bingOG 2001

Dan Zabel, iwz's uncle, joined eZabel in January 2001 as one of the site's earliest members and brought with him a writing style that was, frankly, magnificent in its absurdity. His signature move was the slow-build extended metaphor that veered wildly off course — most memorably, a sprawling analogy comparing eZabel's near-death experience to the plight of a humble carpenter ant ambushed by a "conniving, calculating, deceptive, much larger, mean, ugly, bright red KILLER ANT," which he recycled in at least two separate comments before anyone could stop him. He wrote 26 comments across a span that peaked in 2001 with 23, and every one of them read like a man who had been waiting all day for an excuse to type something ridiculous. His take on disposable cell phones — that they should be donated to the Humane Society so pets could be litter-trained on the unfolded paper — was delivered with such straight-faced sincerity that felipe could only suggest "doggie diapers" in reply.

Despite his modest comment count, Dan was embedded in the Zabel family network that formed eZabel's backbone — nephew Ian, Ian's wife idme21, Ian's mother aperson, and Ian's father felipe were all on the site. He attended nine events including beach bonfires, go-karting, and the legendary eZabel parties, and he read 183 news articles, which meant he was paying attention even when he wasn't typing. His last comment, in January 2006, informed Ian that he had personally placed the boulder Ian was complaining about, earning iwz's response: "uncle dan, you sir, are a big jerk."

eZabel Personality Type: ENTP — "The Carpenter Ant." Dan wrote like a man dictating a letter to a very confused stenographer — long, winding, punctuated by rhetorical flourishes like "contrawise, thus, thusly and so on" — and he clearly enjoyed every syllable. He was the family elder who showed up early, stayed late enough to leave a mark, and never once wrote a comment that could be described as ordinary.