September 1, 2004
Column 170
Save Money! Attract the Opposite Sex! Improve your Game!
At a darts tournament there are many rituals shared by both the novice and professional darter. Off the oche, throughout the ebb and flow of a weekend, we each participate in a series of routines that, just like following a 180 with a 26, we tend take for granted. They are mediocre little events. Like the Clinton presidency.
Take for example what you’re doing at this very moment.
Of course you’re not actually at a darts tournament. But if you were you’d have nonchalantly wandered the hall, warmed up a little, grabbed a beer or two, commiserated with old friends — and then picked up any number of tournament filers scattered near the Control Desk. That’s just what darters do.
And if you were at a tournament none of this would be a big deal. You’d be safe.
But you’re not. You’re not at a tournament. And you’re definitely not safe.
You’re in mortal danger. The words you are reading right now –the actual images you are seeing at this very moment — are being created in a large evacuated cathode-ray tube. They are then being directed via a beam of high-energy electrons from the cathode into a special phosphor-coated, glass screen. Your computer screen!
Doubt me? Then find a geek. This is all absolutely true.
But as bad as it is to be bombarded with virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including both ultraviolet and infrared radiation, this is not the really dangerous part. What’s most threatening is that connected to the other end of the cathode tube via a long, spider-web thin, nearly invisible, fiber-optic cable is something even more frightening than all this exotic high-tech gobbly-gook.
Yes, folks, you’ve guessed it! As you read these words you are wired directly to the brain of Dayton Strawbridge. Unless you read the remainder of this column very carefully and do exactly as instructed, Dayton will hunt you down and squash you just like America did Iraq. If you physically stop reading now you will turn into a giant grape.
The thing is: reading the stuff left lying around tournament halls is something darters do. It’s no biggie. We don’t talk about it. Awards, like 180 certificates, aren’t handed out for the darter who gathers up the most fliers. It’s just one of the mundane, insignificant little things we all do over the course of any darting weekend.
What you’re doing now is no different. It’s just something you do. You should be working, not farting around on the Internet. If you’ve got the time to read you should be reading something worth reading, not the crap I churn out each month. But, that’s what darters do. I can’t explain it.
The good news is this: even though you don’t realize it yet, never, not ever — not at any tournament, in any darts book or other stop along the Information Highway — have you come across information as valuable as the words contained in the balance of this column.
That’s because the information that follows will lead you to a BETTER LIFE! If you read on you will learn how to SAVE HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS, ATTRACT MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX and IMPROVE YOUR GAME.
All of this can be yours! If you can read.
According to a recent highly scientific study conducted by way of not-entirely-confidential interviews across a random sampling of a half-dozen darters and analyzed by my wife’s brother, Louie, there are exactly four off-the-line rituals in which all darters partake during the course of a weekend tournament:
Da Horizontal Bop. Actually, like hopeful adolescents cruising Burger King, most tournament darters don’t formally participate in sex. They just think about it. Talk about it. Dream about it. If you question this finding of the study please visit the Whopper Shop at the corner of Gettysburg and Hoover in Dayton, Ohio and talk to Jason Jarvis.
Hoggin’ the Grog. In probably the most startling discovery of the study, it was determined that some darters drink. Some drink to drown the agony of defeat. To relax, others take a nip before they shoot. Still others even drink during their matches! And then there are the hard core — epitomized by the late Bucky Bakalec from New Jersey, who was once observed throwing cricket while lying on his back in the lobby of a Sheraton hotel.
Takin’ a Leak. While it appears that most darters achieved gold stars when learning their multiplication tables in third grade and hence, can instantaneously calculate the value of any triple on the board, an astounding 95% of tournament shooters go blank when required to subtract the value of a triple from any other number known to mankind. This is why most darters can be found in the toilet when they should be chalking.
Wheelin’ ‘n Dealin’. Finally, it was observed that all darters (except National Team members) stop by the t-shirt table an average of 102 times during a tournament weekend. This is because even though they’ve already drained their wallet only to be knocked out in the first round of each event, they still long for a shirt to wear back home — to prove that they were at the tournament and would have won if it hadn’t been for a little bad luck. So, again and again, they mosey around the t-shirt stand hoping that the price per shirt has been reduced to the approximate cost of a bag of Doritos. National Team members do not participate in this particular ritual because they already have quality apparel designed by Betsy Ross.
Yes my friends, it is these four routines which all darters in some fashion or another, consciously or unconsciously, touch during the course of a weekend tournament. It is this last routine however, if conducted carefully and with common sense, that can make a dramatic difference in your life.
And BEST OF ALL: you don’t even have to be at a tournament to do it! Read on…
Right now you have within your grasp the opportunity of a lifetime! Just a couple of clicks a way and available for little more than it will cost you to enter your next Luck of the Draw and get knocked out because your partner throws even worse than you, is a darts shirt deal that can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. One of the many products in the fast-growing Dartoid’s World Collection, these shirts are guaranteed to impress your buddies back home. Here’s why:
Price. They are priced right. Each shirt has been reduced exactly $300 from the shelf price of similar shirts at fine shops in Paris, Monte Carlo and Beverly Hills. This is the absolute frickin’ truth. And just try getting one of these puppies at Harrods of London. It can’t be done!
Quality. They are sized perfectly and constructed from a specially formulated fabric which accentuates the physical attributes of the female of our species and camouflages the beer gut on the rest of us. The shirts don’t shrink, fade or absorb pizza stains — and they employ a unique and very light-weight Kevlar stitching which will protect you from drive-by shootings. Honest!
Fashion. They are incredibly attractive. They are guaranteed to attract the opposite sex (or the same sex, if you prefer). If you doubt this, just check out the Dartoid’s World Collection model, Eve Horne. Eve is the reigning Miss Hawaiian Tropic and a soon-to-be Playboy centerfold. BUT she used to be a PORKER! The transformation when she pulled on one of these shirts was unbelievable. Screw Weight Watchers! Screw Atkins! Screw exercise! When Eve first put on one of these amazing shirts my eyes literally popped out of my head. When she took off the shirt I fainted dead away. Wearing one of these shirts, you too can exude such magnetism. Yeah baby!
Finally and perhaps most important of all, a shirt from the
Dartoid’s World Collection will lift your game to a level you never before imagined possible. The very first time I pulled on a Dartoid shirt I threw a perfect game of 501, on television. Even more impressive is that I achieved this near-impossible display of darting skill by throwing with my foot! It was really something. Afterwards all of my buddies bought me free drinks. Dave Marienthal gave me his handkerchief. Holly Carver slipped me her phone number. Yes, it was quite a moment and it was all made possible because I had the good sense to put on one of these remarkable shirts.
If you have any doubts whatsoever as to the validity of the claims above, kindly contact the Truth in Advertising Division of the National Advertising Council. They will readily confirm the foregoing. In the event they do not please ask the bastards to return my thousand bucks at their earliest convenience.
If you have questions or concerns about the findings of my wife’s brother, Louie, he can be contacted any day of the week between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m at the Betty Ford Clinic.
And if, after slogging to the near final line of this unadulterated, self-promotional heap of crap, you still don’t want to buy a shirt, that is, of course, your prerogative.
It’s a free world, damnit!
Best of luck explaining that to Dayton.
From the Field,
Dartoid
