Verizon's Ellipsis 10 tablet is a piece of JUNK

     I'm stuck in a two year contract with the biggest turd of a tablet on the planet.

     Where do I start? The Ellipsis 10 has a nice bright screen and a hefty battery, but anything else...forget it.

    It is crap. It is junk. It is a piece of SHIT.

    It takes a solid minute or more to just wake up. You have to hold the power button for at least twenty seconds before it responds, then you get the red screen of interminable waiting for it to load. Once it does, you better touch the screen immediately, otherwise it shuts OFF. Then you must go through the entire press and hold all over again.

    It's connection to a wifi signal is always weak,unless, of course you're in the Verizon store itself. Then it's quite robust. Anywhere else? Forget about it. 

    You get odd messages: "you're not authorized access" to things like: your account. Your data usage. You can't find signal strength because, oh damn, there IS NONE, not enough to power a freaking flashlight.

    It goes to sleep within a minute of activation UNLESS you're quick enough to go to settings and change it. Even so, you are only allowed thirty minutes of ''''inactivity'', then it shuts off. This is to "protect" you from leaving it on. Like I do that? Hello? 

   Oh, it also will shut down without any warning or reason whatsoever. The screen goes black, no matter if you're playing a game, typing an email or just reading an ebook. 

   Commands such as swiping to access different screens? maybe, sometimes, but seldom does it work. 

   Do NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF CRAP TABLET. 

   I bought it because I wanted to escape Samsung's bloatware. I was assured by the Verizon salesman that I wouldn't have it. Well, he was right, but Verizon and Android still seem to find ways to shovel bloatware on it. 

   Connections to the net, to google, to anything take a lifetime of waiting and even then,you're more apt to get a 'connection timed out, retry" You can do this, oh, fifteen or seventy times and then your Ellipsis will shut down because of INACTIVITY.

   Do NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF CRAP ELLIPSIS 10 tablet. 

   Oh, it doesn't text, either. At least mine refuses to. Maybe this is because my cell phone is a prepaid one. 
   
    Apps sometimes work and sometimes don't. It all depends on how the piece of shit is feeling at the moment. 

A call blocker that WORKS

    My phone company, Century Link, has got to be the most useless telephone company in the country.
They recently sent me a mailing that begged me to keep my landline. That's because fewer people have them, and that means they are going to go out of business.
But their customer service is non-existent, and they don't give a damn about them, anyway. They just want the money.

     I am paying umpty bucks for what they call "high speed internet'...but it's no faster than dial up and they have no intentions of installing new equipment to make it faster. 

     I am paying for call forwarding. It never works.

     But most outrageous is I am paying for call blocking, and it not only doesn't work, but it ALLOWS so called 'charities' to call. Googling these so called charities or non-profits will tell you that the folks who register as a charity don't have to PROVE that they give money to needy people. All they have to do is pay to register it. They don't actually give that money away. They make it and they keep it.

  Thus, especially these days, I am pestered to tears by scammers, telemarketers and charities, all wanting my money. I've won a free cruise to the Bahamas. Just send money to pay for something. I have been chosen to take part in a free time share. Just send money. I am a human being, so send money to some shitheads who are pretending to be a charity.

    Despite my being on the Do Not Call list, despite my never, ever having given money to a phone caller, despite my number being unlisted since the days of Ma Bell, I get more calls. And you will, too. Because fewer and fewer people have landlines. The telemarketers have a smaller pool of suckers. They know they're not going to be caught breaking the law, so they prey on anyone with impunity.  The charities are just as bad. They have a free pass to call whomever and whenever they want. They act as if they have a legitimate right to beg/pester/harass you into giving them money. 

  One calls me four times a day: 0800, 0945, 1700, and 2045. It's a robo call but with a human on the other end. He lets the computer do the dialing. I know this because he takes weekends and holidays off.

  Don't think that asking the telemarketer to 'put my name on your do not call list' is going to result in their doing so. In fact, it merely puts your name on the hot list named Real Sucker Answers the Phone. They share and sell those lists to other telemarketers. Soon you will get not one, not two, but dozens of phone calls every day, all scammers trying to steal from you.

   Don't answer it. Just don't answer it ever. No matter what you say or do, if you answer the phone, you are so fucked. You are going to get more and more and more phone calls. Don't do stuff like blow whistles in the callers ear, or hand the phone to your toddler. Any time you answer the phone, you're screwed.

