It might have been from something like this. 1 lb 1.3" thick book. I went looking for it a while back and came to the conclusion I threw it out. Bummer!
I used to read Cecil’s column in a local freebie paper. Then one day in 2000, I decided to Google “Straight Dope.” Simple as that.
I’m not hooked. I can quit any time I want to. Really.
I saw The Straight Dope television show circa 1996 and rushed to join circa 1999.
Wow! I love that so much.
I had never heard of the books or the Chicago Reader, and I had never participated, at any level, in a message board. I came across the Boards in a Google search about who knows what. I lurked for a while amazed by the constant flow of funny, fascinating, infuriating material. Then someone asked for advice on quitting smoking and, thinking that I had the perfect advice, I joined and began posting.
I love every one of these answers so so much.
Someone asked a stupid question in a thread on the That Home Site / gardenweb forum, and they were directed here. I came for Ask the Gay Guy*. Of course, I stayed.
*phrasing
Hey, don’t leave out us total dipsticks!
I used to read the Straight Dope column in the Austin Chronicle free newspaper back in the 80s and early 90s. After I left Austin in the mid-90s I somehow found the website running the column. I read the columns on the website weekly. Eventually I clicked on the “Message Boards” link. I lurked on the boards for a year or more, before finally having a question that seemed important enough to join so I could ask it. That was December 2003.
Irony is I check the board nearly every day. I can’t remember the last time I read a column.
I think @Mangetout, @TriPolar, and @Gfactor are still active from that original very short thread.
I found the main Straight Dope columns site when I did a search* on a question it had an answer to (I think it was the Kemosabe / Tonto / Lone Ranger one) and started visiting semi-regularly. Somewhere along the line I read the SDMB too. It was many months before I finally signed up, when people started asking questions about New Zealand, where I grew up, so I could offer some insight.
*I was going to say ‘googled’ but I think this was pre-Google
I didn’t know that was a thing. I would of have watched it.
The books led me to the column. The column led me to pose a question via email. I received a response directing me to this message board. I procrastinated for months (years?) then signed up with a random username (flowbark), thinking I wouldn’t stick around for long. It took forever for me to update my username; I thought of a better one a day later. Currently this is my pseudoanonymous handle across the internet. (Follow me on twitter-X, Bluesky, Mastodon.social and urusai.social if you like anime/manga.) 30,000 posts later, here I am.
I seem to recall that my first post asked for a citation. 
The columns, written for the alternative press, are erudite but contain humor. That tone transferred to this message board.
I got my first internet connection from Roadrunner, and it came with a very useful guide to the internet; there were sections on what the WWW was, how to set up email, nettiquette, Usenet, etc. It was actually a rather thoughtful and useful booklet, and at the end, there was a list of recommended starter sites to visit which included the SDMB. I was already familiar with the Straight Dope books, so I jumped right in!
(Another site I remember from that list was Memepool (Wiki article—the site no longer exists). That site steered me towards a lot of internet content that turned out to be classic (for certain definitions of classic), like All Your Base Are Belong To Us, Homestar Runner etc.)
That was my buddy @Tripler actually. We look so much alike people often confuse us. Hint: he’s taller and better looking.
Oops, sorry about that. I’m going to blame a bug in the “Straight Dope Dark” color theme. When I @ someone, the selected name is colored with \textcolor{white}{\colorbox{lightblue}{white text on a light blue background}}, and I can barely read it.
I used to pick up the Chicago Reader on my way home from work, and enjoyed Cecil’s column. For some reason the place I usually got it from didn’t have it one week, and after a little online searching I found not only the Reader but also the Straight Dope message board. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Found a book on a bench in an airport. The Straight Dope.
Read it til my flight was called. Left it sitting there. Another woman boarding thought I left my book and brought it to me on board.
Well, I was stuck with it.
Fell in love with @Cecil_Adams.
Now we’re a thing. We talk secretly. Man can do some talking, lemme tell you…
And gifts! Oh my!
Before I had a computer I was a student in Chicago and got a copy of The Chicago Reader, which had the Dope as a newspaper column. Ah, those were the days. The first column I read was “Is it true that male pigs have a corkscrew shaped penis?”
When computers became a thing, and I finally got one, I looked for the SD and found it. I have been here since December of 1999,
I was a big fan of “Underground Newspapers”…
… back in the late '90s, just reading an independent paper counted as Sticking It To The Man. And I just loved Cecil’s column, so when we got our first PC (a Mac Cube), I finally got to type in the web address, and found The Dope.
I spent almost a decade just lurking. And I highly recommend it. Listening was good for me. And I got to learn how to hang out with people smarter (and, maybe as a result, ‘leftier’) than I was.
And I had more free time than I do now, when I’m responding to threads.