dmxrated

Mom took only half her normal shift at work yesterday, in order to come home to get ready to head out.

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Loaded my brunette-girl savestate at Drugstore "Best Friend" in Winters on SNES9X, and copied the game's saveRAM file to Mesen. Made my way down to Dr. Andonuts' lab (should've gone out of my way for the Stun Gun and Cheap Bracelet, given how many game overs I got along the way), saved the game there, and set up a break point for $D600. It never came on, and sure enough, that one NPC back in Threed was on script. Copied the .srm file to rename for the main hack, and loaded that in both emulators. The flag still never activated, and the dialogue was still intact anyway.

Looks like leaving two remaining files quarantined really was the answer, and that things actually did root back to Mr. Tenda.

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Mom brought me to that library in Center Moriches after coming home and having a nap. Attached is a coffee shop, where I bought myself a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans and a small Irish cream cold brew. Wound up only having a few espresso beans, before drinking that entire coffee.

Went on to pick out five anime on DVD. (Of those, only The World God Only Knows is not available in English just to stream.)

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Managed to watch one last episode of BlazBlue: Alter Memory with Mom before she left.

Had two interviews scheduled at two different Aldi stores this past weekend.

First one was originally for Saturday at 7 AM. The store was locked, and an employee I waved to told me to come back the same time the next day, due to some kind of emergency for the interviewer.

Mom and I did take then to run two other errands earlier in the day than she normally would, but I also asked her if perhaps we should write that place off if they're just gonna move the goalposts even further. During what I thought was just some sort of debate, she mentioned that they might just be testing everyone's persistence in what was going to be a group interview as one of several possible reasons, I took that along with their lack of a text or email to bolster my own argument, and she took that as some kind of lip. Lost the spoons to mark anything down here, and it took several discussions up through dinner to sort things out.

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Sunday at 7, we came back there, and a notice that might or might not have been the same one I failed to notice the previous day, outright said to re-apply. We hopped over from there to King Kullen in another shopping center, and had some stuff to do back at home before my remaining interview scheduled at the Medford location for 9:30.

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Was gonna tie both days together yesterday, but found myself too sick to bother writing anything.

Suffice to say, no work on my Earthbound hack. I wasn't feeling bedridden, though, so I did start applying for jobs on both Monster and CareerBuilder at different points, as opposed to just Indeed where I can actually look up where I already applied and for what positions.

At one point, I did go upstairs for a bit to sort some things out. Without going into detail about why the Disgaea series in particular has been on my mind lately or how my condition actually led me to consider starting a new game in Disgaea 1 Complete instead of awaiting a new job when I can feasibly commission some ROMhacks of that game (including some additional items I originally began thinking up for that phony offer of a fan-remake), I hooked my Switch itself up to recharge, and then started looking into how I originally managed to record some Star Ocean footage two years ago.

Looked on eBay for a more compatible adapter to hook earlier systems up with, and found something I had forgotten I already had from several months earlier. I do recall successfully recording a playthrough of Getter Love!! with that, out of sync only while recording, so the TV is the only additional thing I should need to that and the laptop itself.

Two days ago, Nancy cooked us some vegetables and corned beef for St. Patrick's Day, that Mom sent me to retrieve. I wasn't hungry that night, after having eaten so much the previous day, and wound up having a portion last night instead.

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Mom and I have started watching BlazBlue: Alter Memory last night.

Brian put Rupert on for Maris yesterday morning while I was doing stuff on my computer.

One scene from after I got off involved a young wizard boy complaining to an old wizard that, without some kind of potion, he will never grow up; the old wizard clarifies that a potion cannot age him up, which he rejects as a lie before they negotiate some kind of agreement. While I wasn't directly watching back then (can't remember what I was actually doing), I do recall the first few of those lines from when that show aired on Nick Jr. during my childhood, and commented as much to Brian.

