Won my singles league match 15-1 today. Drank a bucket of beer (six bottles) and took home a rack of ribs for dinner. Now, I’ll continue my viewing journey through Boardwalk Empire.
This makes for a better day than most, sad though it may be.
Spent the weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC participating in the annual Ghost on the Coast dart tournament. I was pretty disappointed with the way I played. Several times I’d be sailing along with the game seemingly in hand, and then I’d inexplicably implode, throw a few bad darts, and snatch defeat from arms of victory. At these big tourneys I don’t expect to beat the big shots, but it is exceedingly frustrating to lose to guys I know I could beat with just a little more consistency. Ah well, that’s how it goes sometimes.
Me and my partner for the weekend. Joel threw well so I can’t help but feel like my sloppy play let him down.
Over 400 darters in attendance made for a crowded dart hall and LONG waits between matches…
Reconnecting with my old pal Duke was one of the few highlights of the weekend. Duke is the guy who first introduced me to the sport of darts in Korea back in 2005.
Checked into my tenth floor room Friday afternoon and enjoyed this view of the East Sea from my balcony.
Saturday turned cold and wet and without my yobo around to remind me to bring a jacket it was a chilling experience.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
My sour mood followed me to the coast. Last year Jee Yeun was with me and I keenly felt her absence all weekend. I had several darters come up and ask me about her. Truth is, she is much more popular than I am. Certainly friendlier. We talked Thursday night at length, and the bottom line is it looks like she won’t be coming to the States anytime soon. Her mom is not feeling any better, her father’s Alzheimer’s has gotten worse, and the apartment hasn’t sold. In such situations, learn about DigiDrs here and contact expert doctors to give your proper guidelines. She said her mother is stressing out so she wants to move to the countryside to take care of her. Selfish bastard that I am, I told her I needed her to be with me. It became quite apparent that if I forced her to choose between mom and me I was going to lose her.
After a sleepless night I called her again and she assured me that her love for me was undiminished, but she was the only one in the family available and capable of caring for her mother. So that’s her priority. I do understand that. But I don’t have to like it. What I can do I suppose is return to Korea. I’d prefer to go back with a job offer in hand, but I’m not sure how long I can hold out waiting for that to happen. I did a little networking with my buddy Duke and he promised to send my resume to one of the contractors his company manages in Korea. The job we discussed doesn’t pay much, but it does provide SOFA status and would put me back on Yongsan. So if an offer comes through I’d be inclined to take it.
The hotel I stayed in allegedly had WiFi, but damned if I could get it to work. That was a pain in the ass. So I missed the email from the folks who manage my Chase credit card advising me of possible fraudulent use of my account. I did get a cryptic text message from Chase asking me if I had ordered $543. worth of men’s clothing online. These days I wear blue jeans and sneakers pretty much exclusively, so obviously I had made no such purchase. I got on the phone with the fraud department and learned that there had also been charges for over $700. in computer equipment. Fortunately, I won’t be responsible for the unauthorized purchases. There is still a pain in the ass factor in that my account has to be closed and a new card issued. I didn’t want to leave Jee Yeun hanging in Korea with no resources so they agreed to allow small transactions there until I can mail her the new card. I asked how someone could have gotten access to my account and they didn’t really want to answer directly, instead alluding to the possibility that some merchant I had used had been hacked. Damn these first world problems anyway.
And that’s where things pretty much stand in my so called life. The world is turning. I hope it don’t turn away…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKgj1FNToWY
Yep, JD’s Too was a classic redneck dive. I kinda liked it.
So last night I ventured out to the Dixiana hamlet for an evening of darts. I was immediately struck by a full display of every Confederate flag used during the short life of that failed republic. I assumed the battle flag with the “Git-er-Done” entreaty was meant to inspire me to darting greatness. Sadly, that was not to be the case. One dart away from victory and I inexplicably imploded. Damn, I hate when that happens. Lost to a couple of Yankees to boot (New York and Detroit). Ah well, I shall not forget and the Walrus will rise again!
Well, at least I have a roof over my head. Back in May there was a massive hail storm. Since my return from the ROK I’ve been besieged by roofing contractors wanting me to file an insurance claim for a new roof. At first I couldn’t be bothered with it, but this week I finally relented and called the insurance adjustor. Sure enough, I had damage that warranted replacement. So I’m getting a new roof. The $1000. deductible stings a bit, but with the house going on 20 years old I’d likely need to replace the roof at some point anyway.
