I am so far behind in watching movies, that I just got around to seeing the 2003 movie Daredevil when it came on TV. I laughed when I saw that one of the characters was named bullseye. Bullseye's first scene is in an English Pub, where he bets a patron that he can hit three double bulls. While he is downing a pint, not even looking at the board, he hits three double bulls and then splits one of the darts with another. In the behind the scenes shots after the movie, they showed how they had the darts on a wire to make sure they hit the bull.
That brought back to mind a true story that happened a couple of years ago when I was playing darts in the New Orleans area. A local TV celebrity, Frank Davis, decided to cover the New Orleans area dart scene in one of his local news shows. He came over to Third Base, which is a great dart bar in the suburb of Metairie. A couple dart players were asked to come out for the filming, including myself and Scott Wollaston. After some interviews, Frank had his camera man set up a shot. The film would show Frank throwing the dart. Then it would cut away to just show the dart that Scott threw at the bull. The end product would look like Frank was hitting the bull. Scott was acting as kind of a dart stunt double.
Third Base had a lot of steel boards, and a couple of soft-tip boards. As you know, the double bull on a soft-tip board is the one segment that is roughly the same size as on a steel tip board. We set up on the soft-tip board as Frank requested. We figured that it would require a couple of takes to get a few shots in the double bull, as requested. Scott walked up and hit three double bulls in the first three darts. Frank and his cameraman were dumbfounded. We made a great show of acting like it was nothing special.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Elizabeth League & Local Qualifiers
I logged onto the Elizabeth Dart League website to see how my old team was doing. Wow...they have won their first three matches, and racked up a 92 wins 7 losses record in legs! They are hot. Four players are undefeated in singles '01 with 9-0 records, including Bob, Tom, Chris and John. Good work boys. I do miss it.
The USA Dart Club has been having qualifiers for the upcoming ADO Cricket Regional. This year the Regional will be Friday, November 23 in Ronkonkoma, NY, followed by Laurett's big Long Island Fall Classic. Winners go to Vegas to shoot in the nationals. I will need to hit the practice board if I'm going to be ready for that one.
I will be running a sort of tournament of my own on Saturday. My five year old son is inviting over his friends for a Halloween costume party. I purchased one of the dart products which I reviewed, the Halloween Dart Game. Okay, so it actually uses velcro balls. Still it will be good practice for the little aspiring dart players. I will announce the winner and grand champion of the playroom in next week's post. Until then, good darts!
The USA Dart Club has been having qualifiers for the upcoming ADO Cricket Regional. This year the Regional will be Friday, November 23 in Ronkonkoma, NY, followed by Laurett's big Long Island Fall Classic. Winners go to Vegas to shoot in the nationals. I will need to hit the practice board if I'm going to be ready for that one.
I will be running a sort of tournament of my own on Saturday. My five year old son is inviting over his friends for a Halloween costume party. I purchased one of the dart products which I reviewed, the Halloween Dart Game. Okay, so it actually uses velcro balls. Still it will be good practice for the little aspiring dart players. I will announce the winner and grand champion of the playroom in next week's post. Until then, good darts!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
James Wade Rules at the World Grand Prix
I got to see James Wade practicing and playing at the World Series of Darts. I remember thinking to myself, this guy looks focused, and serious. He let it show in the World Grand Prix last week, winning the event against top competition.
The Grand Prix is notable for having a double start and double finish. That can throw even the best players off, as witnessed by Phil Taylor's early exit from the event. Wade was consistently hot. In the semi-final he dismantled Raymond Van Barneveld 5 sets to 1. He also had a shot at bull for the first ever televised 9 dart 501 game in a double start and double finish format. There was a 15,000 euro bonus riding on the shot and he unfortunately missed! However, he went on to win the final and the grand prize of 50,000 euros. The Planetdarts website has some good accounts of the event.
From reports, Wade is a working mechanic who also plays darts. At only 24 years of age he looks to have a bright future in the sport. Keep up the good work!
