There was a TV show? Man, I do live in the sticks.
It was a dark and stormy night…
I was an undergrad at IUP and keeping insane hours. Usually, I was trying to do work, surf the Internet and drink coffee with my eyeballs all at the same time. For reasons either unknown or classified, I found myself reading Cecil’s column about the phrase “pompatus of love” in Steve Miller’s “The Joker”. The rest of the story gets kinda foggy after that. Must be bedtime, kiddies…
When I still had AOL there was a link to The Straight Dope from one of their news links. I visited just about everyday and then I started on the message boards and was lost. I lurked for months before signing up and now that I have, I have no life. 
My friend Welfy, Ruby Sunbeam, kept sending me this website over Aim. I’d read the thread, then close the window. (I consider this to be the “lurking” period eveyone goes through.) Eventually, it got to the point where I signed up and started posting.
Like Tripler, I saw the A&E show and thought it was great. Through the show I learned there were books and I bought them and read em. When I got a job that had I-net access, I figured that Cecil was a smart enough guy to have a site. Found the site and lurked for a while. Now I’m here.
I was surfing for porn.
Guess I hit a bad link.
It was a hot summer in 1986. I was attending the Baylor University Debater’s Workshop. One day, during some downtime, I browsed through the University’s bookstore. I encountered a mass-market sized black paperback entitled The Straight Dope. I’d never heard of this, but I skimmed through parts of it, and thought “what the hell, this may be good for some laughs”. I read it voraciously. When I got home, my brother got hold of the book and started quoting passages from it. My parents took a dim view of this and made me give them the book. From there, I had to get my clandestine TSD fix from the Dallas Observer.
Fast-forward about 10 years. I’ve got Internet access and had replaced the original book plus acquired the subsequent volumes. I did a search for “Straight Dope” and found Matt Jetmore’s old page. When visiting my mother’s house (and AOL connection), I kinda followed the AOL board a little, until I found out that there existed straightdope.com. It took a while till I felt comfortable posting, but here I am.
Now, I’m all but addicted to the SDMB. I just replaced two TSD books. And my husband occasionally posts, too. I can also be found in #straightdope (insert usual disclaimer here) on IRC. sigh
Robin
In the mid-80s when I was in college, my sister (who has a personal Cecil connection I sahll not reveal here) gave me the original Straight Dope book. I was going to college at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where The Reader was regularly distributed, so I started reading the columns then. I found the main Straight Dope web page about 3 years ago. Something in Threadspotting caught my eye last summer, so I started reading the boards, but didn’t actually start posting until September or so.
I was first introduced to the world of Cecil in a way I’m sure is unique.
For many years, I worked in the radio biz in a medium-sized market (DJ and talk show host – don’t ask!). Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, I got a call from a local woman who, as I recall, had been involved in acting and other projects, both locally and in New York City.
I must preface the story by saying she struck me as just a wee bit flaky, but be that as it may… I can’t recall the details precisely, but her basic idea was to produce some sort of syndicated radio program featuring Cecil’s column. Prior to this, I had never heard of Cecil or The Straight Dope.
This woman came to me because I had done voice-over work, and basically asked me to “be” Cecil for a “spec” tape she was putting together in an effort to sell the concept!
Now I have no idea as to whether she had the official blessing of Cecil and company to pursue this project, or whether she was putting together the spec tape for the purposes of first selling the idea to them or to someone who would actually realize the project.
I hope it wasn’t the former. What I basically did was my best attempt at a dry, slightly sardonic delivery, which the responses I was reading seemed to call for. It is to be hoped that this never reached Cecil’s ears or anyone else associated with him.
Needless to say, I never heard from this woman again, and, unless I missed it, nothing ever came of her grand idea. Several years went by before I encountered my first Straight Dope book and made the connection. No newspaper where I’ve ever lived has carried Cecil’s column, so that was my only other exposure until such time as I discovered the Straight Dope area on AOL in the mid-90s.
Well for me it started as wandering around the net checking out things that were curious to me. This is how I found a couple of things: Role playing & Straight Dope. Well actually the board I started out on was Chick Click. I had never been to mb’s before so I wandered around there a bit lurking more then posting and eventually someone posted a link to the SDMB. I came over here and started to read with interest. I lurked for a few hours… maybe a day or two before I made up a name (TopazAntares… a name that I really liked at the time and that I was using as a character in RPG) and I began posting.
