I saw the link for “What if LOTR had been written by:…” (my favorite thread ever) and I’ve been addicted since that day.
I posted a pro choice stance in Great Debates and couldn’t believe how many people swarmed the “guest” that day - almost scared me off. I really should have lurked for a bit longer.
It’s been 5.5 years now, I can hardly remember what I had for lunch last Tuesday, but I think I found one of Cecil’s articles via a “Google” search (likely it was a Yahoo! search, not sure I was using Google, but maybe it was… Like I said, I have no idea what I had for lunch last Tuesday.)
I think it was some article on Columbia House, the 14 CDs for a penny people.
I didn’t join the boards once it went pay, then I had to come up with anohter user name that wasn’t linked with my old work account.
I sort of knew of the site, from reading the main straightdope.com page (longtime fan of Unca Cece, hard time finding his columns around here as the one paper that carries it is not readily available, so I loved finding it online).
Never bothered with the boards though, until someone forwarded me a link to Scylla’s “Horror of Blimps” posting.
I registered so I could search for more of his stuff, and began lurking and gradually delurking. So it’s all Scylla’s fault! 
Let’s see…got one of the books in 89 or so…I think I saw an episode of the TV show and that got me curiouse so I looked up the site around 97-98. Just read the colums for the longest time, then noticed the message board. Read for a while…mostly in GQ…then decided to join. Been here ever since.
I followed a Google link to one of Cecil’s columns while trying to understand a joke about the candirú fish. After the giggles subsided, I followed the link to the boards, read a bit, giggled some more, and registered.
I was a pretty active member on the snopes message board. Someone name DavidB joined to ask for our help in debunking an urban legend which some guy named Libertarian was insisting was true. It was the “Up the butt, Bob” UL. I lurked to follow the thread here. I joined a few months later.
Then she loaned the book to me.
Online? Probably the same way/time - “Hey Bobo, check it out!” or “Hey Mad…”
We lived together for a while, you see…
Long ago, occassionally read a newspaper that had the column. Got a book.
Became an internet junkie sometime later. Was on AOL back when that was virtually all us non computer geeks could use. Found a message board. Thought to myself, “Why would I want to be on a message board?” Found other things to take up my valuable and slow running internet time window.
Sometime later, I was no longer on AOL, things were faster, I had joined a couple of message boards and news groups, but was constantly frustrated by both how stupid and how rude people could be online.
Sometime later, I decided it was my duty to debunk every stupid thing I was e-mailed. That horrid duck echo thing made its umpteenth dump into my in-box, and I had it. In my search for the debunking material I needed, I came across the SD main site. remembered it from long ago. Noticed they had a message board (free at the time). Signed up without even looking at anything and right away got caught up in Great Debates.
Sometime later, decided internet people were still both stupid and rude, but stuck around anyways.
Found my niche community in the Trek Dopers. And The Pit, which was so very wide open and fun back when.
:dubious:
I was looking up a story about people in Korea supposedly dying from sleeping in closed rooms with fans going.
Ditto on the Evil Nazi Groundhogs thread. I figured that any board that featured stuff like that had to be interesting.
That was the thread that hooked me. It was mentioned on Making Light, and I followed the link from there.
I’d read a couple of Cecil’s books, so I knew a little of what I was getting into. I’m not really good with message boards, but I’ve stuck around here even after it went pay-for-play because, well, it has the best and most interesting (and funny!) discussions I’ve found.