dmxrated

I am getting ready now to host my long-overdue Getter Love!! video, which was originally going to deal just in the very beginning with that until more stuff happened to warrant its own video (which still took me a while in turn to consider as my actual plans got increasingly overblown). Writing this to both navigate to as I record and have already available to link to from the description, in order to explain why something I promised at the end of my previous video has already taken so much longer than I expected, and how this video, which originally had little enough content that I saw fit to combine with something unrelated seemingly on the horizon, ended up hinging on something so unrelated for so long.

To begin with, it was a month before I’d host both of my previous videos when Mr. Tenda, the creator of the Earthbound ROMhacking program CoilSnake, offered to create some of the remaining changes I wanted (no, I wasn’t hacking the game myself at the time, beyond what I could already figure out how through CS).

(Like, there were two ideas amid others that I looked particularly into back in the ‘0s, but the only tutorials I could find back then were for original-NES games (no Genesis or PC-FX), and the concept beyond those seemed like it would take years to master just to accomplish what I wanted back then. I was also spending a number of years teaching myself Japanese from various sources just to translate certain games and anime, to no avail there either, and I could only imagine similar futility with revisiting ROMhacking myself in relation to Food Fantasy in 2019 (proved too hardcoded just to revert some US-censored graphics myself), to say nothing of how busy I already was at the time with a Lucky Star story* I will mention again in a bit. To some extent, that actually changed recently in context that I will cover further down, although my job (with benefits I worked too long for to forfeit now by quitting just to make time to educate myself) and the rest of my personal agenda would still likely conflict with that (I already had to delay a bunch of things for a good few days just to decipher what someone gave me for free instead of just asking him for more).)

(*Both fics and some related pictures all together on deviantArt. And no, despite some pics likely to appear under "More by DMXrated", that I specifically keep out of my Featured folder, you can rest assured that neither the project itself, nor any planned ROMhacks for Earthbound et al or anything else, are going to feature weight-gain.)

At that time, I already had someone on Upwork, Muhammad Hassaan, in charge of some changes, several of which Mr. Tenda would not be capable of, but while discussion of one change was what led me to Mr. Tenda in the first place, he had never once shown me any actual changes in action before I fired him months later, for trying to pass someone else’s decompilation in a video off as his own work. In the meantime, I had planned at the time just to showcase Mr. Tenda’s changes and someone else’s from late in ‘21, before pointing out what I still wanted changed and why in hopes that someone would offer to do them.

Sure enough, he managed to show me all the changes through savestates late in January ‘24, and I tested them directly and paid him before starting any actual playthroughs.

Take 1

2/3/24: Had to put the game on hold to test someone’s work on Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God, which took a few days to reach all relevant points or circumstances. I hadn’t gotten far into Earthbound, and felt inclined afterwards just to start over.

Take 2

2/25/24: As it turns out, something messed the flags up, as I could tell when people are ahead in their scripts after Jeff first joins you. Mr. Tenda decided when I brought it up, to send me a version with a little trick to check whether or not the correct flag is active.

(For additional context, I had arrived in Threed with a Chicken from Twoson (itself in context of my gaming style), and did not bother to deposit what I’d sell that for before winding up underground.)

Take 3

3/11/24: Shortly before Jeff could even appear, I spot an out-of-place enemy in the cemetery, which weirds me out badly enough to turn the game off right then and there.

And, that’s where I got tired of the game, long before it occurred to me to give anything about Getter Love!! up to that point and since its own video.

Why Earthbound is still taking so long even now:

At that time, Muhammad was still in charge of certain changes, and even after I fired him, there was someone already doing a really good job (he actually shared his work periodically) decompiling Earthbound Zero, whom I then considered my safest bet to reserve Earthbound for, in case no one else proved capable of Mother 3, Super Mario RPG, or anything else I wanted changes to by EB0’s completion. (Affonso only knew Unity, which is why he chose Marenian Tavern Story in the first place, and declined to bother with M3 or SMRPG.)

Three months later, I got a hold of two different people I initially put in charge of Adventure Bar Story and Epic Battle Fantasy 4. One thing led to another with each, and I wound up putting Raymond in charge of Earthbound after we agreed to put EBF4 on the back burner, which I’d then wound up giving to Jonathan instead late in July. Over the next few months, Raymond did manage two of the remaining changes to Earthbound, but despite that game’s priority as the very first to host as the prime† inspiration from late in ‘11 for my actual main project (still barely off the ground as I’ve only gradually figured out how to approach that), Jonathan wound up moving along much more quickly with EBF4, for much less per change, and I asked to suspend work on Earthbound for the time being just to attempt a holdover product for myself sooner.