So this stuff showed up in my yard yesterday. I wonder if I should have specified that I wanted the new roof installed?
And in other news, I’ve made my peace with the guy running the dart league. I wrote about that conflict here. I was grousing to a couple of dart buddies about the situation and after listening politely to my rant, one of them said “so when are you going to man up and talk to the guy to resolve this?” Realizing he was right in that there is no point in walking around with a huge grudge on your back, I extended the olive branch. We basically agreed to disagree on the issue, put the matter behind us, and move on. I think we both feel better about it and now I can get back to just focusing on my game while ignoring the politics.
And that’s about it. I took note of the fact that I had a 48 hour period this past week where I had absolutely no human interaction whatsoever. I am a rock. I touch no one and no one touches me.
Regular readers know I’m all about avoiding the drama that seems to inevitably follow the dart scene. While I was in Korea there was a falling out with the owner of the venue that hosted our singles league here in Columbia. I wrote about that here. So the upshot of that unpleasantness is the league moved to another bar.
I played a match last week at the old bar. When I turned in the score sheet the guy running the league was not happy. He told me if I played at any other bar again he wouldn’t count my score. I pointed out that nothing in the rules dictated where matches had to be played. He said this bar is hosting the league. I said are they paying the league money for us to be here? No, so why does it matter where I play? And then he told me he wasn’t going to discuss it further.
Later, on the league Facebook page he wrote that since “CWs was kind enough to give us a place to play”, all matches had to be played there. This was my response:
It is “kind” indeed that CW’s has so graciously allowed us to come and spend our money at their bar and play darts in their otherwise unused back room. And while I’m sure we owe them a debt of gratitude for that act of generosity, it does seem to me an equal amount of loyalty is owed to the players in the league. Since CW’s is not financially supporting the league, I don’t understand why if a player finds it more convenient or desirable to play at a different venue and his opponent agrees, why you or anyone else would have an issue with that. Prior to the start of the season I asked ” I assume I can play my matches at another venue by mutual agreement with my opponent, correct?” and you responded “yeah”.(see post on September 30). So the only misunderstanding or confusion I’m seeing is how the “rules” were changed mid-stream. Did I miss a vote or something? Regardless, I believe that playing the matches is what we are about, not where we play the matches. I’ll abide by the dictates of the league leadership if I must, but if I’m ever disrespected again for asking a question I’m gone. Or you can fire me now. Your choice.
He responded by berating me for taking our dispute public. And the kicker was he said if I had an issue I should have talked to him about it off-line. Which is precisely what he refused to do when I attempted it.
Well, I founded the league but I don’t pretend to own it. When I was running things folks were free to play wherever they wanted. I’m not running things now and apparently the new dictator is going to do it his way. I considered taking the highway but without darts I basically have no life. So I’ll just have to suck it up, even if doing so, well, sucks.
And that Facebook comment and this post represent the total extent of my caring. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.
Last night I played the Friday darts tourney at a new (to me) bar called Off the Rail. The owner’s name is Jim, but that’s where any similarity with Dolce Vita Pub begins and ends. The bar sits across the railroad tracks from the Sandhills shopping center. You might say it sits on the wrong side of the tracks as it’s a bit of a dive. The clientele last night consisted of a handful of darters, some bikers, and various other working class types. Nothing wrong with that of course, and we all got along.
The bar is within spitting distance of the tracks and as I was preparing to make a dart throw a passing freight train blew it’s horn at a road crossing. I nearly jumped out of my shoes but managed to hold on to the dart and recompose myself. This is certainly not the place to play if you are easily distracted.
The match itself went alright I suppose. I got teamed up with owner Jim and we made it to the finals. He claims to have thrown before and truth be told he wasn’t a bad shot. But he had no real concept on how to play the game. For example, when we were playing single in/double out 501 Jim would ask before EVERY throw “what do you want me to do here”. Now, this is a basic game–you start at 501 and subtract the score of your three dart throw until you get to zero (you have to finish on a double; for example, if you have 32 left you’d throw a double 16). There is no real strategy at the beginning of the game other than to get the highest score you can on your darts (the best possible throw is 180–three triple 20s). I admit I’m not the most patient person you’re likely to meet, but it was pretty frustrating to continuously repeat throughout the night “just throw your darts at the 20 and subtract whatever you hit”.
