I was home alone with my newborns at the ass end of Brooklyn, next stop on the D train was Europe. Cecil was my only friend back then. I bought his books as they came out.
This site was the first one I came to when I got access to the internet. This was not a good thing. I had had the best and the rest of the 'net (messageboards) was sorely lacking.
Like many people, I started out reading Cecil’s column online. I don’t remember how I got there. Possibly a link from www.thedaily.com
When that wasn’t enough to satisfy, I started reading the archives to get my ‘fix’.
Then one day I took a wrong turn into the message boards, and started reading them.
After about a month, I decided to join up.
As for why I joined, I’m still trying to figure that out.
I’m not a joiner. This is the only board I read or post to.
In fact, I’m pretty much an agnostic, cynical, sarcastic old bastard. But you guys, (most of you anyway), seem pretty accepting of people like me. In fact, some of you are people like me. Anyway, I like ya’ll, so I’m gonna hang around until enough of you get together to run me off.
Same here. I clicked on the Straight Dope link and have never looked back since. Oh, the memories.
I used to be a reg on the AOL board a few years back.
Then they kicked us all out.
On my butt and sorely confused, I was redirected here by one of my fellow regs (probably Melin). Since this place was a madhouse compared to the safe little AOL board, I was frightened. I posted about 8 times under Ruby Sunbeam and then fled and stayed away for half a year or so. And now I’m back, and I probably won’t leave.
Granted, the AOL board still exists, but it’s not “open” anymore, so we’re just in limbo now.
Desperate need to find a variety of entertaining ways to waste time while i’m busy at work. Chat’s and other forums got dull and old. Then a friend mentioned a wonderfully stimulating intelligent site that allows you to ponder all the great pointless unsolveable mysteries of the world. I think i’ll stay obsessed here for a while.
**I blame my husband **
I’ve always been a natural skeptic. When I was dating Mr. Ujest, there was always this book in his bathroom entitled, The Straight Dope. It was amongst a pile of other books and periodicals, so I cannot tell you how many years I just eyed the book, never actually picking it up. Frankly, I thought it was another builder/car/sports/guy thing thing in the john. Had there been nothing else to read in the can, I would have been clued in earlier.
When I finally saw the light, maybe 1991 ( three years after meeting my husband) I picked up THE BOOK and was hooked. It has become my bible and SDMB is my church.
When I found out there was an internet place to post questions, I was overjoyed with happiness and must have emailed Poor Cecil at least 90 times with really dumb ass questions that would mortify me now to acknowledge that I even asked outloud, let alone thought.
ne.
Now, that I am a veteran, I know better.
I came here from snopes.com where someone posted a message about Wally’s death. I came over to see what the deal was and fell in love with the whole group.
My friends hypergirl and ssskuggiii harassed me until I joined. Im still here, so I guess it was a pretty successful bid.
I just wanna say, this is all very interesting. Thanks for posting, folks.
I found the Straight Dope link on http://www.bored.com and looked around there for a few days. I came across this thread and after reading it did a forum jump to MPSIMS (it piqued my curiosity… I wanted to know what it stood for) and saw all these other threads. I looked around for a while and liked it, so I registered. And here I am, a whole bunch of days and around 100 posts later.
I found The Good Book in the reference section of a bookstore about 12 or so years ago. I live in an area that does not carry The Column, so The Book was my only way to true enlightenment.
Then one day, I bought a computer.
I don’t know diddly about computers, so I have AOL. One shining morning, I turned the computer on and signed on to AOL. I got up to get my coffee, and then I hear my husband say “hey honey, isn’t That Guy you’re always quoting named Cecil Adams?” “Yes,” I replied. “Why?” He says “there’s a link here on the welcome page. He’s got a website.” “AAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed. I went there. I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.
Then we got the boot.
I came here, and I registered, but this place still scared me a little. I posted very infrequently at first, then they opened up MPSIMS. I found my place.
Sigh.
I started reading The Straight Dope around 1985 or so when my sister gave me the first book. I was going to college at University of Illinois at Chicago, so I started picking up The Reader every week. Started reading on-lin about 2 or 3 years ago, and back in August or so something caught my eye in Threadspotting. I lurked for a while, and started posting in September.
I came across the book at Books-A-Million, came home, decided to see if there was a webpage, tried http://www.straightdope.com, which worked, read every single column over a period of about 3 days, lurked on the boards for a couple of days, then decided to post some question about song lyrics.
OK, I now realize that my original response was unresponsive… sorry!
Here’s the Straight Dope:
A friend on mine (Glen) and I were discussing Korean’s obsession with electric fans killing entire mobs of people every summer, as is the common belief here in Korea, and Glen mentioned that he had read something about it on a website called “The Straight Dope”. Later, I looked it up. Here it is, if you’re interested.
That got me hooked on the website… some time later, IIRC, I clicked on one of the “threadspotting” links, read it, and thought to myself ‘Self, these fools need your input!’
I lurked for a long time, and then took the plunge… now I’m hooked! Dammit!! 
BTW: If no one has said it before, let me say it now. Thank you all for the hours of enjoyment and puzzlement that you have given me and countless others!! Hugs and kisses!
I was a member of alt.books.stephen-king and someone posted a link to one of the threads here. I was hooked! I had never even heard of Cecil Adams. But what really got me addicted is all of you SDMB’ers - what a great bunch of people!
YES!!! AIRPLANE!!! Great movie…
Anyway, I’m another bored.commer. I was bored, so typed http://www.bored.com. I read practically every online article, and my thirst for knowledge not satisfied, turned to the boards to ask a few GQ’s.
Earlier this year, one of my friends was looking for an answer to a Cecil-type question. Somehow, he came to SD and got the answer. He showed me the site and I read Cecil’s columns without even noticing the message board link. One day, I told a different friend about the site and he checked out the message boards. After all that time, I barely find out about the message boards and then, a ray of light shined down on me.
I hold my friend Patrick responsible for this and several of my other obsessions. He loaned me his collection of Straight Dope books. After reading them, I discovered the website. When I got my new, free-time-filled job, I turned to the SDMB to fill the boring hours.
I came looking for “Trivia” and Yahoo search pointed me to Cecil’s page. Then I saw there was more at the GQ column. Eventually, I dicovered the remaining forums.
DPR wanted me to vote on a thread, it was “who is the biggest male slut” or something like that…so i joined up…