  The Government's Do Not Call list? Huh. The Republicans cut their budget to the bone, hence, no matter how often you submit a number and a complaint to the FTC, they're not going to stop the calls. They don't have the staff or the money to chase them all down. And a court won't fine them. The telemarketers have good lobbyists. They'll say they're just trying to make a legal buck, it's 'business'.

  My phone company? "We're sorry", says the computerized non existent customer representative, , "you're not authorized to block that number."
   Seriously! I can't even have the privacy of my own phone, the one I pay a lot of money for, being used for my own purposes? They give my 'unlisted number' ( which I also pay for,) to anyone who wants to buy it. 

   Now it's gotten really bad. Not only do my cell phones ring with spoofed numbers, the numbers aren't even real phone numbers. If I tried calling '72" the phone would reject my attempts. Once I got a cell call with the caller number being ???? The cell company blithely allows them all to pass. 

   So I did a little googling for a call blocker. There are a few on the market that seem worthwhile. One seems to only block robocalls.It's called nomorobo, but it doesn't seem to block calls other than robo calls.

    The one I bought, though, does it all. 
It's called "Digitone Call Blocker Plus".

    The Digitone doesn't care if a charity is 'allowed' to pester you for money.
You tell it who to block, she does it. 

    Any call can be blocked. The default setting is all calls are allowed through and you program the machine to block specific numbers. It automatically blocks 'no data sent', "unavailable' "survey", 'anonymous', numbers without even bothering you. A call that has no name whatsoever is also automatically blocked. 

    There are three types of calls, in this machines case. Blocked calls, Invited callers (for instance, you want the veterinarian or your doctor to call back) and VIP callers, those folks who you want calls from, like your spouse, your kid, your best friends. 

    You can program the machine to block all calls from a specific area code, such as the ones from the Caribbean or entire countries, like Nigeria or Russia. 
You can program it for 'After hours". This is where you can set it to allow ONLY VIP callers, who can call through at any time day or night. 
  You can program it to accept calls from PBX, for instance, you know the area code and the first three numbers, but the last four can all be wild cards. 
 
    I have, for instance, After Hours set to kick on at 8 PM and go off at 9 AM. this has successfully blocked the charity that calls me four times a day.
I did this because, even a blocked number rings once. I don't even want that, especially at night. 

The caller who you block hears two rings. (you only hear one). Then, after 8 seconds of silence, the machine hangs up on him. This is hell for telemarketers, because every second not talking to a sucker is a second lost.  I think it tells the caller that the phone is disconnected.

What you need: caller ID on your landline, and a power source next to where the phone jack plugs into the wall.

Within fifteen minutes of my setting up and programming my Digitone call blocker, it blocked the nuisance charity caller and a fly by night from the Virgin Islands. 

I've had it for a week. Since that time I've gotten NO phone calls from robocallers, charities, or telemarketers. 

The instructions can be a little confusing. But keep it by your side when you're first learning how to program and you'll catch on quickly. Follow the directions that come with the machine  and you'll be on your wato peace and quiet. 

OK, the details:

Digitone Call Blocker is American made. It is made in Reno, Nevada.
Tech support is a real live human being (no robot answers their phone), a cheerful, capable and friendly tech. Tech support is FREE.
The machine itself is warranted for a year.
It cost me..with shipping...$97.00 American

It got to me three days after I called, and I called on Cyber Monday. No waiting, no 'please hold, your call is important to us." I got a human on the phone within three rings.

You can buy it through Amazon, but I don't deal with Amazon, ever. I despise how they treat their employees, like they were machines.
So I called the company direct and got excellent service, and the machine was in the mail within half an hour of my calling.

Their number:
1-877-610-5693

It is worth every penny I paid for it. If I could, I'd buy it for my friends and family.

By the way, I do NOT work for them. I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with the company, I don't own stock in it, (I doubt they have stock), I just am one Very Happy Customer.

If you want your phone to be used only for YOUR pleasure, business and desires, not some relentless telemarketer or scamming thief, get a Digitone. You won't regret it. 

Send more burglars...the last one was DELICIOUS!

SEND MORE BURGLARS! The last one was Delicious!!

  Sometimes, justice is served in the most unusual way. In this case, it was served as dinner to a very good alligator.

  Now this is what we need-guard alligators!!

Hey, Europe! How many terrorists are amongst those migrants? THOUSANDS

Hello, Europe, 

How many terrorists are in amongst those migrants? THOUSANDS

Well, EU, now you know what it feels like to be the target of illegal aliens.

