I have bid on a crappy little item on ebay. The auction ends in a few hours this evening. I actually don’t need the item but just a piece from it to replace something that got destroyed.
That said, my opening bid is 99 cents and I have set my maximum bid to $5.00. I don’t want to pay much more than that but I would like to get this little piece of crap.
Is there anything I can do to increase my chances besides paying way more than the item is worth?
Thanks.
Be a snipper.
Be on the computer at the time the auction ends with a max bid ready to submit, syncronize your clock to ebay’s time, and then click the submit bid button at the last second.
Then you wont get into a bidding war with someone else.
or just go to auctionsniper.com and have them do that for you…
Unless…everyone ELSE does the same thing.
One time my brother was bidding on a couple comic books, nobody was bidding much and he thought he was going to get it when, at the last minute everyone bidded and it went up $20 just like that. But yeah, i guess thats a good strategy.
Bid on items that end in the middle of the day. It’s much easier to slip in with a bid at the end of the auction at mid-day than it is when the auction ends at 7 PM or 9 PM.
If other people do it, then the person with the highest max bid gets it. You’re just not getting people to increase their bid emotionally and get in a bidding war.
5 minutes to go…I’m still the high bidder.
2 1/2 minutes…still high…
Don’t bid high. Don’t post drunk.
60 seconds…
I guess the only things I ever win are what no one else wants. Here’s the beaut I just won. 
The derby pepper shaker part fell into the flame while I was cooking pasta. My wife’s aunt had given us one that she’s had since the 50s and I hated the idea of it being ruined.
I got it for the 99 cents, but the seller is gouging me in shipping at $6.00. I guess he’s got to make the buck or two somehow.
Both of these statements are passive (in the sense that YOU are never stated – YOU are never there, acting upon the derby pepper shaker part – you are merely present, innocently cooking pasta, while bad things just seem to “happen” to the derby pepper shaker part).
I think Billy T. Mountain should analyze your tendency to avoid blame – to avoid saying “I incinerated the derby pepper shaker part, which had sentimental value.”
Now I’m really starting to wonder about the La-Z-Boy / curtain rod fiasco. Will the ugly truth ever come out, or will we get the white-washed “it wasn’t me” version?
It’s really even worse than you present it. The truth is I do most of the cooking in our house, but I don’t know for a fact when the derby got melted. It’s almost certainly my fault, but very well could have been when my wife was boiling water for tea.
The funny thing is that I broke one of the burner racks on our stove top a year or so ago. A small piece broke off the corner but I was able to keep it in place more or less, loose though it was. The other week while cleaning the stove top I noticed that the broken off piece was attached by what looked like some kind of black apoxy. I thought, wow, my wife went and fixed that. How resourceful. It was only when I was cleaning off the area above the burners where the salt and pepper shakers in question are kept that I noticed the missing derby. It took me about 5 minutes after I spent 10 minutes looking for the derby to realize what had happened. The derby had fallen off and melted the rack back together in a manner that made it appear to actually be repaired. Also explained the slight smell I had noticed, by the way.
Anyway, my use of the passive was actually a passive acceptance of blame for something I may or may not have actually been responsible for. No one in my house knows exactly what happened, though it is likely that I was at fault.
One other thought does occur though, ala Occam’s Razor. It may simply be bad writing on my part. 
This is more bizarre than alien impregnations.
My prize arrived today and below, complete with new derby, it sits on its place of honor where it belongs.
What a hoot! The pepper shaker business…
I used to have a star trek coffee mug that I would use if I needed to be “Captain for the day.” It was a lucky charm of sorts, but if I had an exam, a meeting, or a challenge at hand, I would be certain to use this mug.
The thing got broken; I was at a loss.
My first eBay bid was on an identical mug as its replacement. I was so nervous. I felt as if my fate rested in eBay’s hands (tentacles).
Thanks goodness I won the thing. I think my universe would have ceased to exist had I lost the auction. I still have this replica mug, and I use it on special mornings. And I will use it soon as an important job interview is approaching.
I think the bidding escalated to a whopping $6.50 on that item.
Though you might appreciate that silliness.
Congrats on the shaker!
Blake
I paid $0.99 for the thing, but $6.00 for shipping. 
I have a mug that is my favorite. It shows two cows in sunglasses below which is says, “The Moos Brothers”. It’s quite silly, doubly so because I didn’t like the movie (as recently noted in the must-see movies thread) and it was given to me by a boss I detested. Life is strange that way.
Cheers.
Stardate 0626005
99 cents? For something you needed? Wow, you’re good!
Must be a uranium pepper grinder to cost that much S&H. I think they charge extra for weight and radioactivity.
Now, to have some coffee.
Signing off,
Captain Bobo
Dave: You did the job just fine. No need for me to chime in. As you can see, the brain damaged lad is doing the best he can to both accept responsibility and continue to weave wild yarns! 
Billy
We may have to have a conversation about the verb “to need”.