(†Dating back to my childhood in ‘96. Although its similarities to Earthbound had also contributed, I had only checked out EB0 in ‘10, and the initial concept well over a year later for the premise of Starbound, that Lucky Star fanfic (an actual game didn’t seem feasible at the time), was what cued me then to try out Mother 3 personally after having already seen bits and pieces of that on YouTube.)

Early in October, my mother, who had been keeping track of my bank log for years with my permission, had a fit about such a deal I had been pouring so much money into (please understand that I make roughly $400 a week (I didn't even have a job for thirteen years post-college), give or take depending on how many hours are actually arranged for me each week under a flexible schedule, although I had worked long enough by that point to save up thousands). Even though I had been getting actual changes this time‡, she demanded that I end business right then and there, threatening to transfer all my money to an IRA that she had been keeping and already transferring a few hundred to every month or so. While I still have yet to resume things with EBF4 even now, this did lead me to start up a new bank account right across the street from where I work, leaving my original one open for Supplemental Security Income to transfer from.

(‡For context, Muhammad had previously scammed me after proposing a remake of Disgaea 1 Complete in 2022, almost a combined $2,000 with two others over half a year (that, in fact, is what ultimately motivated me to seek employment instead of coasting on allowance, stipends, and payments for major chores such as stacking firewood for each winter). It only seemed fair to them at the time to play along in exchange for the work they were supposedly already putting into, apparent from how well they seemed to know what they were talking about. Eventually, Muhammad offered ten changes to Earthbound in exchange for a month’s rent he claimed to be short for, and I took then to stipulate the end of all further payments for any and all reasons until he actually shows me something. Suffice to say, I have not cared since about anyone’s efforts, life circumstances, or whoever they’re paying in turn for anything.)

Jonathan offered a couple of weeks later to take over with Earthbound, although it still took him another few months to actually begin.

-----

In March this year, I managed on my own to color Paula and various other blonde girls’ hair brown. To begin with, even once the main hack is finished, I’m still going to need footage from the otherwise vanilla game, and I would also like to make it clear that it will not be part of the main hack (I do plan to test for compatibility, though). Add something my mother had pointed out months earlier, about how little actual enjoyment I seem to be getting from these ROMhacks that I had been commissioning people for by not actually playing them, and I figured I might as well make myself comfortable as I play the same old game with all its cracks having shown for years now. Next thing I know, I actually found myself hot to check it out with such a new look.

(Currently, I have left off at Deep Darkness, pretty late in the game, with a previous hiatus in Threed as well to account for how long this playthrough has been taking. I have had numerous things going on since I put the game down.)

-----

In April, Jonathan showed me a file explaining a bug that contradicts something someone explains to you early in-game about what a stat called Guts does, something I only found out about through a news update of Mother 2 DX. This took until late in May for him to actually correct tentatively before I’d give it to Mr. Tenda, only for the game to crash on him.

The next few months mostly involved refining the file and assigning a few minor changes to Mr. Tenda, before I shared the file, along with both of Raymond’s from before, on the Discord server PK Hack to make sense of before I could attempt yet another bug personally that I’ve only discovered recently. One moderator, SupremeKirb, said that people there would be willing to create such things for free, after I had mentioned who I hired to create the existing ones. Another member, pheonixbound, showed me some kind of revision code to restore the Brain Stone’s unimplemented purpose, and instead of just asking him then for subsequent changes to the game for free, I decided to start making sense of his work.

Along with what SK had shown me from before in a decompilation called ebsrc (written in D for a PC remake), and something else on GitHub that someone else shared with me, that is what led me to check out an online tutorial of 65C816, the Super NES’ assembly language, to read during breaks at my job as well as on a weekend visit my mother and I took to see Ella, my grandmother. (This also inspired an interest in MIPS, given the Sony Playstation as my target platform for Lucky Star: Day of the Beehive (usually called Starbound for short here, after the attempted fanfic), and I will likely take sessions with an electric foot massager that my sister, Marie, had sent me recently, to read about ARM and Thumb before tackling Mother 3 (my phone proved inconducive for the tutorial I found for those).)

