Someone posted this site at another board I frequent. (May I say that it is customerssuck.com?)
It was quite a while ago but I only started coming here regularly last week. By the way, I want to thank Arnold Winkelreid for getting my access code straightened out so I can post. Yay!
I’ve gotta third www.bored.com
I happened across a book called Return of the Straight Dope at a bookstore, bought it, read it, liked it. Ended up tracking down the two previous books (The Straight Dope and More of the Straight Dope), as well as the later ones when they came out. One of them mentioned www.straightdope.com, which at the time didn’t have any message boards…but I later ended up with a free month of AOL, which I used to access the AOL message board. I ended up keeping the AOL account (under the BYOA option) just to read the boards. After a few months of that, AOL and the SD parted ways and the MB here was created. I immigrated over and finally got to cancel the lousy AOL account.
I actually first heard of the Straight Dope from the TV show, which I saw once when I was about 7 or 8. (I’m 16 now.) About a year ago, I was bored and the “Straight Sope” just sort of rose from the fog of memory. I googled, I found, I lurked, and here I am.
(Because of the host of the TV show, who had a shaved head, I have pictured Cecil as being totally bald ever since. I also think of him as a “reclusive genius,” because they used the phrase on the show. I remember they did the question about rats in the toilet. Ick.)
I was looking for an answer to a question my mom had about Jacob’s Ladder. When I googled it, up came the Straight Dope. I’ve been here ever since.
BTW, I never did find the answer I was looking for.:eek:
I had a question, I asked a friend, she asked me if I’d asked Cecil.
Who?
…and here I am
I don’t know where I heard of Straight Dope, but I originally signed up for the mailing list by accident (for some reason I confused it with News of the Weird). I eventually figured out it was not, in fact, NotW, but in doing so I browsed the site and stumbled upon the message board. Kinda, weird, huh?
My husband sent me a link to the Shroud of Turin column on AOL about a hundred years ago.
When I was child, so many years past (I’m thinking when I was maybe in the 6-9 yr range… I’m now 19), someone gave my Dad the first (I think) Straight Dope book as a Christmas (I think) gift. Being rabid for anything to read, I read the whole thing cover to cover (I was very confused by a lot of it, especially the stuff in the S-E-X chapter… “oral sex? Whazzat?”). I still have it, beat all to hell, cover missing, pages dog-eared, somewhere in my room at home. Then… again with the www.bored.com … Saw the link there, went, “Hey, I remember this stuff!” and practically lived at this site for the next few days. Didn’t really check out the MB for quite a while, though I checked back to the site frequently, then a Threadspotting caught my eye, I browsed and lurked a little, then finally joined. Hoorah!
There was a link on the AOL welcome screen for the SD. I clicked it and read the archives for a really long time, and then discovered the message board. It was an awesome board. Eventually AOL and the Straight Dope parted ways, so now, here I am!
I was a fan of Cecil’s column in the City Paper when I was a young lass of 22 or so in Baltimore. Got the internet when I was, oh, 33. Couple of years ago, found Straight Dope on the internet, started using it as default home page. I started reading Threadspotting, and lurking that way, about 2 years ago. But my little one (who will be 3 in a couple of weeks) was too young for me to really spend much time in front of my puter. Finally, a few months back, after telling hubby something hilarious from Threadspotting, he said “Oh, just register!” I did, and I’ve never regretted it!
I saw the show, so I bought a book. I liked the book so I eventually searched for a webpage. Found it. When I was here, I saw a threadspotting thread about people’s idiosyncrasies - I found it fascinating! So I looked further into the boards and signed on.
My sister and brother were into it, and they showed it to me. I liked it a lot so I signed up and haven’t left.
xash got me started off… I was an on-again-off-again lurker for a year or so before I actually registered…
What, nobody’s run with this?
Look, strange women lying in ponds distributing addresses is no basis for a system of administration. I mean, you can’t go around proclaiming yourself a moderator just because some watery tart threw a link at you! 
As for me, another SDMB member I knew online from elsewhere introduced me to this place. I was hooked in on the day I signed up for an account so that I could post in this thread:
If Shakespeare Wrote C++
I also found it because of the tv show. Basically all I remember about the show was that it was called The Straight Dope and I liked it and it came on some obscure channel really late at night. The only question I remember them doing is “Why are barns red?” and I don’t even remember the answer.
When I found the website I read every single article in the archives about 2 or 3 times before going anywhere near the message boards. I was afraid of anything I posted getting lost in an army of l33t kids postings but to my surprise this turned out to be the most mature and well moderated message board I had ever seen (and still is.)
:: reads Monstre’s post ::
:: checks watch ::
:: kicks self ::
[sub]Nertz. Late again.[/sub]
Me pop and I are big fans of the Dope books, and other related “obscure explanation/debunking” type reading materials.
Have to confess, though, that I completely missed/forgot all mention of a URL in the books themselves, and stumbled across the site on a link from Fark. The featured Threadspotting (which I confess I cannot now remember) cracked me up, and lead to my registration.
So blame Drew. 
I believe I got here through a link from fark.com. One of the very first threads that I dicovered was TMI. 
I just had to stick around after that.
Cisco nailed it. This is far and away the best message board I’ve ever seen. I hope to be here for a long time (even though I mostly just lurk…with all of the extremely bright and knowledgeable people here it can be a bit intimidating at times).
Bored and browsing (like now really), I stumbled across it from a link when I was looking up urban legends, lurked for a while, and then registered. And pretty much went back to lurking.
I came by bicycle.
What?