Thursday, February 22, 2007

Retrograditis


I may be showing symptoms of retrograditis. I spent hours glued to Ebay yesterday, chasing laptops. It's not a sport for the faint-hearted, that's for sure! I'm not widely experienced nor very skilled in the fine art of Ebaying, especially when bidding for much sought-after items. My previous purchases have been more in the category of "stuff nobody wants". This time, I ventured up-market.

In the midst of my E-bay frenzy the thought struck me that I shouldn't be playing around among laptops during Mercury retrograde. What was I thinking of? "Oh, don't worry", I told my already addicted self, " it's your mind, your flesh and blood that's affected by Mercury, not the components of a laptop (I hope!)"

He Who Knows would like to have a nice laptop for use on trips away from home, for uploading and viewing the contents of his camera. This can amount to lot, when his muse hits him. I would like to have one, a laptop and a muse - just because!

I had no idea how skilful the bidding game can be. After trying for 9 or 10 different laptops, and losing them I began to get the hang of it. You have to try to read the mind of the person or people bidding against you, especially during the last minutes of the auction. I was outbid in nearly all cases within the last 10 to 30 seconds.

I concentrated hard on what I promised would be my final attempt. I studied the list of bids carefully, made some hopefully shrewd, carefully placed bids, then hovered over the screen, without blinking, for the last 10 minutes of the auction. I set my mental antenna in what I hoped was the right direction, and I won! I will soon have a shiny new laptop which has cost me around half what its retail cost was a few months ago, and I got it for $100 less than the person who won its twin, from the same dealer half an hour earlier. After Pay-pal had ushered me back to reality, a niggling retrograde doubt crept in - again.

I was reassured by the letter appearing on Jonathan Cainer's website for today, Thursday. Someone asked him about buying a computer while Mercury is retrograde. His reply was that he considers it's not unwise at all. Phew!!

He Who Knows read this blog entry and said that he must be suffering retrograde effects too, because it has taken him four days to assemble his current blog page. Hmmmm. Take a peek (HERE) - 1001 photographs of Marilyn and her airy skirt. Regrograditis indeed! He just couldn't tear himself away!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Twilight, that is called "sniping" and there is software that does it for you...puts in those last minute bids. It's automated!

Just google 'ebay snipe" and you'll be competing in no time!

Good luck and great post by the way. I put you on the news.
http://www.toptensources.com/TopTen/Astrology-News/

Twilight said...

My goodness! I should have known that there's more in it than meets the eye! Isn't there always?

It appears that when using a sniping progam you can bid on more than one item at once without fear of winning more than one.
What if everybody is doing it though, I wonder?

Anyway, I must just have been lucky, eventually, I suppose.

Thanks for the tip, Elsa, and, once again for the kind "news" mention.

Anonymous said...

I just took the news over today and added your blog as a permanent source...

Cheerio!
Elsa

Twilight said...

Many thanks, Elsa - that's very kind of you.