Still on the agenda:

Before I start hosting any playthroughs on YouTube, while I do consider Getter Love!! fine as that game is, I would still like my hacks of Earthbound Zero, Mother 3, and Super Mario RPG completed (likely now by myself with any advice I can gather), even once Earthbound’s is all done to go first, before that whole series begins. However, even if all five overall were to have been ready for a while now, I had already long promised a video specifically covering the actual changes at least for Earthbound.

That is where my current playthrough comes in, before I look into implementing the remaining changes for the main hack and then playing that version through. In-between, though, I am also planning to record a vanilla playthrough of M3, mainly to switch gears but also for footage of two things late in that game to include in the Earthbound video. (Would also like to demonstrate what parts of that game I want changed, to pheonixbound and anyone else on Discord willing to help me with those, and it might also help to be able to discuss those on the sidelines through my phone when I’m not home to play the completed Earthbound hack.)

Here’s what I need to do overall, in no particular order:

• The Getter Love!! update video [Online as of 9/14/25]


• Proofreading what started out as a list of tasks through which to determine what places I’ll need for each area in Starbound (it went on to cover the game’s story and structure in general).


• Proofreading a story outline I once hired someone on Upwork for, and determining which events need to go, that are too easy for people to default to (I am not looking for all the first places or concepts someone thinks of when thinking of other parts of the world).


• Organizing a script from there for a video through which to reach out to people actually living in the relevant parts of the world. (The description there is where I will link to stuff, and I will also embed the video on a subreddit specifically about the 2000s, in order to reach out specifically to people who actually remember that era.)


• This will also require commissioning people on sites like Upwork for some concept footage to showcase.


• Exploring images from Windows Spotlight, to decide on places for the party to visit, that are still relatively obscure but less mundane than the regular small towns of Onett, Twoson, and Threed in Earthbound, or Washimiya/Kuki and Satte, Saitama Prefecture, in Lucky Star. (Naturally, those taken in parts of the world already planned for the game will take priority.)


• A separate file for some individual ideas of mine, which will remain private until enough people contribute their own ideas first.


• Creating a video about the Earthbound brunette hack, which will detail why brown is such a significant hair color to me, to link to once I ensure a bug-free hack to upload to ROMhacking.net and ROMhack.ing. [Online as of 1/4/26]


• The comparison video, which will likely include a segment contextualizing why I seek ROMhacks in the first place.


• Finishing up my current playthrough of Earthbound. [Completed on 11/20/25]


• Testing Vadim’s most recent changes to Earthbound Zero, before I discuss any of the remaining few there.


• Vanilla playthroughs to record of EB0, Mother 3, and Super Mario RPG.


• Implementing the remaining changes to Earthbound, M3, and SMRPG, and then playing through the completed hacks to record.


• Will also need to make sense of Jonathan’s Guts-related files, so as to ensure that such a thing not directly observable through gameplay actually would work properly.


• Completing each of my planned walkthroughs as I move through each of those four games (Getter Love!!’s has been finished since '23, given the compact nature of that game and my plans then to showcase my gaming style for that game first), transferring everything currently on Google Docs to GameFAQs’ HTML editor, and formatting everything once in place there.

I finally finished fixing all those different graphics in the twins' house yesterday, and took the rest of the day just to relax somewhat. Will probably look Tsukasa's room, the last one that had been in line, over one more time when I come home from work today, before sending everything back to Loc.

-----

Brian has had some kind of situation on his hands that he offered to explain to Mom, and was not able yet to come visit yesterday.

Emily was at her parents' house with Maris yesterday.

At his request after I already offered the other day, I managed to show Brian something Starbound-related I've been working on and off on for a while now. This started out as a list of objectives for each part of the game (I had realized at some point that, before I commission for some proper area maps, I need to figure out what I'm actually going to need for each place), but then I started realizing a number of other things, and what I've still been calling a "tasklist" actually became primarily a compilation of notes still pertaining mostly to the game's overall structure (along with some commentary here and there, which he suggested I use a different text color for).

