Rick's b.log - entry 2025/12/30

Distance anxiety

In the last quarter hour, since I didn't want to run anything other than the car radio, I cheated slightly.

That's one way to do it.

Then, bang on noon, I set off.

Heart in throat, because of the cold I burned through half of the first eighth getting to the top of the access lane (a mere half kilometre), and was down just beyond the first eighth by the time I made it to the nearest town. But by then the battery was starting to heat itself up and I passed the three quarter point at exactly 22.2km, which was about halfway there.
The road, from that point on, was quite hilly so I was expecting a bit of a drop, though I didn't slog amps into the motor going up the hills. I just let it go up to max before the warning zone, and since the magnetic field is weaker in the cold this meant I lost speed. I was going up one hill at thirty. Luckily it was a wide road so the few cars I met just went around me.

I got there one hour and one minute later with just a smidgen over half on the meter. More than I was expecting given the temperature.

As I was early, I wandered over to the new commercial zone called Cap Koad (say: cap co-ed) which I'm guessing means something in Breton. It is also where the Leclerc "cultural space" (books, music, etc) wandered off to.
There were more shops, but I didn't have much time so I headed back to the car place and waited a few minutes until the guy came out. It wasn't the mechanic I usually see. This one was younger, ironically less clued, and we had difficulty understanding each other. He didn't do any electronic diagnostics at all, simply looked to see that things appeared to be right and the suspension bolts were all tight. Still, he only charged for half an hour of work and he was nice enough to leave my car on charge for an hour and a half while we talked about what to do next (see below for that).

I then went to my usual two places - Leclerc and Picard - and headed home. I left with the needle somewhere between half and three quarters, so it was a bit "mmmmm!". I whipped around the shops and forgot half the things I went for, just so as I could drive home in the sunshine. Sun means no lights which means less current drain from the battery.

As I got home I was on a quarter. That's the red zone. I had maybe 10km remaining. Normally I'd say a little more given it's the quarter mark, but in the cold the battery just wasn't having that.

That was close. Jeez.

There is a big pile of charging stations at one end of the Cap Koad car park, however these Izivia machines require some sort of badge to authorise the use of them. I have just paid €15 for an RFID card "Pass Izivia" that will allow me to charge on the Izivia network (at least, where there's a regular domestic style outlet).
As it happens, my habitual supermarket is €1/charge plus €0,30/kWh. My nearest town appears to have a charging station on a sister network (seems to be €1,15/charge plus €0,46/kWh). Cap Koad appears to be €0,39/kWh plus €0,052/minute (or €3,12/hour - so you get screwed if you charge from a wall socket and not one of those billon-amp high voltage things).
They're not exactly encouraging the use of electric vehicles with those sorts of prices, when it turns out that my little supermarket may well be the best priced offer... but since it's a one off payment for a pay-as-you-go card, it's a little bit of extra security.
Given these things don't allow you to just wave a bank card at them (which is how it ought to be), I'll have it if I need it, which will hopefully be never.

Car woes

Of much greater importance is the rubber shroud around where the axle goes to the front wheel. A photo will make this much clearer.

I wonder how this happened, and how long ago.

You should not be able to see the greasy part, and letting too much crap get in there will damage bearings and such, which would require the whole thing to be changed, which for some reason implicates changing both sides. Ker-ching!
He printed off a quotation of €97 for the work, that's including fitting it. So I have made a provisional rendez-vous of the 21^st of January. I chose that date because it is currently forecast to be about 10°C and because it gives time to explain to my boss why I requested the day off and to get it approved.
I said to go ahead and order the fog light, get both sorted at the same time.

Oh, and the back tyres will need done soon but it isn't critical at this point. Hmm, should tyres be a problem after only 10,000km? Sounds a bit sus to me unless they put on something dirt cheap. Plus, the back tyres went the same place as the front ones, so...

Commercial birthday presents

Gémo

Picard

Spoon for scale, as I didn't have a banana handy.

My optician

But since I was going for something else, I thought I'd swing by. If they give me one or two of those microfibre glasses wipes, cool, can't have too many of those as a glasses wearer.

