Monday, July 25

Doing the eBay shuffle...

.
Has the following song 'n dance ever happened to you?

1) A few days before the auctions end, you find a guy whose obviously selling off an entire personal collection of crap. In my case, around five hundred LaserDiscs that ended in sequential order alphabetically starting around 8 p.m. EST last night. Each starting at $4.99. It's on like Donkey Kong.

2) After discovering the bounty you throw everything and anything of interest on your Watch List. And over the course of the days spent waiting you dig around eBay and the 'net whittling down the wants to the very essence of what you perceive as needing. I initially tossed about thirty discs on my list and began shedding listings left-and-right in a myriad of questions and ponderings. Do I really need another copy of this? Is the movie really worth it? This one looks a little damaged. There's other copies on eBay for not much more.

3) Despite this dumping to choose your battles wisely, you're figuring it's going to be LaserDisc Shopping Spree Starrcade 2011. The seller combines shipping and is offering free shipping on five or more LD auction wins. Do you know that means? All competitors should just go to Africa and be trampled by raging elephants.

4) As the twilight hour draws nearer during the last day, your unchanging watched auctions suddenly encounter...other fucking bidders. Dammit. Suddenly, more-and-more of the LaserDiscs are finding bidders and becoming anxious you start to question the remaining on your Watch List. Do I really need that Japanese Highlander 2: Director's Cut? That super rare A.I.P. Video laser of Demon Possessed? A slightly worn copy of John Woo's The Killer from Japan without its OBI?

5) To add insult to injury, you see a few you were interested in blow past reasonable price levels. Highlander 2 is wretched away at over $30 and Demon Possessed isn't mine at nearly $40. Dammit, that's it, time to heave the Hail Mary pass...

6) In a final scorched earth effort, you release the hounds upon the one listing you favored most all along. With steely determination and echoes of Ernest's assertion that "they're not gonna get this camp", you lay down your own insane maximum bid on one listing despite originally having such high hopes of domination. Come hell or high water, screw the bills, screw eating for the next week, I shall crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of the women!

You're damn straight I won (for much less than my max bid). And Raw Deal is called GORILLA in Japan.
How badass is that!

3 comments:

Anthony1138 said...

Last time I did the eBay shuffle I scored 1 DVD that I didn't even want all that much. The price for the other DVD I was bidding on, the one I really wanted, went way too high. And I had already put my bid in on the one I won, in hopes to save on combined shipping. At least you wound up with a cool Japanese LD for a decent price.

/ said...

I was there, I was there.

My sights were set on Criterion and I got most of the ones that I wanted. The one I wanted most though, Letter from an Unknown Woman, I ended up being outbid on as I was raising my highest bid. But then, by some stroke of fate, I received a Second Chance Offer for Se7en, and was happy, but with the tinge of yknow if only it would have been for Letter from an Unknown Woman.

And then, it was. :)

Also, I hope you're happy you got me buying VHS tapes from growing jealous of your awesome blog. I have you to thank for having experienced the hilarity of Stand Alone with Charles Durning.

Take care, Jill

Craig Edwards said...

Jayson, how very strange - another movie shot just a few miles from me over at what was then Dino DeLaurentiis's DEG Studios! I heard some good stories about this one over the years! Congratulations!

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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