MonkeeSims

The Reticulating Splines

2011-06-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone, welcome back! It's been a few days since our last post, and I'm happy to report that I'm not feeling the pressure I once was to do updates daily. It makes the whole blogging process a lot more fun, not to mention it prevents me from having to scrape for time to post when it's just not possible. I just got back the other day from a two day camping trip, the first this summer, and it was a nice break from the norm (despite what appeared to be a bumper crop of mosquitos this year).

In our last post, I mentioned the upcoming reintroduction of some of our sims dating back to our original posts, however, I'd prefer to spend this post taking a look at some of the families native to Pleasantview. Actually, "group" would be a more appropriate term than "family" to describe these particular sims. Today's post takes us to the Omega Ampitheater, home of local garage band, the "Reticulating Splines". Facing the camera, we have blonde lead guitarist, Christopher Spline, and mohawked (is that a word?) Rooster Spline.

Chris is a firm believer in the "shirts are for suckers" school of thought...

And then, we have Shera Spline, the group promoter, and behind her, with the afro, her brother, Fozzie Spline, the drummer. The musicians' different specialties should be fairly obvious (unless you didn't read any of the last couple sentences), they basically stand up on stage and perform, while Shera's job is find people to actually watch them perform. This involves the difficult tasks of greeting passing locals, or heading out to different public hotspots and befriending people with the intention of later calling them to come watch a performance. I know...grueling stuff...

Fozzie: "I don't know, man, 'Eat My Shorts' was kind of a bomb..."

While most of the families in the neighborhood are introduced with the intention of occasionally socializing with others, the "Reticulating Splines", or "Splines", as we will henceforth refer to them, exist for but one purpose - to make the world a better place through music. Oh, and to drink "fruit punch" from the kegs out front. Shera is the only one out of the bunch who is any kind of people person, the remaining members are only allowed on stage or backstage where they live, as they are all about as unfriendly in person as a sim can possibly be. Hey, they're musicians, they don't get paid to make friends (or at all, for that matter).

Shera: "Maybe we should put up a wall so they can't dive off of the stage..."

Of course, when I've got sims visiting public places, nothing keeps the band members from showing up to cause trouble there, but nobody ever said life was supposed to be easy. Anyway, after some heavy duty band practice, Shera decided it was time to throw a launch party of sorts for the band. Granted, it wasn't a very big party because she had to basically pull people off the street to come watch the performance (plus, it just so happened the performance took place the same day the three welcoming comittee members decided to pay a visit). Still, there was a pretty decent turnout. Here, we see Jack Johnson from two posts ago talking to Elvis, whose last name escapes me (no, it's not Presley), then to the far right, Jamal Jameson in the purple suit, talking to Jennifer Smith, who appears to have mugged a clown and stolen his clothes.

...and everyone seems to have forgotten about the band...

Everyone seems so engrossed in their own personal interactions that the band may as well have been a great big radio sitting up on stage. It's been a while since I've been to a concert, but if I remember correctly, half the reason to even attend is to actually SEE the performers, but whatevs. Shera actually seemed to be getting a little too in to the whole promoting thing, and actually let her personal interests take over. It seems Jack Johnson's overwhelming charms had worked their magic on her. Can you blame her?

Jack: "You haven't even seen my junkyard yet, babe!"

Well, it seemed like things were going okay between Jack and Shera for a while, but she eventually either came on too strong, or Jack just wasn't interested, because he started getting annoyed by her advances. I guess the promoter line of work sort of taught Shera to use "hard sell" techniques when promoting herself, and they just weren't doing it for the easy going Jack. It could be that Jack still has a thing for Natalie Jones and isn't interested in playing the field, but again, Jacks' never really expressed a big interest in the whole commitment thing.

Shera: "Well, I didn't want to see your nasty junkyard anyway!"

It's also possible that we're just reading too much in to the whole thing, and forgetting that Jack, while undeniably charming, is also a little weird. Not long after he harshly broke conversation with Shera, he was witnessed getting in to a tickle fight with his good pal, Jamal Jameson. Now, I'm all about brotherly love and hanging out with the guys and such, but a tickle fight in the middle of a rock concert seems a little...odd. Stranger yet, with all the other sims downing party punch like it was going out of style, these two had yet to hit the pineapple, so we can't blame this odd behavior on being "under the influence"...

Jack: "Tee hee! I'm alwas so tickled by you, Jamal!"

Shera actually did have an admirer at the concert in the form of Jamal, although from what I've seen, he admires all the ladies. I swear, he reminds me more and more of Leon Jackson every day. Shera, however, showed no romantic interest in Leon whatsoever, probably because of his alarming resemblencer to her brother, Fozzie. Seriously, if you changed the clothes and darkened Fozzie's skin another shade, he would BE Jamal. Shera eventually forgot about Jack and ignored Jamal in favor of spending most of her time chatting with Jennifer Smith. Shera's job as a promoter involves just getting other sims to like her enough to come to concerts, not to form meaningful lasting relationships, but she was well on her way to doing just that with Jennifer.

Jennifer: "I think the ghost of Elvis is living in my makeup kit!"

I don't know what the deal with that teenage kid pictured above is, but all he did was gripe and moan and keep on having that little pathfinding bubble come up over his head. He was either having trouble finding buried treasure on the property, or couldn't get over the fact that he wasn't allowed backstage into the band's "private quarters". Hey, kid, deal with it. You can't always get what you want! Speaking of Elvis, Pleasantview's resident Elvis wannabe was present at the concert, apparantly for no other reason but to show how unimpressed he was with the performance. Considering his last musical efforts involved singing karaoke at the Free Time Lounge and clearing out most of the patrons, he has very little room to boast.