Some of you have been highly critical of America’s ongoing issue with illegal immigrants sneaking into the US. We have long established laws and processes that allow legal immigration..indeed, we are the ONLY first world country that still takes legal applicants.

But some of you have chosen to make our problem with the tide of illegals one of racism. You have sat upon your high horse, calling us racists, implying that we are heartless bastards, televising the pitiful faces of little children who only want to grow up in the land of welfare. You have selectively parsed the huge numbers of illegals making it look as if we're gunning them down by the hundreds. You have chosen to illuminate the small minority of deserving migrants rather than looking at the thousands of people who pay smugglers to get in. YOu have conveniently ignored the hundreds of criminals who come here.You have no idea how far the drug lords of Mexico have come into my country. You cannot go anywhere in this country without having illegals committing all sorts of crime.

You call us racist for trying to secure our borders. Let me tell you something, Mexicans, Hondurans, other Central and South Americans…are WHITE. They may be dark complected…but so are Indians (continental). So are Aborigines. And you don’t refer to them as being of another race.

So now you are being inundated with millions of migrants. You want us to “do something’.

Like what?

Send you even more money? When did you EVER send us a dime to help us out? NEVER…

Take them off your hands?

Sorry. We have plenty..at last count, 12 million, illegals of our own, and not just Latinos. There’s plenty of Chinese and Russians who are here illegally, as well. And they don’t mean us good. They never have.

Now I bet you think that all those migrants in your towns are merely fleeing war. That's the story, at least.

You also are angry that Hungary very sensibly closed its borders.

Let me tell you something, Europe. Remember when the terrorists bombed your trains, your subways, your news offices? What did the Middle Eastern terrorists, specifically ISIS, say?

That they are going to sweep you off the planet. That they are going to convert every last one of you or kill you if you resist.

You all thought, yeah, right. How.

How?

By sending in millions of mostly innocent people. You think those folks just up and thought hey I will walk a thousand miles to go sit in a street in Munich?

Yeah, right.

Nope. They were forced at gunpoint to start walking.

True, they were told lies. They were told that you would give them a job, a house to live in, money to spend.

You thought, oh, we’ll merely keep an eye on every Middle Easterner who wants to come in. We know who they are.

The terrorist organizations: ISIS. Al-Nusra. The Haqqani. The Taliban. Al-Qaeda.  Have pulled a huge coup on your comfortable plan. Either with planning or without agreement, they have successfully sent in a million sheep…with thousands of monsters in amongst the hordes.

Yes, you have terrorists in your midst now, by the hundreds. They will sit there, quietly planning, quietly accumulating weapons, bomb materials, poison.

You have been invaded.

You are truly fucked.

Why is rent so expensive?

     Let me guess. You’ve been looking for a place to live: be it a home, a room to rent, or a place to couch surf, and you just aren’t getting any bites on your craigslist ad.

Right?

    I can hear the questions.

Why can’t landlords charge a reasonable rent?
Why do these homeowners have to be so greedy?

Why can’t I find a place to live like I want?

Why isn’t anyone responding to my chill, cool, and really exciting craigslist ad?

        When you were a kid living in your parent’s home, they didn’t expect you to pay for the house. Having children is a huge undertaking.

    It’s not cheap to own a home. Let’s say someone owns a 3 bedroom 2 bath home with a fenced yard.

   They’re advertising for a roommate on craigslist.

    But they want twice as much money as your ad says you can afford. They’re being selfish, right? They are being greedy, right? It’s Not Fair, right? All you need is a place to crash while you: look for a job, get back on your feet, escape a bad situation, just moved here from somewhere else, want a place to be on your own, just want a place to sit back and chill, play your music, be free to be yourself, shack up.  

    How can homeowners be so selfish?

    Allow me to usher you into the Real World.  Allow me to introduce you to what it means to be Grown Up.

  

    In this area, the average mortgage payment for an older, three bedroom home is about $1200 a month. That’s $400 per bedroom, to make it easier.

   Perhaps you didn’t know this, but if you own property, be it vacant land or a house on land, you have to pay property taxes.

    The amount of property tax you pay depends on a lot of things:

Condition of the premises.

Location of the house.

Other amenities such as paved road, city water, etc

Liens on the home.

Assessments made by the country tax officer.

Sales of like properties in the same vicinity

School levies

Aesthetic values, such as a view of the mountains or the sea, established/mature shade trees, proximity to such things as museums, schools, etc.

