Nothing reminds me more about how out of touch with American culture I’ve become than when I look at the movies being sold by the street vendors in Itaewon. I swear, I’ve never heard anything about 90% of the offerings. So, it is always a hit and miss affair when I make a purchase. Most of the time I miss. Got lucky last year when I bought “Crash” (well before the Oscar nomination). And I just watched another good one called “Stranger than Fiction”. I wanted to buy “The Simpson’s” but it was sold out, so I picked up STF only because I recognized most of the actors in the film. Will Farrell, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Thompson were all excellent in a story that was quite different than I expected. Not really a comedy, although there were some funny moments, and maybe sappy in spots, but still very entertaining. It had a unique way of presenting the story that I won’t spoil here. Here’s a clue: I was reminded of the adventures of Gumby when he really got into a book. And I haven’t thought of Gumby for a long time. Probably longer than some of you youngsters have been alive.

Anyway, if you are looking for something to watch on the DVD, I can highly recommend this film.

but as for me, I’m sticking with the samgaetong…

For those who might not understand the reference, some Koreans believe eating dog meat on the hottest days of summer is good for the health. I’ve actually not met anyone who admits to eating dog meat though, but I’ve seen restuarants that specialize in this delicacy and pictures of the dog meat market. Not to be culturally insensitive but I find it all pretty disgusting. Frankly, the Koreans I know are also revulsed by the practice. The alternative is samgaetong, which is a chicken soup-like concoction. Bascially a half chicken served in a boiling broth. So tender it just falls off the bone. Which is good considering how klutzy I am with chopsticks. It is actually quite tasty.

Anyway, it has been miserably hot here these past few days. Air so thick with humidity you almost have to be a fish to breathe. And we are still in the midst of monsoon season, which means daily thunderstorms. Doesn’t seem to cool things off much though, just adds more moisture to the air. Ah well, not much you can do about the weather.

Pretty good night at the Dolce dart tourney last night. Two seconds and a first.

And that’s about it from here.

Great night for darts. Took down Gecko’s 13-6. As for me, went 6-0 with some six marks, five marks, tons+, and a 3bc. Maybe my slump is over…

Well, the first game of the summer/fall dart season commenced Monday night. We drew our nemesis and rival Alley Ratz from the 3 Alley Pub. Last time we met was in the league championship game, which we narrowly lost 10-9. Nothing nearly as dramatic this time as we were beaten rather handily 12-7.

It seems I always draw Max of the Ratz in singles–Monday was our third straight regular season matchup. Last season we traded 2-1 outcomes. He got me this time 2-1, although if I hadn’t been so inept in the third cricket leg I might have reversed that. I can’t afford to be off my game like that if Take it Easy is going to be competitive in the Artic Division (basically high B or low A calibre teams). Cuatro and I did take cricket doubles 3-0, but it was meaningless at that point as the match had already been decided.

The bright notes were Lonnie’s continued improvement. He played well against Eric who in the past would have dominated him. I’m looking for big things from Lonnie this season, he just needs to keep his confidence and improve his consistency. We also got our team jersey’s, although they arrived too late to be worn during the match. Lonnie did the graphic design, which is pretty damn cool–the Korean peninsula as the outline of a dart board. I will try to get a picture of the team in uniform next week.

Another tough matchup coming against the Wolfhound Pub team. Stay tuned.

Getting back into the routine of my life here, including the Friday night tourney at Dolce Vita.

The three week layoff has left me feeling a little uncomfortable with my throwing. I’m still getting decent results, but I just can’t seem to find my rhythm. Plus, I had some equipment trouble and had to replace my shafts with some that are a tad heavier. My darts seem to be highly sensitive to any aerodynamic alterations, and last night I was getting a lot of fallouts/bounceouts and a general lack of zip in my throws.

