(Imagine this diary entry being read in the best Paul Harvey voice and cadence that one could muster.)
November 12, 1999.  A notion comes to a man.  A man who is used to wearing tweed jackets and pontificating the virtues of marketing and e-commerce before a crowded classroom of interested and able collegians.  He decides to buy four tires for his Lexus LS 400.  He's never done this before.  Yet, he found himself in a situation where all of his thoughts were about rubber and making contact with the road.  You see, the other day, his wife was driving this car.  When she got home, one of the tires was a little bit low of air; the next morning it was totally flat.

That morning, this gentleman changed the tire and put on the spare, a spare that needed replacing itself.  He looked over the flat tire and spotted a foreign object on it; this was clearly the cause of the flat tire.  He'd experienced situations like this before in life, as on a few other occasions, tires from this car had gone flat due to road debris.  The situation he faced was, one bad spare tire, one tire with very low tread (the old spare) and now, a tire needing a plug for repair.  He got online and visited tirerack.com.  Perusing the website for the brand and model tire that he wanted, he noticed that it was available, and that a new and improved version of it was also available.  He called the toll free customer service number and talked in detail with a sales agent about the differences between the old and new model.  The sales agent offered to take his order over the phone.  The man in need of some tires refused politely, and said that he needed to place this order online.  It was his destiny.  Knowing a little bit about business, he asked the sales agent if he worked on commission; the sales agent replied affirmatively.  Sizing up the situation, the tire kicker asked the sales agent for his name and identification number so that he could type this information on the online order form.  At approximately 3:00 pm, he ordered four Dunlop SP 5000 tires, being sure to note that Brad at extension 398 helped him out.

You see, this is not the first time that this gentleman had thought about getting new tires for this car.  When he purchased the car as a used vehicle, he noted that the tires on it were of fine quality.  He later learned that the model of these tires was not the one recommended by Lexus.  It is his belief that luxury car manufacturers carefully select the type of tire that should accompany their vehicles, and that it is unwise to go against their knowledge and experience, particularly that of Lexus.  Ever since he became aware that the tires on the car were not of the type recommended by Lexus, he looked for excuses to replace them, even though they still had a reasonable amount of tread life remaining.  Being frugal, he could not bring himself to do this on many occasions, until today.  Though the two existing "good" tires on the car had about 5000 miles of good tread life remaining, he had found his excuse for ordering the tires of which he had always dreamed.  As he clicked the complete order button at tirerack.com, he looked forward to putting his mind at ease about having the proper type of tires on his car.

This gentleman's name was Professor Bruce D. Weinberg.

Incidentally, the real name of the sales agent who assisted Professor Weinberg with his purchase is not really Brad; it is Tim.  Since seven sales agents at tirerack.com have the name Tim, Brad, who is really Tim, took it upon himself to be known professionally as Brad, so that he would not be involved in any commission mix-ups, which had happened when he was known only as Tim.  This Tim is the only sales agent at tirerack.com who is known as Brad.  My understanding is that Tim's paycheck has never been in error since he adopted the sales agent name of Brad.

And that's, the rest of  the story.  Good day.