With all these older members coming back and great reunions happening, it’s made me think back to when I first came to this board. After lurking and reading posts for about two or three days, I signed up and made a topic that read: “This message board doesn’t insult my intelligence.”
Does anyone else remember what the title was of the first topic they made on here? What was it?
It was called “The Straight Dirt?” I was asking about the urban legend that the average person inhales one pound of dirt per year in his sleep.
No idea. Search tells me that it’s macroevolution observed in bacteria?. It’s interesting that all the posters in that thread are still members, given how long ago it was.
The title? No. The subject was something about dogs not recognizing themselves in a mirror not because they can’t see in 2 dimensions, but because a mirror doesn’t transmit smell.
It wasan absolutely brilliant rebuttal to The Perfect Master, way far back in the AOL days, that never got a single damn reply. Or, possibly, since it was dial-up AOL, got lost in the ether and no one else ever got to read my masterwork. <sob>
I remember because I had been lurking for a while and finally signed up so I could try to get an answer to a question that had preying on me for years: What is the equivalent of the phrase “being nickeled and dimed to death” (meaning to be hit with small fees or bills which end up adding up to real money) in countries where the nickel and dime are not units of currency.
I knew it was a thread about McGovern winning in 1972 and who would have served in the cabinet.
Found the thread here.
“Why is the English language so stupid?”
It wasn’t an auspicious start to my time here.
That was a very cool thread, Dalej42–I had the most fun there EVAH!, all because someone gave a wiseass response to your hypothetical premise.
Sure. It was dumb, but I was crushing beer/pop cans that day.
Aluminum can thickness. I wondered if beer cans were thicker than pop cans, theorizing that beer drinkers would be more likely to manly crush their cans than pop drinkers. I don’t think it was resolved.
Mine was a bitch about computer viruses.
Cool. I’d forgotten that my first step on the Dope was in the Pit. And that the very first word I typed was “Fucking.” 
I was trying to find out why an open-faced roast beef or turkey or pork sandwich is called a Manhattan in the Midwest. (The Midwest apparently starts where I live. When I lived 60 miles northeast of here, I never encountered a Manhattan.)
The Dope failed me, alas. But I love y’all anyway.
Errr… no. Still haven’t started a thread.
(I suspect that I’m not alone in this response. Some (perhaps small) percentage of Dopers are introverts, even on line!)
I have a faint recollection of what may have been my first thread. I’m far too embarrassed over said thread’s topic to want to verify this (could be false… I hope) bit of information.
It was asking for advice in learning to ride a bike as an adult. The advice was good: I was rolling a day later and I’ve loved cycling ever since. This summer, I rode my bike across the US.
I think that might be one of the few topics I’ve ever started myself. I get shy about starting them… but I guess when I do, they work.
I think it was a poll about whether people bagged their own groceries. People actually responded!
36[b]5[/b] degrees?
It was about an odd translation (or something) in Journey to the West, it was only a few posts and no one ever got a verdict.
What is “Olay,” as in “Oil of Olay”?
I think the best guess was that it meant “Oil of of milk” (“Oil of au Lait”). Wiki said (says) it was “a spin on lanolin,” but that’s hard to see. Anyway, that was my first topic
The first one I remember starting was asking for travel advice to Australia. Someone replied that Oz was the same size as the US, which really put it in perspective for me. I’ve been a couple of times since–it’s a wonderful place to take a road trip.
Mine was about a Cecil column regarding ni-cad batteries and it was thread #8 on the board!
Yeah, I’m an old-timer.