Well Sir, lucky for you, all is not lost. You are suffering from what is commonly called the "Yellow Light of Death", or YLoD. This is most commonly caused by overheating of the processor, causing the solder joints to break, essentially "cutting the brain from the body" of the PlayStation 3. But, it could be something else. If the power supply is faulty, you will also get this same error.
To tell if it is the motherboard or powersupply that is at fault, turn the console on, and listen carefully. If the fan starts to spin up for a second or two, and then the console "Yellow Lights", then you have a motherboard failure (it takes a second for the console to realized that it is broken). If the fans don't even start up, but as soon as you push the button the console yellow lights, you likely have a power supply issue.
Also lucky for you, iFixit has solutions to both of these issues. We offer a [product|IF213-028|Yellow Light of Death Fix Kit] and a [guide|3654|repair guide], which contains all of the necessary tools and information to repair the Yellow Light of Death. However, be warned, this is not a guaranteed fix. Some folks say that they had to repair their PlayStations several times, while others say that they only had to once. It can depend on the damage done to the console, as well as the time spent re-flowing the motherboard.
We also offer replacement [http://www.ifixit.com/Game-Console-Parts/PlayStation-3-Model-CECHGxx#0-Power+Supplies|power supplies], and [guide|3483|guides] for installing the power supply.