   So let’s say the taxes on this hypothetical house are $2400 a year. This year. In Washington State, the tax assessment rises every year according to many things: are the teachers striking for more pay? Up go your taxes. Does the UW want a new stadium? Up go your taxes. Did the house down the street sell for twice it assessed amount? Up go your taxes. Once in a great while they go down, for instance, when the Great Recession started, property taxes went down because no one could afford to buy a newer house. Despite the fact that the Recession is still here, (only the rich are getting richer), taxes jumped up again in 2009 and haven’t slowed down yet.

   Everything in the country runs on property taxes. Every tax, every program, everything is funded by the taxes paid by property owners. (NOT the rich, NOT the corporations, NOT the government.) It’s paid by the Home Owner.

   Schools, general administration of the state, pay for state workers, etc. Welfare, food stamps, your student loan. Even the stipend you’re getting and offering part of for rent: all are paid for by the property owner.

   This means the bedroom you’re looking to rent is taxed ~$95 per month. I’ll round that up to $100 for ease.

    Now that bedroom you want to rent is up to $500 ($2400 (tax)/12 (months) / 3 (bedroom)=$95.($100 for argument’s sake.). This is usually the amount you’re offering on craigslist. You’re already tapped out, and I’m just getting started.

   You want things in the house: Electricity. Running water. Indoor toilets.  Wi-fi. Cable. Telephone. Sewer, garbage pickup, etc. These services are collectively called “utilities”.

The average two month Puget Sound Energy bill is, let’s say, $240 for two months. One month per bedroom, then, becomes $40.  Let’s group the other utilities all together and say that is an additional $60 per bedroom. That totals $100.

   Your room is up to $600.

    Nope, not done yet. You have to have insurance on the home, or if you’re renting, you better have renter’s insurance. I have the former. My annual insurance premium is, say, $1200. (it’s higher than that, but I’m trying to keep the numbers workable.) That adds $400 to your room rent, making it $1000.

   Then let’s add in important stuff like: food.

Food is expensive. It is easy to spend $300 for two people every month for food, and that’s NOT including eating out, having a pizza delivered, or having a six pack in the fridge. No, the landlord won’t buy your food for you. Don’t go raiding his fridge. You can put your food in it, but you have to buy it, cook it, and dispose of the remains.

 There are things that you are expected to provide as a renter: your own food, as noted, but things like laundry detergent, hand soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, etc. You cannot expect the landlord to provide that gratis. He or she is allowing you to use the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer for free already.

   Have a kid? Oh, no. That’s a whole mess that I won’t even cover more than: it’s your kid, not the landlord’s. Don’t expect free child care. Don’t take care of his kids with the idea that it will be considered part of the rent. In this state, if you do that, you are considered the landlord’s employee, meaning he has to provide L&I and health insurance for you. That’s not cheap, and since I don’t employ anyone but myself I cannot tell you how much that costs.

   A home needs maintenance, all the time. There’s not a price you can put on it, but a home needs work: mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, etc. We’ll assume that you are going to put in your fair share of the labor, every single day: take out the garbage and recycles every week, load and unload the dishwasher (you’re probably going to use the landlord’s dishes/pots and pans, right? So don’t just stuff them in the sink until there’s no dishes left. You used them, you clean them and put them back in the cupboard.). By no means are you going to be able to get away with keeping your empty pizza boxes in your room. Keep it clean. Always.

    You must keep your room clean, using the landlord’s vacuum cleaner; mow the lawn (using the home owner’s walk behind lawn mower), sweeping and scrubbing floors, cleaning a bathroom, cleaning the kitchen after you cook your meals in it, etc. There’s isn’t a price that you can put on this, so we’ll let this go on your tab as a freebie: your labor included in the rent. Yes. Now if you’re in an apartment much of this is covered by the management but it still is included in the rent…which you must cover in your part. It’s more expensive, too.

   Not that it matters in this case, but if you have a car, you need insurance, license plates, license tabs, you need money for fuel, the car needs things: oil changes, new tires, good brakes, working lights.  You can’t hit up the landlord for that. It’s on you.

   Then, let’s say you have a pet. Pets are a hidden cost that includes responsibility on you:  you need to pick up your dog’s poop, walk it every day, train your cat to not claw the furniture, buy its food, pay for its veterinary bills, etc.  Please don’t bring your pit bull. Many places legally prohibit pit bulls for good reason. Don’t preach to me about how good your pit bull is. They have a public and well deserved reputation for being vicious and have killed people. He might be good for you, if you’ve trained him, but most people don’t train any dog, never mind a pitbull.  A pitbull is loyal..if he thinks the landlord is a danger to you, he’ll attack the owner of the house. Think you have money problems now? Huh. You have no idea.

