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Virtual Shopping |
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Fitchy buys lots of stuff on-line. While he was looking around he saw a disco set for sale. High SpiritS leaps on the case and gets its first taste of online shopping. Does it all go horribly wrong? Of course it does. Does it work out okay? Well... |
| High SpiritS is currently in a fight with someone called SB, from Kent. We know this because there is some disco equipment for sale on QXL on-line Auctions. We've got to hang around until Thursday at 5pm to see if we have outbid everybody, but we are currently leading the pile at £146, with our auto-bid robot (We called him Fluff) set to go up to a massive £150, if necessary... Dammit! I got back into work to find that SB is leading again with £151! Git. We instantly throw massive amounts of money at the equipment to demoralise SB, and make him go away. Back in front wit' £152. I stay late at work (!!) and have a quick look at the auction site again. Damn that SB has done it again! He must have mortgaged everything he owns because he has countered and - no! - raised our bid! £153. At this moment we spy a pattern. SB only ever bids at night. After he is home from work at the sewer, we presume. Normally around 17:15. Ha-ha! The auction closes at 17:00 on Thursday! There is no way we can lose, assuming this pattern holds up, Fluff does his job properly and no one else joins in. We counter SB's bid limit of £154 and match it. We're not in the lead, but he knows we are there... Wednesday morning. Come into work. SB has raised his bit to £160 but some fool called Mmcambridge has bid £165! But, our original plan goes unchallenged, as Mr Mmcambridge bids at 10pm. And anyway, come tomorrow, were upping it to about £300. Let's see how it goes... DAMMIT! SB has upped the £165 bid to £166, at about 10:00 in the morning! That means he has access to the web during the day! But hopefully only on Wednesdays, or at least only in the morning. We shall see... In fact, we decided to test it. We've upped his price by commanding Fluff to bid up to £180. Rolling in it, we are. It's now 15:55. We're going to watch to see if he can get online again. We have a feeling he wants this stuff as much as we do, but we think he might get a shock when he sees the High's bank balance. He didn't get online before 1700! Good news! Thursday, then. B-day. It's gone up to £191, but shit happens. We've decided that we can go to about £400, so we can't see this being much of a problem. We're feeling kinda confident about all this. It's 10:00. B-hour minus 7. B-hour minus 6. B-hour minus 5. We can't log onto the disco site! Oh my God! We're only at £180! We were going to bid again nearer the end! B-hour minus 4.2. Okay. Got it back. Someone else has joined in called TJGwent. He bid £199 but SB is holding him off too. We're going to put the bid up to £250 in a minute. (As soon as Fitchy gets on-line... I hope he hurries!) Okay! Fluff has done his job and we're back in the lead with £210 at the moment. B-hour minus 4. B-hour minus 3. Still in the lead at £216. B-hour minus 2. Price has gone up to £241. We're still in the lead. £256. Still going. £266. £276. B-hour minus 1.5. (You will never know the tension of the High SpiritS crew at the moment...) Still £276. Come on... £279. Hello! Some called STRATUS has just leapt in and outbid us with £301. We are now going to wait until the last minute until we bid again. We're going mad... B-hour minus 1. B-hour minus 0.5. We're still waiting... Alright, Fluff's on the case. £302. £311. £351. Stop pushing the prices up, you bastards! £371. £390. Stop it! Oh, he has. Hang on, hang on... Come on... SOLD! YES! High SpiritS wins a complete disco set for £390. Result. That is such a bargain! We have brought the following: Uptamar Computerised Twin Deck 200x200 Mossfet Amp 4 Speakers 3 Compact Disc Players Front Screen Lights Miscellaneous Microphones Lighting Units Cables 100xDouble CD's 3 Boxes (approx. 300) LP's 3 Boxes (approx. 1200) Singles All that for £390. Now all we have to do is wait for Disco Dave to get in touch. Still waiting. Still waiting. Okay, two weeks later, we get onto QXL and get a telephone number. Up we phone Disco Dave, and it turns out that he didn't even know the auction had finished. In fact, he didn't know that it had an end date on (Erm...) and he didn't want to sell it for that little. Oh. Well, High SpiritS isn't that nasty, so we said we'd come up and see him. On asking how many cars we'd need to transport all the stuff in, he said "Oh, it'll fit into one, easily." That is when we started to get a little concerned. But, still, Nase_2K and I jumped into Big Red and set off up the M6 toward Lancashire. An exiting journey it was, involving two Burger King Whoppers, four hundred miles, sixteen cigarettes, two wrong turnings, one traffic jam and one near miss. After deciphering the stupid road system in Burnley, we finally arrived at Disco Dave's house. And saw the "Disco Equipment." Oh. Well, make that two tiny little speakers, two CD players, a box of bulbs, mixer, decks, and amp. No music. Ah. Erm... "Any questions, boys?" asked Disco Dave. "Er, yeah, where's the rest of it?" It would appear that that was all we were being offered. "We'll give you two-fifty for it." we kindly said. "Well, the thing is, boys, I didn't want to let it go at 390..." "200, and be grateful we don't charge you for petrol." "Well, boys..." "250." "Okay then." So, we jammed it into Big Red, and parted with our cash. Once we finally got home, we wired it all up in one of my stables and powered it up. The little speakers kick out a surprisingly high amount of sound, and we can now scratch away with our new decks, even if the electronics system is pre-historic. The CD players both work, and at least we now have a spare mixer in case we get into problems. In fact, the more I look at the stuff we got, the more I think that it was worth more than £390. In fact, only this morning I had a close look at the speakers and realised that they would have to be custom made to get such high power in such a little place. Brand new, our custom made speakers would have cost about £800. His wouldn't have been less than £500. Oh well, never mind. We win again. Big up the High! If you want to check out on-line auctions, the take a look at QXL. It only deals in Europe, and is the best place to buy if you live in Britain. Look it up at http://exchange.qxl.com/osauction.shtml An amusing exchange via electronic mail, between Nase_2K and DJ Ess. Nase_2K : Dude. I thought that I should just say that, "Do NOT, for any reason, go above 4 ponies I know how tempting it will be but I am not going to be able to afford anymore, and if you do go above 4 ponies you will be paying the extra." Sorry for the bad news but it had to be said. DJ Ess : Dude. Tart With A Heart said we've made more than enough money this month to release at least another 2 ponies, so long as it's paid back eventually, like, I dunno, 10% a gig. I think that's fair enough. You? Dude. Ignore what I just sent you, I like that idea. Bid bid bid!!!!! ---------------------------------------------------
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