Now here's what I'm good at (conclusion)
Gandhi was reportedly asked by an interviewer what he thought of Western Civilization (other scriveners of this likely apocryphal story substitute the words "modern civilization"). "I think it would be a good idea," was his purported response.
There is so little truth in our lives - even your closest friends and confidants lie to you on occasion. Once a lifetime, an auction on Ebay can be a true thing (provided the people you are bidding against aren't the seller and his enlisted friends logged in under different identities). The "Fern Lake" auction that ended last Sunday was frenzied, tripwire competition at its purest and most unpredictable, the stuff of legend.
To recap from yesterday's installment, 20 minutes before the auction close, bidder #1 (identified as "Bobbie") had done something quite unpredictable, and bidder #2 (identified as "Me") had responded equally out of character. Neither one of these bidders (songs will be written about this auction some day) had behaved according to the rules of predetermination, and on a Sunday morning, this can be seen as a glorious brazen rage against the Matrix, an Icarictic flight close to the sun using high-melt wax.
Meanwhile, back at headquarters, "Bobbie" was facing the same problem she had faced two days earlier: Her feint hadn't worked (praise Ford), and she was still sitting there exposed, in the lead but precariously vulnerable to attack or outbidding.
I cannot provide an omniscient third-party account of what all the actors in this drama were thinking at exactly that moment, and really, it doesn't matter anyway, because the unthinkable happened, the lowering to the stage of a deus ex machina that wasn't that at all.
A person you have yet to meet, Suzanne Silverthorne (let's mask her identity by referring to her as "Suzanne") who lives and works in Vail but collects mostly Grand Lake, with occasional forays across the divide, took the wide-open opportunity presented by "Bobbie's" unmasking to jump into the third act completely unexpected. Here is the final play-by-play:
Nine minutes before the scheduled auction close, like a bat out of what just happened?, Suzanne suddenly uncloaked, and entered a maximum bid of $86.99. At the time, this bid wasn't known, it just raised "Bobbie's" bid by one dollar to $56, and put "Suzanne" in the clear lead with a few laps remaining. Adhering as "Me" did to the "hold your water" philosophy, "Me" never would have considered pulling this bold move, and historians will ponder whether the thinking behind the strategy was a belief that this could actually steal the prize, that the other two bidders had "tapped out", or was rather a "screw you" nuclear option, to force one of the other bidders out of the brush and into the realm of frenzied silly bidding ("You want it? Fine, you are going to have to pay dearly for it.").
And it was working, up until two minutes remained on the clock. Inexplicably (if you are going to wait that long, why not wait 90 seconds longer?) "Bobbie" started climbing the ladder in an attempt to expose "Suzanne's" bid. From past history, "Suzanne" bids in dollar amounts ending in 99, but rarely at this altitude. Her standard bid is $9.99, take it or leave it, and she generally ends up leaving it. I'm not saying $86.99 was unprecedented, I have seen her plant a flag before, but, what, 1 in 20 auctions? 1 in 50? So "Bobbie" was either smart or lucky (this happens frequently in Ebay), and will be celebrated with methodically yet quickly uncovering "Suzanne's" maximum 13 seconds after engaging, at 9:54:14 PDT (1 minute 52 seconds before auction close).
And she had topped it by all of one cent. The odds on making such a guess are not astronomical, and because "Suzanne" had bid with a number ending in 99 cents, they were less than astronomical. What would have been much more impressive is if "Suzanne's" bid was $86.58 and "Bobbie's" was $86.59. Still, one verse in the song will have to glorify how the auction was essentially over, and the apparent conquerer had vanquished her foe by the slimmest margin allowed.
When this movie is made, if it is simply "based on a true story", Hollywood will have "Me" sitting in front of a computer that just crashed, or one that had a lousy internet connection, or on a smart phone that "Me" had been sitting on so long preparing to bid it logged him out of Ebay (this has happened before, just when "Me" was preparing to bid), giving him 90 seconds to fix the problem.
If I am assisting with the screenplay, I have no problem allowing this alternative reality, because all of these things have happened to bidders on Ebay and worse (the absolute worst is when you wait until only seconds remain to bid, and discover only after hitting "Place Bid" the seller has blocked you from participating in his auctions because you have X number of unpaid item strikes, or offended him with what he considered a lowball "Buy It Now or Best Offer" in the past).