After that episode and possibly another, Marie decided to put The Busy World of Richard Scarry on. Mom came home from some errand during what might've been the second episode she let play, and then they put on some ocean life documentary and then some bird footage for background while Mom started making some lunch and/or taiyaki for most of us (I didn't get any taiyaki due to a miscommunication, but wound up grabbing one of several remaining banana muffins with almonds and chocolate chips instead that Mom had made the other day).

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Had two interviews yesterday. The first was for this other Mexican place called Señor Taco at 12, and the other was for Chipotle in Patchogue (the other location is in Selden) at what I thought I had arranged for 4 out of several options presented online to me.

Mom drove me to Señor Taco, and planned for afterwards on hitting this library in Center Moriches for some book that wasn't coming to either our own library our South Country Library. I wanted to come with her to check out some DVDs, but she and Marie were going to bring Maris with them, which would've meant a prolonged visit while they let her play around. I still had yet to show Brian both that adapter and Mom's iPad that she didn't have time before to look over personally while getting things ready for company.

I showed him the adapter problem upstairs, and after some troubleshooting on his part, it turns out that that device was actually designed for Windows XP. He did agree to help me shop for a more up-to-date device, but that should probably wait until after the iPad.

He then drove me afterwards to Chipotle, from which I had just received an automated email saying for 3. Inside the establishment itself, though, someone named Kelvin told me that the hiring manager actually wasn't scheduled to arrive for until 5, and decided to interview me in their place.

Told Brian how things played out, and he suggested I go back inside for a few minutes in case the hiring manager does end up arriving. No such luck.

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Yesterday got so rainy and windy that these three sheets of corrogated metal flew off the stacks of planks that they cover. Maris complained to Mom that what turned out to be the sound they made upon landing hurt her ears.

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On our way to the gym the other day, Mom spotted two pizza boxes on opposite sides of Long Island Avenue, and we picked those up for the coupons, before deciding to get some pizzas for my birthday.

Yesterday being my actual birthday, Mom ordered one cheese and one pepperoni pie then, and sent me and Brian to pick them up. It dawned upon me while we waited, to order some garlic knots as well, and Brian offered to pay for those after seeing me take my wallet out.

Mom noticed when we arrived home, that one box did not have a coupon attached, and deduced that it has to say La Margherita.

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Between dinner and a vegan chocolate cake that Mom had baked the other day, Brian and Marie decided to show us Fritz The Cat Returns.

One of them asked me if Haru happens to have the perfect shade of brown, but it looked too dark and slightly reddish. I soon added that, given that whole palette I created for Earthbound, I find that there actually isn't a "perfect" shade of brown, as long as it doesn't contain any hint of some other color.

(Granted, the color I used for some dividing rows on that spreadsheet (here is that again) is known in the site's default palette as "dark orange 2", with another shade there called "dark yellow 2". However, to begin with, brown with a hint of red is already known as "auburn", I did find myself perceiving Symphony's hair that way compared to Jae's himself when Mother Direct first showcased Cricket: Jae's Really Peculiar Game, and then there's Salt from A Little Snow Fairy Sugar, whose hair is specified on that show's wiki as "red" (Koge-Donbo Wiki says brown, but still). As for other colors, I have somehow perceived a hint of purple before in Hajime's from New Game!, and one of green in Honoka's on page 1 (not the cover) of The Honor Student at Magic High School, volume 2 (the whole book is slightly darkened on Internet Archive, and I couldn't find any other scans somewhere).)

A few scenes later, I commented that Haru's hair color is actually slightly inconsistent between scenes, ranging between an almost-black brown and blackish-purple. Her mother's is also inconsistent, as was Kiki's the night before.

Our smoke alarm started malfunctioning yesterday morning. Mom and I went down to investigate, and we at least discovered that our dryer pipeline had gotten disconnected, which I was able to remedy through an opening in the wall. Other than that, we didn't see any smoke anywhere, and Mom sent me up to the apartment to see if she had left another detector around somewhere. Couldn't find one, and we ended up buying a new one at The Home Depot before hitting the gym.

