Offered through Goldgenie (read: not Apple), Elton's personalized iPod nanos complete with his Rocket Man: The Definitive Hits CD pre-installed can be yours for $565 (8GB) or $640 (16GB). We realize that sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that 12.5% of each purchase goes back to the the Elton John AIDS Foundation—or $45 (8GB) and $51 (16GB). Only 100 of each color will be puked on with a mixture of crystals and adhesive.

Like most of the reasonable public, I'd pay 50 or so bucks not to carry one of these iPods, so maybe I should just mail in my check and have it done with. [Goldgenie via ShinyShiny]

You know the Apocalypse is near when you read Walt's buddy Katherine Boehret saying this in today's The Mossberg Solution column:

I really liked the Sansa Connect. It forced me to look at my portable player as an evolving, untethered device that introduced me to lots of songs [...] My iPod suddenly seemed old-fashioned.

Sure, she doesn't like the idea of subscriptions, the need for Wi-Fi for some functions or the fact that the Yahoo! Music Store only has two million songs versus five million in iTunes (come on Katie! I mean, how many versions of Elton John's Goodbye England's Rose do you want?) But overall, she seems to really dig the Sansa Connect for design, functionality, the neat Wi-Fi implementation and a good battery life. But maybe there is more than meets the eye in this review, right after the jump.

OK, let's see: Again and again Mossberg has been trashing iPod wannabes like the Zune with quite a bit of reasons.

This comes weeks after other reviews, and so far the most authoritative piece on the Sansa comes from Pogue, who is the only guy who tested it enough to realize, hey, even though there are 2 million songs in the catalog, you're actually limited to far fewer. –Jesus Diaz

An iPod Rival With an Edge [Wall Street Journal Online]

So there's Elton John, sitting in his office, all Writer's Block-ed out, and flipping his Bic biro in despair. He liked the way it moved, "Like a rocket," he thought. "I know, I'll write a song about it and call it Rocket Pen". It was only the return of Bernie Taupin from the kitchen, where he had been making the tea, who told Elton that it wouldn't work. "Better Rocket MAN, Elt, old chum," he said. "Save the Rocket Pen for the 21st Century. It might work better as a gadget than a song*."

Three decades later, Sir Elton is sitting in his office, bored of songwriting, flipping his Bic. He thinks back to his original Eureka! moment but this time decides to turn it into a $7.99 office toy** for bored workers to amuse their colleagues and, occasionally, hit their bosses in the eye by mistake. Or on purpose. I don't know. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [ThinkGeek via New Launches]

* This might not be true.
** This is true, but not the Elton John part. Obviously.
*** Bonus video with William Shatner to know who all these people are, right after the jump

Rocket Man by the other rocket man — it's a bit scary for a Tuesday morning