But that particular morning, "Me" had a bullet waiting in the chamber and a fairly reliable internet connection. "Me" tends to bid (are you taking notes, children?) generally with around 7 seconds remaining in an auction (you never know until after the auction close exactly to the second when your bid is going to be registered on Ebay, and it varies based on speed of internet connection and how accurate your browser is at keeping synched with the actual "atomic clock" countdown, but "Me" haas become uncanny at bidding with exactly 7 seconds left, regardless of platform), always live and in person, and in order to do this, "Me" is forced to already complete step 1 of the initial two-step bidding process (Ebay first asks you to enter a dollar amount bid, and on a new screen, displays what you entered and asks for confirmation), and monitor the smaller, balkier countdown on display #2.
"Me" generally bids with seven seconds left in the auction for two reasons: (1) For the coolness factor, similar to James Bond's finally defusing the dirty bomb he was manacled to in Fort Knox with 0:07 left before detonation (in the movie "Goldfinger"). (2) To give the person who "thinks" they have won that moment of crestfallen realization that they haven't, although, if they are quick about it, they can still enter one last desperation bid, but it has to be outlandishly high if they want to have any chance of getting it, because if "Me" wants the item, "Me" bids an incredibly high amount, like 10X the actual retail value of the item, because he either wants the item (see above) or wants to revel in the fact that he just made some desperate idiot overpay 10X times for the item.
So "Me's" smart move had come 20 minutes earlier. The gambit at the end was entirely pedestrian, just waiting around to bid a really high amount, and was anything but elegant. Elegant would have been "Me" acting on the information that "Bobbie" had just bid 1 cent over "Suzanne", and there was still enough time to administer the coup de grace of "Me" outbidding "Bobbie" by one additional cent, rather than by one dollar. Now that would have been Oscar-worthy. Even at the time, "Me" had recognized this and could have re-entered a different bid by cancelling the bid in the chamber and returning to screen #1, and in hindsight, analysts could easily decry this lack of courage, but, this far along, "Me" wanted the item more than he wanted to deliver an in your face death blow, potentially risking losing the item by someone even smarter coming in after him. And it's not like the unsuccessful bidders checking the recap at the auction close would have said, "1 cent? 1 goddam cent? I quit Ebay forever" and sublimated into dust.
FIN
Credits: Thanks to BAFTA for early financing and TLT Food for catering. No animals were harmed during the writing of this three-part adaptation.
There is so little truth in our lives - even your closest friends and confidants lie to you on occasion. Once a lifetime, an auction on Ebay can be a true thing (provided the people you are bidding against aren't the seller and his enlisted friends logged in under different identities). The "Fern Lake" auction that ended last Sunday was frenzied, tripwire competition at its purest and most unpredictable, the stuff of legend.
To recap from yesterday's installment, 20 minutes before the auction close, bidder #1 (identified as "Bobbie") had done something quite unpredictable, and bidder #2 (identified as "Me") had responded equally out of character. Neither one of these bidders (songs will be written about this auction some day) had behaved according to the rules of predetermination, and on a Sunday morning, this can be seen as a glorious brazen rage against the Matrix, an Icarictic flight close to the sun using high-melt wax.
Meanwhile, back at headquarters, "Bobbie" was facing the same problem she had faced two days earlier: Her feint hadn't worked (praise Ford), and she was still sitting there exposed, in the lead but precariously vulnerable to attack or outbidding.
I cannot provide an omniscient third-party account of what all the actors in this drama were thinking at exactly that moment, and really, it doesn't matter anyway, because the unthinkable happened, the lowering to the stage of a deus ex machina that wasn't that at all.
