Sunday, October 21, 2007

Future Purchases from the Second-Hand Shop

A JET friend showed me the second-hand store in this town. It's pretty big and lit with the kind of intense fluorescents that make absolutely everyone look like crap.

The store is a goldmine of second-hand prices and first-rate awesomeness. This is what my purchasing plan is going to look like:

1. Metal sign:

It says "Too fast to live, too young to die," with a hellish skull and crossbones underneath. And then underneath that, it says... "Cream Soda!"
Maybe the town hooligans don't like beer? Who knows.

2. Full-size M16 replica airsoft gun:

Just like the ones that are great for attracting police bullets to your face in America. It's going to be a tough decision since they also have a replica uzi and desert eagle, so I'm going to have to consider this for a while to be sure.

3. Special edition Pokemon-themed Nintendo 64 with Mario Kart.

This is more fun than the equivalent of 20 dollars should be able to legally buy you.

4. Right-handed Japanese Les Paul knockoff:

I think you have to flip and file the bridge and install a new nut to make your Jimi Hendrix conversion work, but how hard could that be? I got excited when I saw that this place sold used guitars, but then I realized that Japanese kids aren't allowed to be lefties since it ruins the all-important stroke order for Kanji. So that changes the possibility of finding a left-handed instrument from 5% like in America to -598%.

Runners up:

1. The bright green mini CD player and stereo that features a built-in air-conditioner and space heater. I'm going to be up all night laughing about what I imagine that meeting went like in the design proposal phase.

2. The drum set- The price is right, but the time is not. I think my neighbors would stage ninja-style midnight Kancho raids on my apartment if I started up with these things.

3. The Paul Reed Smith electric guitar- I don't know why a shabby second-hand shop has a used $6,000 guitar for sale, but it's a nice-looking instrument. Although I didn't look closely, maybe it's a Chinese Blaul Reed Spliff knockoff or something.

7 comments:

Luke said...

Ditch the N64 and go with the CD player! The CD player's way more cool and when you get back to the US would get you so much more credit than a Pokemon N64 (unless you intend to hang out with 5 year olds when you get back.)

Anonymous said...

No Luke, not the CD Player, the PRS guitar! Nate, we forgot to tell you that you are a shirt-tail relation to Carlos Santana (remember that Mitchell side relation that hid in the pickle barrel to avoid Pancho Villa?).

Nate said...

I actually don't like the way those things sound...Santana's tone sucks hard.

Interestingly, one of Dave's nerd friends at college was a mean guitar player (I think he said his parents did coke with Danny Gatton in the 80s, if that gives him any cred), and he compared PRS to a Maserati--sure, it's fast and has nice leather and stuff, but you look at it and kind of go...meh.

Unknown said...

Did I have any non-nerdy friends? Go with the N64, all the technology (rambus memory, Mips processor, and Geometry Engine) in it was developed at Stanford!

Anonymous said...

I think Santana's sound had more to do with the Mesa Boogie than with the PRS. And if you don't like that tone, you mustn't like the sounds emitted by some of your metal Über-heroes like Rammstein or Metallica.

Nate said...

Fine, now I hate Mesa Boogie and Baja shirts, but love PRS guitars.

Nate said...

Also, I sort of expected Rammstein to play some kind of expensive purpose-built German metal guitar, not a fancy-pants mother of pearl inlaid super guitar.