My experience with the Straigt Dope was initially similar to Hubzilla’s. As an avid reader of trivia and urban-legend books (i.e. William Poundstone’s Big Secrets series), I ran across both The Straight Dope and More of the Straight Dope in my college’s bookstore about ten years ago. I picked both up, and read them both cover-to-cover within a few days.
I was hooked. I was aware or Cecil’s weekly column, but unfortunately, New Orleans’ alternative weekly paper Gambit did not carry the weekly Straight Dope (still doesn’t AFAIK). Therefore, I wore out Cecil’s first two books over the next three years. Heck, I even had to buy a replacement copy of The Straight Dope, I had worn it out so bad!
So when Return of the Straight Dope came out in 1994, I was thrilled. In that book were the first references to the Straight Dope’s web presence. Incidentally, Cecil’s references to “the Internet” (within his famous answer to “Just what IS a merkin?”) in Return were the first times I had ever heard of the medium.
It took a couple of years before I got a chance to go online myself and check out straightdope.com, but I got around to it eventually. Now I could get a weekly fix! I started just reading the columns and archived questions about two years ago, but stumbled into the forums shortly after. After registering, I went for about a year without posting or participating much (actually, the vBB format was confusing to me as a Net newbie!), but I’ve enjoyed this forum fully since getting back into it again at the beginning of this year.
My Dad has always been a big fan. Growing up, there was a copy of Cecil’s first book that Dad kept in the bathroom (am we alone in the assertion that Cecil’s books make the best bathroom reading?). Found out about the website later.
-KillerFig
Around the end of Sept. This year. Through another Net site, but can’t recall which one. It was love at first sight. I don’t know how I could have posted so much in such a short time. Now the thrill is not exactly gone, but I find I post much less & sometimes feel a little down when no topics interest me. I still think this is the best message board.
I stumbled across Cecil’s first book in a bookstore. I’ve been addicted ever since. The Staight Dope does make excellent bathroom reading material. I’ve also had to buy the first Straight Dope book three times. Loaned out to people, and they never came back.
I used to read the SD in the Washington, DC “City Paper” back in the mid-to-late '80’s. After I moved out west in 1990, I never saw it in print. It wasn’t in any of the newspapers, and I sorta forgot about it.
A few months ago, my company went on the net, so I started spending my down-time surfing instead of playing Free Cell and Minesweeper. One day I had the random thought, “I wonder if the Straight Dope” is still around?". I did a search, and here I am!
First picked up the SD in the L.A. Reader, and followed it religiously. Got rather disappointed when the Reader folded/spindled/mutilated itself and lost the SD, but with the Internet, I got back on the wagon and picked up the boards as a new addiction.
discovered cecil in the early 80’s in these things they used to call “the papers”. i think they were made with stone and chisel, anyway, read the colums for years, then got heavy into these thick things called “books”. they are great. after you read them, you can use them for pressing flowers or proping open the chicken coop door.
my wife brought home this little black box full of pixies, sprites and demons. its called “web tv”. after months of porno sites where i saw stuff i hadn’t even thought of doing with farm animals, i eventually got around to searching for my long lost uncle cecil, and here i am.
i am a computer neantrathal, and don’t know how to do all the fancy stuff the rest of you guys do, so my posts are usually pretty lame
I read my first SD in an alternative paper in Denver in the early Eighties. From then on, I’d always be sure to pick up the alternative papers whereever I traveled to see if they carried it. A few years later, I noticed the local library had both SD books in the trivia/interesting facts section. I discovered the website through Yahoo shortly after I got online, and it quickly became part of my weekly, then daily, routine.
I didn’t pay any attention to the boards until “Threadspotting” came along. Gradually I became more interested, and eventually was wishing I could come up with something useful or intelligent to contribute so I could de-lurk. But since that never happened, I went ahead and de-lunked anyway on Ham Pancakes: Cowboys love 'Em!.
I used to watch the TV show whenever I happened to catch it while flipping through the channels. One day while surfing I remembered it and typed in “The Straight Dope” in a search engine and Voila! Here I am.
Back in our shoplifting days, when I was 14 or 15, my sister and I picked up a few paperbacks from the used book store downtown. One of those books happened to be the first Straight Dope book…we were hooked!!! Could never find the column in any of our papers, so we just read the book over and over. Decided to actually invest some money in the others that came down the pike, and have bought several for friends, too.
Found the original message board on AOL and have been around ever since.
This is pretty bizarre, actually. When I was in New Orleans one time, I picked up a bottle of roll-on Absorbine Jr[sym]Ô[/sym]. I let a friend of mine use it not long ago for a sore back. Later, she also came down with a sore elbow and wanted to buy some, but couldn’t find any here locally. So, she started searching the net for places to buy it online.
In one of her searches, she came up with a link to the Straight Dope archive with information about the history of Absorbine Jr.[sym]Ô[/sym], and forwarded it to me. I thought it looked like a really interesting site, so I clicked on the other links, browsed around a bit, and eventually found the message board.
My SD enlightenment also started at a local paper (comes out every seven days) that carried the column. Last year my roommate tried to get me hooked, but I didn’t enjoy sitting in front of the computer for copious amounts of time. Then in the spring I had a desk job with a lot of down time, so he suggested that I check out the archives again. I got hooked and read the site all summer until a threadspotting brought me along to the boards. Now I can’t get away.
I don’t believe I’d ever even HEARD of Cecil Adams before I joined. Catalyst had passed on some posts to me for amusement. I was interested, and quickly joined. I didn’t even realize the magnitude of the scope the SD possessed courtesy of Cecil Adams until months after I began my SDMB enlightenment.
I followed a link from Snopes. I got to Snopes from following a link on a Lois and Clark message board. I can’t remember where i found that particular link, I’ve been going to that board for so long…
I did a search on Google for Elmer Mccurdy, who was an Oklahoma outlaw who got mummified and ended up as a fairground exhibit and other various posthumous (did I spell that right?)adventures. I did this after I watched a BBC documentary about him and I was very intrigued.
Google directed me to Straightdope.com which had one of Cecil Adams’ columns about it (and I spent about 2 days reading through them all!) and from there it was only a click to the message boards!
And wow, I got kinda addicted and I never stopped looking! And I managed to recruit someone to post here! but he only posted 8 times, he says that the board is too big and he can’t be bothered to keep up with it. I don’t have a problem with this myself, as I have no life whatsoever. Yay!
me too, on both counts and i found the board after about two or three months of reading the archives. then, when i got to near the bottom of the page, i found threadspotting, and Fenris’s soul-selling thread led me to the SDMB. [sappy mode]i owe it all to Fenris![/sappy mode]