What I actually got was...

Badly-anonymised gifts from my optician.

A rather fragile looking pen, bright orange so you don't lose it, writes in black (cool!). A keyfob. And a pack of cards that implies you can see them now. ☺

Well, that was unexpected!

Thank you all. But, my birthday presents came from companies. What does that say about me? 🤔

Hostile douchery

Well, I didn't have the time to do justice to that sort of price, and given the cold and the uncertainties regarding getting back home, last thing I need is a belly full of pasta wanting out with a long cold journey ahead of me.

Anyway, I checked it out on Google Maps (linky-linky) to see what people thought of the place.
And because I'm me, I look at the worst rated reviews first.

And, really, if you have an Android phone you might want to look this up in the Maps app because it seems like Google have gone out of their way to make Maps annoying to use on desktop.

Anyway, filter to sort by lowest rated reviews first. Scroll down until you see Amélina Le Brun (maybe fourth or fifth down). She seems like her family is a bit of a handful with small children and her not noticing that, in addition to the rather high price of the meal (paid up front), there's also a "wastage" charge (€5) if stuff is left on the plate. So she wrote an unhappy review about it.
The manager responded. Wow. I get that "the customer is always right" is a concept utterly alien to French people, but the manager goes out of his way to be a douchebag. Let me quote from an auto-translation: In addition to lying, you clearly can't read. and You dare to accuse your daughter of wasting food in front of our waitress, but it was you who filled her plates... and Your behavior and words clearly reflect your lack of respect, which you seem to be passing on to your offspring., finishing up with Indeed, please do not return, as we gladly do without this kind of behavior..

I don't know if there's a huge cultural difference here (any Frenchies want to chime in down in the comments?) but to me there's a vast difference between what you think about a customer, and what you put in writing.
The establishment has the right to reply and to defend itself, certainly. But to go insulting clients like that (even the ones that are wrong about something) is utterly unacceptable.

There also seems to be a theme of overcooked pasta, meagre pizza toppings, a lack of definable tastes, everything too watery, and industrially made food being passed off as "home made". While all of this is, obviously, subjective, I did note that far too often the response was more douchery - though not as hostile as towards Amélina.

At any rate, makes me think I dodged a bullet and saved nearly twenty euros at the same time. I'm rather particular about me pasta, overcooked sludge would not go down well.

Delayed parcels are greener

Sorry, but I don't think the company behind AWS, Alexa, and also getting in on the AI game (not as openly accessible as the likes of ChatGPT but I'm sure more than a few models are hosted on AWS) is in any place to lecture me on carbon. Let's just pluck a figure out of my arse and say that AWS US-East-1 uses more power in a day than me and my parents and grandparents have used in our/their entire lives. Given that US-East-1 consumes roughly half the power required for the entirety of New York City (exact figures are not disclosed, so it's an estimate), I could maybe throw in great great grandparents too. Maybe right back to the invention of electrical distribution networks. Versus AWS for a day. So, yeah, it's cool that Amazon is doing a lot for sustainability, but they're not in a place to lecture me on carbon use.

Oh, and the Bezos flying phallus - I'm sure one hop to the higher atmosphere spewed out more pollution that I will from any cars I drive in my life (fairly easy to say given I was half-dead before I got my own car).

Just own it Amazon - you prefer parcels to be a little late because it is easier and cheaper for your internal logistics. Talk straight to me, don't greenwash things. It's still got to come from you to me on the same plane and diesel van. It's an efficiency for you.

American pasta

I am making a pack of Mississippi Belle Wisconsin Mac & Cheese. That is to say, a company called Mississippi Belle (if I remember correctly, that was a famous steamboat) has a pre-pack Macaroni Cheese meal kit with cheese from Wisconsin. For those unfamiliar with the United States, Wisconsin has over a million dairy cows (1,267,000), second only to California (1,715,000), with Idaho (721,000) far behind; and a combination of the cows and climate have given the state a long history of cheese production. They are responsible for a quarter of the entire US cheese production. So, basically, it's the American version of Somerset (which, being the location of Cheddar Gorge, is where you will find authentic cheddar).