A person you have yet to meet, Suzanne Silverthorne (let's mask her identity by referring to her as "Suzanne") who lives and works in Vail but collects mostly Grand Lake, with occasional forays across the divide, took the wide-open opportunity presented by "Bobbie's" unmasking to jump into the third act completely unexpected. Here is the final play-by-play:
And it was working, up until two minutes remained on the clock. Inexplicably (if you are going to wait that long, why not wait 90 seconds longer?) "Bobbie" started climbing the ladder in an attempt to expose "Suzanne's" bid. From past history, "Suzanne" bids in dollar amounts ending in 99, but rarely at this altitude. Her standard bid is $9.99, take it or leave it, and she generally ends up leaving it. I'm not saying $86.99 was unprecedented, I have seen her plant a flag before, but, what, 1 in 20 auctions? 1 in 50? So "Bobbie" was either smart or lucky (this happens frequently in Ebay), and will be celebrated with methodically yet quickly uncovering "Suzanne's" maximum 13 seconds after engaging, at 9:54:14 PDT (1 minute 52 seconds before auction close).
And she had topped it by all of one cent. The odds on making such a guess are not astronomical, and because "Suzanne" had bid with a number ending in 99 cents, they were less than astronomical. What would have been much more impressive is if "Suzanne's" bid was $86.58 and "Bobbie's" was $86.59. Still, one verse in the song will have to glorify how the auction was essentially over, and the apparent conquerer had vanquished her foe by the slimmest margin allowed.
When this movie is made, if it is simply "based on a true story", Hollywood will have "Me" sitting in front of a computer that just crashed, or one that had a lousy internet connection, or on a smart phone that "Me" had been sitting on so long preparing to bid it logged him out of Ebay (this has happened before, just when "Me" was preparing to bid), giving him 90 seconds to fix the problem.
If I am assisting with the screenplay, I have no problem allowing this alternative reality, because all of these things have happened to bidders on Ebay and worse (the absolute worst is when you wait until only seconds remain to bid, and discover only after hitting "Place Bid" the seller has blocked you from participating in his auctions because you have X number of unpaid item strikes, or offended him with what he considered a lowball "Buy It Now or Best Offer" in the past).
But that particular morning, "Me" had a bullet waiting in the chamber and a fairly reliable internet connection. "Me" tends to bid (are you taking notes, children?) generally with around 7 seconds remaining in an auction (you never know until after the auction close exactly to the second when your bid is going to be registered on Ebay, and it varies based on speed of internet connection and how accurate your browser is at keeping synched with the actual "atomic clock" countdown, but "Me" haas become uncanny at bidding with exactly 7 seconds left, regardless of platform), always live and in person, and in order to do this, "Me" is forced to already complete step 1 of the initial two-step bidding process (Ebay first asks you to enter a dollar amount bid, and on a new screen, displays what you entered and asks for confirmation), and monitor the smaller, balkier countdown on display #2.
"Me" generally bids with seven seconds left in the auction for two reasons: (1) For the coolness factor, similar to James Bond's finally defusing the dirty bomb he was manacled to in Fort Knox with 0:07 left before detonation (in the movie "Goldfinger"). (2) To give the person who "thinks" they have won that moment of crestfallen realization that they haven't, although, if they are quick about it, they can still enter one last desperation bid, but it has to be outlandishly high if they want to have any chance of getting it, because if "Me" wants the item, "Me" bids an incredibly high amount, like 10X the actual retail value of the item, because he either wants the item (see above) or wants to revel in the fact that he just made some desperate idiot overpay 10X times for the item.
So "Me's" smart move had come 20 minutes earlier. The gambit at the end was entirely pedestrian, just waiting around to bid a really high amount, and was anything but elegant. Elegant would have been "Me" acting on the information that "Bobbie" had just bid 1 cent over "Suzanne", and there was still enough time to administer the coup de grace of "Me" outbidding "Bobbie" by one additional cent, rather than by one dollar. Now that would have been Oscar-worthy. Even at the time, "Me" had recognized this and could have re-entered a different bid by cancelling the bid in the chamber and returning to screen #1, and in hindsight, analysts could easily decry this lack of courage, but, this far along, "Me" wanted the item more than he wanted to deliver an in your face death blow, potentially risking losing the item by someone even smarter coming in after him. And it's not like the unsuccessful bidders checking the recap at the auction close would have said, "1 cent? 1 goddam cent? I quit Ebay forever" and sublimated into dust.
FIN
Credits: Thanks to BAFTA for early financing and TLT Food for catering. No animals were harmed during the writing of this three-part adaptation.
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