How Did You Find SDMB?

[Canadagirl]

Yeah, sure, you get on your computer and *poof*, voila, you just decide to type in www.straightdope.com, and you think, oh that's cool, I think I'll try it. Yeah right. What's your story? How did you find SDMB and start your doping experience?

Oh yeah, for me I think I was searching for something on Google and some post came up in my search...

[Pelleas]

I don't know what happened to my first attempt at a response so I'll try again. Hope it doesn't wind up being a double post.

Anyhow, my son turned me on to the SDMB a couple of years ago and I lurked untill this past December. When he was home for Christmas he told me he was registered so I decided to register as well.

Even though I am a new poster myself I suppose it is acceptable for me to welcome you to the boards Canadagirl.

[Thaumaturge]

Fark.

[Çyrin]

Kwyjibo

[DaddyTimesTwo]

My wife and i watched the TV show, and I got the bright idea to loo for it on the web. It was probably a year or two though before I clicked on the "message board" link, and another year or so till I registered.

[Stephi]

Someone on IRC mentioned the straightdope articles, and I was curious about the message board, so I checked it out.

[Bob55]

A friend pointed me to www.bored.com which has a link to The Straight Dope.

[Shabadu]

Velma let me in on the fun here at SDMB.

[Black Train Song]

From the George Carlin BBS.... someone left a link to (scalia?)s thread about balloons then I read (Fnoonf?)s thread about the car he keyed. THAT was funny! I can't believe the shit some people gave him. I wish people wrote like that all the time.

Anyway, I thought I'd hang around for a while. Welcome ME. I have no idea when one receives official doper status. Doper, where I come from, means pothead.

[Sqube]

A friend of mine bought me the books. I chased the links through the Chicago Reader until I found this place. Then when I realized it was one of the fonts from whence all knowledg flowed, I hopped on the bad foot and did the good thinkg, aka joining it.

[Violet]

Originally posted by Canadagirl
How did you find SDMB and start your doping experience?

From a referral on another board.

[I can't believe that's butter!]

I can't remember really, but I do think it was from the link at bored.

[SylverOne]

I followed a link from the snopes MB... and I just kinda settled in. I do a lot more lurking than I do posting, but this board has provided many a giggle in times of work related boredom.

[Electronic Chaos]

Penny arcade mentioned it in one of thier articles, about the astronomer Tycho Brahe (one of the character's namesake). I found the article interesting and kept reading more and more...then I found the message boards. My geekness factor has since rose exponentially.

[Violet]

Hmm. A triple simultaneous post!

[mouthbreather]

Originally posted by Canadagirl
Yeah, sure, you get on your computer and *poof*, voila, you just decide to type in www.straightdope.com, and you think, oh that's cool, I think I'll try it. Yeah right.

"Yeah right" actually is right in my case. I read all of Cecils books and tried the URL on a whim.

[Troy McClure SF]

Yep, I read the books, watched the show, and then... I searched the web. Four years later, I'm still here.

[LifeOnWry]

I just moved the baked potato over to one said and there it was!






Ok, no, seriously. I saw the TV show, then a few days later found a link on a friend's website and the rest is history. Or, I dunno, maybe it's geography.

[Zenham]

I finally listened to those damn voices in my head.


Uhm, it was the blimp story, passed along by a friend (before it hit the mainstream, even).

[LifeOnWry]

Originally posted by LifeOnWry
I just moved the baked potato over to one said and there it was!

One SIDE.

[Loopus]

My university's student newspaper ran an editorial of fun stuff to do on the web. I guess it was a slow news day. Anyway, one of the websites mentioned was the Straight Dope. I checked it out for some reason, and enjoyed Cecil's writing style so much that I read nearly all of his columns in the ensuing month or so. I finally clicked on the message board link for some reason, and enjoyed the board so much I signed up right away. I was expecting to get bored with it soon, as I had never stuck around at any message board very long.

Over a year later, I'm still here.