Actually, I don’t mind helping inexperienced players improve their game. My problem with Jim was he kept disappearing on me. It would be his turn to throw and we’d have to drag him away from the bar where he was chatting up customers. He didn’t seem to have any real interest in the match we were playing and he had zero appreciation for how rude it is to keep people waiting during a game. I was so disgusted that by the time we made it to the finals I suggested to the other team that we just call it a tie and split 1st and 2nd place money 50-50. They agreed I think because they could see I was in agony.
As I was fixing to leave I noticed a van had parked in such a way as to block my car access to the only exit I was aware of. Rather than try and track down the errant van driver I went looking for another path of egress. First I walked along the tracks behind Off the Rail only to encounter a dead end. So then I walked a bit in the other direction and found a driveway alongside another business. It took some maneuvering but I managed to make it out of the parking lot and safely home.
So that was my Off the Rails experience last night. Sad to say it was one of the better nights I’ve had recently. C’est la vie.
My new driving accessory arrived in today’s mail.
My own personal breathalyzer…
When I opened the back to insert the batteries I got a little surprise that made me laugh out loud (hey, I’m easily entertained):
Who’d a thunk it? Ah well, it goes nicely with my Samsung TV and LG appliances. Guess next thing on my shopping list will be a Kia…
Anyway, I took it for a *ahem* test drive tonight. Before leaving the house I gave it a blow and registered 0.00 blood alcohol content (BAC). Since I hadn’t had anything to drink it seemed to be working to perfection. First stop was a new bar for me called Over the Rails. It sits right next to the CSX railroad line, hence the name. The owner wants to install a couple of dart boards so me and a pal dropped in to reconnoiter the joint. It’s a bit of a dive, but the staff and patrons were friendly enough. Had two icy cold Mich Ultras and headed to the car to see precisely how drunk I wasn’t.
In accordance with the instructions, I fired up the BACtrack and let it do its 12 second warmup. At the appointed time I took a deep breath and gave it a hardy 5 second blow. And it registered a BAC reading of 0.67, perilously close to the legal limit of 0.8. I was a bit dismayed until I remembered the instructions emphatically stated that you must wait 20 minutes after your last alcoholic beverage to ensure an accurate reading. I had waited maybe 2 minutes at most.
Seeing as how I was still technically on the legal side of the limit I felt confident enough to drive the two miles to my regular pub, Kwagga. Played some darts and enjoyed two more beers. Then I had a diet Coke and waited the specified 20 minutes before passing wind into my breathalyzer. This time I got a much more satisfactory reading of 0.36. So, four beers in two and a half hours and I was less than half-drunk. Which tells me my self-imposed limit of five beers in three hours was pretty much on target (a bucket of five bottles of beer sells for a discounted rate of ten bucks which is why I go that route). But there’s nothing like the peace of mind and confidence you gain when you don’t have to fear being arrested.
A commenter on my previous post about the BACtrack asked if the product came with a guarantee. After reading the instruction booklet I can state with certainty that it does not. In words that only a lawyer could write it made clear (repeatedly) that it is never safe to operate a motor vehicle after consuming any amount of alcohol. Furthermore, the results of the BACtrack are not admissible in a court of law. And just in case you missed it, the last page of the booklet contains one line of words in capital letters: DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE. So I won’t. Much. And certainly not while driving.
In other news, my buddy Duke up in Northern Virginia left a comment on the post where I mentioned I had applied for a job at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. Turns out that vacancy is with the company he works for. The hiring decisions are made a couple of pay grades below him, but he did forward my resume with a recommendation from him to the folks who will make the selection. I figure that may boost my prospects, although Duke did note that they give first preference to military veterans. I had no idea at the time I applied that I actually had an inside connection. And if Duke hadn’t read my blog he wouldn’t have known I was looking for work there. IF (and that’s a BIG if in bold face letters) I have the good fortune of being selected I would love the fact that after nearly ten years of blogging this damn hobby of mine actually paid off in a tangible way. We’ll see.
