Another Day, Another Hard Off

It's been a while since I've mentioned my favourite recycle shop chain, Hard Off. Even after all these years, that name still puts a smile on my face.

For some reason I decided to grace them with my presence in Nagayama. I REALLY wish they had these shops in convenient places (like Central Tokyo perhaps?), and less than thirty minutes walk from a close train station.

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise though. If they were more accessible to get to, I'd probably have a hard time (pun intended) finding any bargains at all.

Although it's not the worst of the Hard Offs, there weren't as many bargains as I'd liked to have found. Still, it was interesting to see an old Yamaha V50 synth that I used to have, and old relics like effects units that all the 80s FOH guys had in their live rigs back in the day. Even saw an old Portasound keyboard that we had as kids. Oh, nostalgia!

I saw a very old Wacom Artpad that was only 525 yen, but I don't think it was even USB. Not that I needed it now anyhow. After all the slogging to get there I only got some bridge pins for my acoustic. For 189 yen, it was cheaper than in Shinjuku.

I had 188 yen in loose change, but the checkout guy insisted I use the 500 yen coin instead of being the good guy, and waiving the measly 1 yen [insert frustrated Japanese confrontation moment] *sigh* I pity the next Japanese checkout person when I give them the correct change in a whole lot of 1 yen coins.

After work in Shinjuku I found myself in Taito Station. A "reformed" UFO catcher addict had no good sense to be in a place like this, and as such I relapsed once again and played for a cute motorised dog.

It took 700 yen. I'm happy to get it, but I was a little perturbed when the guys after me got theirs in just two tries.

"Shoganei"

It had been raining a lot today. All my shoes (except the docs) have turned leaky. Yes, even those f**** ones I bought not THAT long ago from Fareg (Never again).

I bit the bullet, and bought some Rockport Onboard shoes that cost considerably more than my "cheapies". Hopefully they will last a whole lot longer than the others.I got my new best friend, "One One" ('wan wan', geddit?) to model them for you.

Aww..