I floated here from another MB that I visited on occasion. Decided I liked this one better and hung around a bit, I only started reading the columns a few months into my time here on the boards. (Cecil Adams? Who’s that guy?)
Neil Gaiman’s blog? Seriously Neil Gaiman? Where is it?! LINK LINK!!
A Google search that found a Cecil column on some now forgotten question.
The same as woolly, I did a Google search on something that Cecil had answered. I checked out the message board a couple of weeks later, and lurked for a long time before registration.
Still lurk, only now with a username.
Obsidian Flutterby: Check out http://www.neilgaiman.com/index.asp
Via straightdope.com. Several of my friends considered it the fount of all knowledge.
Wanted a funny birthday present for a girl I know <name withheld>, so naturally I think a hello kitty vibrator would fill the spot nicely 
. An innocent google brought me to a pretty funny SDMB tread about some guy with a truck who picked up a girl with hello kitty panties or something. I’d been googled to SDMB before though, so I already knew it existed.
Oh yeah here it is:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=134750&highlight=hello+kitty+panties
Found it off the second font of all information Google. Cecil delivered the goods on something i was looking for [the exact question escapes me].
from Hong Kong
The actual location is:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal_archives/2002_12_01_archive.asp
Looked up something obscure with google. I don’t remember what, though.
Read the columns like a mad man, and then went on lurking here.
Had to give my 2cents at a “great debate”, so I registered.
electrozion,
Hamburg, Germany
A friend of mine mentioned the boards during an IM conversation.
Oddly enough, I didn’t start reading the columns until very recently.
Cool, so we have:
US
Canada
UK
Australia
Germany
Norway
Netherlands
Spain
New Zealand
Mexico
Hong Kong
India
Denmark
And I know we have folks from
Ireland
Saudi Arabia
Israel
Chile (pretty sure)
Brazil
Only 174 countries to go.
My other half (who, ironicaly, only has about 150 posts) introduced me. I’m pretty sure he found this place via bored.com.
Like many others, for me it was a web-search (pre-Google) for something impossibly obscure, something I remember being near certain that no-one else in all the world would ever have stopped to wonder about.
Despite zero expectation of finding any pages at all, that search turned up Cecil’s in-depth, definitive answer to whatever it was. (Unfortunately I too have forgotten what the subject was).
Then I found the columns archive and with it the answers to dozens of the other things I thought no-one else ever thought about.
I didn’t get a whole lot of work done that day, and have been hooked ever since.
Originally read the column in a free San Luis Opispo weekly when I was in college, but forgot about it totally when I graduated. After I settled several years later in Seattle, took a road trip with a local freind who started talking about the Straight Dope books, and then found one or two in a bookstore stop. After reading them, realized that I’d read some of the articles before (the “poisioned” aluminum foil article was the clincher). Later found this sight by way of the Jame Randi forum.
Austria … Googling.
Believe it or not, the SD was pre-bookmarked in my Opera browser, one boring day I was checking the default bookmarks, and here I am.
Dutch expat, found SDMB in Singapore on the advice of an internet friend, presently living in France.
I knew of the straightdope site via my boss at a previous job in Ireland - it was on the “favourite links” of the corporate site, and I read a few columns.
However, it was yojimbo who told me about the message board. Incessantly for months. Then I registered. The rest is history.
I first heard about it from discussion on a puzzle site called The Grey Labyrinth which I used to frequent.
I then came here to post a question and have hung about ever since.
My husband said it was a good boredom-cure. Oddly enough though, he just lurked and never registered.
I’d never heard of the Chicago Reader, Cecil, death-rays of any style or vintage, etc before. I went straight to the forums, got hooked straight away, and made some (probably fatuous) first post within minutes.
Oh, UK.
Believe it or not, but years ago [yeah, lurking a lot I was looking for photos of ordinary people [no offence]. I found this: which doesn’t excist anymore. From there on to this board.
[Lots of Amsterdammers here…]