(Of note, I had brought up an issue with him regarding Leshan, China, where Cyril had arranged some events before. Looked that place up on Wikipedia the other day, and listed there were some foods that it is particularly known for, but nothing represented in Food Fantasy by any Food Souls (a guideline I find to keep things somewhat simple, and would like to use as many as without any actual reasons to exclude). Rather than throwing something so readily available out the window in favor of my own preferences, I asked on Reddit where there might be better common denominators, to some negative reception ranging from simple suggestions of ChatGPT or paid research to obvious snark. Here, Brian actually told me not to worry about something like that, given how readily available all kinds of things tend to be worldwide due to cultural osmosis. I agreed that that would be a good thing to point out in the game itself, while also encouraging players to try stuff out authentically and pay cultural tribute wherever the party goes.)

-----

At one point back in the apartment, Marie asked if I was up for watching anything. I actually ruled Sugar out this time, after having had rewatched a few scenes of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka while reviewing a fanfic chapter someone had written for me. I gave her the go-ahead to choose something else, before deciding instead with Brian up with us to watch more of Earthbound USA.

Mom had agreed in the morning to make us some grilled cheeses before she'd host that potato chip taste test once and for all, but was still having a nap by the time we came down. The three of us made our own instead, and started looking at some childhood photographs while actually eating, but she woke up in time to host that event. We each guessed on an index card what each flavor was that she transferred into one of eight tupperware containers, before putting whatever was still there back in the original bags to tape shut and contain in turn.

Shortly thereafter, the three of us hit Friendly's for ice cream. Brian and Marie got a Kids' Monster Mash and Cone Head respectively, while I got a birthday cake Friend-Z.

At one point, Marie expressed enjoyment of Earthbound USA, and commented that Drew would also like it. That could be another thing we save for when Drew comes here with her, whenever I'm not showing more of it to Brian, but that led me to comment how long it's been since he last did come here. She explained that while even Emily has family to visit whenever she comes here, Drew generally does not get much of a payoff for the entire hassle of coming here all the way from California, which is why we delayed our Christmas celebration by a few days in '22.

At another point, I mentioned looking forward to visiting the two of them for their wedding, at least once Dad recovers once and for all, and especially looking forward to what I mistook for some kind of store she showed me on Signal a while ago. She cleared that up to be somebody's office with anime figurines and such, but did say that I am always welcome to come visit her in general. That, of course, is not something I could do willy-nilly, now that I have a job, and given that the one time to date was a birthday gift from her and Brian, I would probably have to rearrange my priorities financially (not something I'm so inclined towards right now in particular when I've already got two expensive game mods moving right along).

-----

Brian had to go back later in the day.

-----

Lately, I have been feeling cramps in my neck whenever I turn my head. Recently, I started taking such countermeasures as Ibuprofen and creating a makeshift compress by boiling water to dip a washcloth into.

Just last night, Marie found this video showcasing various neck exercises to try out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Ocw5UIpYs

Charleys was serving some free bagels at 10 yesterday. I took then to take my 15-minute lunch break for the day early; good thing it wasn't a set full-hour break.

After coming to see, I went to the break room to retrieve half a cup of cookie dough bites I had found in a cart (lid closed). Originally, I was going to order some lemon pepper rub chicken bites and a cup of lemonade, and hadn't bothered to bring a shake from home exactly for that reason. To go with those cookie dough bites better than some lemonade, I bought a frappucino, and told the cashier where I got those bites. They looked at them, and told me they were already half-melted and probably bad by that point, so I took their advice to discard them.

-----

Mom got a few donuts and a miniature fudge cake and cherry pie from The Rolling Pin Bakery for Dad's birthday, and showed me a picture upon picking me up.

Having not had a (solid) snack during lunch, I asked her if I could have one of those donuts, and she suggested I have one with sprinkles on it, since those wouldn't hold up as well overnight.

-----

Brian called during dinner to wish Dad a happy birthday. I took my turn after Dad's to bring up that b-roll issue, and he suggested I look through travel brochures, something nobody makes anymore (should help to keep things in the past). Even though they won't allude to specific minor cities, they should still be handy to cover each country itself, whenever I get around to creating the player's guide.

-----

Dad had two of those remaining three donuts after dinner, and I had half of that fudge cake. We have saved the remaining items for after lunch today.

On our way to his house, Mom stopped at this bakery that Uncle Robby told her about the other day. Quite by coincidence, we happened to park right near the fire station where Ghostbusters was filmed; I first noticed the no-ghosts sign out our side-windows, and Mom was sure to take a picture or so of it before we drove on.