Finally, for those readers who care about my darting “career”, I’m happy to report that I’m off to a hot start back here in America. In the Tuesday pub league, I won 6 legs (our team totaled 8). In last night’s Pointless Dart League tournament me and my partner earned a first place finish. More darts on tap tomorrow in Columbia at the Publick House tourney and then I’ll drive up to Charlotte on Saturday morning to participate in a “fun shoot” at Steamer’s Pub. Since I haven’t played there before I have to get “rated” prior to the the tourney. Not sure what that entails but it should be interesting.
So there you have it. Other than my continued sleep deprivation things are going about as well as might be expected. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
…so I don’t have to. Except for the captions.
Friday night darts at Dolce Vita resulted in a 1st place finish for me and my partner Su Mi and enriched us to the tune of W20,000 each.
For the last few weeks poor Steve (the guy on my left) has faced me in the finals and I’ve managed to prevail in some bizarre “pulling it of my ass” fashion. This week it was throwing 5 bulls for the finish.
That young lad in front is Bogdan who returned to Russia on Sunday after spending the summer in Seoul. He demonstrated good potential at darts and pool and was a champion when it came to downing shots. Go figure.
Saturday night found me in Songtan playing the Xenis Bar tournament. I had the good fortune to team up with the bar owner Vox who pretty much carried me to a 2nd place finish and put another W45,000 in my wallet. Well, actually it was Jee Yeun’s wallet that was enriched. But still.
Matt and his lovely lady Sohee also made the drip down to Songtan. The fan makes Matt look much better than he does in real life…
Took the bus back to Seoul early Sunday afternoon. I was feeling whipped but had a Sunday Singles League match to play against Vidal. After losing 9-7 I was feeling even more whipped.
No pictures available, but last night in the Seoul International Dart League we played our sister team from Dillinger’s Bar, the Dill Pickles. We played them close, but lost the match. I managed my first winning night (3-0 in singles, 3-3 in doubles) in a very long time however, so I felt pretty good about that.
Home Plus came through with 60 bottles of the coveted but surprisingly hard to find Coke Zero. Hopefully this will carry me through my final two weeks in Korea…
And that, sad though it may be, is pretty much my life these past few days. Picture that.
…and grab the cash!
I had the good fortune to draw the lovely Russian lass Natasha as my partner in the Dolce Vita blind draw last night. We took us home some first place money…
But wait, there’s more! My ticket got drawn for the trip shoot and I proceeded to hit a triple 4 which made me W114,000 richer.
In unrelated news, I installed a second bathroom in our small apartment.
Although, technically it’s more of a urinal…
The dungeon otherwise known as Friends Bar…
I reckon it’s time to once again accommodate Thirsty’s request for regular dart league updates. Last night my team (The Dillinger’s Dartitis Quarintine) played the boys from Friends Bar. This bar is not my favorite venue by a long shot. I wrote a review of the joint way back in 2009 and suffice to say things have not improved. It’s dirty, dark, and dank. And they don’t serve draft beer. So I settled for large bottles of OB at W5000 a pop. To be fair though, the boards were in excellent condition and the lighting of said boards was also better than I remember. And the bartender was friendly, efficient, and well-decorated.
The “dragon” in the dungeon. Don’t recall her name, but she is the sister of the waitress at Dillinger’s. I’m not much for tattoos, but I’ll admit her ink was excellent.
Our team suffered another ass-kicking, which makes us 0-3 on the season. I’m playing in the “A” division, but I am not throwing “A” division darts. I went 0-3 in singles, 2-1 and 1-2 in doubles. I just can’t seem to hang with the big boys these days, which is frustrating. Ah well, nothing to do but keep throwing and hope for better results.
On Sunday I attended a surprise birthday party for my buddy Matt (and potential future boss) at Shenanigans. It actually was a surprise for me because I showed up by chance without an invite. I felt a little weird about that, but the next day I noticed that I had been sent a message asking me to come. Anyway, we did an impromptu tourney and I drew Matt as my partner. We managed a second place finish, but had I thrown even marginally better we could (and should) have won the damn thing. I couldn’t help but feel I let the birthday boy down. Ah well.
The party turned out to be quite a bit of fun…
Friday night at Dolce Vita I fared a little better, taking a first place with my partner YS.
My eyes were as fuzzy as this photo, so sadly I don’t recall many details from the match…
And other than that I guess all I can report is that I’ve been feeling a little moody lately. In fact, this pretty much sums up my state of mind:
Just gonna roll with the flow for now and see what tomorrow brings.
