I’d also read the column for years (in the Dallas Observer) and had been an advid collector of the books.
Then, one day in 1999 shortly after I’d finally gotten a home computer capable to browsing the internet (I upgrade to a used Pentium from a 386) and an internet connection, I was “browsing” the internet by just typing www. [insert something I liked or was interested in here] .com, looked over at my bookshelf for ideas, and then the next thing I knew…
(AVID)
Sorry, still on my first cup of coffee. I’ll also note that it was a month or two before I even noticed there was a message board! I mostly visited just to keep up with the column (I was living in Waco at the time and had didn’t have easy access to the Observer) and to read the archives. When I noticed the MB, I thought it was solely for discussion of the articles; I don’t remember what happened to actually get me to register and occassionally post.
I discovered Cecil in my boyfriends (Now henpecked husband) bathroom.
No. Really.
For years, there was a book on the pile of books in his bathroom, that said " The Straight Dope" and , well, since I had my own reading material, I never looked at the book other than the title.
One day, I went in without my own book and needed something to read.
Cecil Adams and The Straight Dope has pretty much changed my life. It reaffirms to me there are other people out there with a warped sense of humor, a desperate need to get the facts right and short attention…ooooh pretty!
The hilarity of it all is that Mr. Ujest has never read these books. Their is irony that I spend all my free time waist-ing away here on a book he bought and never got around to reading. Heh.
It was the bon mot at the back of one of the Chapters in the Straight Dope Tells All: by Bermuda999 who wrote " What was behind the door that was in St. Peter’s Basilica that was only opened once every 100 years." that got me to run to my computer.
Any idea whatever happened to Bermuda?
Another TV show watcher. I started reading the boards back in the AOL days, but I waited a while to register. The SDMB was my very first message board, and still the best of all I visit.
There was an article in the Reader’s Digest about Cecil Adams and The Straight Dope. I was so impressed that I saved the RD. Years later, I found the first book, clipped the article, and put in the Book (I still have it).
Years later, when I got the Internet at work, I found the site and SDMB.
You see, there’s this free weekly newspaper in Chicago…
I found the books first. Later, a reference in those books brought me here, to my spiritual home.
I was turned onto this site by a regular poster here whom I knew through a couple of other discussion boards. These unmoderated boards were destroyed by a couple of “holier than thous,” whose egos and fighting sucked the life out the groups and they imploded on themselves. These sites have been replaced with pitiful new versions.
I used to love the anarchy of the main place but two or three participants made it impossible for anyone to read anything there. Though I though I’d never like a moderated site, this place is great and has much more intelligence than my former two haunts.
A friend sent me a link to the “Less semen, Fewer sperm, bloody hell!” thread, I spent the next hour laughing my face off and spitting my drink (Chai, if you must know) all over my keyboard, and my life has not been the same since.
I used to be a member when it was all on AOL. My favorite board ever!
E3
I used to read the column in the D.C. City Paper when I was a kid. My friends and I discovered the books when I was in high school. When I had a temp job during college, I had internet access. My boss, who was cool and let me just goof off most of the time, showed me this nifty new thing called “Yahoo”.
The Straight Dope was one of the first things I looked up. I took a look at the message board (this was when it was still pretty primitive) and saw David B debating about atheism. I was hooked and have remained so for a looooong time.
It’s funny, because David B sort of scolded me once in Great Debates. It hurt my feelings because I felt like he was an old friend. He, of course, had no idea that I’d been reading his thoughts for years. Message boards are weird that way.
(Loach, I graduated from UMCP! Go Terps!)
Read the column in the down defunct New Times in Kansas City.
Found the big brain on AOL one night while I was bored at work.
Followed 'em here and registered for my first message board ever.
I heard that a ducks’ quack doesn’t echo, and that there definitely is a third -gry word.
My cow-orker told me.
Ran across the books while browsing in the library and read them all. Ran across the TV show while flipping through the channels and watched it faithfully though it came on at 4 in the morning or some godless hour. One day while fooling around on the net at work, I followed a link from the Vegan Porn site (I’m not vegan, and it’s not porn) and I’ve been around since. I can’t believe I never thought to look it up on my own!
Anyway, my grandfather has been collecting the tops from soda cans for years, because he says they’re redeemable for dialysis treatment for people with kidney diseases. Wondering if that was true, I put in some vaguely relevant terms into a search engine, and ended up here.
Well my room mate in college, when I was an exchange student in Chicago back in '85, picked up the Reader, of course. So I read the columns, got the first edition of the first book and stayed in touch with the SD through the other books until I found usenet. Hated when it was on AOL, since it’s not accesible from here. Wound up here when it got started on the www, but vanished when I found a GF which I spent way too much time with. After she broke up, I resurfaced with a new username (got slapped by mods for that) and am still here.
I have never even seen a copy of the Chicago Reader even though I’ve been to Chicago tons of times. I read an article about The Straight Dope in a 1980s issue of Science magazine. I bought the book (there was only one at the time). In the '90s I found the website, then started lurking on the boards, registered in 2001, but still mostly lurk.
I was bored one day and typed in “message board” in google. This place looked active, so I checked out the most viewed threads. Read the locked “TMI” thread, laughed my ass off and signed up.
I was linked to the “If LOTR was written by someone else?” thread.