Don't be cruel, "Elvis"...

Since the main purpose of this whole party was for the "Splines" to get some exposure, and most folks weren't paying them proper attention, the least we can do is take a quick look at the band members in action. Here, we have Christopher, jamming away on his axe...

Christopher: "The next person to ask for 'Free Bird' gets a guitar smashed over their head!"

And then, we have Fozzie and Rooster, who must share a shot together since they lack the coolness Christopher posesses as lead guitarist. Just kidding...or am I...

Drummers and bass guitarists need love too.

Eventually, things started to get a little weird among the spectators. For a while, there was the usual babble, then some talk about flying saucers, then, things really took a turn for the bizarre when Shera mistook Jack for an alien and bit him on the nose (okay, I have no idea what's really happening in that picture, but they ain't sharing a kiss, in case you were wondering). If Jack hadn't already made up his mind about whether or not he was interested in Shera before, you can bet he has now.

Teenage Kid: "Are you sure you won't buy me beer?"

All things considered, the party was a decent success. Yes, there were only about five or six non-group related sims there at any given time, and no, the band didn't have Peter Miller to launch fireworks into the sky and almost blow up innocent observers, but the sims who came wound up staying well into the night and seemed to have fun for the most part (ignore the fact that the "Splines" never once took a break from playing, their comfort isn't really the primary concern when there's actually a crowd willing to stick around and listen to them.) The main goal was for the "Splines" to get their music "out there", and between the playing and Shera's schmoozing visitors, I'd say that job was accomplished admirably.

Jack: "Rawr, that clown over there is HOT!"

At this point, I have no idea what the "topic" of our next post is going to be, I prefer to sort of take a spontaneous approach to these things. More than likely, though, we'll check in on the "returning" sims I spoke of at the start of this post. If you haven't figured out who they are yet, well, I love you, but I can't help you. Spread the love, and I'll see you all next time!

A Sucker Every Minute

2011-06-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gents, I'm pleased to announce that Monkeesims is now on Facebook. Of course, you won't find anything there that you won't see just visiting the site here, but hopefully the Facebook profile will help guide those poor lost souls who have yet to hear of MS into our fold. Anyway, today is my Friday, because I have Wednesday and Thursday off from work, and I know Tuesday night isn't a big deal for most folks, but I'm loving every minute of it. It's been a particularly long week, and not in the enjoyable way (allow me to pause so you all can pull out those violins...)

In our last post, we met Natalie Jones, and began following (in progress) her quest to acquire 20 simultaneous romances in an effort to achieve lifelong happiness. When we left off, she was getting friendly with "Junkyard" Jack Johnson, well on her way to making him her 17th romantic partner. Did she succeed? Well, only one way to find out...let's take a look at the scorecard below...

Seventeen down, three to go!

Yes, Natalie is well on her way there, and Jack just brought her that much closer. Only time (and this blog) will tell who the "lucky" final three will be. But enough about that for now. We have new business to attend to in today's post. It involves another of the families I've introduced to Pleasantview, a family whose members may or may not play a big part in the future of Monkeesims. I speak of the Schreck/Sullen family. Before we meet the actual family members, let's take a look at their home. As with Jack's place, we can learn a lot about this family just by looking at their upstairs bedrooms. Observe.

Was someone coffin upstairs?

Yes, you guessed it - the Schreck/Sullen house doubles as a funeral home! Okay, no it doesn't, if you guessed that they are a family of vampires, give yourself some points (but not too many). The head of the household is a charming chap by the name of Max Schreck, complete with fangs, bald head, and pointy ears, features not to be found on any of my previous vampires (although they should have been). Schreck has but one love in life, his books, which he spends every moment of every waking hour reading.

Yes, ladies, he's single! Rawr!

Yes, Max is a real charmer, it's a wonder some lucky lady hasn't scooped him up already. I guess there's no accounting for taste. Part of it might be the fact that he has never once left the house since he first came to town, and the only woman he ever sees is his "daughter", Alice Sullen. She's only his daughter in the sense that he turned her into a vampire and he's twice her age, no blood relationship though (aside from their mutual love of blood). Alice is a little bit of a cold fish herself, although she's fortunate enough to have hair and non-pointy ears.

Alice: "I could use a bite! Maybe I'll order a pizza delivery guy!"

Alice has a social life every bit as active as Max, which is to say none at all. Heck, the family rarely if ever takes the time to speak to one another, content to keep their noses stuck in their books. At least, that's the case with Max and Alice. There is a third member of the family, Alice's brother, Edward Sullen. I know what you're thinking, but no, I did NOT model Edward after Leslie Nielsen from "Dracula: Dead and Loving It"...

Real men don't sparkle...

Unlike the others, Edward isn't content to just sit on his vampiric keister and watch the world go by. He prefers to live life (or undeath, or whatever in his case) to the fullest. He's got nice threads, a sweet ride, and nothing but time on his hands. The only thing he doesn't have currently is someone to share it all with. Okay, so he has Max and Alice, but that's missing the point.

Edward: "I know flying places as a bat is more fuel efficient, but it's so hard to care!"

