Brian Hogg is a puppeteer and a writer. He builds puppets for money at Hoggworks Studios—including the Mosspuppet and Ask Palpatine—and likes to make fun of people.

I don't know what's funnier, that Apple has the balls to erect a billboard so large it's illegal, or that Apple has such pull—financial and political—that they can get away with it. Since 2007 the 13,750-square-foot billboard has been up in a Boston-based storage facility, and the state has argued that it should come down. Protected in part by Boston hizzoner Thomas M. Menino and others, the ad remains, but after a temporary permit ran out, its owners had to pay a $110,000 "settlement." Sounds like a fine to me. Either way, the mofo is still standing. [AppleInsider]

On what looks like the Japanese equivalent of Regis and Kelly, a TV presenter showing off a Sony Vaio L touchscreen Win 7 PC can't quite get it to work. It's not fully frozen—it's the IR touch interface that seems to be the problem. Whatever the case, you can see this poor bastard visibly mourning his own rapidly decreasing family honor. And as for Reeg-san and JKelly, I don't know what they're saying, but I am pretty sure I've heard it all before. [MacDailyNews via CrunchGear]

Wal-Mart is sticking it to Best Buy with their own army of overpriced teenage-son replacements. You pay anywhere from $99 to $339 for, as Reuters puts it, "basic television installation on the low end to setting up a home theater, wireless router network or a home office computer network" on the high end. So let me get this straight, somebody paying $600 for a 40" LCD TV is going to pay $100 for it to be setup? Better yet, someone paying $30 for a wireless router will pay 10 times that for some dude to come install it? I mean, I know we're a service economy, but this is ridiculous. [Reuters]

My favorite Canadian co-CEO, RIM's Mike Lazaridis, did a kind of evasion/denial response to questions about the gloriously hideous Bluetooth BlackBerry smartwatch, a kind of wristborne Foleo, if you will. He kinda just giggled and said that the accessories they release are generally accessories that keep the BlackBerry handset at the center. Clearly this would be different—and CrackBerry maintains that it still may come out, designed and built for BlackBerrys by a firm unaffiliated with RIM. Sounds like a recipe for awesome to me. [TechDigest]

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 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 $0.50 a word? Great. [Consumerist]

According to our anonymous tipster:

I collected some pictures from a GS Test new Agents take while they are in the process of becoming CompTIA A+ Certified [a industry standard certification for computer support technicians]. The pictures show some funny questions with even funnier answer choices.

Well, yes, they are funny. The wrong kind of funny, completely unchallenging, and plain down dumb. What's the purpose of a test that doesn't test anything? Oh wait, never mind.

Sean tells us that the store was empty down to 3 carts, which meant Circuit City did the only thing they could: They sold their fixtures.

Those yellow price tags you see in the image below are how much the shelves went for, which is what the BB people were there to buy. Everything was somewhere between $75 and $250, in case you were wondering.

Goodbye Circuit City. You were a store we went to before.

All of Giz's Circuit City coverage - Thanks Sean!

If you want to really go nuts, there is a 3rd tier "Premium Onsite Support" branch that will offer assistance with problems like OS and network installations for a price that falls between $100-$300 depending on the service. That's all well and good if you are loyal to Verizon, but with the market for home repair service getting so competitive, one has to wonder whether all of these companies can carve out their own piece of the pie. [Verizon via Ars Technica]

If you buy one of four bullshit accessory packages—going for $106 to $234, according to AppleInsider—Geek Squad will set up your phone and email for free. In other words, something they have to do anyway (activate your phone), and another that's complimentary at the Apple Store or easy enough to do yourself. Thanks, Geek Squad. [Apple Insider]

Pushy retailers [Random Good Stuff]

Hop on over to see how. – Jason Chen

UPDATE: Geek Squad CEO Promises To Resolve Any Consumerist Reader Complaint He Receives, And Then Does So [Consumerist]

After the woman's sister removed the phone's flash memory card containing the video file, Chi the Peeping Geek tried to get it back by offering discounted services. No dice. Dude, you are so busted. – Charlie White

Geek Sued For Peeking At Woman In Shower Via Video [CBS, via The Consumerist]

One room is all Krell equipment — subwoofer, speakers, amplifier, DVD player, surround sound — and I have an HD projector that displays on a 15-foot screen. Of course I watch DVDs, but I also use a Faroudja line quadrupler with my laserdiscs. I have a big collection of laserdisc movies, because I started young. I've been collecting all my life. Laserdiscs have really good quality, but when you project them on a really big screen like the 15-foot one in my home theater room, the quality is not as good, so that's why I bought the line quadrupler.

Not to pick on Fabio or anything—he seems like the only guy you'd be comfortable letting your divorced mother have "relations" with—but we don't think he knows much about A/V other than to call in the Geek Squad guys for support. – Jason Chen

An Interview with Fabio, Geek Squad Ambassador [SCI FI Tech]

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Feel free to add any rants in the ol' comment box. Any particular beefs and/or tales of interest ($1 to Futurama)? – Nicholas Deleon

They've just opened a comically large warehouse just outside Louisville, Kentucky, aka the capital of the world, in order to redress these issues. For a photo tour of the facility, along with some running social commentary inspired by listening to right wing talk radio, jump for joy. Did I mention that Fabio was there?

I was dragged from my big, huge mansion in Manhattan to Louisville to cover this thing. The day opened with a Geek Squad helicopter majestically floating above the local square. Why? I don't know.

Then there was a press conference with the founder of Geek Squad, the mayor of Louisville and Fabio. Yeah, that Fabio.

The news here was that Geek Squad is teaming up with the city to bring Wi-Fi to it. Of course, details of the deal weren't discussed in the slightest. Who needs details?

The big daddy, however, was the huge ass facility Geek Squad built. I've got a few pics for your amusement.

In essence, the facility was constructed to, as I said earlier, redress quality assurance issues that plagued Geek Squad in the past. Once completely up and running, the facility should be able to turn out faulty computers within three days. That is, send it in on Monday, you'll have it back on Thursday. It's just a matter of people being willing to pay more for shipping charges; the computer will likely be fixed within the same day that it arrives at the warehouse. The new facility will be big on data recovery, too. They're thinking of constructing a clean room to really get customer's data back from the dead.

They take that whole "Geek" thing seriously.

Later today, I'll have an interview with Fabio up. It turns out he's a pretty big nerd and loves his electronics. Look, him soldering a motherboard!

Keep your eyes peeled. I asked all the tough questions. – Nicholas Deleon

Geek Squad Home Page [Geek Squad]

•Fabio likes his Macs. He uses Final Cut Pro to edit video he does for TV, but is using a G4. WTF? He'll spring for a MacPro soon, though, he assured me.

•The dude is an old school gadget geek; he used to own an Amiga. Can you picture him tinkering away on an Amiga?

As the video above shows, he also knows how to solder...

•He's got a ridiculous A/V system, complete with 15 ft. x 7 ft. screen, powered by a Ronco HD projector. He's also keen on Krell.

•He's not a fan of either HD DVD or Blu-ray.

•He called the Xbox 360 "incredible." He's not really a fan of today's video games, however, but is completely blown away by the graphics. Then he went off on some weird tangent about how he and Hulk Hogan were the first real people on the cover of a video game box.

Now, what you've all been waiting for... hot Fabio pics!

So be sure to tell your friends that today you learned that Fabio is a big nerd, just like you. – Nicholas Deleon