog Master G love.

I hope you don’t mind, SPS, but I’d like to quote your entry in its entirety here:

I do love me some Blog Master G. Honestly, I do.

First of all, the guy actually gets out around town and, you know, eats at restaurants. And he writes about them.

What’s more, dude is part of a wine club— rock on! And it looks like he has friends.

Add to this that he was bloggy when bloggy wasn’t cool. He uses his real name. And he simply oozes positivity.

*Sigh.* Is this your Earth emotion called blog-envy?

In any event, G.’s latest posts chronicle a customer service nightmare at a recent visit to Chez Sophie. That, plus his letter to the chef-owner, her hysterically spun response, and his further reply. Catch up with the saga now.

G., I salute you. As your blogging pal reminds you, we are everywhere. Too bad, so sad.

What can I say? I’m flattered. Thank you, SPS. You rock.

If I get this much love with an under the radar blog, I can only imagine the level of awesomeness that would be directed my way were I decide to remove that little ol’ robots.txt file.