This seems like the perfect time to introduce everyone to the number one watering hole in Pleasantview, the Free Time Lounge (and karaoke bar). It's nothing special, just a humble little shack with a dance floor, a bar, and some couches. It originally featured a live DJ, switched to having a juke box, then eventually wound up replacing it with a karaoke machine. Here, we see one of the locals, rap sensation, Bodacious "Z", gracing the lounge patrons with his vocal stylings.

Even heavy cream makeup can't disguise real talent...

For a "professional" singer, "Z" was bad. Very, very bad. Thank goodness there was nobody there paying attention to him. Shortly after "Z" finished torturing the microphone, our very own Edward Sullen came waltzing (not literally, thank goodness) into the bar and pulled up a stool, quietly taking in his fellow patrons. It didn't take much time, since there were only two people there presently besides himself, and it didn't take long before Edward was engaged in conversation with Angela Baker, one of the locals.

Angela: "I'm totally into Muay Thai right now...!"

Things went okay with Edward and Angela. Not life changingly fantastic or anything, but not bad either. She did have a tendency to keep bringing up the topic of sports, something Edward had zero interest in (when you're already dead, the need to utilize athletics to stay in shape is somewhat diminished). Eventually, it was just time to move on, and it just so happened at that moment that our very own Natalie Jones wandered into the Free Time Lounge, in search of either love or liquor (or maybe a little of both). She immediately took an interest in Edward.

Edward: "No, I'm not a vampire, I'm a...a...genie! That's it!"

Despite the fact that I had no control over Natalie (really, who does?), she persisted in interacting with Edward repeatedly. Just when I thought she'd grown tired of telling jokes or making small talk, she'd come back for more. Luckily, she didn't do anything offensive like admire him, like so many AI sims are prone to do. I don't know why, but very few sims seem to actually appreciate admiration from anyone but their dearest friends (yet a backrub is still okay for some reason - go figure). The pair seemed to have pretty similar interests overall, and generally hit it off pretty well. Probably because she never mentioned her desire to have 20 simultaneous partners. Some folks don't want to be just another feather in someone's cap...

Edward: "...and I was like, OMG, lady, who cuts your hair, Leatherface?"

Well, despite her best efforts not to jump the gun, Natalie did eventually bring up the topic of romance, but if she was trying to send a hint, Edward wasn't biting (har, har). It's not that he's not interested in women, because Edward is all about the ladies, nor did he find Natalie repulsive. No, Edward is just one of those rare kinds of guy who likes to take a step back and takes things slowly, preferring to avoid haste at cost of waste. You know, the kind of guy who usually winds up spending Saturday night alone watching reruns of CSI...

Natalie: "You sure you don't want to make out just a tiny bit?"

Yes, ladies and gents, we've got an honest to goodness gentleman on our hands here. Way to go, Ed! Tough luck, Natalie, but guess it's time to keep looking for those "final three". So anyway, that basically wraps up this installment of Monkeesims for the evening. Coming up in a near future post, we find ourselves face to face with a couple who we haven't heard from in almost 80 posts. I won't say who, but I'll give you a hint - the guy's name sounds like a food, and his (dull) courtship posts marked some of our very first entries here at Monkeesims. Stay tuned!

A New Beginning

2011-06-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day! Not only did I get out of work early, but...well, do I really need another reason? That alone is enough, and now, the icing on the proverbial cake is that I'm here once again to grace the long abandoned Monkeesims blog with...what else...Sims! My son is currently busy chugging down a bottle and hopefully napping soon, so hopefully he'll see fit to grant me time to do this post before a diaper or other sort of emergency comes up. =D

Well, it's been an hour since I typed that last paragraph...no sooner did I finish the last line than my son started fussing and I had to put him to sleep. Guess I jinxed myself. Anyway, on to the Sims! As I mentioned previously, the original Monkeesim neighborhoods are no longer on my computer, but their residents live on in our previous posts here (and in the case of a select few sims, they live in the new neighborhood now). While there was something very familiar about spending so much time with the original families, there comes a point when things start to get stale, when they've "grown up" and done everything, and it just seems time for a change. Our new sim adventures take place in Pleasantview, one of the pre-existing cities in TS2. Let's meet our first family, the creatively named Jones family...

Natalie, Harrison, and Carrie

I know. Try to contain your excitement. Harrison and Carrie were the first adult sims I introduced into Pleasantview, along with their teenage daughter, Natalie. Harrison started a semi-successful career in the medical profession, until he got fired on his very first "chance card". Carrie spent the majority of her time keeping the house in order, cooking, and doing all the other fun tasks that basically keep a house running. Natalie reminded me of why I don't usually like having teens in a family - they generally take a lot to keep happy, have school work to do, and don't contribute much of anything to the household...just like in real life (okay, I don't really mean that...or do I?)

Well, Harrison managed to save up a decent amount of money before getting fired, so he didn't immediately go looking for another job, opting instead to spend his time hanging out at home with his family and pursuing his various interests. That may sound like fun for him, but I got pretty bored watching it, and I was forced to resort to extreme measures to make things a bit more interesting, namely, sending Natalie to college (because we all know that going to college just to escape a boring home life always winds up having GREAT results!). I won't bore you with the details of her college career, though, instead, we're going to jump forward post-graduation, and see how Natalie is faring as a grown-up in her own home. Oh, and you can forget you ever saw Harrison or Carrie for now, because they've yet to be seen since Natalie moved out (although the neighbors have yet to report a strange smell coming from their home).

