Dartoid’s Column

Monday, September 8, 2025
Column 697
The Golden Triangle

“The heartland of Southeast Asia has always been on the edge of civilization.  The great empires, such as the Pagan in Burma, Sukhothai in Thailand and Angkor in Cambodia, were built in the plains, where rice grows easily and there are trade routes to the sea. …

Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Column 696
Stewie the Sloth Starts the Jungle Premier League

Once upon a time there was a sloth. His name was Stewie. He was slow, lazy, and always a little high from chewing funny jungle leaves. Stewie had never managed anything, never written more than a shopping list, and never finished …

Wednesday, August 15, 2025
Column 695
Tooth-and-claw Justice

In what may go down as the most karmically satisfying hypothetical obituary ever published – I regret to report that Duncan “The Troll” Blatherdick, serial grifter, self-proclaimed animal savior, pitiful dart player, and world-class donor-fleecer, was fatally mauled in Africa last Thursday by a lion named Temba.…

Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Column 694
Darts in Hiroshima

“I’m a travelin’ man, I’ve made a lot of stops all over the world,” cooed Ricky Nelson in 1961. The song was a massive hit, rising to the top of the charts. Teenage girls swooned. Not widely known is that the tune was written for Sam …

Friday, August 1, 2025
Column 693
What if a player faceplants?

Ah, the internet. That magical place where reason goes to die and dart players go to argue about flip-flops, monkeys, and Rule #449, Section 51, Paragraph 34.

Once upon a time – WAY BACK in 2014 – when the Darts Discussion Group was alive, …

Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Column 692
The 51st State of Darts: Welcome to Alaska2

So, Donald Trump wants to annex Canada. Yep. He wants the land of maple syrup, moose, and manners to join the land of Big Gulps, bald eagles, and people yelling “Let’s goooo!” in public for no reason.

Before you panic about …

Monday, June 30, 2025
Column 691
Darts of the Round Table

There are a few things you can always count on at your average darts tournament: the whiff of stale beer, a control desk manned by frazzled volunteers trying to locate someone named “Assassin180,” and boards lined up against the walls and spaced apart, bull …

Thursday, June 19, 2025
Column 690
Hey Trump – don’t blow up darts in Iran!

This 2007 column is old but perhaps worth sharing again given current circumstances.

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While I had hoped business travel might coincide with the 13th staging of the Asia Pacific Cup in Kuala Lumpur in September, it was not to …

Monday, June 9, 2025
Column 689
I miss you, Howie

There are voices in this game that have echoed longer than most of us have stood at the oche.

Howie Reed – known to many of you as The Old Dart Coach – was one of them.

For decades, Howie chronicled the world of darts …

Friday, June 6, 2025
Column 688
There’s a New Dart in Town

Well, not new exactly. The Dodge Dart has been around since the 1960s. It’s the kind of car your granddad might’ve done donuts in behind the drive-in theater – revving his tiny 4-cylinder like it was a ‘Cuda, hoping no one noticed he …