In dart league last night we played Dillinger’s Dill Pickles, the top rated team in Itaewon. The results were as one might expect, but to get beat and throw badly was not a pleasant experience for yours truly..
After the match two people I like very much got into a verbal altercation. It appeared to me to be a simple misunderstanding, but one of the two was drunk and he tends to be a mean drunk. I tried to calm him dawn to no effect and keeping with my “no drama” policy I got up and went to pay my tab. When I returned things had escalated to the physical and tables were being knocked over and beer glasses were flying. Soon enough some folks stepped in and managed to separate the combatants, but it was a very ugly scene. I left at that point not wanting to deal with the aftermath.
Fights are relatively rare in dart league, but I found the whole experience disconcerting, disappointing, and depressing. A sorry shame it was.
And no more Tony either…
Another weekend, another farewell party. This time it was Tony and Mo saying their goodbyes to Korea as the Army has deemed they are needed in San Antonio. When I returned to Korea after a 13 month hiatus, most of the old faces were gone. Tony and Mo were amongst the new faces I met and enjoyed spending time with, if only for a little while. Such is the life in Itaewon I suppose. I will say they put out a nice spread of food and free beer for their friends and we all had a good time. I wish them both best of luck in the future.
As in the tradition at these farewell parties, a darts tournament broke out. Traditionally, the guests of honor do not win said tournament. Last night I drew up Mo as my partner, and Tony was paired with Dolce Vita proprietor Jim. And sure enough the four of us met in the finals, guaranteeing that at least one of them would break the tourney jinx and go out on a high note. After a long and drunken match in which none of us could hit the outs for which we aimed, I snuck in a double 1 for the win. Tony was philosophical about it, saying if I win Mo gets the money, if she wins she gets the money. So I guess it all went according to plan.
After the party I wasn’t quite ready for the subway journey home so I headed up Hooker Hill to a country bar I used to favor, The Grand Ole Opry. It’s been years since I was in there, but the ajumma who runs the joint remembered me as did the waitress, so that made me feel pretty good.
The guy in the cowboy hat was doing the Texas two-step and making the girls smile. There was a time when I fancied myself a pretty fair country dancer, but alas I was without a partner last night.
And since I promised Thirsty more posts about darts I’ll briefly mention Friday night’s action at Dolce. I teamed up with Shane and we both struggled all night, but somehow managed to make it through the winner’s bracket undefeated. We met Wan Jun and Steve in the finals and they dispatched us pretty quickly in the first set. We were down and almost out in the final leg of the match–behind on points and 17s wide open. We had bulls closed, and they needed one more bull for the win. And then I managed a double bull on my first dart which put us up on points, hit a double 17 with my second dart, and then a single 17 for the win. Yeah, I was lucky, but it was still a sweet finish.
We both went home W20,000 richer…
As incredible as it may seem I was actually starting to feel a little burned out on Itaewon. The wife was visiting family in the countryside and I was feeling more than little bored. What to do? Change my view! So I headed on down to Songtan.
I decided to take the bus from Nambu Terminal, something I’ve done before but never on my own. In the past I had always connected from Line 6 to Line 3 at Yaksu Station. These days I live near Line 4, but I figured I could do the 4/6/3 thing unless I found a better way. And sure enough there was one! You can transfer from Line 4 to Line 3 at Chungmuro Station and twelve stops or so later you arrive at Nambu.
As you can tell I was pretty pleased with myself for figuring that out. And yes, I am easily pleased.
I proceeded to purchase my bus ticket to Songtan (W3800) without incident and the bus arrived within five minutes. Unfortunately, lots of folks had made weekend plans for Songtan and the bus was full before I could get on board. Ah well, the next one arrived twenty minutes later and I secured a comfortable window seat. The last passengers were a mother and her two small children. Finding that there were not three contiguous vacant seats, she put her older child across the aisle and sat down next to me with her little girl sitting in her lap. I volunteered (technically gestured) that I would move and the mother responded in English “no, that’s alright”. Then the little girl offered me a stick of her gum which was pretty sweet of her.
It’s about a 50 minute ride to Songtan which I spent looking out the window. Upon arrival I did the ten minute walk to the Korea Hotel which is where I’ve always stayed when I visit.
