Endorsed. When I found the Dope (research on the origin of the term “missionary position”), I spent 3 days reading every column I could find. Then I spent several weeks (months?) cautiously observing the natives in action on the SDMB before i finally joined.
Thank you for expanding my knowledge in new ways, and introducing me to some wonderful folks. I hope good things lie ahead for you.
I found the books first(used book store). When we moved to Aptos, I found the local alternative newspaper carried the column. With our first computer, the first thing I searched for was the Straight Dope.
Which was how I got sucked into this place.
Thanks for the great run. I discovered the column back in the 80s in the Los Angeles Reader. Every week I’d start off by flipping to the letters page for* Life In Hell*, then back to Page 2 for The Straight Dope. (After the *Reader folded, LA Weekly *stuck you in the back with the escort ads, but the *Reader *put you right up front).I remember cutting out the original gerbil stuffing column and pinning it to the corkboard on my dorm room door. I lost count of the number of parties I “entertained” by dramatically reading that one aloud.
Bought the books in the 90s. Found the website in the late 90s, lurked for a while, finally joined in 2001 and my first post generated a response of “bite me”. Good times.
I never did see the column in the papers here but The Board has become my refuge from the madness of the interwebs and the stultifying masses. I read many of your articles online, Uncle C, and they never failed to entertain and inform; I’m sad to see them go. Thanks for all the fish, and I wish you great joy now and in the future!
First the Kennedy retirement, now this; this has been a terrible week for public intelligence. Thank you, Cecil, for making me laugh out loud in the middle of a used bookstore in 1986, when I came across the first Straight Dope book and spent the next hour shifting from foot to foot as I stood in the aisle reading it through.
Later, when I got my first computer and could get on line, what do you think the first thing I looked for was? Porn, of course. But the very next thing was the Dope, where I discovered the SDMB. I’ve been here, off and on, ever since.
So thank you, Unca Cecil, Little Ed, and Slug - thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Another who found the books long before I knew the internet existed. As much a part of my life as any of the great words written, it will live forever and be a part of me until I die.
It’s been a blast. Now it’s a blast from the past. A valiant attempt to fight ignorance, although as we all know the war against ignorance can never be won. It’s been fun trying though.
Most of all I’ll miss Cecil’s acerbic wit. No one could put down fools with such style.
I feel like a latecomer here. I found the 'Dope online only [checks calendar] eighteen years ago?! Man, time does fly. Anyway, thanks Cecil. It was fun and enlightening.