I have a robot cleaning my house. Right now. Every now and then, I have one of those "the future has arrived" moments. I had one last week when my wife came home with a robot, which she had bought at the robot slave auction, to clean our house.

Robot: <>

Me: Clean my house!

Robot: <beep>

Somewhere deep in the digital innards of the thing, there may be resentment brewing, but, if that's the case, it hasn't let on. It just goes around the house cleaning and cleaning, occasionally running out of battery power and beeping some more.

So, I'm sitting here watching the Daily Show (Jon Stewart: World's Funniest Human), skipping commercials with my Phat Media Center™, and one of the commercials I skip gives me a brief glimpse of Gary Coleman. He of the short stature and stunted career.

Anyway, Gary Coleman is always good for a laugh, so I back up.

It's a commercial for one of those "quick, I need cash" loan services. (Apparently, Gary needed to get his car fixed and he "didn't have the deductible! didn't have the cash!" Oh, Gary. Will you ever learn?)

Hilarious commercial. The punch line is in the fine print (visible only with Phat Media Center pause technology™), which I'll quote here:


Wait. Did they say 99.25%??? Is that a typo?? Surely there should be but one nine. Surely.

Nope.

99.25%.

Um. That's, like, almost 100%. Per year. So, the 2,600 bucks you needed ends up costing you $9,100. Over two and a half years, you end up paying back what you borrowed three and half times.

Yeah, yeah. I know that robbing poor people is good sport and all, but DAMN. I mean, DAAAAMMMN. That's just outrageous!

Even the credit card companies stop at, say, 19.9%, and those guys have no shame whatsoever. Who are these people at CashCall.com? Republicans?