Smack dab in the middle of the Songtan entertainment district. If by entertainment you mean bars. Well, there’s lots of shopping too I suppose. But I wouldn’t call that entertainment.
Now, Jee Yeun has always been able to negotiate a discounted rate. I had my mind set on doing the same thing. It was touch and go for awhile but I was finally able to get a rate of $60, a whopping five bucks off the starting price. It was more about the principle than the money anyway.
Next I needed to prepare my stomach for a night of heavy drinking by ingesting some greasy food. The conveniently located McDonald’s did the trick. I then met up with my buddy Matt and we sat down for our first beers at a pub with outdoor tables. Later his girlfriend and her friend drove down from Seoul and we moved over to Xenis Bar for the Saturday night darts tournament.
I drew a local player, Terry “T-Money”, as my partner. I threw a little better than usual and T-Money filled in the gaps nicely. We sailed along until I lost the ability to throw bulls-eyes and we got knocked into the loser’s bracket. Fought our way back to play the team that had beat us earlier for the championship. We took the first match but still needed to beat them again when my partner advised he had a 1:00 a.m. curfew imposed by the commander at Osan Air Base. So we agreed to split 1st and 2nd place money evenly and everyone went home happy.
Joy abounds when you are winning.
Well, I didn’t go home of course. Our group hit the street for some street food where I enjoyed some chicken-on-a-stick, a drunken delicacy if there ever was one. The womenfolk then went back to the hotel and Matt and I hit another bar or two for some late late-night drinking. I stumbled back to the hotel at 0330.
Woke up at 9:30 in a state other than refreshed, grabbed a sausage muffin and coffee at McD’s then hiked on over to the Songtan bus station for my somewhat hungover triumphant return to Seoul. And I never even needed a taxi!
So that’s the story of how my weekend climaxed in Songtan. I’m glad I came! *ahem*
The world came together last night at Pub Dolce Vita in Itaewon. Looking around the room I noted the following countries were represented by patrons in the bar: Korea, USA, Philippines, Japan, Canada, Russia, and Mongolia. Not sure why none of the UK expats showed up given their fondness for the sport of darts.
So we had us a tournament and me and partner managed to make it to the finals. We were coming from the loser’s bracket which required us to beat our opponents in two best of three matches. And both of those matches went all three legs. In fact, it came down to both teams having a chance to win on their last dart. They missed, we didn’t. My share of the 1st Place money was W30,000.
It was well after midnight when we finished and I was tired, hungry, and a little drunk. And I had missed the last subway and bus home (why they stop running so early on the weekends is something I’ve never quite understood). Which meant it was catch a cab or rent a room. I opted for the former.
Now, the only real problem I’ve ever had in Korea is with taxi drivers. It’s a problem that only surfaces when my Korean wife is not with me. And it’s not a language issue so much as it is, well, I have to say it is racism. My experience is always the same and it happens repeatedly: vacant cabs slow down, see I’m a foreigner, and then accelerate away. That happened two or three times last night. I also had two cabs stop, crack the window to ask where I was going, and when I responded “Gireum station” they said “anio” and took off. My understanding is that it is illegal to refuse a fare, but the cabs do it with impunity. Finally a Deluxe Taxi stopped and let me in. The only thing that makes a deluxe cab deluxe is that they charge a higher fare. Last night the meter started at W5000 and was up to W24,000 and change when we arrived in proximity to Gireum (he actually dropped me about a block from where I wanted to go, but there was no point in arguing about it). The normal cab fare from Itaewon is between W12,000 and W15,000. So, that’s the price I paid for being white in Korea I suppose. I have heard it is even worse to be black in Korea.
Last year when Jee Yeun’s kids were with us in Las Vegas they had an ugly run-in with an American taxi driver. And while I felt bad for them of course, I couldn’t help but think now you know how I feel every frickin’ time I cab (alone) in Korea.
Anyway, it was a frustrating end to an otherwise pleasant night.
UPDATE: Kevin Kim makes offers some great advice for winning cabbies over in the comments. Give it a read! And of course, not all cab drivers are useless bastards. I remembered a happy Thanksgiving incident that I had blogged about a few years back.
…but I suppose third is worse.
Actually I enjoyed a nice weekend of darts. Throwing about as well as I can and honestly when someone throws better to beat me I can live with it. When I’m throwing chump darts and beating myself, not so much.
