Just came across this cool website you should check out. It lists hundreds of movies in which the characters play darts or the plot has something to do with the game. It’s
http://www.crowsdarts.com/movies/movies.html

We love darts here in the Lounge. It’s one of those truly beautiful games where one can be a barfly and still be good at it. The most effort involved is getting up and walking a few paces from the bar. What could be better?

One of our regulars – you know who you are – insists that we should hang the dart board on the wall behind the bar so he doesn’t even have to get up anymore. I have to admit that there’s a certain amount of logic to that plan. But our bartenders are strongly opposed to being caught in the crossfire. So, for now, the dart board stays where it is.

But, as a courtesy, here are some tips for making darts more conducive to the sedentary barfly lifestyle:

1. Tie a string to you dart so you don’t have to walk those extra few steps to the board and back to retrieve them. Just throw and yank!
2. Tip the servers to throw for you. When we polled them, most of the staff agreed that a dollar per dart would be fair.
3. Throw from the bar. The oche is only there to keep you from stand too close. We don’t see any problem with standing, or sitting in your case, farther away.
4. Get a motorized bar stool – the ultimate barfly vehicle!

Most of the conversation around the dart board here in the Lounge revolves around silly posturing and curses when a dart doesn’t fly as planned.   I started wondering the other day if the luminaries of the game have any loftier conversations.  I found this article on the BBC about some of the more memorable quotes from the game and, as it turns out, they don’t.  Here are some of my favorites:

“The other day Phil was going on about how he could not get a set of table and chairs in his Bentley. What does he want a Bentley for? It is pathetic, absolutely pathetic…I drive a nine-year old car and he rubs everyone’s noses in it by driving round in a Bentley.”

“His darts used to stick out like tulips in the board.”

“We couldn’t have more excitement if Elvis walked in and asked for a chip sandwich.”

“I asked for the air-conditioning to be turned off, because it was blowing my darts all over the shop.”

“Before a match I like to relax with 25 bottles of Holsten Pils and six steak n’ kidney pies.”

“I wasn’t nervous during the match but the streaker certainly affected my game. I just wish I’d got her name and address!”

Since you’re hanging here in the Lounge we know a few things about you. For example, we know that you are a person of incredible taste, refined interests and someone with a love of some of the more sophisticated games of relaxation like darts, pool and bowling. Odds are that you’re incredibly good looking and great in bed too, but that doesn’t really come into it here.

As a person of these qualities, especially your love of sophisticated games of relaxation, we know that you would enjoy similar sites like this one that highlight these games. For this entry – and I know that you’re way ahead of me on this point – I’d like to direct your attention to AmericanStyleDarts.com.

Now, this is not the most advanced of websites. It’s pretty barebones and it’s homemade construction leaves strange little blank spaces in some spots. But the information you can find there is incredible. You are probably aware of American style darts, a game with different rules and different equipment. This website is a great store of knowledge about the game, especially rules and equipment maintenance. (They also sell the equipment.)

But the great part about the site is the blog. Even though it’s only updated every few months or so, the posts are so detailed and so full of information that it’s worth the wait. I’m adding it to our list of cool sites over there on the right but you should go and check it out now.

We love darts here in The Lounge. Any sport that so seamlessly combines drinking, deadly projectiles and pub life has got to be good, right?

So we naturally take note that the Greatest Darts Player Ever was named this week. With his victory at the UK Open this weekend Phil Taylor can now claim to have won 50 major tournaments. Upon winning the 14-time world champion made a puzzling declaration: “I’m more famous than William Tell.”

Taylor went on to explain that WT is known for hitting an apple once with a crossbow while he, Taylor, has been successfully hitting a peanut-sized target repeatedly for years. This might make him more skillful than WT but more famous than? I don’t think so.

In the first place, anytime anyone declares that he is more famous than Historical Figure X the statement itself is self-defeating. It instantly sets up Historical Figure X as the standard. This necessarily makes it impossible to be beat X at his game.

More importantly William Tell has an opera. A freaking opera! Orchestras have been playing its famous overture for years. Sorry, Taylor, an opera trumps a darts trophy every time.

Check back in with us when a composer or poet has immortalized you. Until then keep flinging those darts. We have to admit that’s pretty cool!