I’d stumbled across the Straight Dope column a few times, before I read a column which hooked me and kept me coming back for more.
In this column, Cecil was answering questions about the Pythagorean theorum. Insofar as, explaining why you couldn’t measure with a ruler the hypotinuse of a right triangle if sides a and b were both 1. He also delved into imaginary and irrational numbers. I read his sage words and thought to myself, “Damn. I coulda been a math genius if just one of my teachers could have taught the way this guy writes!”
This column was in one of his first books. I can’t post a link, I’m sorry, 'cause the search engine won’t work properly due to the ship’s satellite hook-up.
Which of Cecil’s columns metamorphosed you into one of the drooling teeming million?
Voted Best Sport
And narrowly averted the despised moniker Smiley Master
I only wish it were as stylish and sophisticated as your reason! But, alas, it isn’t. It was Uncle Cecil finally solving the Steve Miller Band song lyrics that have driven me crazy looking up what the heck a ‘pompatus’ was and what it had to do with love, anyway.
I figured if anyone could find out something so obscure and unimportant, then by Henry, he was my leader!!
Judy
“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient
Cecil wrote a column in which he answered a question about the number of calories in male ejaculate. Someone wrote in and accused him of making up the question. His reply was priceless; by the time I finished reading it, I was a fan.
His column appears in DC in the Washington DC City Paper. As I’m generally a conservative, the irony of waiting eagerly for every Thursday to roll around so I could pick up a paper that makes the Washington Post look like something from the John Birch society was not lost on me.
Actually, the City Paper, leftist as it was, held two joys for me: the weekly Straight Dope and a deep and abiding distrust for Marion Barry, who they began referring to as Mayor-for-Life.
I’ve known about Cecil for nigh on to ten years now, having first run across his original book “The Straight Dope” in Juneau, Alaska. Wasted a whole afternoon reading it and was hooked. Kinda lost touch with him after that until my debut at Georgetown in 1993 and my first encounter with the Washington City Paper. Finally got around to checking out the website and have been here ever since. No one column got me hooked - just the whole ball of style and attitude and plain knowledge that is Cecil Adams.
All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don’t know who you are…
Someone once asked Cecil why a man cannot have sex with a cat. His reply was something akin to : for the same reason you can’t fit a Cadilliac in a broom closet. After laughing to the point of crying, I was forever hooked.
“Empty stares from each corner of a shared prison cell . . .” Pearl Jam
There wasn’t a particular column, but it’s gotta be 18 years I’ve been reading Cecil now. Started when I was a teenager working in a theatre shovelling popcorn, and the Reader was available there. The other delight was “Life in Hell.” This was way before “The Simpsons,” when it still had a cult feel to it.
I had two things that got me hooked - the late, lamented A&E show, and then a friend e-mailed me the link for web-site. This column in particular had me in an insane giggling fit: Is it True False Teeth contain Uranium and Cause Cancer?
The commander posted it twice, but the column was so good he could have posted it several more times - the the cat in the capsule was definitely the best ever.
Well, I never read the column in a paper; I picked up Return of the Straight Dope shortly after it came out, just because it looked interesting. Looking through it right now, I’d estimate that my continued readership was assured right about page 7 (If you were to introduce yourself rather grandly as David of the Bowies (and by the way, Dave, what’s a rock legend such as yourself doing in Greenland, Maryland?), people would definitely get the idea that you considered yourself one of the swells.). And my Cecil Discipleship had been clinched long before the end of the book. I had to go around and search for the first two books, and I’ve snapped up each one since then as soon as I could find it in the bookstore.
Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.
Hey, I like that hat, man. They sell men’s clothes where you got that?