Further down the road, we discovered that the rest stop formerly known as Cheesequake is now called Jon Bon Jovi, having been bought out. There were also these orange signs saying "No gas", "No food", and "No restrooms"; we couldn't help but wonder what kind of rest stop would lack those, but as we passed it, it turned out that the building was closed for renovations. (Mom did specify on our way home that the reason it didn't just say "Closed" might've been to allow people to drive into the parking lot just for some shut-eye or such.)

(This article from two years ago, in both text and photos, establishes that it does normally have those features.)

-----

As soon as we arrived at the house, Brian was chatting with Emily and Cousin Steven, and the first thing I could hear him say was "And here's the publisher himself."

After we took a few minutes to settle down inside, he showed me what he actually mentioned to them, which was the page for Ozzy's translation patch for Getter Love!!

I then went out to bring it up with Steven, and ended up helping him and Cousin Adam load a mattress into Aunt Allison's mini-van first. Before we went back inside, Steven asked me to share my next video with him whenever I have that up.

-----

At one point, Grandma Ella gave me a $15 gift card for Dunkin' Donuts. Guess I might as well use some of that each time Brian and I hit Bagel Lovers, so as to accrue more points, and then spend said points, along with 55 more that I noticed last time Brian was here, on something a drink.

-----

At another point, Mom invited me to come on a walk around Nautilus Drive that she was taking Medina and Venice on.

We didn't get very far counter-clockwise, but along the way, the four of us picked up some chestnuts to make a wreath out of.

-----

Asked Brian later whether or not I should host what I emailed out seven years ago on Google Docs and link to that from my next video's description, for anyone who might be interested when I'd briefly showcase a section of the original email attachment covering Earthbound's role in my life, or if it might come off as arrogant to showcase something that otherwise has nothing to do with the video's own subject matter.

To clarify, the boldface in the opening paragraph is where I would have displayed it. (Between "for" and "my" would've been where I'd then shift to Starbound's cover image, the original fanfic, and some in-engine gameplay all in succession.)

Just for some background, it was towards the end of 2019 when I got the idea to share certain ideas how to make various games more interesting for anyone interested, even if it would also slow things way down. At the time, the only particular deadline was the recent 25th anniversary of Getter Love!! Panda Love Unit, which had played a particularly important role in my life, and would be the first game in line for some playthroughs to host here on YouTube, where I would lead by example. Other than that, there was plenty of time for Earthbound, not only a staple of my childhood but the inspiration for my other main project, to be the first beforehand to get a walkthrough published on GameFAQs. (Some such details changed over time; for example, I eventually figured that it might actually make more sense to host each game’s playthrough first, before publishing its walkthrough mainly to contextualize how I approach different aspects of the game myself.)

He actually advised me not to showcase pure text to begin with, or else to highlight and read whatever parts actually matter, lest I force people to pause to read anything, assuming it doesn't blur on anyone. I told him that I was hoping mainly not to bore anyone with just speech and either a still image or myself as I talk, but he said that might actually be the better idea to display.

Apparently, that was the wrong code, and now I'm finding initialDisplacement not to work properly anymore, even though it still does in Earthbound-dev. I even compared the two projects, and could not find any differences where I would find relevant to look.

Looks like I'm still gonna have to keep reading that ebook and probably any others I can find, and focus still on making heads and tails of code that I didn't write personally, until Brian comes home and can help me sort this out in person.

Brian has agreed to make a point of annotating what everything means in the scripts he had written me, so that I don't waste anyone's time on the Unity forum trying to figure stuff out that I never wrote myself.

In the meantime, I have rented this book called Developing 2D Games in Unity onto Kindle two days ago.

-----

Mom and I decided to tie that BJ's tour in with the gym yesterday. This being midday, I asked about ordering a bagel at Dunkin' to bring home when she would check out whatever she'd buy along the way, but we decided instead to let her drop me off to pick a few up at Best Bagels Around and then meet her in Savers (her usual sidestop before coming in to work out) for the car key.

From there, I decided just to plan on getting a donut, using points that I had accumulated over time (I still leave my wallet home from the gym), and tried to open the app after signing in inside the gym. It wasn't able to connect, even though I not only use the Planet Fitness app to sign in, but use the apps for both Dunkin' and my work schedule all the time at home, so I had to run my intentions past Mom after returning to the car.

Quite by coincidence, Mom had to come into the store to access her BJ's account, and that gave me time to sort things out for myself, as did when she set up ExpressPay mid-tour. A classic donut turns out to cost 250, and I just so happened to have just 13 over that. Got myself a Bavarian kreme one when Mom checked something out that we had picked out along the way for Marie's birthday.