Regardless, Lonnie and I managed to finish second in the Early Bird tourney, and Dave and I took first place in the Die Hard event. Didn’t place in the Prime Time tournament, but my partner Margaret and I gave it a good run. So, coupled with my 100,000W payout from the challenge league championship I came home with more money in my pocket than I started with, which is good because I am definitely broke after my vacation.

Monday night the regular Seoul International Dart League season begins. We open with Alley Ratz from 3 Alley Pub, the team that beat us in the championship game last season. They look to be even stronger this year, so we have got our work cut out for us. Still, nobody has more fun than we do and I am really looking forward to getting back into the competition.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Championship game against the Alley Ratz came down to the team game and we came up one dart short. We went down fighting though, and it’s hard to hang your head after a successful season and finals match as close as this one.

A recap:
0-3
1-5
3-6
6-6
9-6
9-9

and then the team game where both of us had taken shots at the out, and they got it first.

Lots of “woulda, coulda, shouda” but also some fine darts. We had to claw and scratch and dig ourselves out of a hole and gave them our best shot. We didn’t let them Take it Easy.

Congratulations to the Ratz.

Wait till next year!

Tourney time this weekend. Yesterday was the SIDL singles tournament at Blue Frog. I had a bye in the first round, then faced Grant. He took me in ’01 (overcoming my T-35) and I was pretty merciless in the cricket leg, pointing like mad. I was up by well over 100 points, needed two bulls for the win, and could not connect. I probably average one bull per 3 darts. I threw at least 20 times at the MFer with nothing to show for it. So, I lost a game I should have won. I believe it was the most disgusted I have every been with myself after a dart game.

I took the next three matches in the losers bracket throwing pretty solid and actually getting what turned out being the high out for the tourney, a 78. Then I wound up facing Cuatro. In the first leg he schooled me in cricket (pointing me at every opportunity) and winning handily. I held on to win the ’01 leg, so it was back to cricket for the marbles. I put my schooling from the first leg to good use, and had a one point lead heading into bulls. And then I suffered the recurring nightmare of being completely unable to throw a GD bullseye. Arrgh. I hate to lose, but losing like that just makes me so aggravated.

The good news I guess is that I still managed a 6th place finish, good for W40,000. Plus, W10,000 for high out. And I was really pleased that Colin played so well yesterday, winding up in 4th place. I know he was jazzed about that.

Also played in the inaugural Dolce Vita Friday night tourney. Had a good partner, but we faced two other strong teams out of the box and just didn’t execute well enough to win either match, so suffered an early elimination. Still, Jim was happy that we had twenty players there, and I’m thinking YJ enjoyed a packed bar of hard drinking darts players. Craig and his partner Alistair won the tourney and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger grin than the one the Goat was wearing after that victory. Congrats again!

Someday I will post something here that doesn’t revolve around darts. But today is not that day.

Well, maybe not heaven, but I do believe last night’s playoff match against Sliders was the overall best I have ever had the pleasure of playing.

Sliders, the other Dolce Vita “B” team took first place in the East Division (we finished second in West) and had handed us our most lopsided loss earlier in the season when they took us down 15-4. So, we knew going in we had our work cut out for us. I was undecided how best to set our lineup and after discussing with the team we decided to do it the way we had done it all season, by random draw. In playoff competition, the first team that wins 10 legs takes the match and we felt we had to take at least 6 legs in singles to have a chance.

I was up first against Ray, a dangerous player who can kill you with triples when he is on. Fortunately for me, he was off his game a little and I had my darts working good enough to take a 3-0 win.

Lonnie was up next and he had the misfortune of drawing Alistair, the top ranked player in “B” league (who had lost 2 legs total all season). Lonnie struggled early in the season, but he has really stepped up his game in the second half, including throwing a 9-mark. He has been beating me regularly in practice ’01 games and playing with more confidence overall, but Alistair appeared to be a real mismatch. Lonnie was not intimidated and played a great ’01 game and just missed the double 17 out before Alistair outed on 4. The cricket game was not as close, but Lonnie hung tough and made Alistair work for the win. So, after two games we are tied 3-3.

