Belt Auction

Need help getting over a lost auction...? Lost an auction to a last minute buyer... Erk... The price of the item was so cheap too. Thought I was getting an absolute steal and, whilst I was away working, on the closing hour of the auction sneak-eye the last-minute-buyer pops through the door and steals the prize. Lost the auction. Came back from work. Checked my email. Expected a 'You have won!' but... Was faced with the worst of tides... 'YOU HAVE LOST' . . . 'You were outbid, 3 minutes before closing time...' Ofcourse those weren't the exact incarnations of the email but you get what I'm trying to say anyway... The item in question was an /extremely rare/ limited edition item, long out of production now. It was also in an !unopened condition!. Naturally, looking upon the item my eyes instantly watered and my hand intrinsicly clicked the 'place bid' button. I was to be so... so utterly dissapointed. Right now it feels as though there's a massive whole in my life... now that I've lost this item. I'm a collector of sorts. I won't provide details of the items that I collect but the loss of this item is of harrowing damage to my mental health. Infact, to try and soothe the pain, I went on tilt and started bidding on other, similar but not entirely the same, items. Unfortunately it didn't quite mend the hole in the wall... more... provided a bit of padding around it. I need help to get over this and am willing to try everything you suggest. Thanks, S ~ PS - To put more information into the pot, I was using a deputy service to bid on auctions in Japan. This should give you a better idea as to what items I like to collect and, the value and rarity of such items. For those of you who don't know what a deputy service is, it is effectively a 'proxy buyer'. A guy sits in Japan to bid on items in Japanese Auction Rooms. When he wins, you pay him and he sends it to you. It's all rather splendid as a matter of fact. Crue-k may well be right but my recent decision to immerse myself in material things and auctions came about to get my mind off a recent social episode that my recent activities have allowed me to overcome... Perhaps I should return to going out more... drinking away my sorrows and dancing the nights away. Hell, that's more expensive than auctions.

abbreviations and numbers? Revise the following paragraph, improving it without changing its overall meaning. Pay particular attention to the use of abbreviations and numbers. Shoppers can find almost anything at online auction sites like ebay. New components for personal computers, Macs, and gaming systems like the Play station 2 are listed daily. A buyer can shop for a new suit, a favorite dvd, or the last 5 issues of a favorite magazine. Another shopper might find a great new pair of docs, cds, and even concert tickets. Auctions can be intimidating, but most online auction companies only require a brief registration with some proof of ID. Once registered, most shoppers can place bids in 5 or 6 minutes. Credit cards often facilitate online shopping, but most of the online auction sites now offer payment services that can electronically debit a checking account. Students looking for textbooks find that they can save money by buying books online and then selling them Via an online auction site at the end of the term. Online sites do not ever close, but auction sites often have specifically timed auctions. This means that buyers interested in a particular item need to be sure they know when the auction for that item is set to end. The site may list the end time as 11:00 PM, but that may be Eastern, Central or Pacific time. Buyers need to read the rules and policy statements for any www auction site to be sure they understand the risks of bidding before they commit themselves. Once informed, online shoppers can explore the fun and excitement of online bidding.

This is an Economy question about changes in the airline industry.? Turmoil in the Airline Industry Even before the September 11 terrorist attacks, the major airlines were flying into stiff head winds. Slim to nonexistent profits, bankruptcies and buckets of red ink, poor service, late arrivals, overexpansion, frequent air-traffic control breakdowns, some of the worst labor-management relations in business, high fuel costs, a full-blown economic downturn, and the collapse of business travel had cast this industry into one of the worst periods in aviation history. Road Warriors Get Smart For years, the major airlines had succeeded in getting business travelers (road warriors) to pay premium fares by pampering them with special business-class seats and other perks. Business travel was their lifeblood. Sales of unrestricted fares and last-minute tickets generated about two to three times as much as economy fares and contributed about 70 percent of a major airline?s revenue. But with corporate profits hitting the skids in late 2000, companies put the brakes on travel spending. The corporate exodus hit the major airlines hard. Resourceful business travelers used substitute products such as videoconferencing or other transportation modes ? even if it meant putting up with inconveniences ? to reduce travel expenses. Some turned to the Internet to find cheaper airfares. Others moved their business downstream to discount airlines such as Southwest and Jet Blue. Major airlines tried to raise round-trip leisure tickets to make up for their lost business revenues, but fierce competition from discounters prevented them from doing so. Air Travel is ?Wal-Marted? Just as Wal-Mart did in retailing, the discounters of the air such as Southwest and Jet Blue are squeezing the major airlines from all ends. Low-cost carriers now account for nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic air capacity, up from 6 percent in the early 1990?s. They can afford to sell travel tickets for less because they have many cost advantages over full-service rivals. To begin with, they have younger fleets, which require less maintenance, and younger labor forces that aren?t tied to complicated, inefficient labor contracts. Moreover, low-fare carriers typically fly one airplane model, thus minimizing maintenance, operating, and training costs. By contrast, big carriers typically fly six or seven types of aircraft. And unlike the big guys, the discount airlines don?t operate expensive hub-and-spoke systems. Caught Between a Hub and a Hard Place Using a hub-and-spoke route system, major airlines scoop up traffic from smaller cities (the spokes) and funnel it through a few gathering points (the hub). This practice allows airlines to serve small markets and offer passengers more destinations and more frequent flights. But is also presents a logistical nightmare. It forces major airlines to schedule lots of flights to arrive and depart within narrow windows of time in order to minimize passenger layover times. This means that ground crews, such as gate attendants and baggage handlers, often sit idle between waves of connecting flights. By Contrast, point-to-point carriers, such as Southwest and Jet Blue, schedule flights as if passengers are moving to their final destinations. Instead of having planes and crews sit around and wait for passengers, point-to-point carriers maintain fast-paced schedules, which means minimal downtime for aircraft and fewer personnel on the ground. Turbulent Skies for the Bid Carriers Today, one in four tickets sold is on a discount airline. As pressure from low-fare carriers mounts, major airlines are reevaluating every aspect of their operations. The major carriers are undergoing radical change just to stay in business. They are experimenting with changes in costs, capacity, pricing, and product features in ways they haven?t seriously contemplated since the industry was deregulated in 1978. They are stripping billions of dollars from their operations by revamping their hub system, cutting jobs, eliminating flights, ending food service, and removing first-class seats, and by simplifying their fleets to cut training and maintenance costs, Some are replacing agents with self-service kiosks. Others are wrangling concessions from unions for huge pay cuts to reduce labor costs ? a major differentiating factor when you consider that in 2002 a United Airlines captain earned $9,000 to $11,000 more a month than a Jet Blue captain. Still others, such as U.S. Airways and United Airlines have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to reorganize their outstanding debt and lower their operating costs. In spite of their efforts, questions loom as to whether all the major airlines can survive. Even with huge cost cuts, all airlines remain susceptible to possible terrorist attacks, economic turns, or employee unrest. As experts claim that this is just the beginning of an industry-wide shakedown. After all, no airline can fly forever losing billions of dollars. Critical Thinking Questions 1. What s 1. What supply and demand factors have changed the equilibrium point for airline tickets? 2. How has information technology affected the airline industry? 3. How are complimentary products affected by problems in the airline industry? 4. Take a closer look at the airline industry by logging on to http://www.hoovers.com, and type in Airlines for your search. List six domestic (U.S.) airlines and their locations and six international (global) airlines with their locations as well. 5. Why do U.S. airlines form alliances with overseas partners?