# It's my 20th DopeDay, peoples **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 7, 2021, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918 "2021-07-07T15:23:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2021, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/1 "2021-07-07T15:23:46Z")
I was part of the AOL community (JThorn1934), but didn’t participate too much. Waited to migrate, to be honest, because I liked the way the AOL forums were laid out better than VBB or whatever was being used back then. But the writing was on the wall for AOL and I arrived here 20 years ago today, my wife 7 months pregnant. (God, I put this reminder in my calendar like 7, 8 years ago, lol.) Don’t have much to say because there is _too much_ to say, but it’s been a fantastic trip so far - I’m a better person because of the SDMB, a better writer, and I appreciate all of you for your part in it. Even you. Uh… some landmarks: My first post/OP was a question which is easily answered by YouTube, a thing which didn’t exist when I asked it, inspired by a now-dead Harlan Ellison. Based upon avatars, 5 of us are still here: > [@Has there been a "live" suicide on American TV?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-live-suicide-on-american-tv/74132): > > I remember reading about a FL newswoman killing herself during a broadcast in the introduction to Harlan Ellison’s collection “Strange Wine.” He claims that she said something like: “In keeping with Channel 11’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and death, here is an actual first: a live suicide.” I have never heard any confirmation/denial that such a thing occurred other than the Ellison source and I was thinking that someone amongst the Teeming Millions would be able to either verif… Since I registered, I had a baby. The baby is now 19 and financially independent in NYC, the baby’s dream since the age of 12. Obviously, she is no longer a baby. > [@An Open Letter to my daughter, Sophia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-daughter-sophia/918949): > > Dear Sophia, Yeah… this is weird. I’m writing to you on some message board rather than sending you an email (though I can do that too!), where a bunch of people you don’t know can read it, but it will… I hope… all make sense in the end. I’ve been a member of this online community since before you were born, before it became a web presence, way back in the 1990s. The Straight Dope itself is a weekly newspaper column series written for an underground newspaper in Chicago starting in 1972. 20 yea… My politics have changed a bit too: > [@The Journey (pictures, long af)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-journey-pictures-long-af/945194): > > (OK, so I’m writing this after about ½ of this is done – peeps, this is long. As in “I had to end it with a photo montage or risk hitting 7,000 words” long. (Oh, yeah, there are pictures.) I break it up into multiple posts, though, so it’s not just one Wall O’ Text. Go ahead, grab a drink, hit the bathroom, come back, and sink in. SORRY!) In another thread, @zostersanderman and I had the following exchange: ZS quoted the 2nd sentence in the above, saying: (BTW, am I in the clique? Really? … The way people interact with each other is _vastly_ different since July 7th, 2001, as told in my first Uber tale, the one with the Time Traveler… > [@Tales of Uber](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-uber/831474/2): > > A couple of weeks ago, I gave a ride to a Time Traveler. Now, you scoff. “There’s no such thing as a time traveler, JohnT. This is the SDMB and you should know better than to pass off that crap as real.” And you are quite right – by the typical “science fiction definition” of the term, I did not meet a time traveler. Sorry – no stock tips. Don’t know when Trump will leave office. Have no idea when any of us are going to die. But I still gave a ride to a Time Traveler. Got a call from Mary, (n… … as well as how my daughter, and her friends, are constantly in each others heads as well as lives, living a mental landscape unknown to us Olds… > [@The Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gestalt/938324): > > Some stories, a few thoughts, hopefully a coherent OP? We’ll see what happens! TLDR: Long. 13th birthday, party at my house, my daughter ([Sophia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-daughter-sophia/918949)) and her friends sitting on the furniture, looking at their phones, for they all had phones by then. “Sophia, Madison, can I ask you a question?” Looks up, “Sure.” "Why aren’t you talking? Why are you looking at your phones ignoring each other?? Sophia rolls her eyes, while Madison replies “Oh, we’re not ignoring each other! We’re all chatting on t… 2 million words, 10,400 topics created, 27,000 posts, 20 years, a life’s journey I would have never imagined on this date in 2001. > [@I'm bored, so I downloaded my posting history and here are some stats](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-bored-so-i-downloaded-my-posting-history-and-here-are-some-stats/945520): > > (Don’t know where to put this, but since it is kind of ‘about this message board’, just placed it here.) Bored, so I downloaded my posting history, imported the CSV into Excel, did some data cleanup (removing quotes, mostly), threw together some basic pivot charts and here are my stats: Posts Number of Posts: 27,112 Posts per day: 3.71 First post, was actually an OP posted on July 7th, 2001: [Has there been a “live” suicide on American TV?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-there-been-a-live-suicide-on-american-tv/74132/1) Words Most words in a single post: [3,078](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ten-days-that-shook-my-world/128223/27), but “The… Thank you @Ed_Zotti, @Cecil_Adams, all the admins and moderators who gave this place a reason for being, gave it the _right_ reason for being, and have kept it going all this time. Your efforts mean more than you will ever understand, and despite the debates raging currently, it is clear: the necessity of a shared, consensual, fact-based reality is greater than ever, and a Board dedicated to that mission is equally crucial. RIP Tuba, Jonathan Chance, Opal, more, too many more for me to list. You are missed daily. And most importantly, all of you who have touched my life… however fleetingly… in these past 20 years, just thank you all as well. I greatly appreciate each and every one of you. JT ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/2 "2021-07-07T15:39:26Z")
It’s a bit odd how some of us have large swaths of our entire lives cataloged here, isn’t it? The good and the bad, the embarrassing and the proud. I guess a sense of humor about oneself is required. Something I’ve always struggled with, personally, but you seem to have it on lockdown. Glad you have enjoyed your time here. 😌 ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2021, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/3 "2021-07-07T16:12:52Z")
Happy DopeDay **JohnT**! Hope you stick around for another 20! ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2021, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/4 "2021-07-07T21:23:45Z")
Awww. You’re very welcome. 😊 ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/5 "2021-07-09T00:55:26Z")
Congrats. Love this ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/6 "2021-07-09T03:34:54Z")
Congratulations! You don’t look a day over six weeks – red demon eyes notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2021, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-my-20th-dopeday-peoples/945918/7 "2021-07-09T06:00:03Z")
Fuck Sgt. Pepper.