Update: 20/06/04 - A picture of the MK225C which I picked up on Thursday night

Oooer, what an exciting half hour!

Earlier this week I had decided that I want to be an amateur electronic muso, and that I needed a midi keyboard with which I can make tunes. After using Froogle, I tracked down the Evolution MK425, which was going for about $280. Deciding that the price was a bit much to pay for the instrument, I continued my search for a cheap keyboard. eBay came to my salvation, with the Evolution MK225. I have no idea what the difference is between the MK225 and MK425, but I figured that the differences wouldn't be that obvious to a musical luddite like me.

I had an account handy for eBay (as a left-over of my aborted attempt to auction off scavenger hunt items in a work competition), and I proceeded to place bids on this bit of gadgetry. Being the first eBay item which I had bid on, I had no idea what the process was behind it. Not knowing how bidding worked, I unwittingly engaged in a tactic known as bid nibbling, which is unsuprisingly used by ebay newbies. I managed to get the highest bid at about $172 (up from $150), with my maximum at $180. Feeling quite pleased with myself, I left the auction alone for the evening. I returned to the auction the next morning to find that the original bidder had bid up to $180, but hadn't passed my bid. I was still in the race! At this point of time, I started reading up more on ebay, and came to learn of snipers, who would come in at the last minute with a ridiculous bid amount to win the auction. I was determined not to be a victim of the ebay snipers.

At about 15 minutes to go before the end of the auction, I start religiously refreshing the page, hoping to catch out the ebay sniper before he/she had a chance to outbid me. After 13 minutes of this, I felt I was pretty safe in my bid, but just to be sure I refreshed the page one more time. I had been outbid! I quickly entered another bid at $190, but that was again not high enough. 1 minute left to go until the end of the auction. I place another bid in at $200 - it was time to get serious. After entering the bid, I had to re-enter my login information (You're kidding me!), and confirm my bid. All periods of frantic clicking. My final bid went through at 22:27:28 AEST. The auction ended at 22:27:55 AEST. Safe by about half a minute! Final price: $199.50. I'm sorting out payment now, but I conceivably could have my new keyboard by the weekend.