      A landlord can refuse to rent to you if you have an animal, and he doesn’t need a reason. Keeping it outside in the fenced yard is still keeping a pet, although not a nice way. Dogs bark. They dig. They get loose. They jump the fence and roam the neighborhood. Neighbors have every right to complain or even call the police should YOUR dog infringe on his property or privacy.

    Do not expect your landlord to care for your pet. Even if you pay a pet deposit, that’s just to cover the cost of repairing what it destroys. It doesn’t mean the other occupants of the house are responsible for it. YOU are.

    If the home you’re renting a room in is part of a Homeowner’s Association,(which, by the way, the fee for belonging can be part of your rent) that body can have you evicted (and put a lien on the house) if your dog is deemed a dangerous breed or makes a nuisance of itself. Nuisance, in this case, means dogs that bark constantly, dogs allowed to roam in the neighborhood and doing their business on lawns, etc.

    Same thing goes with cats. Cats are not legally allowed to roam. No, I’m not kidding. You cannot legally say oh my cat is an inside outside cat. It’s not allowed to roam free. It is NOT allowed to roam free. I don’t care what you think, it’s not legal.

    If the lease says “no smoking”, that means NO SMOKING. Not on the porch, not outside the door, nowhere on the premises. You want to smoke, go out onto the public street and smoke.

Same goes with drinking, and drugs. All drugs, not just the newly legalized ‘personal use of marijuana.”

I know. Here in WA and in CO, it’s now legal to use SMALL amounts of marijuana.

But that doesn’t mean that you can do so in your rented room in someone else’s house.

Even if you claim to be a ‘medical marijuana patient’.

    It shouldn’t surprise me that the vast majority of ‘medical marijuana patients’ are 24 year old punks who claim to need the weed for an invisible and undocumented “disability”. Hey, I know how you do it. Find an unethical doctor on the take who will sign off on your complaint for a hefty fee and voil’a, you’re in. It’s a damned shame.

    The law for MMJ was intended for people suffering from cancer who can’t eat due to the effects of chemotherapy or who suffer intractable pain. Every MMJ user I’ve met leads a perfectly normal life, can do things such as skate, party, ride dirt bikes, and other physically demanding sports. Every one I’ve met smirks when I ask him what he’s on MMJ for.

Because I know what it’s for.  It’s to get high. That’s not a reason. It’s a cop out.

     I know it’s legal here in WA, but it’s still considered illegal in every Federal jurisdiction…meaning yours. Many insurance companies will refuse to insure a home if they learn there’s marijuana or other drugs being used in the home OR ON THE PREMISES. You want to grow it? That’s illegal, too, federally, and marijuana grows destroy homes like you wouldn’t believe. The humidity alone will melt sheet rocked walls and grows mold like it was on steroids, never mind the high electricity usage. If you claim to be a MMJ patient, you’d better hope that your landlord has an understanding insurance company. I cannot think of one that allows it.

    Don’t forget that weed attracts pests of both the insect and human form. Don’t deny that there is a criminal element out there who is more than willing to follow you to your rented room and steal your weed…and everything else in the house.

    Given the admittedly guestimated amount of money a landlord needs to break even from you: $1000, now do you understand why your offer of $500 is unrealistic?

     Even should someone really want to help you get to your feet, help you start out a new life, etc, you shouldn’t expect him or her to give you a room for less than what it costs him to own the home. He’ll be giving you a lot of intangibles for free whether you know it or not.

    If you’re a good renter, you’ll pay your rent on time every single month. You won’t revert to the habits you had while living at home as a child, those of expecting your mom and dad to do all the work while you supposedly go to school. No, you’re an adult now, and are expected to pull your share, if not more than.

    You won’t be a nuisance, wanting to party, play your music till midnight, and have a girl (boy) friend sharing a bed with you, (unless, of course, they start paying part of the rent.) You won’t expect the landlord to be a ‘friend’, someone to ‘chill with’. He might go that route, but you cannot demand it. You must obey the laws he sets for you.