Natalie: "Mom and dad who??"

While Natalie managed to graduate at the top of her class and all that good stuff, very little of her actual time spent at college had anything to do with studying...at least, not school work anyway. You see, Natalie has the bad fortune of being a "romance aspiration sim", my least favorite breed of them all (emphasis on the word "breed"). Being sort of a serial monogomist myself, I've always found myself trying to pair my sims with one other significant other at any given time (although we all know there have been plenty of exceptions to that rule here in the past). Romance sims aren't happy with monogomy, though, and even if their in a happy relationship with one other sim, they are constantly aspiring to "make out" or "woo-hoo" with multiple other sims, which can of course create problems.

Natalie: "I wonder who I'll make out with today?"

I've tried keeping romance sims before, but it's so hard to keep them happy without them having to "cheat" or having them come off as kind of slutty (I don't know what else you can say about someone who aspires to have 20 simultaneous lovers as their life-long aspiration). However, I do love a good challenge, so I decided to let Natalie stay single and pursue her "romantic" ambitions. Her parents would be so proud. One thing I failed to anticipate though prior to pursuing Natalie's "20 simultaneous lovers" ambition was the fact that there weren't a whole lot of eligible sims in Pleasantview to begin with, and about half of the sims I'd added to the town were women. Not to be one to stand in the way of Natalie's dream, though, I decided to let her "expand her options", and allow some hens into her henhouse as well as co...roosters, if you know what I mean (and I think you do). It was for the greater good, after all.

At last count, Natalie had 16 lovers on the hook, none of whom had discovered each other, and it was getting exhausting. It got to the point where she was needing to spend almost an entire day on the phone keeping existing relationship levels high, while having less and less time to devote to finding new "conquests". It got to where it was feeling a lot more like work than fun, and just reading about it now is even tiring me out a little. Luckily, there's more to this story than Natalie, so let's move on, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jack Johnson!

Who says an old car hood can't make an attractive dining surface?

I'm not talking about the singer, obviously, I don't care for him that much and really have no idea what he looks like. No, this is Jack Johnson, the most easy going sim in Pleasantview, Archduke of doing nothing, Lord of the listless. He arrived in the neighborhood around the same time I was getting tired of keeping up with the work involved in realizing Natalie's dream. He represents the opposite of hard work and ambition, spending his days pursuing fun and whatever "goal" happens to tickle his fancy. It's impossible to talk about Jack though without first discussing his living conditions. Remember our post from way back when that featured my sim, Shaggy Rogers, who lived at the abandoned public pool? Well, Jack lives at an abandoned park/playground, which isn't that much better. Observe...

Jack is a collector of sorts. And by "sorts", we mean junk.

It's hard to truly capture the majesty of Jack's home in such a small picture, but you get the general idea. His yard has the look of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, minus the radioactive mutant survivors. The former bathroom now serves as the actual "house" on the lot, complete with all of the comforts of prison.

It's a gross place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

The truly strange thing about Jack's property is this: while to your average human observer, the place looks like a dump, Jack and visitors to the property consider the place an aesthetic paradise. I guess the game only pays attention to the overall value of the various "decorations" on the lot, and takes no notice of the questionable arrangement or use of them. Aside from a few random items just put there for looks (like the cars), most of the litter in Jack's yard actually serves a useful purpose at one point or another, despite the fact that it looks like a tornado was responsible for the layout. As night begins to fall, Jack's humble domain is transformed from private junkyard into Pleasantview party central...

So much better than partying at the actual dump!

Yes, despite a selection of much nicer places to hang out in town (not by much, I'll admit), the majority of the "in" crowd sims were always too happy to accept the nightly invite to come hang out at Jack's place. This probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, I've known plenty of people who would sit smack dab in the middle of a giant pile of elephant dung if it meant free booze, and Jack always had plenty of "party punch" on hand. The way people suck the stuff down, it's a good thing none of Jack's friends ever drive to these parties (come to think of it, I believe there is only one actual sim-owned car in the entire neighborhood, so most sims don't have much of a choice). The punch was only one of the major attractions, the other being the "bubble blowing" machine.

"This party totally blows...bubbles!"

The two guys on the right side of the bubble machine there are Jesse and Elvis, and on the left, we have Jack, and a fella who bears an uncanny resemblence to Leon Jackson (that's not his name, though, I honestly don't remember who he is, not that it matters at Jack's place). Despite my inability to remember his name, the Leon looking guy is actually one of the more frequent visitors to Jack's pad, not just during the evening parties, but during the more subdued daylight hours as well, during which he and Jack would sit across from one another and discuss the state of the economy and exchange nuggets of philosophical wisdom (okay, that last part is total crap, but he does stop by). Another of Jack's actual friends is his good pal, Butto Cooper, pictured below eating rotten pizza by candlelight...

Butto: "Some call it rotten...I call it extra flavorful!"

Jack doesn't pick his friends based on their eating habits, as you can probably tell, although he has very little room to poke fun at anyone else for anything based on...well, everything about him. Now, when Jack throws his parties, he doesn't do it as one might expect with the "throw party" action, because then everyone leaves after only a few minutes. No, sir, Jack places each call individually, extending his invite personally, and if someone he invites wants to bring along a friend, well, all the better. One of his friends, Dale Cooper, did just that, and the friend he brought along was none other than our own Natalie Jones. Funny thing too, because I don't recall her and Dale ever meeting while I was playing her, seeing as how he's one of the few remaining sims in town she hasn't bedded.

