**How did we exist before the Straight Dope Message Board? **
Pre-SDMB, how did we subsist on crumbs of conversation and debate, hustling to find our next meal. Now we are here and well-fed, and here feels like home. The adult discourse, the parental instruction, the sibling rhetoric, – it’s all here, on the SDMB, in brilliances facets and brilliant flaws, in fascinating personalities, and infamous posts, for our insight and our slights, our smiles and frowns, our laughter and righteous rage, the SDMB. It’s like Thanksgiving for the mind every day.
Yet what benefit do our providers receive? Every day, the Chicago Reader provides the bandwidth and servers upon which we receive our daily bread. And every day, our moderators separate the wheat from the chaff, all for mere crockery. While there are many things that we take for granted in our lives, let us make sure we ignore neither the roof, nor the foundations, of our communication.
Let us make our Goodwill more than just an exercise in accounting. I propose, this September 2nd, Labor Day, to be also known as SDMB Thanksgiving. When you are home, and no-doubt logged onto your other home – the SDMB, please make your appreciation known.
So that our appreciation may be more than merely amortized accounting inventions, I suggest we thank these carpenters in more tangible fashion. In all of these endeavors, let the Chicago Reader that you are a representative of the SDMB, and they are appreciated:
**1. Buy one or more of Cecil’s books, other Straight Dope stuff:
https://securesite.chireader.com/cgi-bin/dopestore/buystuff.bat
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Subscribe to the Chicago Reader:
http://www.chireader.com/readerinc/Subscrip.html -
Do you know someone who’d like to place an Ad for the Chicago Reader? Make sure they say the SDMB sent them:
http://www.chireader.com/readerinc/index.html -
If you are in our visiting Chicago, please check the Chicago Reader’s features and support their advertisers:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/ -
Take the time to send a postcard to the Chicago Reader:**
Chicago Reader
11 East Illinois Street
Chicago, IL 60611 -
Thank the Administrators, Moderators, and Cecil in this thread, so that they be cherished, but not inundated:
[ul]Thank you Chicago Reader! For truly, you are the furnace that fires our bread! Thank you for providing the space and for taking a risk. An unusal company fostering unusually good goodwill.
Thank you Administrators! For tending the furnace with firm and confident hands, a thankless behind-the-scenes task. Without you our mill would quickly grind to a halt. Thank you.
Thank you Moderators! You forsaking other employ, toil thanklessly for mugs. Mugs! I cannot express my gratitude enough. You must separate the wheat from the chaff, and there must be days where the chaff seems without end. Thank you.
Thank you Cecil! Truly, for making a difference – and with verve and style, for remaining anonymous, forsaking the soul-wilting light of fame, and for educating those that come to listen. I can give no further compliment than to tell you how I am improved by my exposure to you and those close to you. If the students reflect glory onto the teacher, you are brilliant indeed. My deepest thanks, Ace0Spades.[/ul]
Perfect Master
Cecil Adams
Administrators
Arnold Winkelried
C K Dexter Haven
Ed Zotti
Gaudere
jdavis
Lynn Bodoni
TubaDiva
**Moderators **
Alphagene
bibliophage
Cajun Man
Coldfire
Czarcasm
David B
DrMatrix
Eutychus
John Corrado
manhattan
MEBuckner
TVeblen
Ukulele Ike
UncleBeer