Now I just wander in whenever I have the time from school or home (home less now that my Grandparents have limited my time. I really need a job and a cable connection.) And recently I changed my name to what is seen here.
I found the paperback in my favorite bookstore and was intrigued by the “why is shit brown” and “where are all the baby pigeons” stories. But the one that reeled me in was the “what does a corpse look like after it’s been sealed in a coffin for six months” question and Cecil’s response which went something like “You’re not planning on doing anything are you, cause you’re giving Uncle Cecil the willies” or words to that effect and I was hooked.
I bought the book, took it home and immediately placed in the short term reading section of my library (ie the bathroom) where it was read with great intensity on many, many uhm sittings. I bought a couple more when they came out in paperback, each time retiring the older book The Bookshelf of Honor™.
Now since my children have moved out, I’ve noticed a couple of my “Cecil books” have moved out as well. This can only mean that I’ve corrupted a few young minds along my own.(Yessss)
Last year a few months after I got my very own computer {I know-welcome to the 80’s) I started looking up magazines and books and The Straight Dope was one of the first things I looked for. Found this site, hooked immediately. "nuff said.
I found it to be a cheeky little message board with a weasely nose, and nuances of smokey follow-through with a powerful acidity that provides backbone.
I started by reading Cecil’s columns at the websight. I don’t remember exactly how I got there, probably a link from thedaily.com.
After a while, the daily column wasn’t enough, so I started reading the archives. Apparently the daily column is a ‘gateway drug’.
Anyway, I was hooked. Then one day I made a wrong turn and ended up on the message board. My only previous experience with on-line interaction was a friend’s demonstration of a chat room, and I was less than enthusiastic about repeating that experience, but I found myself reading one of Wally’s stories and chortling. Then I had to read some more. Then I lurked for a little while and discovered that there were people on here that were as bent as I was and decided to de-cloak to see if I could fit in for a change.
I still have hopes.
My sister introduced the Straight Dope to both my brother (tpayne, another poster here) and I at about the same time, by reading us the ‘gerbil-stuffing’ column that was in ‘More of the Straiht Dope’ Had us laughing so hard that we went out and bought the books, and one of us found the Straight Dope website, and glory from there. My brother found the message board, and told me about it, but I ended up being the one who posts the most. (That’s what happens when you work graveyard shift. Lots of time on your hand, and nothing open)
I was on the trail of the Bavarian Illuminati. They had been sending me threatening & suggestive messages in the patterns of raindrops on my window.They were going to blow up my bicycle.
Or buy me a sandwich.
I’m not sure which.
I found the secret passage in the wall by lifting the candle. After I <Young Frankenstein>"Put the candle back</YoungFrankenstein> , I found a sinister flight of stone stairs behind the wall. Hearing violin music,<Young Frankenstein>* I just followed it down.*</Young Frankenstein>.
And that’s how I found the Straight Dope.
But I’m much better now! 
Actually, I never realized where I was. I just write stuff and hit whatever button happens to be there. I’ll have to check this “Straight Dope” thing out…
Or perhaps you could look here for my real answer.
See?! Any button, I tell you!
It was right after the mass-market paperback of the first book came out. I always gravitate to the humor section in bookstores, and that’s where it happened to be. Looked interesting - I like esoteric stuff. I’ve been hooked ever since. My all-time favorite is the one about all the Chinese people jumping off chairs. “Needless to say, I have rejected this answer as hopelessly inadequate.”
I have given my brother my original copy of the mass-market paperback and purchased the one that’s the same size as the remaining books. BTW, my copy of More of the Straight Dope seems to have been printed on very thick paper - it’s twice the size of the other books, and twice the size of copies I see in bookstores now.
I had a book passed to me by someone. Years later, I noticed it in a free newspaper, and there was a reference to the web site, but not a url. After a dozen issues I wanted to respond to a question and did a search. That led me to the homepage, which directed me to the forum. Unfortunately, my comment had already been covered. So I went back to reading all the old columns. When I ran out of those I came to the forum again.
Back in 1983 I was at a school in Chicago close to the University of Chicago. The latter had a free student newspaper(name forgotten) that carried the Straight Dope. My very first column was the classic “Do male pigs have corkscrew shaped penises?” I was hooked.
Took a wrong turn at Albequerque.