Am I certifiable?

[sethg at ropine.com (Seth Gordon)]

Looking at the exam objectives, I'm pretty confident that I can pass the
exams for the Linux Professional Institute's "LPIC Level 1" and Sun's
"Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform 1.2" certifications. 
Would these certifications help my employability -- or contractability
-- enough to be worth dropping $200 and $150, respectively, on the test
fees?  Is there an equally reputable Perl certification?

(There's some outfit called "Brainbench" that offers tests over the Web
on a variety of topics for fifty bucks, but since it's all done over the
Web, they can't verify that I'm not cheating.  If I were a hiring
manager, I wouldn't take Brainbench certifications very seriously....)

If I spent a few weeks studying books on J2EE and practicing on my
laptop, and then take Sun's "Certified Web Component Developer for J2EE
Platform" test, would this also help?  Or will employers not be
interested in somebody who has a certificate without any relevant job
experience?

-- 
"In theory, true random numbers only come from truly random sources:
atmospheric noise, radioactive decay, political press announcements."
  --Bruce Schneier
// seth gordon // sethg at ropine.com // http://ropine.com/sethg/cv.html //