Natalie: "I'm sleepy. Wanna' go to bed?"

I joke about Natalie, but despite her unsavory aspirations and less than stellar local reputation in Pleasantview, she's one of my favorite sims. Despite Dale constantly cheering on Natalie while she played pinball, it actually wasn't enough to convince her to start up a romance with him. Wow, if that doesn't do it, what WILL? Natalie actually went home before a lot of the party goers, due to the late hour, and the fact that with 14 other people there, it was impossible to get to the bathroom without it being occupied. The next morning, however, while Jack was outside looking at the monumental mess of cups and half eaten pizza in his "yard", Natalie happened to walk by, and was greeted by Jack. There was a bit of casual conversation, then that's when the magic happened...

Jack: "Hey, there's something on your butt...my hand!"

Charming, eh? It's like something out of Romeo and Juliet. I expected Natalie to give Jack "Summer teeth" for the little @$$ grab maneuver (you know..."summer" over here and "summer" over there...), but apparently, one of the many ways to Natalie's heart is through her butt. That sounds bad, but you know what I mean. Now, while Natalie has been in (and technically is still in) many relationships in Pleasantview, she initiated the majority of them, and for the most part, they were instigated with the intention of getting closer to that "20 lovers" goal. Jack was the first to actually initiate things with her, and the results were fast and undeniable.

Jack: "So wadda' you say, do I get to be number 17?"

Yes, even on Jack's grass free, dusty, trash strewn yard, where nothing else can grow, love is capable of blooming. The question is, is it the real deal, or is Natalie just smitten by the fact that for once, someone has put the moves on her instead of the other way around? Will she forgo her mission to achieve her life-long dream of having 20 simultaneous partners, or will she settle down and make something of what she has with Jack? Am I reading way too much in to this, considering they only met one day prior to Jack putting the moves on her? Only time will tell!

Well, it feels good to have posted again here, and I plan to do it again soon, though not necessarily on a daily basis. Next time, we'll look at some of the other locals I've added to Pleasantview, and see how their paths unexpectedly intertwine...or something like that. Until then, peace and simminess to all!

A Future for Monkeesims?

2011-06-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been quite some time since I put fingers to keyboard and graced these pages with anything new, and for fairly good reasons. The biggest reason, of course, is that the Sims 2 was accidentally erased from my computer some time ago, and I lacked the necessary discs to get it up and going again *sniff*. The second reason is that I have a one year old now, who's occupied a lot of my time when I'm not at work these days, time I'd have normally spent playing computer games back in the day (such as our beloved Sims 2). Well, things change, right? =)

My much younger brother came to visit a few months ago and stayed with us for quite some time (an adventure that would have made a great Sims post if only it had happened to his sim likeness rather than the real him). He brought his Sims 2 discs with him, and got me interested in playing again. There's something about the game I really love that just never gets old. Maybe it's the simulated human drama. Maybe it's the triumph of the simulated struggle for survival. Or maybe I just really enjoy mercilessly manipulating the lives of tiny simulated people. Whatever the reason (I'm going with the latter), there's something that keeps bringing me back.

"But Majik", you say, with a look of disbelief, "people are playing the Sims 3 now, Sims 2 is old news, baby!" Well, old it may be, but I've yet to move on to the Sims 3, mainly due to hardware issues (aka ancient sucky computer) and lack of funds to purchase the new base game and a bunch of expansions. Yes, TS2 is good enough for yours truly, and it's been good enough for the majority of the existing Monkeesims posts, so why mess with a good thing?

Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that I've currently begun populating Pleasantview with my own "unique" residents, and the drama is beginning to unfold, to the point where I've been feeling the sim blogging bug rearing it's head to bite me. As of now, the only Sims from my originally featured neighborhoods are Marty and Kitty Wilson, everyone else is brand new. But don't worry, new doesn't necessarily have to mean boring (my Sims all know I demand a certain level of drama from each of them, otherwise they get "the bin").

So, look for Monkeesims to hopefully start getting updates very soon here again. My son still takes up a good deal of my time, and my wife uses our PC quite a bit these days for her photo related blogging and business, but despite those things, I should still be able to find time to get a post up here and there, after all, doing this is what I love (and hopefully there are others who still feel the same way who will stumble across these hallowed pages and get something out of it). =D

The Pretty People

2010-02-25T23:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been a really long time since I last posted here. Not by choice, but since my last post, I've moved from Missouri to Nebraska (very little change there, one midwestern state looks very much like another for the most part, except there is no good place to hike out here), I work a completely different job now, and my wife is pregnant with our first child, due in June. Things have been pretty nutso, and I haven't had a chance to play the Sims recently, but I've been meaning to get this last post up for some time now, and I hate to leave it unposted (and here's hoping there's still someone out there besides me who still visits the site, it hasn't been very well advertised lately).

