Weekly Notes 08/2024

Uma, Pathu, Anju, and I have started going on proper evening walks. We walk around 30 minutes in the neighborhood. Echo gets a special longer walk. For now, it's difficult for Anju and I to take all three of them for a walk simultaneously, hence this arrangement. Also, Echo can stay alone at home, but Pathu can't stay if there is no human presence. 

• Since the lockdown in 2020, both Anju and I have had only two meals. Except for a few days when we meet friends for breakfast, we usually drink black coffee in the morning and begin our day. It has continued till today and doesn't feel odd. Another thing I wanted to do was a 24-hour fasting once a month. I tried it once and then stopped. I want to try that again. 
• I met a friend for coffee at Kaya by Lake. I like their coffee and desserts. I usually do a double-shot cappuccino with blueberry cheesecake ( or caramel cake or lemon tart ). They have good outdoor seats, and outside seating is pet-friendly. I have also started tagging/mapping pet-friendly places in Bengaluru on OpenStreetMap.
• In the two big democracies, the USA and India. Even today, there are supporters of fascism. It's not news that the Indian right-wing organizations found inspiration in Natzi. Even today, they do; it's not different from the USA. Watch this chilling six-odd-minute short documentary called A Night at the Garden. It shows why I feel we are in the 1930s.
• I watched Bhakshak and loved it. Later this week, Appa was at home, so we watched Rajkumar's Mayura together. I love Dr. Rajkumar's dialogue delivery so much that I have seen this movie many times. 
• I have fixed the UTF8 issue with my WordPress instance; currently, the fix is only for the wp_posts table. It now supports utf8mb4 charset. I can easily use any 4-byte emoji in my posts without using HTML entities. I will work on other tables for 💯 percent support.