I found it by searching for lyrics for “American Pie”. Somehow it showed up in the search.
Initially?
My mom gave me the first Straight Dope book as a gift many years ago, so I’ve been a fan for a while. One day I typed “Straight Dope” into a search engine, and here I am.
"How did you find Straight Dope? "
A little pretentious at first, but then I got to like it.
How did I find The Straight Dope? I found it – and still find it – very informative and entertaining. I’ve found it so ever since I started reading it in the L.A. Reader in 1985.
My sister told me about it. After lurking for a little more than a year I got registered.
~Kittie
I was looking for a retail outlet for legally available hashish, and this is where they sent me.
I’m still looking.
Good luck on that, Dr.S. I found the site on http://www.bored.com. Read the columns for a few months and finally found the message board.
I used to read Cecil’s column in the East Bay Weekly and alt paper in the Bay Area. Tried typing Straight Dope into the search engine and voila!
It was recomended to me by one of my co-workers, but it was three or four months before I actually came to look at the message boards.
I found the Straight Dope, oddly enough, at Baylor University (an institution so morally uptight the graffiti in the bathrooms consisted solely of Bible verses) in the summer of 1986. I was browsing the bookstore and found the first book. It was hilarious.
I then followed it in the Dallas Observer, then in the LA Reader. By the time I went on line, I searched for it and found it. And I’ve been here since.
So, yes, I have been a Doper for half my life. (I turned 30 in June.)
Robin
My dad bought the first Straight Dope book for my mom for her b-day when I was 7 or 8. I read it when she was done, and I’ve read all the books he’s put out since. One day I entered Cecil Adams in my search engine and found this page. I lurked for around a year and finally registered. It was sniff the best day of my life! sob,sniff
I found the books while browsing the humor section at my local Barnes & Noble. I opened the first one up to "What does the H in Jesus H. Christ stand for? - The H stands for Harold as in “Our Lord, Harold be thy name.” I’ve never been the same since.
I thought I’d answered this question in a thread before. Apparently not, here are the two I found and I posted to neither them.
I was linked to a thread by a friend on a topice particularly relevant to my life. I didn’t post to that thread, but I started lurking, registered and began posting within a week or so.
See also What brought you here? or How did you hear about the straight dope message board? to find out about some of the other folks who’ve already answered this question.
Abby, your links above aren’t to the threads listed. Here’s the links again, plus a couple more:
[li]How Did You Hear About Staight Dope Message Board?[/li][li]What brought you here?[/li][li]Finding Cecil Adams and The Straigt Dope Message Board[/li][li]What was the first “Straight Dope” column you ever read?[/li]
Jeg elsker dig, Thomas
[sub][sup]Join Team Straight Dope in the fight against cancer![/sup][/sub]
Which should read, of course, “Here are the links again.” <sigh>.
And I replied to the question posed in the OP in both of the bottom 2 linked threads from above.
Jeg elsker dig, Thomas
[sub][sup]Join Team Straight Dope in the fight against cancer![/sup][/sub] **
[/QUOTE]
Another old thread on the subject: What turned you on to Dope?
Yikes, what a mess I made. Thank you for cleaning it up Shayna!
I read the first book in the 80s. A little over a year ago I was trying to explain to a friend of mine about the Illuminati and mentioned that Cecil Adams also used it as a running gag. I hit the net to see if I could find the book or if there was an online forum of SD stuff.
I then found the regular site. After a few visits I noticed Threadspotting and would review the stuff if the topic looked interesting enough.
Then one day I saw this banner ad that said something like “WallyM7 has passed away.” I’d read some of his threads and thought he was really cool. When I followed the link into the goodbye thread, my big tough anarchist misanthropic goth boy self was crying like a little girl with a skinned knee.
I knew if a group of people could wax so eloquently about the passing of a friend most of them never met in the “real” world, and that if they could get me crying and laughing at the same time like that, this was about as close to Callahan’s Place as I was likely to find, and I signed up not long after.
RalfCoder - he would on occasion point me to a particularly hilarious thread and I would drop in to read - when he posted my story about the pink jeep I decided to join in the madness…
No problem, Abby. [hijack] - did you get my email about how to upload your screenprinted images? [/hijack]
Here’s another old thread to peruse on the subject…