and the winner is...me!!!!!!!!

I am shocked to report that I actually won an auction on eBay (for less money than I was willing to pay on top of it!)!

I am soon to be the owner of two great white shark teeth (and one megalodon fossil thrown in there too).

best self present - EVER

I guess it might sound strange but I am REALLY excited to receive these. Should come by Tuesday at the latest. Ever since I was 5 I've always wanted a REAL great white shark tooth. No idea how Sea World got these (that's where the owner bought them, back in the 80s). Hopefully they didn't kill a shark.I'm calling these teeth an early birthday present (eBay waits for no one and doesn't care when your birthday is).

Hopefully my arts and crafts neighbor might be able to help me figure out how to do a little display case for my teeth.

In other news, I've been taking a course on financial markets and have applied some of what I've learned to my eBay auctions. Here's a weird thing. I had three items that didn't sell, one because the bidder canceled the bid after she won the auction. In any case, I thought I had them priced right (about 50% below the market value I determined by looking at similar items and how they were priced) but I lowered the prices of all of my items and now have bids that exceed the expected price I was hoping to get. In the case of the item that I had to relist because the bidder fucked up, when I relisted I lowered the price by $5 and currently have a bid that is $10 higher than I would have gotten had the original winner not canceled her bid after winning. So by listing an item WAY below market value I'm actually getting way above the market value.

Financial markets are crazy because people don't always use logic when it comes to money...

Random fact - the reason that exchange rates between countries fluctuates so much is because the US is not on the gold standard anymore and many countries tie their currency to ours. And hedge funds were designed to REDUCE risk for investors. That didn't work out so well. And there are assets that you can only invest in if you have $1 million dollars in assets (minus your home) because someone determined if you have a million in assets you must be a "savvy" investor. Hm...