eBay ... I must ... stop ...

I'm monitoring a couple of my bids on eBay. Right now I'm watching the bidding on an Alesis ADAT XT-20. I've been out-bid, and I'm trying to decide whether I want to go after it or not. The auction has about 15 minutes left on it, so I'm lurking and waiting, in case I decide to pounce from the shadows and try to spend my money so quickly that no one has time to react to it. Hehe.

I've bid on two of these machines. The second has almost two days left on it, though, so I imagine the price will skyrocket. I'm not going to bid anymore on it.

This is the eBay virus. I sat down last night and tinkered around a bit, looking for various things. I came across a guitar pre-amp, an ART SGX-2000, which was going pretty cheaply. It was available for automatic purchase at what I considered a decent price, so I bought the damned thing.

Then I wound up looking for ADATs.

Okay, if you don't know what an ADAT is, the long story made short is that if you recorded an album in the 90's, you most likely recorded it on Alesis ADATs. They were the de-facto standard of the day. But no one wants these things now. They're considered obsolete technology. They sound just as good now as they did in the 90's, however, and you can find them cheaply on eBay. I already own one and plan to buy two more. When synchronized, they work as one unit, and so owning three will give me a 24-track digital studio, and for a relatively small investment.

Well, I was just outbid on ADAT #1. I waited until the last 5 minutes and raised my bid, but it automatically bumped up to more than I was willing to pay for it. I'm still winning #2, but I bid $300 for it, it's currently going for $255, and it has 1 day and 20 hours left on the bidding. Oh, yeah. I'll be outbid on this one, too.

That's fine. I don't need these right at this moment. I'm looking for the deals. Sooner or later, I'll get one at the price I'm looking for. I'll wait patiently until then. This was impulsive, and I immediately regretted my bids, anyway.

I'm also winning a 1st edition hardcover copy of Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore. I loved that book and only have a paperback copy (I hate paperbacks), so this makes sense to me. Of course, that book has 1 day and 22 hours left on the bidding. I expect to be out-bid on this one, as well.

If nothing else, I found my deal for the week with the SGX-2000. I'll be happy with that. I'll certainly be happy to let the fevered bidding pass. After I'd bid on all this stuff, I stopped and considered how much it was going to cost me to pay for all of it if I won. Funny how we don't add that up beforehand, isn't it?