Yes, ninety nine f—king dollars. To hook up an Xbox or a PS3 that cost you a bit more than twice that. It’s though a third party called Zip Installation, who somehow stays in business despite offering such idiotic and overpriced services. Seriously, who is paying for these things? And do they realise that they’re being ripped off once the tech is in their house and they watch them spend five minutes doing the most basic of tasks before asking for a cheque? [Kotaku]

Lest you judge too quickly, let’s take a look at the Geek Squad’s latest service in their own words:

CD conversion requires care and expertise. We’ll rip your CD collection into MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA, WMA-Lossless, or OGG formats, and return it to you (along with your CDs) on DVDs

Translation: We’ll take whatever is on your disc and put it on another disc.

We pull quality, accurate metadata from multiple sources such as AMG and GD3 and rip your CDs with the finest error correction software. We also hand-groom your digital music collection making searching and organizing your collection a breeze and ready to play as soon as you receive it.

Translation: We have iTunes.

Wondering where we are with your conversion? Simply login on our website and view the status of your order at any time.

Translation: This is going to take a while.

Have a few CDs with peanut butter and jelly on them?

Translation: You are clearly an idiot.

Need an iPod, hard drive, or music server with your CD Ripping? Add it to your cart and we’ll transfer (load) your entire collection to the selected hardware FREE of charge.

Translation: And now that we know you’re an idiot, we would like to steal from you.

I’m sure there’s a market for this—old folks? the chronically lazy? someone’s been paying for this shit for years—but really, you’re paying a dollar for someone to click on a few buttons, and pass it off as something that you can’t do yourself. Or hey, maybe I’m being unfair. Let me know! Just email me your thoughts, and I’ll post them as comments for, let’s say $US0.50 a word? Great. [Consumerist]

That’s right folks, pressing on this resistance gadget for just minutes a day will miraculously redefine your bone structure to build a chin where there was no chin before. [Neckline Slimmer]

Amazingly enough, people continue to be duped by the Flowbee vacuum hair cutting system some 20 odd years after its initial release. [Flowbee]

If you have ever seen vintage footage of some flabby flapper girl strapped on a vibrating belt machine, you already have a pretty good grasp of the Hawaii Chair. A 2800 rpm motor rotates the chair seat to simulate a Hula motion with the hips. Theoretically, this will help to slim down your waistline while you sit on your arse doing nothing. [Hawaii Chair]

Are you tired of rolling meat into little round balls? Sweet baby Jesus…yes, YES I AM! If only there was some sort of magic press that would allow me to make uniform-sized meatballs in only 4 steps. [Best of As Seen On TV]

Ironically, the Amish are probably the only group of people in the world that would need a gadget that melts down the tops of old candles to expose the wick. [Taylor Gifts via Link]

Just because you don’t have a problem walking around looking like a monk doesn’t mean your dog feels the same way. [Snuggie for Dogs]

It’s a jump rope…without the rope! One easy payment of $US29.99 plus SH gets you the Cardio Jump workout system. But wait, there’s more! For a limited time, we will throw in a one-page instructional leaflet teaching you how to jump in place absolutely free!

Last but not least, I give you the infamous Tiddy Bear: the most absurd product ever promoted on television. It’s supposed to be a cute and cuddly way to prevent seat belts from digging into the skin—but it ends up being an endless source of “tiddy” jokes. [Tiddy Bear]

Strangely, this is the second E81 phone that the knockoff artists at Nokla have put out. The first was a candybar phone that Nokla released to take advantage of the current lack of a legitimate Nokia “E81″ phone in that company’s ever-expanding product lineup.

The features are actually rather modest, but end up being completely overshadowed by the included mirror that graces the phone’s swiveling backside. Shades of the Sony Ericsson “woman’s mobile phone” playbook, no doubt. [Justamp via Engadget via BBG]

Even worse is that when it was first released, the description included no mention of these charges, tricking people into spending $US1 on a worthless app. They’ve since updated it, fortunately, but the pricing remains.

Aren’t you excited for more apps to start charging this way? Bring on the sleazy, crippled apps begging for more money! [The Apple Blog]

In this spot, a bunch of easily-entertained commuters talk about how awesome it is to see models pretending to be mannequins holding Sony products in the middle of Grand Central. You see the models standing perfectly still, and then they show a fast-motion shot of the models in the middle of the hubbub. It’s exactly like the Improv Everywhere video, just without any soul.

And this isn’t the first time Sony has ripped off an artist for their advertisements. They ripped off LA-based kozyndan for their Bunnies Bravia ad, denying it later despite clear evidence of sleaziness. They apparently didn’t learn their lesson, because this one is even worse. You suck, Sony. Come up with your own ideas.

Time for a mea culpa. Seriously, we’re waiting. [Improv Everywhere and Creativity Online, Thanks, Zach Linder!]

The article goes into depth about how text messages are transmitted. In short, texts are unsurprisingly transmitted between towers over the main, wired network in the same way as cellular data, a portion of the journey that, considering the tiny amount of information in a 160-character text, costs very close to nothing.

Surely then, the carrier incurs costs to transmit the messages from towers to handsets. After all, this is the wireless part of the journey, and wireless costs lotsa $$$, right? No:

Text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

You read that right: for carriers, sending a text message from an extant wireless tower to your handset is more or less free. If it’s any consolation, the article also mentions that the Senate Antitrust Committee is kind of looking into the matter, so we may see relief (or even retribution) within the next 10-40 years. [NYT via BB Gadgets]

Tipster Nick received his as a bonus gift from a work supplier and sent in some pics, which you can check out below.A quick Google search shows that you can pick up the Mee console from a number of online stores, with prices varying between $29 and $90. Included in that price you get:

* 16Bit CPU Core
* Wireless interactive game console with 7 interactive Sport games and 32 TV arcade games
* The controllers are very sensitive and quite accurate by cuilt-in sensors for movements in all play directions
* Plug’n'Play by connecting AV cable directly to the television
* 7 Interactive Sport games: Baseball, Golf, Tennis, Ping Pong, Soccer, Bowling and Boxing
* 6 Sport extensions for ultimate gaming sensation
* Wireless Game pad with 32 additional arcade TV games built-in
* Safety straps for the wireless controllers to protect the direct environment
* Supports battery operation (batteries not including) and power operation with the AC/DC adapter (including)
* Age group 5+
* Full color gift box and b/w Instruction manual

In case you were wondering what came in the box:

Needless to say, if you get one of these under your tree at Christmas time, somebody doesn’t really like you.

[Thanks Nick!]

Get them while they last when they arrive in January for about $US130. [B4Tech]