As I mentioned previously, in both the Sims 1 and Sims 2, while the majority of the families in any given neighborhood were usually created by me, my wife always had a couple tucked away here and there that she would play from time to time (on those rare occasions when I wasn't hogging the computer). She would always focus on making nice, normal people in nice normal houses with nice normal jobs and, well, you get the picture. I'd tried doing that myself a few times here and there, but the natural weird tendencies of my sims and my own diabolical desire to see them in weird situations always seemed to get the best of me. Eventually, after one werewolf and vampire too many in our most heavily populated Sims 2 neighborhood, my wife decided things had just gotten too weird, and chose to create an entirely new neighborhood, totally seperate from "the weird families" (we know them as the Wilsons, Jacksons, Hartmans, and so forth). This new oasis from weirdness was dubbed "Lush Canyon", and thus, the wife went to work busily creating new normal families in new normal houses. Well, I started to feel a little dejected not being allowed to take part in this new utopia, so I begged for an opportunity to take part in its creation, promising to omit all forms of weirdness from my families and keep things as sane as possible. Did I succeed? Well...

The first trick to creating any neighborhood is designing the families. When I first sat down and realized that I needed to produce not one but several different households worth of sims in a relatively short amount of time, I started feeling a little overwhelmed. I decided since the houses were supposed to be "normal" anyhow, I'd just use some of the pre-fashioned ones available for purchase. The first house I chose was a ridiculously huge mansion, so large that it choked my computer's processors and it was nearly impossible to find the sims who lived there without clicking on their faces. Since the house was so huge, it meant that obviously rich people lived there, and since everyone knows that rich people always have last names that highlight how much money they have, I dubbed my first family the Fortune family.

"Will you hurry up and take the dang picture already?"

You'll notice signs of what I like to refer to as "simmers' block" with a few of these sims. For example, the girl to the far left is an obvious clone of Katrina Wilson from my old neighborhood, and maybe not so obvious are the two folks in the middle who are non-vampire clones of Melissa and Nicholas Everdark. I figured if I was going to have to start anew in a weird neighborhood, it would be nice to have some familiar faces. Not that I saw them for very long. The huge size of the Fortune family house made it a big pain in the butt to play, and nobody likes just sitting around watching rich people have fun (well, maybe they do, or we wouldn't have reality shows, but I don't). Next, I decided to challenge myself to create at least one couple with no similarity to anyone I'd created before. Below, we see the result, in the form of Kendal and Alan Thompson.

Kendal and Alan celebrate "Gray and White Day" at the Thompson home.

I know, making a "normal" family doesn't mean having to choose boring clothes, but I honestly wasn't shooting for the monochrome look with the couple. Despite a pretty bland wardrobe, Kendal and Alan managed to establish a fairly colorful existence by opening a cyber-cafe named "Cyber Punk'd" (witty now, but decades from now when everyone has forgotten Ashton Kutcher, well, forget it). I managed to keep my original promise, and Kendal and Alan engaged in no strange behavior and underwent no appearance altering mutations. Having a cyber-cafe was a good beginning business-wise, but let's face it, that's not everybody's "scene", and I was starting to miss Jam Land from the old neighborhood. Well, importing Jam Land to Lush Canyon was no problem, but finding the proper family to own the business was a different story entirely. I set about creating yet another family, doing my best to make sure that once again everyone was "normal" and original. Or did I...

"Marty Wilson? I've never heard of him!"

Okay, so yes, there's a slightly more tan Marty Wilson clone in the family, but it's not actually Marty. See here we have the Williams family, consisting of Joey, Corina, and Corey Williams. When it comes to having a fun loving bum in the family, you can't go wrong with the Marty Wilson look. Corey took on the mantle of owner of the new Jam Land, with Joey (his sister) serving as bartender and Corina (his girlfriend) as the greeter or bouncer or whatever that person who works the door and is supposed to entice people in but always scares them away instead is. Establishing a bar in town was a huge step, because let's face it, I never really took advantage of any of the other businesses in the old neighborhood quite like I did with Jam Land, and sims who have a local bar are happy sims (especially in a place called "Lush" Canyon). Despite some unethically high admission charges and questionable groping on the dance floor, nothing strange or unusual happened with the Williams family, thus, my promise of "normalcy" continued to be kept. At this point, I decided one more family was needed, because even with the families my wife had created (not pictured), there just weren't enough locals to really get a good turnout at Jam Land. And so, in order to remedy this, I imported the MacGregor farm from the old neighborhood and moved in the Lopez family. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone can spot the "clone" in the picture below...

Good lord, what's with these people and all the gray?

Yes, I know, it's an obvious clone of Antonio Wilson, but I made sure to mix things up a bit, so you're actually looking at Tony Lopez. Totally different. By this point, I'd proven to myself that I was more than capable of creating normal looking sims and stealing them normal houses to plop them down into, that part wasn't really hard. By creating so many families so quickly, though, I wasn't spending a lot of time in any one house, so that might have made avoiding weirdness a little easier. About this time, when I was beginning to grow a little tired of my "normal" families, fate intervened, and I finally purchased the University expansion for TS2, which, oddly, I'd been putting off buying for a long time. I'd already installed a bunch of the other expansions, but for some reason, I didn't think there would be anything I'd need from an expansion almost entirely based on the experience of going to college (something I'd lived first hand for almost seven years). Boy, how wrong I was. My first college sim, Reggie Cooper, took full advantage of the "college experience", managing to create plenty of amusing chaos while somehow still getting good grades. In the end, he graduated with honors, and even married an NPC cheerleader named Kelly. Sounds great, right? Well, it seemed that way at first, but once Reggie and Kelly moved to Lush Canyon, Kelly revealed that she would only leave the house wearing a llama mascot suit that she'd never once worn during her time in college. What the hell?

Kelly: "How could you let me leave the house without my llama suit?!"