(Still need to remember not to select anything on my phone before placing my order in person.)

Umaid Iqbal, whom I have just set up with Super Mario RPG, has asked me to let him know when I publish Starbound, if I don't end up inviting him to work on it at some point.

More specifically, he asked me why I don't just create new games to my liking instead of seeking people to modify existing ones. I explained to him that I am in fact working on a game, and he asked to see it when it's done.

-----

Before we went on vacation, Mom had bought a box of cookie dough balls with ganache in the middle, that she intended to bake into actual cookies. Still sitting in my fridge, and in lieu of anything else for a snack except for a few cupcakes from Aunt Marie that I forgot are still in the freezer, I decided to bake one of its two packs.

At first, I tried to do this down in the house, where we have more to work with, but I ended up waking Mom up from a nap, and she told me to take everything up back into the apartment. Good thing I had yet to put the cookies into the stove.

Left the house stove to cool back down, and heated the apartment stove up to 350 degrees, as instructed on the box. Followed the remaining instructions pretty accurately, but when I took them out, they were all soft and moist in the centers. I assumed that they would just need some time to cool down to harden up, and opened up one of my windows to leave them on the sill.

Mom soon asked me to come down with two cookies for Dad, but went on to point out once I was down that they still needed more time. She suggested that I reheat the oven to 375 and then put them back in for five more minutes. Sure enough, they came out properly afterwards.

I had two for myself, and then brought two down to the boathouse for Dad, but he declined. Mom did come up at some point and asked if she could have one, though, and I let her.

Yesterday morning, being the first one up, I noticed that someone stuck copies of this photo of Maris sleeping and someone's hand on her belly, with the Got Milk? logo in a corner.

Aunt Marie commented when more of us had waken up, saying that the baby "looks like" Maris, to which Mom confirmed that it was.

-----

Called Aunt Allison at around 7. Barely a minute in, since the bedroom I'm using is right next to my parents', Dad called my name. At first, I thought I had woken him up by talking too loud, so I went into the next room over, but then he came out to call me out for waking Allison up.

She then asked me to put Mom on, who got on my case as well when I came downstairs. Turns out while she was talking, that she also had some stuff for her to gather, and agreed to text her a list.

I was already back upstairs when they were finished, and Mom came up to remind me that, while Allison did mention having already been up when I called, not everyone tends to wake up so early as I do.

-----

Took several walks down this really long road and back yesterday.

During my second one down, Allison and Blas stopped to say hi. Sure enough, Allison had fetched my swimclothes.

-----

Brian asked to look over Starbound while we were having lunch, and sure enough, we managed to figure out both of two bugs that I had been stumped on before we headed out.

One problem was that I had two conflicting cameras between Kagami and the mezzanine in her house. Removing the latter's camera after re-discovering the former's allowed me to actually see where Kagami was ending up when we tried setting the displacement point's coordinates as far as 200 and/or -200 each time I walked her upstairs from the entrance hall.

Minimized everything before we all had some ice cream cake to celebrate Marie's birthday early with, and the next thing I need to do is tinker some more with the displacement point values, so that Kagami ends up where she's supposed to.

-----

During the afternoon, Marie and Drew had a short walk on the beach, and I decided to join them. Went out barefoot, because my socks were upstairs while my shoes were by the front door.

Busting out my sandals would've been a good idea by now. On a beach comprised mostly of large pebbles, my feet wound up hurting, and I went back to meet them on the deck.

They came back, but we mostly chatted. We were thinking of having a dip in the pool, but then someone came to mow the lawn in laps around the house, and Drew decided to put it off for when there'd be less noise.

We then had a walk around town, in the opposite direction from where I had been taking my personal walks.

We did take a swim upon coming back, but Marie found it too cold by that point, and decided only to dip her feet in and then skim the pool.

-----

After dark, we all decided to come out to sit around a campfire. While we were all talking, some of us noticed a few bats flying around, which we also have at home but aren't usually out late enough to see. Mom also mentioned that day a bat had flown into our house, something she also described back in '08.

For dessert, Mom presented a white cake with fruits on top, but not for anyone's birthday who we sang for this time.

I finally caught a break from that whole frontyard project, and managed a warm-up session yesterday back with Starbound.