And, can I henceforth refer to the company as MB please? My spellcheck is getting sick and tired of putting wibbly red lines under my attempts to spell "Mississippi".

I'm not taken with the pasta. I'll explain why in great detail right here. ☺ But I am rather fond of the cheese powder. Being an American cheese product it may have only partial resemblance to actual cheese (NileBlue on YouTube did a video about making American style cheese slices from scratch). Anyway, one of the minor tragedies in my life is that I doubt I'd be able to throw currency symbols in the direction of MB in return for a parcel of just sachets of the cheese powder. I live in Europe. The country next door is literally (literally, not figuratively) where macaroni came from. The brand that I buy comes from this country. So, authentic macaroni I can do.

Here's the product in the pan awaiting the kettle to boil the water (it's a 3kW kettle so the quickest way). The MB macaroni is the darker brown one, with some Italian macaroni on the left. Often it is Barilla, but this time I think it is Panzani.
Why added pasta? Well, the Frenchies have words like "gourmand" and "cochon", none of which are polite but, yeah, maybe accurate. The box says "Makes about three servings". Uh... about that... 😂

European and American macaroni.

Now, the main reason I don't make this as much as I could is the impending disaster. You see, however this American pasta is made, it is really starchy. I can't cook it with the lid on, it would bubble up something terrible. You can see what I mean by noting how the water has gone lightly milky seconds after reaching boiling point. European pasta just doesn't do this. Not even the bronze-cut stuff coated in flour dust makes this much mess.

Why on earth is the water cloudy like this?
American readers - is this normal for you?

By the end of cooking, and it's short - six or seven minutes - there's a scummy residue around the side of the pan. I now understand why my mom had weird ideas about rinsing pasta under the hot water tap after cooking (until myself and a neighbour slapped her down hard because you just do not use hot water for cooking (metal contamination from the storage tank and heater, bacterial contamination if it isn't heated up to over 60°C, plus it is stored in a tank and used less so stagnation is an issue - all of these are also reasons why I wouldn't ever drink water from my well). Plus, we also demonstrated that European pasta just does not do this, the water stays pretty clean so doesn't need a rinse...especially if you drain off the water at the point of al dente (or just beyond) and don't let it become a gloopy mess.

Furthermore, one can happily make European pasta in what I've heard called the "neapolitan method" (but don't quote me on that) where you put in as much water as the pasta needs to cook and let it absorb it all - no straining afterwards. I can't imagine the American pasta doing that.

The main thing, however, is that there is a layer of stuff encrusted on the bottom of the pan. European pasta just doesn't do that. Sure, a piece or two may get stuck to the bottom so some pan soaking may be required, but this is a major clean-up with most of the bottom of the pan suffering. And, yes, I was periodically stirring.

But, when done and the excess water strained off, it was time for the cheese powder, a quick stir, and ready to eat.

Even the cheese powder prefers European macaroni! 😜

And the part that sucks most right now? I have just in these past couple of hours gotten the kitchen to the point where it is pleasant. Now I get to go into a cold bed in a cold bedroom. Pffft. Winter sucks.

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john, 30th December 2025, 23:21

At least you'v owned-up to a birthday!

Austin, 31st December 2025, 12:52

As a relatively recent EV user (got my car in September) I too have been shocked by how much temperature affects the battery’s efficiency. I knew to expect it, but my efficiency has dropped from an average 3.2 miles/KWh down to 2.7 with the “since last charge” figure indicating as low as 2.2 on occasion if I’ve been in a hurry. In terms of range it’s dropped from around 260 miles to 220 so it doesn’t promote “range anxiety” as such as my daily drive always gets replenished by the nightly charge at the 7p/KWh rates, but it’s a huge impact nonetheless. Nobody is talking about charging “losses” either as I’m seeing about 5-10% more KWh on my bill compared to what’s stored in my battery. Still delighted with EV motoring though!

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