Thanks to the miracle of cheats, I forced Kelly to take off the llama suit for that picture, although it probably would have been funnier to picture her with it on. Doh. Well, one college graduate was not enough for me, and as soon as the Coopers had gotten established in Lush Canyon, I went about sending off another student, William Birkin. William turned out to be something of a genius, and directed his studies toward the natural sciences and the study of a girl named Gina he met living in his dorm (how convenient is that?). After a stellar career of acing all of his classes, hanging out with professors during his free time (loser), and proposing to Gina, William graduated and became a natural scientist. As you may have guessed, he wound up living in Lush Canyon, where despite Gina's best efforts to keep him busy and my building him a duplicate of the house I lived in at the time, William began finding himself understimulated and looking for ways to express his creativity...

William: "I find myself understimulated and looking for ways to express my creativity!"

I can't say that I blame him. I lived in that very same house before with similar results, only I had the sims to turn to, and William seemed to have little or no interest in playing the computer games on the PC in his home (which, ironically, appeared to be The Sims). Despite the pity I felt for William and his plight, as you'll recall, I'd made a promise before moving my first family into Lush Canyon that there would be no weirdness going on, and I intended to keep that promise. I decided to spend more time with the Birkin family, since they seemed to need more help than others finding a way to derive meaning from their lives. And so, I sent them off to Jam Land in an effort to force them to meet other people and forget what a boring, uninspired life they themselves had achieved. William did manage to make a few friends, one of whom you may recognize as Rinoa Hartman from the old neighborhood. Yes, that's the real Rinoa. I figured she'd been through too much with her old friends and neighbors, and deserved a fresh start, even if it meant being moved to dull...er...Lush Canyon.

William: "What do you mean, 'at ease'? You're the one who looks like they need to relax..."

Looking at the picture of Rinoa above, you'd scarcely believe she was ever the fickle, guy crazy basket case she started life in the Monkeesim world as, but trust me, she still is. Unfortunately for her, I didn't spend a great deal of time monitoring her in her house, so she didn't get to enjoy the same degree of drama in Lush Canyon that she'd experienced in the former neighborhood. Anyway, while William had a decent time socializing with the other Jam Land patrons, and Gina spent the whole time playing the drums and talking to nobody, the outting eventually came to an end, and it was time to head back home to seek amusement. The amusement came in the form of the giant "bubble blower" the couple had out on their lawn. I know I said the house was a replica of my own, but I'd like to amend that by saying I never had a bubble smoking machine on my lawn or a cow plant fenced in by the side of my house. Just in case that needed saying...

William: "Hmmm. No, I don't think THAT'S supposed to happen!"

William's career as a natural scientist was raking in the bucks. He and Gina had the whole catalog of new goodies from the University expansion to play around with, and play they did, yet somehow, things felt somehow empty for the couple. The burden of living a "normal" life in a "normal" town was just too much to bear, and William began searching desperately for some way, ANY way to spice things up a bit. Well, the answer eventually hit him, and he was quick to pass on his brilliant plan to Gina.

William: "I think it's time we expand this family of ours!"

Sounds like a great idea, right? Well, surely you know me well enough from past posts to know that if it was just a simple matter of the couple reproducing through normal means like so many of our normal families, that wouldn't be terribly exciting or unique. No, William's idea of how to increase the size of his family was a little different from what most people would expect, and actually involved decreasing the size of the local population a little bit. It resulted in some tell-tale tombstones out on his patio, but hey, it was in the name of science, so it's all good, right? Now I know what you're thinking - "offing" local sims sort of counts as deviant or "abnormal" behavior, right? Well, William wasn't offing sims just for the heck of it, he'd had to dispose of a werewolf, a vampire, a zombie, and an alien that had "somehow" found their way into the neighborhood. See, he was just doing his bit to keep things "normal"...

What would Martha Stewart say about their taste in patio decorations?

Like I mentioned before, William was a natural scientist, and a very gifted one. As such, he'd been given a cow plant specimen, which he was using to "humanely" dispose of the aforementioned freaks. Okay, so it was he who brought them into town in the first place (with my help obviously), which was expressly forbidden, but as long as William's "test subjects" were disposed of before my wife spent time using her families, there was very little risk of discovery (I used to have to beg her to look at even my most far out houses I constructed, the chances of her dropping in on William's house, noticing the tombstones, and trying to resurrect those buried beneath were not only slim, but a violation of her own rules against zombies). Keeping the cow plant itself posed its' own set of risks. When William first moved into the house, right after graduation, he threw a big party, and one of his former college sweethearts by the name of Suzie Wade was eaten by the plant, never to return. Gina was constantly playing around in the cow plant pen when nobody was watching. Luckily, William was pretty good about making sure it was never hungry.

Gina: "Pretty please, can I have some cake?"

By now, you must surely be wondering what's behind William's weirdness and blatant disregard for the founding principals of Lush Canyon. Well, don't worry, he's not some sort of hobby serial killer or psychotic lunatic (not if you ask him, anyway). No, all of his efforts were devoted to the creation of the "perfect being". The lack of werewolves, zombies, and other freaks in Lush Canyon resulted in William becoming more curious than ever about the properties of such creatures, and he found himself wondering what would be the result of an experiment designed to combine the attributes of a vampire, werewolf and zombie all into a single creature (he played around with the idea of adding alien DNA to the mix, but threw out the idea and the alien specimen along with it). The experiment was more or less a success, and the end result..."Mr X".