[samarm]

Originally posted by LifeOnWry
[BI saw the TV show, then a few days later found a link on a friend's website and the rest is history. Or, I dunno, maybe it's geography. [/b]

Hmm.. I think it's more like Trigonometry.

I can't remember exactly how I found the SDMB. I was just googling some stuff and a site had a link to it.

[zoogirl]

I actually started a thread on my first post, as soon as I found the Board.

I got curious about whatever happened to Buddy's Holly's kid, the one his wife was carrying when he died. (Miscarried, btw.)
I stuck something to the effect of "Buddy's Holly's Child" into a search engine, (MSN?), and it kicked me to the Dope.

Now, I love trivia and I REALLY love second hand books, so of course I had a Straight Dope book. When I realized what the site was, my mind went "PING! Oh, COOL!!".

Been here ever since!

[Soup_du_jour]

An article by Cecil (Why Doesn't Water Burn) was used as a handout in my junior year of high school biology class. I followed it to the webside, and then to the boards.

[Shana]

Celyn told me about it.

[S. Mussberger]

There was this big atheism vs. religion clash on a messageboard for football. A very well spoken organised user kept refering to the SDMB.

I finally checked it out and got stuck...

[jackelope]

I used to read the Straight Dope column in the Memphis Flyer, our free weekly here. I'd always notice that there was a Web site mentioned in the shirttail of the columns. So one day I checked out the site and got interested. I browsed the columns at random, always finding something interesting. I forget why I checked out the message boards the first time. Maybe it was the "comment on this column" link at the bottom of one of the columns. I'd never seen a message board, and wasn't much interested, but checked it out long enough to get hooked. For my first six months or a year, though, I don't think I ever ventured outside MPSIMS.

I lurked for a week or so, but not for very long because I make a habit of rushing headlong into things I know nothing about.

[phraser]

It's all Maxxxie's fault!

She got me into it one night while we were chatting on msn...

now i'm addicted.

Is there a Dopers Anonymous? Or is that what this board is for?

[Cougarfang]

I was bored, so I typed in www.bored.com and lo and behold, there was a website at the other end of the URL, so I browsed around and, well, the rest is history.

Actually, I got through all of the archives before I even realized there was a message board. And that was through Threadspotting.

[peepthis]

Followed the smell.

Okay, not really. A site I used to frequent had a link to the main Straight Dope site, where I spent a lot of time reading Cecil's articles; from there I eventually peeked in on the madness on the SDMB.

[Shill]

Hey all...

Delurking for my first post here (hey, it seems appropriate). A couple of years ago I was reading some interview or other with Terry Pratchett, and he mentioned the Straight Dope as one of his sources. On a whim I decided to check out the website, and the rest is history. So can I claim Terry Pratchett introduced me to the boards? I've heard it pays to have connections round here...

Rach

[FairyChatMom]

I first saw the Straight Dope columns in Folio Weekly - the local freebie paper. When we returned to this area, I was surfing, and on a whim, I searched for Straight Dope. Curiosity led me to check out the message boards. Within a month, I registered, and I've been hooked ever since.

[Tristan]

A friend of mine was looking up information on cams and cam gears for his car, and somehow ended up finding a thread on the SDMB. He looked around for a moment, told me to check it out, and resumed his hunt for information.

I posted shortly after that.

I believe it was to ask whether or not I should drink my own pee for a substantial amount of money.

[Morgainelf]

Shagnasty and I were arguing over lunch about the merits of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. He felt compelled to show me a thread he'd started on the subject. I think it was this one:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...threadid=29799

I've been here ever since.

[Gazelle]

I don't remember but I know I found the boards, lurked for quite a while and posted all before reading one of Cecil's columns.

Forgive me, Perfect Master! I have seen the light!

[Avarie537]

I had a question about funeral procession vs. school bus: who stops? Cecil hadn't answered it, so I posted in GQ, and then started wandering around. Been hooked ever since!!