    You won’t bring a pet. You will work a job or go to school instead of hanging around the house. You will understand that not only is the house not yours, it’s not your parent’s either, and you don’t have the rights and privileges of a home that you had when you were in your parent’s home. You will have renter’s insurance.  You will do much work: on keeping your room clean, help with cleaning the house in general, sharing the workload. You will understand that the television is NOT part of your room, that the Internet is shared.

    You will also understand that being a renter, the landlord can also decide that it’s time for you to leave. If you pay your rent in full and on time, he must allow you to stay in the room you paid for the length of time it’s good for, i.e, monthly. He can’t lock you out. But he can tell you to leave at the end of the month or rental period and you must leave.

    Don’t leave a thing when you move out. If you leave a toothbrush, it’s considered your stuff and if it’s there on the first of the next month, you’re legally obligated to pay the entire month’s rent. He’s not a storage facility manager. He isn’t obligated to give you anything more than a 30 day notice to vacate.

   No, you don’t have to like this essay.

But it’s real world. It’s reality.

Get used to it. Now that you’re Out On Your Own, your free ride in everything: housing, food, clothing, school..is done. Finis. Game over.

You want to be treated like an adult?

Start acting like one.

Cosmetica seeks a new venue-the NFL

    Talk about gratuitous advertising.

    Football is Big Business in the US. It is the number one viewed/televised sport in the entire country. Men who have never played football in their lives have a favorite team (and these days, imaginary teams, called ‘fantasy football’) and spend thousands of dollars showing their tribal loyalty.

     

Look at this picture, clipped from today’s newspaper coupon flyer. The word ‘harridan’ comes to mind.

    When I first saw this ad, I didn’t read the wording. All I could think was, oh, this must be a plug for a new Disney/Pixar movie. This woman is the villain. She certainly looks villainous. It was only after about a minute that I realized that it was a picture in conjunction with clip coupons. It is an advertisement for makeup.

    They even had to make it super simple to understand. There’s a phrase in it that says:

Find all 32 NFL team looks at covergirl dot com (no, I refuse to put in the link. I am not going to give them free advertising on my blog.). I have no idea what ‘team looks’ means. I won’t go there. But the point being, the  cosmetic company is SERIOUS. It claims to be an “Official Beauty Sponsor of the NFL.”

    Official? Well, there’s a tiny logo for the NFL. I can only imagine the snickers and laughter from the Commissioners of the NFL when they were approached by this cosmetic company to ‘sponsor’ their business. "Sugar," I can hear them saying, "football players don't wear makeup." Sugar said, "But their women do." Money is money, and that is what drives football.

   

     It took me a while to figure out why this specific ad pissed me off. One sees ads all the time for cosmetics. Why does this one make me angry?

    The idea in this specific case is that women need to spend a ton of money marking up their faces and having their fingernails painted to reflect their support for “their” favorite team.

    Hence this ad. I’ve never understood why advertisers like to have their models photographed with their mouths wide open, as in this case. I suppose they think it indicates excitement. But we can tell faked emotions, either in real life or in ads,from real ones in an instant. 

    We humans are adept at reading facial expressions. We do it unconsciously. We do it instinctively. Body language, (including facial expressions) is subtle but doesn’t lie. We are expert at reading expressions and discerning true intent. We are so good at it that an entire meme base…that of ‘emoticons’ or ‘emojis’, is used everywhere on the net. We even read them sideways. ;-) We are so good at it at such an early age that Mr. Yuk is used for toddlers who can't read.

What is Mr. Yuk saying? That this substance you are thinking of ingesting is poisonous. I didn't have to tell you that. You already knew it, despite the possibility that you've never seen it before. 

   The capacity of understanding facial expressions is such an integral part of what makes us human that people who cannot read facial expressions, for instance, people with autism, are considered mentally disabled.

   Emojis are symbols that distill an emotion into print and still tell us everything we want to know when they’re used in context with text. In fact, that’s the point!

(and raises in my mind the question as to whether autistics can understand emojis.)

    I don’t believe that the cosmetic companies understand women as thoroughly as they think they do. Women put on makeup for other women, not men. It’s not a sexual thing.

It’s a competition thing. It’s an ego thing.

Let’s be honest.

Women wear makeup to hide behind.

Yes, we do. We’re self-conscious. We have a less than gracious opinion of their appearance. No matter how good we look (and some women take it to horrifying and sometimes deadly extremes in the way of anorexia), we don’t believe we look good. We lack self-confidence. (although in my personal case, I don’t wear any makeup and haven’t for years. This is my face and I’m comfortable in it.). My mother-always a dead on judge of character- once said, every fat woman has perfect makeup or hair.