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Given the non-availability of Kix in California, Mom had gotten a box of Kix-like Bluey cereal for Marie, along with some Cap'n Crunch. Shortly after he, Marie, and Maris arrived, Brian went out to get a box of Crunch Berries and some cases of soda and root beer.

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Mom prepared us a buffet-style dinner of Peruvian chicken, buttered potatoes, corn on the cob, cranberries, and King's Hawaiian bread.

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Managed to show everyone my brunette-girl video shortly after we finished eating. They sure found my "naked cleavage" line amusing, Brian asked me to replay my later directive for Banjo-Kazooie, and Marie specified "No thongs, please" to be her favorite line (she even asked me to replay that one back at her house), and recorded that whole bit on her phone.

(To specify one thing, I am probably going to play my original copy of Banjo-Kazooie that Brian asked me before to hang onto, rather than a ROM, let alone a ROMhack. After the trouble I already had before with Getter Love!!, and what I would read months later, I would rather just buy new copies of most other N64 games in the 7th grade lineup, with the likely exception of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which has a modder-friendly PC port called Ship of Harkinian that still features the original graphics (granted, so does Banjo, but actually cutting those watermelons in half and then creating a new texture for on top would be its own issue for such a minor character as in question). That particular change (along since with gender-flipping Dash in Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire) was only hypothetical, my point was about which changes other than brunification I would apply to anyone while I specified what those would not include (in case anyone were to check out my deviantArt page and then assume otherwise and unsubscribe), and the reason I included the 7th grade lineup itself was to communicate my since-changed gaming intentions clearly (originally just five inaugural), so that no one wonders what happened to RPGs and the concept of controlled randomization after I showcase that through the Earthbound trilogy.)

Here's the spreadsheet itself, for anyone interested in its current state as it still evolves.

(Regarding thongs in the Disgaea series, the actual classes in question are Cheerleaders, Succubi (as per Disgaea 2 PC and Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention), Kit Cats (that class' name in game 1), and Fairies, but I've also commented on Higan, an individual from Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless, in a combined note for Ceefore, Ao, and Nitra from that same game (there is where I also moved a more general point to combine with that, up from Cheerleaders). (I did originally interpret Heavy/Armor Knights to wear thongs, but have since had a closer look at their 3D models for both 7 and Disgaea 6 on The Models Resource, along with those for Succubi to speak secondarily for all 2D games outside of the still SD-only 2 and 3.))

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For our first celebration dessert, Mom brought a homemade cheesecake up from the basement with forty regular candles and two numeral candles for my 40th birthday (which is actually tomorrow). (Marie declined a slice, though, specifying that she doesn't like cheesecake.)

Somehow, neither my upstairs desktop nor my laptop detected any USB ports to plug GameBridge into, not even the one I already had that external disk drive occupying. Tried to troubleshoot that, and then brought it up with Brian and Drew. Mom eventually suggested that I try plugging it into my downstairs desktop and what used to be Dad's, and an instruction popup did appear on the former.

Not a day too soon before everyone's here; Brian did agree to look at the upstairs computer regardless, and we'll probably take care of that on Sunday, after they've all had Saturday afternoon to unwind from traveling.

In the meantime, I did get around to reading The Week, and also applied for some additional job postings to my usual Indeed sweep in the morning. Managed last night to land two interviews, one of those for this afternoon, the other for the 18th after everyone leaves.

Got to my intended point in Marenian Tavern Story, and recorded what I need before emailing to myself through Mom's inbox already signed in on that phone.

My adapter arrived shortly thereafter, but I had already decided beforehand to shift focus to Super Mario RPG. Asked on Discord about how to modify a move called Chomp before Mom and I went out for a walk on the beach, but it got buried almost immediately. Gonna focus for now on properly brunifying Peach for those three cutscenes, before having a look at the game's ROM map on Data Crystal for battle animation data.

Attempted to download a screen-recording app before the game itself yesterday, but that turned out to require more space than was actually freed up.

Spotted an external hard drive on my bookcase later, which turns out to contain only a single image of Dad bronzecasting. Decided to back that iPad further up onto that.

