Rick's b.log - entry 2025/11/08

Shein today, gone tomorrow...

In case you've been living under a rock, this is largely due to France freaking out over the sale of sex dolls that look like little girls. In response to this, all third party articles have been taken off the site. It's basically a lot of low-price clothing and, well, that's about it. Oddly, no shoes, despite Shein making and selling their own brand. It's as if they took the "nuke it from space" option.
I don't know if it's going to go for review before coming back, or if they're just going to say "stuff the French" and not bother listing any of the other stuff again.

I find the timing, in the run up to the Christmas rush, to be about as suspect as the reason why this is happening in the first place. Don't get me wrong, some dude porking a piece of plastic that looks like his eight year old niece is many sorts of disgusting, but wouldn't it have been a better approach - if ordering these things is illegal in France - to simply say "remove that, and hand over a list of who purchased them"?
All this noise smacks of a protectionist government trying to skewer a foreign company to get more people to buy locally. This isn't paranoia, it's part of the reason I don't tend to order books from Amazon any more (if it's under €35, a flat rate of about €3,99 shipping applies, this was added to make Amazon less favourable compared to French booksellers; and since the ruling is vague, sometimes wall calendars count as books and sometimes they don't).

To put this into context, the "age of consent" in France is 15, but not so long ago a man was acquitted from being charged with raping an 11 year old because the law states that there must be "violence, coercion, threat, or surprise" and since she followed him, the court decided that she consented. Yes, really.
I've met 11 year olds that would follow you for chocolate; and if a child is not legally allowed to enter into contracts because of their immaturity and lack of life skills at that age, how on earth is it possible to accept that an 11 year old chose to have an adult have sex with her?
The law was amended in 2021 to say that an adult engaging in sexual activity with somebody under the age of 15 is automatically rape or sexual assault.

It took France that long to get around to protecting the morals of actual real living children, and yet just four years later everybody is losing their minds because they have just realised that lifelike small-sized sex dolls exist? Something stinks about this story. Actually, quite a lot of things stink but the logic just isn't logicking.

Coincidentally, in a masterclass of unfortunate planning, at the exact same time Shein opened an actual physical store in part of a famous mall in Paris.

Well, now, I guess if I need a replacement badge, I'll have to look at the Bezos Tat Bazaar, pay three times as much and wait three times as long for it to arrive...

Problems with Suno 4.5

What it seems to be, however, really actually awful at is having a range of vocal styles. I have tried cue words like "deep female vocals" and "contralto female", but it seems like every single damn song she goes loud and high pitched in the chorus. It's like Céline Dion is singing everything. I just had it create a gentle folky guitar song about a walk in the woods and, guess what, same bloody thing.

So while the 4.5 model is much much better at the technical aspects of making songs, when it comes to different vocal styles I feel it's actually a lot worse. Consider the juxtaposition between the dark lyrics of Storm's Fury (link, MP3, 2.9MiB) and the calm way it is being performed. I don't think that the 4.5 model could manage to create such a song as this; so in that respect it is actually worse.

That's not to say that it can't do these sorts of things, I just don't think it has as much variation by default - and my attempts to put in prompting to try to get something useful out of it are not having much effect. It's like the free version has the "be big and dramatic" option switched on. Mmm, maybe that's what most non-paying people want? I dunno...

Along the way, I came across a song called Lily by Electronic Vampire. I rather like this one. It's my sort of dark.

Epic heartburn

My beef stew.

The stew was "okay" but rather bland. This with bay and thyme fresh from the garden, as well as the meat having been seared and an onion and some of my shallots being chopped and caramelised in the pan. I don't know, I think I just suck at cooking stuff. I tried to thicken in with 15g of maizena mixed with cold water (so it's not lumps); that was followed by by pulling out some of the stew juice and mixing in 20g of maizena/water and boiling it for five minutes. Can corn starch wear out or am I just doing it wrong?

On Tuesday, the third day, I took the remains of the stew out of the fridge and boiled it, then scooped the bits on top of halloween pasta. It wasn't bad. The meat was somewhere between middling and mediocre, but it was expensive so I wasn't planning on wasting it. In fact, I find myself eating more battered fish these days because 1, it's dead easy to cook in the air fryer and 2, meat is so expensive. There's a marinaded lamb knuckle (I think) that costs about €12 that I like to get from time to time as a special treat. Well, it's now touching €20 so it can stay on the shelf. I can afford it, it's the principle that I am just not okay with over a quarter of my shopping being one single lump of meat - especially when a large part of that weight is the bone that's included. It's the principle. That sort of price, I'll find something else to eat...

Haunted pasta and strained stew leftovers.

Anyway, the pasta and leftover stew was okay. Filled me. I had a strawberry milkshake to go with it. Some weird pink powder from Nesquik that doesn't taste remotely like any strawberry I've ever eaten, but I find it oddly alluring. It's either that I'm really a girl in a male body and the pink is affecting me, or maybe the fact that it's like 200% sugar and cold milk plus sugar hits all the dopamine receptors.

That night, epic heartburn. I don't usually suffer from it so I'm not a Gaviscon addict like mom was. But if that's what her heartburn was like, yeah, I can see why she ate those things like gummy bears. Roll over, blurp! Feel like puke is coming. Ugh! Roll back, blurp!
I didn't sleep that night. And I feel like it's taken a few days to settle down.

I had to put up with the uncomfortableness of it all, and would have to if it happens again, because I cannot take Gaviscon. I find the taste to be utterly offensive. Like if Anna cocked her leg and peed in my mouth, that's what those heartburn pills taste like.
No offence intended to Gaviscon, I have to get special headache pills that dissolve in the mouth because I find the taste of water to be so awful. I used to crunch regular paracetamol, and I'm sure you know how bad those things taste...

Just to throw in another food pic, and keeping with the spooky theme: Haunted potato shapes, chicken nuggets, and some chili cheese balls I found in the freezer.

Spooky snacking.

Tilley

It shines bright but it doesn't appear to lead to other realms...

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jgh, 9th November 2025, 01:27

Meat has got so expensive, combined with me no longer being confident that I'll cook it properly, that I mostly buy "un-named white fish" and zap it in the microwave. Other than that, my diet tends to rotate around garden potatoes and mint until they run out with cauli, sprouts, savoy, runner beans, cheese sandwiches and Tetley's.  If I could manage to grow anything else other than potatoes to survive my gardening skills, I'd barely go shopping.

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