Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head…

Well, actually I didn’t comb my hair.  It was Saturday and that’s what ball caps are made for.

Did my weekly grocery shopping at the commissary, got home and put the stuff away, then settled in for a relaxing play of CIV IV.

Loaded the game to my new Sony Notebook.  Pretty cool, eh?

After suffering a frustrating defeat, I showered up and headed out to Manila Bar, the venue for my friend Becky’s birthday celebration.

The birthday girl, a nice gal from Canada.

Natalie gave the darts a throw…

While Margaret, another Canuck, stylishly smoked a cigarette.

Becky and her main squeeze Mike, a nice guy from the Philippines.

That’s Teddy, owner of Manila Bar in the middle.  I don’t know the name of the cute Korean gal (I should).

A couple of sweet Filipinas, Jovie on the right is Teddy’s wife.  The other is Jovie’s sister.  But I don’t recall her name either (I should).

Happy partiers!

The Korean on the left used to tend bar at Bless U, but I hadn’t seen her around for the last year or so.  Guess what?  I don’t remember either of their names.

Anyway, it was a nice time.  I always give Becky a half dozen bottles of Blue Cheese dressing as a birthday gift.  Apparently she eats it with just about everything.  And she is always pleased with her present, which makes it easy for me.

So, it was time to head over to Dolce Vita for the International Dart Tournament.  We had a rather disappointing turnout with only six teams participating.  I was really sorry that none of the outstanding Filipino players turned out to play for national pride.  I think most of them were hanging out in Manila Bar for Becky’s party.

So, with only six teams we played a round robin format with the total number of legs won determining the champion.

Dave and Alisteir represented Great Britain.

Dustin and Jay proudly represented Canada sporting Maple Leaf flights.

Seung Youb and YS played for the Republic of Korea.

We also had three American teams turn out:

Me and Colonel Dan waved Old Glory…

Lonnie and Jim, a couple of fine Americans.

Dave and Rod were the other Team America entrant.

So, there was a lot of darts to be played and we commenced to play them.  As it turned out, it took ten legs won to play for the championship.  Dan and I struggled all night for consistency, but we had our moments of greatness and won some tough legs.  We also let a couple slip away, and that made the difference as our 9 wins was one short of what we needed.

This was perhaps our high water moment, taking a clutch leg from the Canadians.  As you can perhaps tell, it was a point war.  For some reason, I lost my ability to hit a bullseye and Dustin and Jay took full advantage.  We matched their bulls with points on the open 20 in a seesaw battle until we finally got up and closed the bulls for a win.  Unfortunately, the Koreans took us down 2-1 ruining our hopes for a money finish.

Turns out the Brits and Yanks (Dave and Rod) both had ten legs won, so it was a playoff for the championship.  Kind of a replay of 1776 (without the bloodshed) and the outcome was the same, with the Americans victorious!  We couldn’t resist a raucous chant of USA! USA! at the conclusion of the match. 

Dolce Vita closed after the match for renovations.  So I will have to find a new home for the next few days.  I live for Bali in a week though and when I return it should be back to business as usual in the new and improved Dolce Vita.

Finished the night with a dinner of samgyapsal and bulgogi at Don Valley with Dan and his wife.

And yes, by the end of the day I was feeling no pain.