Also took a moment to start checking for any pictures that might not have gotten transferred. As it turns out, some pictures don't even show up on my computer that I attack it to, and I wasn't able to find any way to remedy that before someone called my phone to remind me of a job interview I had scheduled for the afternoon. (Called Mom after said call to let her know primarily that we managed to fix up an error regarding the time in the email I received the other day, and then filled her in about that photo situation.)

Mom had a few errands to run before coming home to bring me to that interview. During the ride home, she asked me why I specifically needed her iPad to play that game; I specified that while I originally figured it would simply be more convenient to play on a larger device on my phone, and had no reason to expect such complications as I've already run into, but this is now a matter of finishing what I've started so that we don't assume that we backed everything up when it eventually conks out. She gave me her old phone instead, and we later agreed to revisit the issue on the weekend.

Got around to bringing my laptop upstairs to hook the Gamecube up to, but the device I originally bought for my Switch has nothing to connect to it with. Bought another device for that purpose, which I will also need to record a playthrough of Kiratto Kaiketsu! on my Nintendo 64.

(Speaking of which, once I have that out, I suppose I should take a moment then check Tomo and Ryoko's secondary palettes to update my brunification spreadsheet about.)

Good thing I had already set Mom's old iPad to recharge that same day I re-bought The Thousand-Year Door, in order to record a snippet of Marenian Tavern Story (playing the mobile version for background accuracy) for that same section that is now likely to stand alone. Yesterday was mostly a warmup before I'd actually start playing that, as I took a few moments throughout to re-read the relevant script section in full and look over what I might already have of the walkthrough (a folder in place, but it only contains a list of sale combos that I had forgotten all about). (Mostly did some stuff around the house, read a few chapters of Frankenstein, and watched some YouTube videos and an ongoing bump in my 48-hour view graph.)

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A couple of days ago, before she woke up for the morning, Mom showed me one of those old pinball segments from Sesame Street on her current iPad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCuByzZv_SY&list=RDeCuByzZv_SY

One thing I didn't get was how nothing depicted actually counts up to the number that gets cut every few seconds to. Confirmed yesterday afternoon when I watched two more segments, and brought up with Mom later when she was watching TV. She explained that the hook is in how entertaining both the song and the action itself are, in order to keep kids engaged.

She then found someone's analysis of the song, and we watched that part of the way through:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtGImlEmu0

(While having looked up that video, I also spotted a few numbers by The Oinker Sisters. Mom had already mentioned that that pinball song was sung by The Pointer Sisters, whom I would also go on to read a little about.)

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Yesterday afternoon, Mom shared an Instagram post she found, announcing that the moon would be turning blood-red in the middle of the night and into the morning, and shared that with us through Uguu Blue:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DVPE8T4iKDu/?igsh=MTR1NjkzMmp3eGJ6aA%3D%3D

While she was getting ready for work this morning, she offered as per an agreement last night to drive me down the street to see the moon. We drove down to Route 112, but the sky was too overcast to see the moon.

During the drive around, though, I mentioned The Oinker Sisters to her. She then asked me if I ever heard this song by the original Pointer Sisters called I'm So Excited, and went on to put it on on Spotify. Recognized it soon enough from Walmart.

Started reading the original Frankenstein novel yesterday, at Mom's suggestion first thing in the morning.

I do recall two different classes of mine reading that book and then watching the 2003 film early in 12th grade (late that same year). So far, though, that version did not include the biography of author Mary Shelly or even the letters from Walton that this version of the book begins with; I remember it starting with the line "I am by birth a Genevan."

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Managed to sell all seven main volumes of Tokyo Mew Mew three nights ago, although I never listed my one a la Mode volume from Savers. Forwarded the email to Mom the next morning, and we took care of boxing them yesterday morning before heading out to the post office in Bellport.

From there, Mom and I went to a nearby thrift store, and then to park somewhere else before taking a walk around town.

Went to Meat Farms after finishing our walk, before coming home.