Yet another vote for bored.com.
It was just another boring day at university. Until I found this place.
Then it was just another boring day at university, but at least I had something interesting to read 
Followed it from AOL. Still would like to see Cecil’s throbbing brain on the front page.
I think I was googling around for info on magnetic therapy as research for an article for Newswriting and Reporting. I found the Straight Dope piece about it, and in fairly short order probably read every SD piece online. A while later, I clicked on the Message Board link.
I used to watch the TV show. I liked it, but eventually forgot about it. Then, when I was a sophomore in college I saw a link to one of Cecil’s columns on the front page of AOL. Remembering the TV show, I clicked on the link. I read the entire archives that day. Then I noticed the message board.
That was in October 1997.
I’m fascinated by the number of times this topic comes up. Maybe they should make a sticky.
That and “How did you get your DoperName?”
Same-same, it just took me longer to get curious. I typed double-u double-u double-u straightdope dot com into my browser’s URL window… and here I am.
I was doing a search for “Who wrote the Bible?” (settling a debate) and you-know-who had all the answers! (well, sorta) Anyway, saw the message boards and now I’m hooked. 
(I mostly just lurk though)
Someone else has issues with groundhogs?!? That’s not what brought me here, but it certainly would have.
Actually, I didn’t personally find this site. My sister showed me the Straight Dope. Not sure how she came upon it though…
I saw something on PBS that didn’t seem quite right, and while searching the net to get to the bottom of things happened to stumble across one of Cecil’s articles. I ended up reading pretty much the entire archive over the next few days, and read the columns regularly after that. For a long time all I did was read the columns and mail bag articles (now staff reports), then eventually I started following the message boards as well.
I was shopping in a bookstore, & saw a copy of The Straight Dope in paperback, first printing.
I had never heard of Cecil Adams.
I read 1 column.
I was hooked, & bought it, and later, the rest of the Canon.
Then, Web access!
The first place I looked for was a Straight Dope site.
I surfed here even before I looked for porn for the first time!
I was, well still am, planning a move to Chicago. I was looking for general information, apartment costs etc, and having a hard time with the Trib site. An IRL friend who used to live in Chicago told me, “Forget the Trib, check out the Chicago Reader.”
The Reader Site does have lots of info, and is certainly easier to use, but I’m hardly ever there, because that site directed me to this one.
~S
I found the Straight Dope in a Berkeley alternative paper while working there, that’s were I read the classic: “Is it true a duck’s quack won’t echo?”:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_071.html
Then, a year later, one coworker sends me some faxlore (e-mailore, to keep with the times) that had that subject with the line:
“and no one knows why!!” :rolleyes:
I just had to reply! And after some goggling, I got Cecil’s Column. My coworker actually appreciated the find! :Sigh:, I miss those guys, typically in other places you would get stares like if you were a kitten killer when one slays a cherished “fact” of them.
I found the message boards then also, and I was a lurker for several years. After leaving Berkeley, I missed the great impromptu debates of Sproul plaza*, so I became a member.
*Moped the floor with the ass of some libertarians and fire and brimstone preachers in several encounters, one of the reasons why I joined was to some day describe those head butts, I will get to that some day.
Me too. There’s How did you find the SDMB?, How did you end up here?, So how’d you get here?, and Who or What turned you on to The Dope?, to name just a few.
As for me, I was looking up some silly trivia question for my brother, and the search engine turned up an entry in the Straight Dope Archives. I looked the place over very excitedly for a few days, then checked out the message board link and found that I was home at last.
Never been to Chicago.
Never heard of the Reader (forgive me, I beg).
I was travelling through SE Asia, in a second hand bookstore, in Bangkok, the kind with maybe two shelves of english language titles, read my first Straight Dope book, over night,and I loved it.
Shamelessly traded it in for half back toward another book and continued merrily along the trail.
Couple of years later, I find myself in very similar circumstances, only now I’m in Kathmandu, what do I spy but yet another Straight Dope book, which I snatch up immediately.
But also traded the next day for half back and another book, ooops.
Couple of more years pass, one day, I’m back home, really bored on line just surfing about aimlessly really.
And then it came to me, like a flash of lightening in the night sky.
I couldn’t remember Cecil’s last name, but fortunately whenever I travel I keep a journal/scrapbook in which I keep track of the books I read, since I’m always trading them back.
But ever since being exposed to that first book, I 'd been accumulating questions, where ever I was travelling. The thinking was, if I ever meet this Cecil fellow I’d have something to talk to him about.
So when I finally came stumbling in I had a couple of questions along the lines of;
Why does Bolivia have a navy?
Why does Machu have only one c when Picchu has 2 ?
It sounds mighty silly now, but that’s exactly how I got here.
Idiot checking in.
Funny thing, **Lobsang ** was the first to reply to that thread. But he’s lying–he’s no moron. And I know the Isle of Man is not the same thing, but I still wonder if The Isle of Wight is a scary place?
I’m here because…
This is the truth. I don’t remember how I got here. I have problems with my memory.
I was another another much smaller forum for years. It was a “spiritual” forum and full of some of the meanest people I have ever met. So I became a renegade.
And the next thing I know someone is asking me how I got here.
My sister emailed me that there was a site that had the correct lyrics to “Louie, Louie”. I called her on such bullshit and checked out her site.
The site was the Straight Dope. So then I wandered over here to the SDMB. My sis? Nope, she’s never even visited the message board. (We DON’t want here here, believe me.) She’s even more of a radical than Zoe ! :eek:
I was looking for the three words that end in ‘gry’, and ended up here.
EnderW24 got me involved.
I’ve never really read Cecil’s column.