The Grand Prix is notable for having a double start and double finish. That can throw even the best players off, as witnessed by Phil Taylor's early exit from the event. Wade was consistently hot. In the semi-final he dismantled Raymond Van Barneveld 5 sets to 1. He also had a shot at bull for the first ever televised 9 dart 501 game in a double start and double finish format. There was a 15,000 euro bonus riding on the shot and he unfortunately missed! However, he went on to win the final and the grand prize of 50,000 euros. The Planetdarts website has some good accounts of the event.
From reports, Wade is a working mechanic who also plays darts. At only 24 years of age he looks to have a bright future in the sport. Keep up the good work!
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
I'm Back!
It's been a long time since I have posted anything, but the truth to tell, I have actually not been playing darts hardly at all in the past two months! My son just started Kindergarten, and work has kept me quite busy. No tournaments or league play, and it looks like the only travelling leagues nearby are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are not available for me this fall. I have been exercising a lot though, which I can do at odd times (lost two inches on my waist already...yea!).
However, I did have a dart adventure recently. While I am fading a bit into obscurity, I can occasionally step out of the shadows and have some fun. We had a family vacation last week in the Washington D.C. area, and I decided to take my darts along. I logged onto the Washington Area Dart Association website and saw that there was a luck of the draw about 15 minutes by car from the hotel we were staying at. The place was called Winstons, and it was in Rockville, Maryland. They have a Saturday night luck of the draw doubles, which was scheduled for 9pm. I showed up about twenty minutes early, and they were just picking teams.
Winstons is primarily a pool hall, being located next to Champion Billiards. Behind the dart area, which has four boards, there was a giant floor full of tables. It looked like a fair amount of action was going on at the tables, and the rest of the crowd was either playing darts or watching the Stanford/USC football game.
The guy running the tournament was sitting out because there was an odd number of players. However, when I walked up that made it even again, and with everyone's okay he picked me as a partner. Several of them were grinning, because my partner loved to talk trash, in a friendly way, and they thought the new guy (me) was going to drag him down!
I started off a little slow, but about midway into the cricket match I found my mark, hitting a seven mark, and then was steady the rest of the tournament. Much to the delight of my partner, we cruised through the tournament without even dropping a leg. I love it when a vacation turns unexpectedly profitable!
I hung around afterwards to watch Stanford dash undefeated USC's hopes with an amazing 4th quarter touchdown. I then faded back into the night, until my next dart adventure.
However, I did have a dart adventure recently. While I am fading a bit into obscurity, I can occasionally step out of the shadows and have some fun. We had a family vacation last week in the Washington D.C. area, and I decided to take my darts along. I logged onto the Washington Area Dart Association website and saw that there was a luck of the draw about 15 minutes by car from the hotel we were staying at. The place was called Winstons, and it was in Rockville, Maryland. They have a Saturday night luck of the draw doubles, which was scheduled for 9pm. I showed up about twenty minutes early, and they were just picking teams.
Winstons is primarily a pool hall, being located next to Champion Billiards. Behind the dart area, which has four boards, there was a giant floor full of tables. It looked like a fair amount of action was going on at the tables, and the rest of the crowd was either playing darts or watching the Stanford/USC football game.
The guy running the tournament was sitting out because there was an odd number of players. However, when I walked up that made it even again, and with everyone's okay he picked me as a partner. Several of them were grinning, because my partner loved to talk trash, in a friendly way, and they thought the new guy (me) was going to drag him down!
I started off a little slow, but about midway into the cricket match I found my mark, hitting a seven mark, and then was steady the rest of the tournament. Much to the delight of my partner, we cruised through the tournament without even dropping a leg. I love it when a vacation turns unexpectedly profitable!
I hung around afterwards to watch Stanford dash undefeated USC's hopes with an amazing 4th quarter touchdown. I then faded back into the night, until my next dart adventure.
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