HDMI Cables with 90% Mark-up? Monster Cables, of course

As someone who's recently purchased a "HD" tv (well, 720p) recently, I can tell you that the mark-up on cables are just incredible. Even at Wal-mart, I paid $24 bucks for a 6 foot belkin cable. What can I say? I was desperate. I could have waited and purchased the same cable from MONOPRICE.COM (a great site btw), for about 6 dollars US. I later purchased a DVI-M to HDMI cable from Monoprice for about 6 dollars US plus 6 dollars to ship. A cable like that at any other location would run you $25 bucks, plus tax. A cable like that at Futureshop or Best Buy? Try 80 dollars. But wait, it gets better. You can spend hundreds of dollars on fancy gold plated cables with ultra-low impedance. But really, we're dealing with digital signals here folks so it won't make ANY difference whether you get the 160.00 Monster HDMI cables or the $6.00 Monoprice cable. But your wallet will. And the scams continue: Just last week Futureshop announced a $299.99 "Video Calibration" setup fee for any new HDTV (in-house). I mean, you don't NEED to calibrate most HDTV's and any calibration that can be done through a remote can easily be researched ONLINE and FREE using Google search. If you want to buy a color reader tool, look to spend about a hundred bucks. But do you NEED this shit? Absolutely NOT. And then there's the EXTENDED warranty scam. It's a scam because most brand-name televisions come with at LEAST a year of warranty. Most LCD TV's will last for many YEARS to come - LONGER than a Plasma television, for sure. (The Plasma TV uses different technology and also suffers from image burn if you leave it on a station which has image markers). LCD tv's only have a florescent back light tube and the LCD technology doesn't risk burn-in. Don't buy an extended warranty. You're throwing good money out the door. You don't need it. NO. My extended warranty was "only" 60 dollars for my TV. I declined it. Wal-mart doesn't care - they won't "PUSH" the insurance on you. Places like Futureshop WILL push the warranty on you. Don't believe the lies. They may even entice you by offering to lower the price of the TV IF you purchase the extended warranty. Don't do this. For one thing, it's not ethical. For a second, you should know markup on electronics is around 20%. Wal-mart has a mark-up of around 3.5 - 6%. You can buy name brand at Wal-mart. In this day and age, if you can save money - do it. That money can come in handy later on.