Dartoid’s Column

February 1, 1999
Column 67
Houston, Texas

When Cyberdarts guru Rick Osgood suggested I visit him in Houston recently it was for two reasons that I simply couldn’t pass on the invitation. First, it was Osgood and his wife Loretta who originally posed the idea, some five years ago, that I create the Dartoid’s World …

November 1, 1998
Column 66
Dart Dreams

A long time ago in a land far away a little boy dreamed. At night on the floor of his barrio he’d leaf through the tattered pages of American picture books and imagine himself outside the lush rainforests, away from the abject poverty of his land. He saw …

September 1, 1998
Column 64
Phuket, Thailand

Located in the sparkling waters of the Andaman Sea, just seventy miles by plane from Bangkok, is an island paradise known as the Pearl of Siam. This tropical playground of the rich, formally called Phuket, offers everything, and more, that a visitor could possibly hope for — mountains, …

September 1, 1998
Column 63
Bombay, India

Mark Twain once described India as a “land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels… of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps.” Rudyard Kipling wrote of India’s “heat and smells and oils and spices and puffs of …

September 1, 1998
Column 62
Ottawa, Canada

Ask any number of American grade school children to name the capitol of our friendly neighbor to the north and, undoubtedly, as many will scribble down “Toronto” as will know the correct answer. Considering that nearly as many of these kids think Judge Wapner is a Supreme Court …

September 1, 1998
Column 61
Manila, Philippines

I’m in the clouds at the moment somewhere over the South China Sea. For what seems like endless minutes now I have been staring at my laptop trying to think of something nice to say about Manila, the city I’ve just departed. If it weren’t for the couple …

September 1, 1998
Column 60
Sydney, Australia

For the past twenty-four hours I have raced the rotation of the earth around both its axis and the sun and wound up losing big time. Now, while it’s a snowy Friday in the dead of winter back home on Cape Cod, I am typing away on a …

September 1, 1998
Column 59
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Sometime ago I came across an advertisment on the Internet for a sports bar called Colors Fun Pub (2, Jalan SS21/39) near Subang Airport, just outside of Kuala Lumpur. The gist of the ad was a sort of cyberspace trash-talk: that if you wanted your “butt kicked …

August 1, 1998
Column 58
Las Vegas, Nevada

I am inside what seems like the heart of a giant, spinning Christmas tree. I am surrounded by pulsating lights, flashing stars and bright, pounding multi-colored neon — a cavalcade of reds and blues and yellows bouncing off hundreds of ceiling high mirrors. Movement is constant and …