After realizing very quickly that MySQL didn't offer the features I wanted (i.e., returning queries as nested JSON by default), I decided to switch everything over to PostgresSQL before doing any more work. This site is currently in the same state as it was roughly a few weeks ago, but now should be more efficient and allow for more complex features like the postgres' built in ltree functionality for easy categorization. This article right here was what convinced me to go through with it. In addition, here are some photos of a phone booth I took a couple years ago. Weird!