Jackson Party of Four

In case you missed it, I posted "The Grinch Steals New Years" earlier today, so go back and read it. It's the third and final Grinch poem for the Christmas/New Year season...

Hello, hello! How goes it? I'm doing better myself…no pickle juice or anything of the sort soaking my pants at the moment, so that's enough to make me happy. I'm pretty excited today - I have a can of "pondegi" (silkworm larva) my younger brother sent me when he was visiting China, and while I've tried a lot of exotic foods before, that one is new to me. Honestly, it sounds kind of gross, but me and a few of my team members at work are going to give it a go a little later this afternoon. Okay, update - I've eaten it since I typed the above. It looked like drowned roaches in green water, smelled like sewage, and tasted like manure. Now I have bits of bug shell in my teeth still to pick out with my tongue. Gross.

Our old buddy Moon Dawg was having a horrible time in our last post pursuing a romantic relationship with Katherine Shaikh, a local waitress he met at a party. He spent almost the entire last post trying to convince her just to visit the boat, then when she did finally come, she just basically ignored him. Well, when we pick up this time, we find that things are still not going too well. Moon Dawg tried most of the basic interactions with Katherine, but everything short of talking or telling jokes was just getting him the cold shoulder…in a big way…



Moon Dawg: "It was just supposed to be a friendly hug…what's your problem, mon?"
And that's the reaction he gets WITH the love potion he drank still active. I'm starting to think that crap isn't worth a thimble of moose spit (whatever that means) because this isn't the first time I've seen it have no noticeable effect. Maybe that's a good thing, because some of my sims were getting pretty lazy in the romance department, but for Moon Dawg's sake, it would have been nice if it worked. "Luckily", he was privy to another form of interaction enhancer that had yet to be tried by any of my sims - the aspiration reward shades. I'm not sure if the shades and the potion effects actually stack or not, but Moon Dawg decided it had to be worth a try. I'm not so sure…



Katherine: "Uh…have you even bothered to look in a mirror recently?"
Even with the tux on, the love potion active, AND the stupid blue shades, Moon Dawg couldn't even get a lousy hug…and this was with the short term relationship meter up in the 80's. There comes a point when even the most easy going types get fed up with rejection, and Moon Dawg is no exception. He was a little irritated at having gone to such lengths (and having worn such stupid looking glasses) for someone who wasn't even willing to at least grant him a mercy date. Of course, living with Leon, who all the girls love for reasons I've never figured out, probably gave Moon Dawg a skewed idea of the actual success rate for asking women out. Whatever the case, Moon Dawg finally got the message, and handled the rejection with dignity and maturity...



Moon Dawg: "Hope you don't have to go to work in those clothes any time soon!"
If you ask me, Katherine got off lucky. Most any other sim in the neighborhood would have resorted to some more drastic way of expressing irritation than a mere water balloon, but not Moon Dawg. Remember, it's all about the peace and love (and a little water soaked clothing doesn't violate either of those, apparently). Moon Dawg has never had any problem finding things to keep him occupied, and with his focus once again off women, he focused on the next best thing - the study of the paranormal. A few posts ago, he bought a copy of "Beyond Belief", and it seemed a great time to pull it out and give it a read…



Moon Dawg: "Bigfoot married the ghost of Elvis…crazy, mon!"
Moon Dawg began to develop quite the interest in the paranormal, which makes sense in the world of the sims, where weird stuff happens every day - it's just good common sense to be prepared. Moon Dawg found himself most fascinated with the discovery of aliens. After all, vampires, ghosts, and werewolves are as common as dirt in the Monkeesim neighborhood, one has only to go to the corner grocery store to see them (well, not the ghosts, but the other two). Aliens, however, remain an enigma. Many of the local sims use their telescopes at all hours of the day, but thus far, no abductions. Moon Dawg wasn't afraid of the unknown. Heaven knows, he'd seen enough weirdness just living at the old Jackson house…



Moon Dawg: "C'mon, guys…take me away from this crazy freak ship!"
Moon Dawg developed a new obsession with aliens and the cosmos, and began a cycle of spending every night out on the boat deck scanning the skies for little green men (well, their ships, anyway). He didn't wind up spending too much time with Debbie or Leon for a while, which didn't bother Debbie too much, and she kept Leon busy enough that he didn't have time to think about it. Night after night he spent with the telescope to the point of exhaustion, but no visitors took notice of him or were interested in picking him up for probing. Eventually Moon Dawg's social needs started to dip, and he decided he needed to spend some time with the beings on his own planet. Not entirely satisfied with the selection aboard the Love Boat, he decided to head off to the public pool for a while…



The taxi arrives for Moon Dawg…that's the pool on the left there...
Talk about your lazy sims. Now, the pool is a inexpensive and fun way to pass a few hours, and it almost never gets used - I don't know why. Granted, now that I have "Open for Business", I'm considering selling the lot to someone and adding a ticket machine. I know…it's all about the money for me. As usual, there weren't a whole lot of people present when Moon Dawg first arrived, but they started pouring in shortly after. It's just not a party till the first player controlled sim arrives. As usual, there was a big rush to see who would be the first to use the swing. I'm not sure what it is with these adult sims, but they always fight over the swing set first thing. Geez, people…act your age!