[DasUnterMensch]

I had been reading the column in a local weekly tabloid years before the internet.
A couple of years ago I did a goggle on something and straight dope came up on the search. I've been addicted ever since.

[nitroglycerine]

I read the books long ago, and kind of forgot about them untill I got the OPERA browser. They include a link in the "fun and games" section of the bookmarks. I said "hey, I remember the Straight Dope!" and I've been checking in every day since then.

Jon

[Ryan_Liam]

I found this site through a magazine called 'Frontiers' which has now been wound up <sigh>

[Anita Vacation]

Here's how:

[Anita Vacation]

Oh, and welcome to the boards, Shill.

[Kyla]

I watched the show years ago, and dug it. A while later, AOL had a link to their SD site on their front page. Of course I had to click on it. That was in 1997.

[severin]

I followed a link to THE BLIMP STORY and I was fascinated! ;-)

[montana cricket]

My husband (Echo23tc) had been nattering on about the site and then began to send me links. I read one or two, thought they were funny/good/interesting/angering etc. and started lurking. One day a thread came up that caused me to register and here I am....! Great fun, this!

[peri]

AOL welcome screen, March 1997 => presumed demise of that board => birth of this one

[Ruby]

My husband bought me one of the books on a whim for Christmas. I was totally and utterly hooked from the first page. A bit of searching and I found home.

To this day, my husband shakes his head and says, "I never knew what I was starting."

[tkeana]

I was surfing random LJs and found manhattan's. He made several comments about something called sdmb. I had never seen a message board before, and I was new on LJ. Since then, manny has become one of my most valued LJ friends, and I went to my first dopefest in January. How did I get by so long without it?

[Tusculan]

One night I was at home quietly surfing for porn when I clicked on a picture of a woman offering wild explicit hot hot sex, and suddenly the SDMB popped up and I've not been able to get rid of it ever since. I've already deleted my cookies and cleaned my registry, but still it keeps getting back. Do you guys have any tips?

Okay, I see you're not buying this. The truth is much more boring.

One night I was at home quietly looking for the meaning of the word 'decimate' (which I thought was being abused give its original Roman sense). Among several useless links Google handed me the Word Detective and ol' Cecil. I bookmarked both. For a while the Straight Dope Front Page sat calmly in my favorites, biding its time, while I still bandied around in the wit and wisdom of the Word Detective.

On another fateful night I decided to revisit the Straight Dope Front Page for trying to find a column on some long-forgotten question, and wanted to see what that 'Threadspotting' refered too. Nice, I thought, when reading the thread and surfed on in blithe ignorance.

Little did I realise my fate had already been sealed. The precise circumstances of what follows have never been satisfactorily determined afterwards, but it appears that I somehow caught the Threadspotting for the LOTR satire thread, wasted costly hours perusing that, and afterwards had developed a craving for more. I looked around, found the other forums and threads, lurked for a while in such gems as the Funny things said during sex thread, and succumbed.

I registered. I did not have the presence of mind to first select a cool user name and am henceforth stuck here with the rest of you.

Moral of the day: never click an unknown link.

[Tal]

my friend Cazzle would occassionally mention something to me about some weird conversation she was reading on this message board... she gave me the link to a specific conversation or two but i never really looked beyond that.

One day i was checking out a local rival web design company and they had a site tracker on their site, out of curiosity, i clicked to see where their traffic was coming from.......and there was a link to this thread. I just had to respond to what was said cause it involved me! - one of the webpages Cazzle mentioned as being tacky was one i had redesigned after the post was made (i offered the new improved page to the guy for $20 and told him i'd felt sorry for him having such a horrible website online - he accepted!) - so i registered and posted.....turns out the particular thread had been dead for a while LOL.....anway, never really participated much until the last month i guess...... when i was really bored i'd check in and see if there was anything interested i felt like participating in..... have been here kinda regularly the last couple of weeks

[Sidewinder]

My inaugural reading of SDMB was a link to Scylla's blimp story. I laughed so hard, it hurt. Haven't been able to leave it alone since.