Mario had to rush down from Uijongbu where he’s working this week to make the match, and he drew Jin for the third game. I think those two are pretty evenly matched, but last night Jin threw just well enough to take Mario 3-0, making it 3-6 going into the last singles game.

To reach our goal of winning six legs in singles we needed a sweep from Cuatro. He was playing Grant who has really been throwing great darts this season. Cuatro took a hard fought win in the first cricket leg, but Grant came back with a blistering ’01 game for the win. Cuatro won the diddle for the third leg, called cricket, and won handily. So, we stood at 5-7 going into doubles.

It was Mario and Jim versus Grant and Alistair in doubles ’01. We had to have one leg to get to the cricket doubles and to be honest I was not confident it was going to happen. Grant and Alistar have been pretty much unbeatable as ’01 partners this season and the way they played in the first leg it appeared the season was about to be over for Take it Easy. To their credit, Mario and Jim maintained confidence and focus and threw great darts to win that key second leg. Grant and Alistair recovered and took the third leg, leaving us at 6-9 heading into doubles cricket.

Cautro and I knew there was no margin for error, we had to take all three cricket legs to force a team game to decide the match. We came out smokin’ in the first leg and dominated Fred and Ray for the win. They jumped out to an early lead in the second leg, and we may not have caught them but for their inexplicable inability to close 15s. This allowed us to catch up and pass them in points and close 17s, our last open number. So, we had the advantage of 3 bulls to 5 and we took care of business for the sweep, leaving the scored tied 9-9 going into the team game.

During the season the team game (’01) is generally meaningless and consequently not taken too seriously. Not so last night, as players from both teams were quite intense and focused on getting the win. We built a hundred point lead which kept the pressure on them. We worked it down to a double 16 out and Jim (aka Mr. Closer) hit it with his first dart giving Take it Easy a sweet and hard earned victory. We now advance to the championship game next Monday against the 3 Alley Pub Alley Ratz.

Both of the Dolce Vita teams had great seasons, and it was nice that we played it so tight in our playoff match up. Hats off to the Sliders guys who have nothing to be ashamed of, our team had to throw some of our best darts of the year to eek out the win.

Thanks to YJ (Dolce Vita owner) for all the support she provided this season. She fed us all pizza last night and remained nuetral (even though her husband Jim plays for TIE), saying whoever wins Dolce will be playing for the championship. Thanks also to Colin and Scott from Blessed Bulls who came out and cheered us on. Your encouragement and support were really appreciated.

Had a tough negotiation with the Alley Ratz captain on picking the nuetral bar for Monday’s match. We wanted Bless U, they wanted Wolfhound. I nixed Wolfhound because there is only one board available there, so after much discussion we agreed to play at Friends Bar (halfway up hooker hill). Alley Ratz finished first in our division (finishing ahead of us by four legs) and we went 1-1 in head-to-head play during the regular season. They are an outstanding team and we should have a great match next week.

Win or lose, I must say this has been an amazing season in many ways. We lost our top player (Duke) early in the year but held it together to have a very successful and competitive team. And a team is what we became. We have a good mix of guys and we played through the good and bad nights without dissension or controversy. What mattered most was how we picked each other up, it seemed like when our top rated players were off, the other guys were always there to fill the gap. And that is what being a team is all about. I’m just proud to have been part of it.

We took Shooter R Us tonight 10-3. No thanks to me. I took the first leg in cricket then let the ’01 game slip away. Then got blasted in the 3rd leg cricket game. Cuatro got us even with a 2-1 win, then Mario and Jim pulled out 3-0 wins to give us a commanding lead. Cuatro and I finished with a first leg victory in the ’01 doubles to seal the victory.

Thursday we have the other Dolce team, the Sliders. They beat us 15-4 in our previous game so we have our work cut out for us. Still, if we do what we are capable of we should give them a good match. Time will tell.