Moon Dawg: "No hot tub? This place sucks, mon…"
I've built a few different kinds of community lot before, and one thing I noticed is that sims don't always quite seem to understand my vision for a place. I try to keep things simple so they don't get confused, but there are those who don't seem to "get" the public pool, and that just blows my mind. By not getting it, I mean they show up and either stand around fully dressed talking for hours, sit at the little chairs over by the barbecue grill doing nothing, or never even enter the gate and just chat out on the sidewalk. It's a pool, people! Swim, for crying out loud! I can't talk, though - Moon Dawg didn't do any swimming during his visit. He was more interested in his newly formed friendship with Keri James, who he'd just met since arriving at the pool.



Elrond: "I just love coming to this place to hang…but what's with this big water filled hole?"
Well, where Moon Dawg and Katherine had the world's worst chemistry going for them, Moon Dawg and Keri had little double lightning bolts by each other's faces in the relationship panel, and were bonding very quickly. It was a definite improvement over before, but Moon Dawg was still taking no chances - he gulped down one of the potions he'd bought to try to woo Katherine, and it actually seemed to do something this time - added a third little "bolt" to his relationship with Keri. Moon Dawg was smart enough to know when the getting was good, and really turned on the charm. It wasn't very long before Keri was hopeless smitten. Oh, Moon Dawg…you dawg, you…



Keri: "Oh, Moon Dawg! I'm hopelessly smitten with you!"
Moon Dawg and Keri actually have quite a bit in common. He's a fun loving, easy going, carefree type from the islands, and she's a fun loving, easy going, carefree country girl. Granted, when you put two carefree, easy going people together, you usually wind up with a messy house with nobody wanting to clean it, but that was nobody's concern just yet. Moon Dawg started inviting Keri over regularly to hang out, and unlike Katherine, she actually accepted his invitations gladly. After some time, Moon Dawg and Keri had developed the best friendship relationship possible, but Moon Dawg was still trying to play it cool and decided to put off the whole romance thing for a while. Well, needless to say, that didn't last - the attraction between the two was irresistible.



Leon: "Hey! I handle all the PDA's on board this ship!"
Well, Keri has no job, and obviously Moon Dawg doesn't either, so they basically fell into a routine of Moon Dawg inviting her over to spend all day every day on the boat. It seemed sort of pointless after a while for her to bother going home for the three hours a night she was, but Moon Dawg didn't really have any place to put her up (it seemed rude to wait for her to pass out and sleep on the deck). Eventually, the wheels in his head started to turn, and he decided on a brilliant plan. Moon Dawg gathered together some building materials and used furniture, moved around some of the junk on the deck, and slapped together a little shack for he and Keri to call home. Suddenly, Moon Dawg's recliner in the kitchen didn't seem like nearly the inconvenience it once had.



Moon Dawg: "Just call be Bob Vila, mon!"
Yes, I think any attractiveness the outside of the boat may have retained was officially out the window. Not to mention they'd never be able to set sail with such a shack blocking the view from the cabin (not a real concern, since Leon had gutted the boat's actual controls to make room for his pimp pad inside). Leon and Moon Dawg had entertained the possibility that they'd wind up living together again at some point, but neither of them really envisioned this as the way it would turn out. Moon Dawg's old room at the original Jackson house wasn't that great either, but at least it was a real room, not some makeshift shack out on a boat deck.




Keri: "A couple nice floral arrangements, and this place could be darling!"
As you might imagine, Debbie remained basically silent during the whole courtship of Keri, and later, the shack building process. Obviously, she had some opinions, but Leon was still the "captain", and Debbie knew full well that he'd never stayed with just one woman as long as he'd been with her. Debbie had no problem with Keri or even Moon Dawg personally, but it was hard to ignore the overcrowding that was taking place, and Leon didn't even seem to care. She decided to keep quiet about it for a bit longer, and see what developed. She'd just pretend things didn't bother her, and see if maybe that would eventually be true. Oh, Debbie…don't you know that bad things happen when you bottle up your frustrations inside like that?



So much for any sort of view this place might have had...
All I can say without saying too much is Debbie isn't the most graceful at dealing with pressure, she just thinks she is…but she has her breaking point like anyone else. All the "secondary character" treatment was starting to get to her, with possible negative results. Is it true love for Moon Dawg and Keri? What about for Debbie and Leon? We all remember how well Steve and Doris's relationship went at Leon's old house…will there be similar problems on the Love Boat? You'll have to wait to find out! I'm pretty sure I won't have time to post tomorrow, and I won't have internet access again until December 26th, so if I don't post again before then, have a Merry Christmas, everyone!