She was right. I might be fat, the obese woman says to herself, but my face is perfect.

   I know women who will put off going to the hospital because they’re having a stroke until after they’ve ‘put on their face’.

   

     The cosmetic industry preys on us. Cosmetica peddles face paint as a ‘self improvement’ sort of thing. It's marketing strategy is to target our insecurities:  is my skin flawed, am I too fat, are my boobs too small, is my hair frizzy. God, look at my nose, the bags under my eyes, my lips are too full or not full enough, is that a zit? It goes after us with as much mercy as a spider shows to a snared fly.

   Cosmetica has no ethics. It goes after little girls, now. You can find ‘starter’ sets-cheap paint pots designed to appeal to little girls, to get them into the habit of buying cosmetics. Every kid wants to feel ‘big’. The demographic they aim for is six year olds. Cosmetica grooms little girls like a pedophile. 

    It is all based on hope and a suspension of belief. You NEVER see a homely women in a cosmetic ad. Never. The unspoken promise is: if you use our product you will look like this girl.

    Look at the girl in the ad.  Under the hideous makeup job is a lovely woman. She’s, oh, I’d guess, 19 years old. She has perfect teeth, perfect hair, flawless skin. The average woman will never, ever look this good…but they try. They desperately want to be thought of as better looking than they think they are.  Never mind the fact that every ad containing a human is photoshopped in one way or another. Even this girl doesn’t look this good in real life.  (google photoshop disasters and you’ll see what I mean.). This girl has a job solely due to her appearance. She might be able to do quantum physics, but that’s not what they hired her for. I can tell her right now: save your paychecks, because one of these days you won’t be getting it from Cosmetica. Nope, you’ll be done in, oh, five years. Promise.  I hope you have a skill.

It takes courage to face the world with the face one was born with.

   The woman in this ad is  Cosmetica’s way doing  exactly the opposite of what makeup is used for. She’s drawing attention to herself. Women don’t do this. Not in this way. If we want to grab a man’s attention, the makeup may be part of it (especially the lips) but we know that it’s our breasts that men look at. The cops can tell you that if a woman commits a crime in public, if her cleavage is exposed, male witnesses will not be able to identify her by her face.

But in the vast majority of cultures, tits aren’t exposed for inspection. We cover them. Hence, the "need" for makeup.

   Men don’t really care about makeup. Well, most men don’t. Some men I know think that a woman who spends tons of money on makeup is self centered and conceited.  

    Let’s add to this fact that any woman that does this to herself is not doing it to show support for ‘her’ team. No, she’s doing it to satisfy her boyfriend. It’s a way for her to show, see honey, I DO understand your passion for your tribe

team. I’m with you. I support you. Let’s get married.

      It’s the one time when she’s wearing makeup for her male.

    But it wouldn’t surprise me if Cosmetica doesn’t try,  yet again, to convince men that they should wear makeup, too. Some men do. All actors are made up, but some wear it all the time, whether or not they’re on camera. Take a look at the actor Tom Cruise on the few occasions he’s been photographed without makeup. He’s homely as hell. He has freckles everywhere. Not that freckles are a bad thing, but the Tom Cruise you see on the screen or in pictures is as phony as the woman in this ad.

    The cosmetics industry is HUGE. I wouldn’t be surprised if the various companies (and no, since I don’t wear it, I have no idea the names of all but a few) make TRILLIONS of dollars on peddling cosmetics to women.  But there’s that huge pool of males that lurk just outside their lucrative franchises. They can smell it. They believe that men just need a little nudge, a bit of convincing that if real men like football players aren’t afraid to wear lipstick and mascara, you can, too.  

     It’s not as if men don’t paint their faces. They do. But only in one specific case, only in one specific venue. That being, when they’re at the game to watch their team.

    You’ve seen them. They’re in the stands, faces painted in their team’s colors. Some dress up in costumes: i.e. you’ll see face painted Vikings fans in sub freezing weather, bare bellied (BIG bare bellies) with a fur vest and a horned hat upon his head, or grown men wearing fake slices of cheese on their heads.

    This seems to be a peculiarly American thing. I lived in Europe for many years, where “football” (called soccer in the US) is, if you can imagine, even bigger than American football. I remember seeing people filling the streets, singing the war songs of their team (in this case, I was living in Germany when that country hosted the World Cup). They waved flags but I don’t recall seeing anyone with their faces painted.

