People seated at dinner tables for an auction almost always bid more aggressively than those sitting in rows, explained Richard Brierley, a Christie's auctioneer and wine specialist.
In what appeared almost a bid to secure some headlines of his own, he added sorrowfully: "What we are lacking at the moment is a sense of leadership and direction.
How could it reach the point that Manager Joe Girardi felt compelled to start benching this guy and that guy in a desperate and almost embarrassing bid to get something going?
Then, in 1993, Martinez had needed a set of priorities he could use to make a direct, almost personal bid for the hearts and minds of his senior managers.
But Mr. Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, spiritedly attacked President Bush in what appeared to be a preview of the themes he would invoke in what some Democrats describe as an almost certain bid for the White House in 2004.
One group, in an almost comical bid for support, named itself the Rafik Hariri brigade, after the former Lebanese prime minister and Saudi ally who is believed to have been assassinated by the Syrians, and whose son Saad is influential in doling out Saudi support to the rebels.
Huston has more than made up for those years of meekness, but there's still an avidity to her that borders on nervousness, a touching and almost quaint bid to be liked that seems somehow rooted in her status as a second-generation Hollywood star.
While Mr. Besanko's reply could be interpreted a number of ways, we don't think that it deserved the share price to plunge more than 7%, a conclusion reached pretty quickly by investors who almost immediately bid KSS shares higher.
The president glossed over the fact that Turkey had lost its almost certain bid for the 2020 games because of his brutal crackdown on the 2013 Gezi Park protesters.
"There was almost a bidding war to buy the footage and show it on TV," he recalled.