Friday night doubles tourney at Dolce Vita and Wan Jun and Sohee threw just good enough to beat us.
Saturday night singles tourney at Bull and Barrel and I just could not find a way to beat Sungbae. I threw good games, he threw better games. And so it goes.
…you would brag too if it happened to you.
Or maybe not, but I’m paying the rent around here so I’ll post what I want!
I guess all I really wanted to say is I had an outstanding day of darts yesterday. Played two Seoul Sunday Singles League matches and took them both. In the first match I played Sungbae Choi, the top rated player in the league, and came away with a 12-7 victory. It took my best darts to beat him and I had them–including two 9-marks (3 darts in a triple score in one throw–that’s as good as it gets in darts). I won the second match 14-5, but in less impressive fashion as I had been drinking throwing for several hours by that point and I was drunk tired.
Have I turned a corner? Well, I have my confidence back at least. Hard experience has taught me that the only consistent part of my game is my inconsistency. So I won’t let one good day go to my head. Other than this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4
The weather was warm, the darts were hot, the beer was cold. And I’ve got the pictures to prove it!
Kicked things off Friday night with a first place finish in the Dolce Vita tournament…
Early Saturday afternoon we headed out to Yongsan station to catch a train to Songtan…
The station wasn’t too crowded for a Saturday…
The “express” version of the Line 1 train got us to Seojungri station (one stop past our destination) in about an hour…
…a short bus ride took us into Songtan city proper…
…where we arrived hungry and a steaming pot of budaejjigae awaited us at a local eatery.
…and so our group of fellow travelers commenced to satiate that hunger. “Movie Star Midori” insisted that we drink as well as eat, so we did that too…
With several hours to go before the tourney we wisely switched from beverages containing alcohol to those with caffeine…
…at a nice coffee house where we could sit on the street and make a spectacle of ourselves…
Chock full of coffee we moved to Xenis bar to begin the ever important pre-tourney ritual of contemplation and partaking of “aiming fluid”…
We were joined at Xenis by a gaggle of fellow darters who drove down from Seoul to join in the fun…
After a long hard night of drinking darting, I came away with second place money, no small thanks to my partner, a great local darter named Tony. I’m not sure just how many vodka bombs he insisted we drink, but it was a lot!
At this point my phone/camera battery gave up the ghost. The tournament ended at midnight and we then taxied to Pyeongteak to catch a train home. The train didn’t leave until 0230, so we had us some Frypan chicken (and beer) to pass the time. Got to our Gireum apartment around 0400, slept a deep and satisfying sleep, then it was back into Itaewon for the Sunday Singles League match that I had the good fortune to win. The nephew then came by and treated us a nice samgyapsal dinner (with beer and soju) which put a nice exclamation point on a drunken darting weekend!
Life is good. Unless you’re my liver.
Saturday night was the nadir of my darting life (I hope). Fresh off that humiliating and crushing defeat I played well enough last night to take home second place money at a little in-house tournament hosted by Dillinger’s Bar. An aberration or a harbinger of things to come? Time will tell.
The spectators for last night’s action were pretty diverse. Or diverse and pretty. Or both. That’s Midori and Jee Yeun representing Korea, Eve from the Philippines, and Natasha from Russia.
This morning I paid my penance for a weekend of darts by indulging Jee Yeun’s desire to hike up Bukhansan.
The recent rains had the creek flowing nicely over the rocks…
As we were climbing up we encountered Jee Yeun’s mother on her way down. That’s always a pleasant happenstance.
I also noticed that President Park has been doing some politicking along the trail. As I interpret this sign, it means “to move forward towards a bright future, vote conservative!”
Got home and Jee Yeun fixed me up a platter of fresh-from-the-butcher samgyapsal. Life is good.
Last night we were On the Border. Not the DMZ, rather the Mexican food eatery in beautiful downtown Itaewon. We were guests of my old friend Dennis McPeters and his companion Julie.
The food was the best Tex-Mex I’ve eaten outside of the USA. Jee Yeun is a little ambivalent about Mexican cuisine, but she loved the “Kimchi Taco” featured in the foreground. I also enjoyed my chicken enchiladas in a sour cream sauce…
Dennis had the foresight to make a reservation, which was good because the place was packed with people lining up to get in. We also scored a table overlooking the street. It was a very pleasant evening weather-wise, so the windows were open and the sounds of the city created a nice urban ambiance for our dining pleasure.