    On the other hand, seldom do American football fans riot in the streets should their team lose (or win!). That, I’m told, is not an uncommon occurrence in England. To me, that is merely a bunch of vandals using the game (whether they win or lose, they riot) as an excuse to destroy, burn and assault.

     But none of them..NONE of the players of football, wear makeup. (the black stripes below their eyes are not considered makeup..they’re to reduce glare and the field is the only place you’ll see guys wearing it.) None of their male fans wear their team colors on their face when they’re at work, or eating dinner.

    Men wearing team colors on their faces is not ‘wearing makeup’. That’s something Cosmetica wants to change. They test the waters of male opinion surreptitiously, and often. I remember seeing an article from some fashion bimbo who insisted that now that being gay is okay, straight men shouldn’t be afraid of wearing ‘just a touch of lipstick’.

   They aren’t paying attention to history. Or demographics. Men don’t read fashion magazines. They don’t watch women’s shows on TV. You can hardly get them into a movie if they hear it’s a ‘chick flick”.

   Remember when Rogaine came out? A drug proven to grow hair, it had been the holy grail of the cosmetic industry for years. An entire industry had focused on various ways of replacing men’s hair: toupees, (named thus because “wig” was just too feminine for men to tolerate) hair plugs and hair weaving, potions rubbed on the bald spots…there was all sorts of chicanery devoted to replacing men’s hair. It was all blown away by Rogaine.

   Rogaine was incorporated into an obscenely expensive men’s shampoo. Cosmetica  KNEW they were going to make billions of dollars on the shampoo, they just KNEW it.

   But they didn’t understand men. Most men don’t give a damn about going bald. Only a relatively few men wear toupees. They are universally thought of as silly and self centered. Bald happens, and men think, if women don’t like it, tough shit.Even more important, most women don't care, either.

    In the last decade or so, many men have flaunted bald heads: basketball players, actors, etc. It looks good on them. I don’t know why this is, but black men, in particular, just look sexy as hell when they’re bald as eggs.

    Of course, there was a certain percentage of men who DID give a shit about going bald, and bought the shampoo. But the problem was that one, not enough men bought it to make the makers of Rogaine as rich as they’d hoped, and two, it’s the sort of drug that one needs to use every day in order for the hair to stay. A third complication is that one must be very careful where the shampoo goes, as it will grow hair anywhere it’s placed, not just on one’s bald head. One heard stories of guys whose sloppy use of Rogaine  gave them hairy ears that  made them look like a tufted penguin. Somehow penguins don’t give the impression of masculinity, virility, physical prowess, strength, or courage. Penguins look like waddling butlers.

The effects of misapplication of Rogaine

    So the makers of Rogaine turned to the dependable sucker of the industry: women. "Women will buy anything if they think it makes them look pretty."  Now you can see ads for Rogaine for Women.

    Again, the trouble is, most women don’t go egg head bald unless they’re undergoing cancer therapy. Our hair thins, but we don’t go bald bald. So we don’t use Rogaine, either.

    Cosmetica took a bath on Rogaine. Which may be contributing to a deep secret that Cosmetica would like to ignore: that fewer women are buying makeup. The bottom line is declining, the CEO is seeing his billion dollar 'compensation' package sliding down into the  millions category. Part of this is due to  the economy. The rich are getting richer and don’t have a problem spending hundreds of dollars on makeup. But the average woman is happier now with who she is. The average woman, now, also has no job. When you can barely afford to keep a roof over your family’s head and food on the table, that fancy shade of lipstick is going to be considered an expensive-and unneeded luxury.

    That is what pisses me off about this specific ad. It’s not enough that millions of women around the planet spend millions of dollars (won, yen, euros,  etc) for the vain pleasure of wearing makeup. Humans have been making up for thousands of years.

  What pisses me off is it isn’t enough for Cosmetica to have income equivalent to a small nations' entire GNP. They take in mountains of money but it's still not enough. They’re already selling to little girls, using culture to train them as early as possible to NEED cosmetics. Their products are too expensive, and, in some cases, too dangerous (just recently it was learned that lipstick contains lead and cadmium, both  toxic chemicals/substances). But it’s not enough for them. That money must be kept rolling in. New marketing venues must be exploited, and if it takes making a woman look like a witch, so be it.That is what this whole ad is about. Making more money for Cosmetica.

   Enough, I say. Leave the children alone. Leave the football fans alone. Cosmetica, you have enough money. Leave it.