We have quite the motley collection of geniuses, morons, garden-variety netsurfers and pug fuglies here. How did you get here?
As for me, I first learned of the great works of Cecil Adams at www.lspace.org. One entry of the Annotated Pratchett File mentions both him and the Straight Dope. I went to the website, ordered two of the books, discovered the boards, and in the fullness of time I became a member here.
Moron checking in.
I found it from bored.com
I found bored.com by googling ‘bored’
So boredom is how I got here.
Turn left at Greenland.
I’ve read his books since sometime in the 80s IIRC, and I was surfing one day and thought “hmmm, I wonder if he (Cecil Adams) has a website”. I plugged in www.straightdope etc and there it was.
A year and a half of message board hopping.
I started off at wrestleline.com, left it almost immediately for an EZBoard with some shared members, branched out from there into half a dozen other EZBoards, and was eventually directed here by a friend on one of those boards when we were talking in IMs one night and I complained about not having anything to read.
As far as I know, she never registered here and has just been a sporadic lurker. Shame too… I haven’t seen her in months and would like to catch up. She literally changed my life by pointing me here.
Some friends of mine from an online game used to post here. I can’t remember what usernames, but they were always talking about it, so… here I am.
Google ‘castor oil torture’. Someone mentioned in the college bar something about it being used in torture, I wondered exactly how, then read about half of the columns in a day, and got kinda hooked (although I must admit I am more of a lurker than a poster).
It’s Aguecheek’s fault.
My husband was a doper/lurker for a couple of years and I’d hear him chuckling, sometimes laughing out loud, in his office. I’d ask “what’s funny?” and he’d show me, but I didn’t “get it” for awhile. He eventually brought my attention to a thread about cooking disasters that left my sides aching I was laughing so hard - then I was hooked, although I am much more a lurker than doper. The dopers are a very creative and truly amusing bunch o’ folks.
I came from a link that someone posted on some other boards that I used to be on. Ok, they were the Left Behind boards - AFAIK, they no longer exist. Someone posted a link there to a thread here, I started lurking and I was hooked. I quit going there at all shortly after that.
I don’t even remember. I’ve been lurking since Scylla was battling the groundhogs.
I got involved with an EverQuest messageboard for a while. Even after I stopped playing the game, I’d still post there, as they had an interesting science fiction/fantasy discussion board. Unfortunetly, it got over-run with munchkins, and I got sick of seeing so many posts that read something like “tolkeen was so borng he shud have more dark elfs like drizt in his next book”
About that time, Fox aired its infamous Apollo Moon Hoax “documentary,” which a few of my friends swallowed a bit to readily, and I started looking around the web for ammo for our next argument. That’s how I found www.badastronomy.com, and a link to a thread discussing the TV show on the boards here. It was pretty cool: a messageboard where people could discuss any subject under the sun reasonably, intelligently, and with incredibly hilarious profanity. I lurked for a while, posted once in GD and got yelled at, and have been hooked ever since.
So, if you want to know who to blame for me being here, blame Phil Plait. It’s all his fault.
I typed in useless information on a serch engine, which popped up bored.com, and I found The Straight Dope from that.
I was skimming the internal message boards at the university where I work and someone cited an archived Cecil column. I linked over to it and got hooked on Cecil. One day I was bored (as seems to be a common denominator here), so I started reading the boards. It didn’t take long before I joined. 
But my timing sucked. I found the boards right at the end of the introductory subscription fee. I thought I would I would get bored with the boards, so I let that expire and ended up paying full price. :smack: Money well spent even so. 
Followed a link from a porn site. Seriously. (No, I’m not elaborationg 
)
I read Cecil’s articles in our local alternative rag. Then, one day, I decided I wanted to ask a question of the Perfect Master, and went looking for a website where I could do that. “Message Boards” it said on the main screen. “Hmm,” said I, “I wonder what that’s all about.”
About 5 years ago we got our first computer, Sympatico gave us a thingmy with a free internet disk, and a booklet of useful web sites (wait for it). Fast forward to Febuary this year, we finally get internet. After a couple of months of usage I rediscover the booklet when cleaning some garbage out of my room. Paging through the book I discovered this: “Why do Kamakazee pilots where helmets. This answer and many more at www.straightdope.com” And that is how I discovered the SD.
I saw a preview for the TV show my sophmore year of college (waaaaayyy back in '96-97) with Mike Lukas, and ended up getting hooked on the show. Next thing leads to a nother, and I’m on the website. Lurked for a few years or so, then finally signed up for the new non-AOL website in 2000.
Tripler
I just missed them AOL days by >>this<< much.
Karmagun, an infrequent poster, and friend IRL told me about it. One day he’ll do a vanity search and discover my user name. Ciao Danny!