Hard off, f**k off!

Hello again.
Recently, I've been spending most of my time visiting hard offs.

"What are hard offs?" you may ask. Opposite of hard ons? No. Not even close.

They are a chain of stores selling used goods or hardware (hence the hard in the name - the 'off' part is perhaps a Japanese English equivalent of getting rid of, taking away, selling...).

Here's their website (it's in Japanese): HARD OFF.

There are also book offs - selling...well, books.
hobby offs - for models and various toys, etc
garage off - for car enthusiasts (haven't been to one yet)
off house - furniture, household items (no house off - perhaps it sounded a little too much like 'hose off'. "What you need is a good..."

Finally, for clothes, no, not clothes off, as I would have hoped (various combinations can be done with that one "Excuse me, is this the clothes off section?" "Hey, lady! The sign says clothes off!". No sir.
This place is called mode off. Missed out, there.
As you shop, they have this catchy tune that has a chorus of "hard off, hard off!" but sounds so much like "hard off, fu*k off!". Makes me wonder sometimes if they are actually telling us to 'f**k off".

Anyway, these places have old computer games systems and games, which is what I've been gathering recently.
A good friend (who shall remain nameless but for the purpose of this blog let's call him 'David' - which, by pure coincidence, just happens to be his name) bought a Sega Dreamcast for about 1,000yen. Whoo! Cheap!
I think he did this because:
a) the system was cheap
b) the games for it are good and also cheap
c) you can use emulations to play other system games with it.

I researched the Dreamcast on the web.
It looked interesting.
It seems it is actually a very good gaming system, but was unfortunate in its release date, just before the release of Playstation 2.
The playstation ultimately took the fame and also the gamers.
Sega eventually cut their losses and stopped making the dreamcast in around 2000 and focused their energies solely in designing games and arcade machines.
Now, the mahcines are no longer made, they have become quite cheap.

A few weeks after he bought his, I came across a rather special dreamcast in a used goods store in my prefecture (more on this and many other stores in my 'recycle shops' section - to be completed soon.
It was pink, semi transparent and had the 'Hello Kitty' logo on it.
Normall, I hate Hello Kittty, but this machine was funky.
I managed to get it for 1500yen (including 5 games!), thanks to my friend at the store giving me a generous discount (thanks, dude!).

Here's a pic of my baby:

It had begun.