I've spent the last week on one website. It's exciting, interactive and time-consuming.

eBay.

No, I didn't just hit a few keys in the wrong order. That was it. eBay.

For those of you who have never been on the site, let me sum it up for you. It is, with no sense of hyperbole intended, The Mother of all jumble sales, yard sales, garage sales, car-boot sales, house clearances and charity free-for-alls.

I've heard a few stories about eBayers, the people that frequent the site as sellers or buyers... one person collected novelty lunch boxes for years. This person had invested the better part of a decade searching for an A-Team lunchbox that had the black van on it. A decade. Ten minutes on eBay and he decided to give up the collecting, simply because there were half a dozen people at that moment selling their A-Team lunchbox to the highest bidder. Seeing as most auctions on the site last for a week, so there'd probably be a few hundred of them up for sale a year, he decided his unattainable goal was too easy to acquire after all.

I have a similar story, in the form of a pristine 1978 Star Wars annual book (issue #1) that I bought from a jumble sale stall at Huntingdon racecourse. I thought maybe the thing was rare because... well; it was two decades old, designed specifically as a young child's Christmas present, and was begging to be scrawled in. I went on eBay and there they were. Dozens of them. All pristine. So much for uniqueness. At least I only paid 50 pence (80 US cents) for mine.

It's not just for 1970's kitsch either. I was recently looking to buy a PCI video card for our old G3 Mac computer (made before AGP video cards were thought of). The buying frenzy every time one comes up for sale would astound you. There are brand new ones for sale for $99, yet people will buy ones that are four years old for nearly that price. The older cards have a quarter the computing power of the newer cards, but that doesn't matter. Once you get two people that have their hearts set on something, a bidding war can start. In a matter of hours, a $20 object has bids for $50. People must take note, TO THE SECOND, when the auction is going to end because they'll hyper-bid with twenty seconds to go. I've seen the 'Bid History' on things go haywire. Just this week, a USB/FireWire add-on card for home PCs price went up 50% in the final minute as lounge lizard buyers pounced on what they thought was a low price.

Seriously, take a look at the site. Even if you don't buy anything, it's nice to see what folks are in the market for.

Listen: Edge Of No Control (Part One) - Meat Beat Manifesto.