A table with a view and refreshing libations made for a pleasant dining experience.
Amongst those sounds of the city was some guy walking up and down the street screaming fire and brimstone into a megaphone. From our perch on the second floor he could be heard but more or less easily ignored. However, after we had finished our meal we had the misfortune of exiting the building directly behind him. As we were walking in the same direction we got the full impact of his evangelism. Well, it was in Korean but Jee Yeun’s translation was that we were basically all going to hell.
As we progressed up the street I was watching the reactions of the passersby to megaphone-man. And the universal reaction was a combination of contempt, disgust, and anger. I’m thinking to myself “man, this guy is driving people away from salvation with his rude message”. Just as I was completing this observation a Korean man did what we were all wanting to do and loudly confronted the screaming bastard. And what happened next was pretty surprising. The “Christian” man put down the megaphone and started fighting with the citizen who told him to shut up. Well, it was a Korean-style fight–mostly some back and forth bitch slapping, but still. I thought it was pretty funny actually and was shouting encouragement from the sidelines “oh, you are such a good example of Christianity, you douche!” Jee Yeun even joined in by demurely observing “you should not be so loud” (she said it in Korean though). I guess megaphone man realized he had lost the crowd, so he picked up his megaphone again, shouted something angrily, then exited hurriedly down a side street. Man, you just can’t buy that kind of entertainment!
We proceeded to Bull and Barrel for a nightcap without further incident. I made the mistake of signing up for the dart tournament and proceeded to play the worst darts of my “career”. Seriously, the first time I ever picked up a set of darts I played better than I did last night. It was humiliating. Ah well. I’m trying hard to not let this slump get inside my head and exacerbate whatever the hell my problem is.
I guess this is as good a time as any to talk a little about my old friend Dennis. I’ve been knowing him since the 1980s when I recommended him for a job with the USPS in Columbia, SC. Later on after I’d moved to a job in DC, I hired him to work for me there. And still later I brought him over to work on my team in Korea. I’m long gone and he’s still here. But not for long. He’s finally retiring in January.
I frankly envy his post retirement plans. Rather than having himself and all his stuff shipped back to the USA, he’s selling everything he owns and is going to live the life of a nomad. I asked him where he was going to go and he said wherever I want. He mentioned the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand as a start. If he gets tired of Asia, South and Central America are on the list of options.
I used to fantasize about a lifestyle like that. But the reality is I wouldn’t have the courage to do it right. But I’m brave enough to fly in for a visit whenever I get an answer to the question “where in the world is Dennis?” So there’s that.
Hell, I must be the Avis of darts. I guess I’ll just have to try harder.
A second place finish in singles to the #1 player in Itaewon is not a bad showing I suppose.
After the tournament we took a short walk down the street to our favorite samgyapsal house where we ate and drank some more.
We were joined by our good friends Koichi and Jiwon along with Jee Yeun’s daughter Sohee…
…and then we made some new friends with the guys who were sitting at the table next to ours. A couple of soldiers and their friend, a former KATUSA.
Jee Yeun especially took a liking to the young soldier coincidentally named John. Henceforth she referred to me as “old” John…
I think the KATUSA took a shine to Sohee but she was being shy. Or coy. Who can tell?
Anyway, it was a great night out in the ‘twon. I have more fun in store this afternoon when we’ll meet up with the famous Big Hominid at the Tabom Brazil steak house. It’s all you can eat so I’m not sure what condition I’ll be in for darts in the Sunday Singles League, but it will be worth it.
Details to follow. Stay tuned!
There is of course an element of danger in any sporting activity. Darting is no exception. The game is played with sharp steel pointed projectiles which are sometimes being tossed about by individuals in heightened states of intoxication. Last night I encountered a rather drunken female opponent who expressed her displeasure with losing in a way I had never quite experienced before:
She disgustedly threw her dart to the floor hitting me in the shoe. Honestly, it was about the only thing she hit all night…(UPDATE: Commenter Kevin points out that “she couldn’t even hit the floor”, which I do believe is a more accurate assessment of the situation.)
All’s well that ends well though. I was uninjured (thankfully I am not one of those people who play in flip flops) and my partner and I wound up with a second place finish for the night.
Life is good.