Month: August 2023

LuxCal Emoji Support

I’ve been playing with my new LuxCal calendar and tried to import an ics file that had emoji in it. Oops, the db is utf8, so I needed to convert it to utf8mb4 to support emoji.

I ran this in the SQL box in phpMyAdmin on the db:

SET collation_connection = 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci';
ALTER DATABASE radioshack_luxcal CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_categories CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_events CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_groups CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_settings CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_styles CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
ALTER TABLE mycal_users CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

And then added this to the [mysqld] section in /etc/my.cnf

collation-server = utf8mb4_unicode_ci
init-connect='SET NAMES utf8mb4'
character-set-server = utf8mb4

Restarted MySQL and the ics file imported with emojis! And now I can add emoji to calendar events, which is cute.

Wearing the exact same thing every day

Years ago, I was tired of the mental load of rifling through my closet and agonizing what to wear. Different clothes in different sizes and some stuff fit better than others as my weight fluctuates or what time of the month it is. I inevitably end up with “favorite” garments and thus don’t feel as good wearing the “less favorite.”

So what if I just bought multiple identical garments that fit well at all times and I’m always comfortable in. Stuff that’s easy to wash, dry, fold, and put up. When I get sweaty in the summer, just shuck everything and put on clean, dry ones and it’s the same outfit.

And then just buy everything in bulk from Amazon. Averaging it out, I’ve probably spent only about $50 on clothes and shoes per year for the past 5 years. Thus the cost to clothe myself in this fashion is rather negligible.

Back in the 80’s, I’m kinda embarrassed to say I wanted Guess, Esprit, all those name brands. And had a $50/month clothing budget for that, which was a lot back then. A pair of Guess jeans was about $80 and a denim jacket was $120. I found a lot of stuff at TJ Maxx for far less, but still.

And now I only spend about $50 per year on generic stuff from Amazon for all my clothes. I don’t want or need anything else.

The only analogous situations I can think of is wearing medical scrubs or the Steve Jobs style black turtleneck and jeans. Though that’s probably much more expensive than what I’ve bought.

I’ve been doing this “wardrobe hack” since before the pandemic and has been a comfort to me, knowing exactly what I’m going to wear every day, either workdays in the office or days off, without any decisions. When the stacks of little black clothes get low, then it’s time to do laundry. About every week or so.

Sometimes for special occasions I’ll pick out something quite different I find delightful at the time from my burdened closet, when it’s called for and I’m up for that thought process.

So, let me show you how I usually dress myself, if you’re interested.

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