Huh, I put linked by a search, but that isn’t the total truth.
11 years ago (Feb 29 2000) I was home off work with a perforated eardrum. (Same ailment, different decade for me right now) An on-line friend and I were chatting about starting a magazine and I had this vague idea of doing a smart ass column where people ask crazy questions and I answer them. It reminded me of…something…I remembered a column in the Montreal Mirror like that. A bit of searching and I found the Straight Dope On Line and joined up.
So, really it was the column, but I hadn’t read the column in about 9 years when I searched for the SD online.
I found the books first - back in 1987 or 88. Then the focus of my existence became the weekly column. At the time I was working within a block of the Reader offices on Illinois Street so I eagerly pounced as soon as the column came out every week. Once Al Gore invented the Interwebs it was only a matter of time until I joined up.
I ended up lurking for a while before joining up in 2005.
Started reading the column in Isthmus, the alternative paper in Madison, WI, when I was in college at the University of Wisconsin in the mid-80s. Bought the first two books around that time, as well. When I moved to Chicago in '89, I started reading the column in the Chicago Reader.
In the mid-90s, I got online on AOL, and discovered the SD community there (though I just used it to read the new columns; I didn’t participate in the discussion groups there). When AOL closed down their communities, I started reading the Dope on the web site; somewhere along the line, I started reading (and, eventually, participating in) the message boards, too.
I voted the as the result of a search option, but it is really a longer story than that.
I started reading the column in the late 70s in The Baltimore City Paper. I bought a couple of the books over the years. When I moved to rural Ohio in 2000, I looked for the column online and found it. Threadspotting led me to lurking on the message board, which I joined in 2005.
I discovered the books while browsing in the library around 1986. My first (limited) access to the internet was with Prodigy around 93 or 94, where I discovered Usenet. I regularly read alt.folklore.urban and alt.fan.cecil-adams. At some point I saw www.straightdope.com mentioned as a way to read the column (there were no papers in my area that carried it), so I started checking in once a week or so. I think the board had been up a few weeks when I first noticed the new link.
I don’t even remember what I was searching for, but one of the results was Blinkie’s post about locked in syndrome. I haven’t been able to stay away for more than a few days ever since.
IIRC (and I may not be) it was the Monty Haul problem which lead me here, as originally referenced in Marilyn Van Vos Savant’s column. Or perhaps the airplane takeoff on a treadmill problem. One of those.
Sorry Quasi, but we don’t use the poll function in ATMB except when people need to test out/figure out how to use it.
I have closed your poll in this thread but the thread is still open for replies.
FTR I was on my way to canceling my AOL membership when I saw on the Welcome screen “THE STRAIGHT DOPE NOW ON AOL!” I had read the book and loved it and so I couldn’t click on the link fast enough. And it changed my life.
I am right there with you, TubaDiva. It has changed my life as well - for the better. As a matter of fact, you might even say it has become a part of my life, because if you look at my personality from when I first joined SDMB until now, you will notice a definite change for the better (I hope y’all see it that way, because I sure do).
One might even conclude that I have finally accepted “adulthood”, though I still make the occasional mistake.
I stumbled upon the mass market paperback of the first book, when I was about…14, maybe? 1987 or so. I literally wore it out, I must’ve read it a hundred times. Not sure how I found the SDMB. Probably searching for more books.