If nothing else, he has a future in the Blue Man Group.

The road to creating "Mr X" was not an easy one. William had to initially find someone dumb enough to volunteer to become "X" in the first place, probably the toughest part. After that, it was just a simple matter of subjecting "X" to the plastic surgery machine William stole from the secret society when he was in college to give him the right look, subjecting "X" to attacks from both a werewolf and vampire, then feeding him to the cow plant so he could be brought back as a low budget zombie (using the resurrection machine William also stole from the secret society). The end result was an amazing being with the power to "bleh", "grrrrr", turn into a bat, bite AND savage people, and walk like either a zombie or a werewolf, depending on the time of day. Of course, his major weakness was the need to sleep his days away in a coffin, but hey, you can't have it all. Despite all these cool powers, "X" spent most of his time standing around making zombie noises, or angrily chastising William for being the one to bring him back to life. Man, what an ingrate. Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of "X" was his werewolf form. When it came time for his "transformation" each day, rather than fully transform, he simply adopted the walk and mannerisms of a werewolf and sprouted a really bad looking head of hair...

Mr X: "I'm not only a member of Hair Club for Freaks, I'm the president!"

You'll notice above that despite the presence of the Birkins' new ghoulish blue housemate, there were still guests aplenty, more than happy to drop by and eat free food and use the toilet and hang out, pretending most of the time that "X" wasn't there. Geez, if a guy can't get some attention by being part werewolf, part vampire and part zombie, then forget about it. Actually, "X" usually got along pretty well with most of the visitors to the house, it was William he really didn't like. Call it Dr Frankestein syndrome. Thankfully, aside from a lot of angry poking and verbal abuse, there was nothing "X" could do to cause William any form of long term damage, he just contented himself with short term abuse whenever he could find time for it. William, being the smart fellow he is, eventually realized that he had to either work to repair their relationship, or feed "X" to the cow plant once and for all, and he wasn't about to waste all his hard work. And so, after seemingly endless failed friendly interactions, things finally began to improve between William and "Mr X" to the point where they could be in the same room without fighting or "X" bringing up the whole "hey, you turned me into a freak" line of conversation. William decided to celebrate this breakthrough with a little freestyle rap.

Zombie Ghost: "Can you keep it down in here? This racket could wake the dead!"

Wow, that picture above is a real nostalgic blast from the past for me. That's pretty much the view the real me used to see about a year ago coming through my front door, minus "Mr X", the Birkins, and the zombie ghost. Anyway, the development of "Mr X" was deemed a resounding success by William, and it satisfied his desire to express his creativity. With that out of the way, William returned to focusing primarily on his work and advancing his career as a natural scientist. All seemed to be going well until William hit the top of the career ladder. Yes, you heard me right. I've seen some jobs with weird hours and weird costumes at the higher levels, but I was totally unprepared for the horrors of the Ecological Guru job. For starters, William was gone for days at a time when he went to work, which thankfully for Gina, was only once a week. The real kicker was the outfit for the job, a strategically placed leaf over his butt and his "junk". Oh, and did I mention he would take off up into the air and fly out of sight when it was time to go to work? I suppose his options were limited, I mean, who would want to carpool with someone dressed like that?

William: "Is this one of those 'no shirt, no shoes, no service' places?"

Ugh. Disturbing on so many levels. "Mr X" was creepy, but Ecological Guru was a whole new kind of creepy, but at the same time, it affirmed my belief that no matter how hard you may try to avoid "weirdness" in the world of the sims, it will still find you. When I visited some of the public hotspots as some of the other families in town, I noticed William wandering around in public quite frequently in his "nearly naked guru gear", and figured my wife would probably think I'd done something to intentionally violate the "no weirdness" code, and so, despite some thoughts about disposing of "Mr X" properly before she had a chance to see him randomly wandering the town, "X" was allowed to survive and fend for himself should she encounter him. Hey, they can't all look like underwear models...

Well, this officially brings an end to my remaining unposted Sims 2 material. As for the future of Monkeesims, I refuse to ever say for certain that we've reached an end. I may find myself someday moving on to Sims 3, or I could just as easily reinstall Sims 2 and do some damage there. I still visit this site myself and sometimes go as far back as the very earliest posts (stomaching the initial Stu Miller posts is rough sometimes, but I do it for the love of the sims). It's my hope that either some new folks stumble across this site, or that there are others like me who don't mind rereading some of the wacked-out moments in Monkeesim history. Whatever the case, feel free to drop me a line! As always, I love hearing from you, and hope to have something new to post here at some point. Until then, may the sims be with you! ;-)

Taking a Break

2008-07-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I hate to see things come to a screeching halt here again, but alas, despite my best efforts, I've found myself unable to find the time to write the last (for a while) post I mentioned in our most recent entry. I made it a little ways through it, but I've spent so much time packing and moving stuff the past few weeks, and I've been staying at my parents' house with low-speed internet access that's more frustration than it's worth. Now, I've got a flight to catch today to Nebraska for the big move, so again, no post. I'm not sure what the internet situation will be when I get there, so while I'd still like to post the material I do have whenever possible, I'm not quite sure when that will be.

Anyway, this move has been a long time coming, so while I'm not happy that it's meant a reduction in my Sims playing or posting here, I will be glad to have it over with so I can get started on a new life in a new place. Oh, plus, my wife has already been moved for over a month now. so it will be nice to see her again! Anyway, I appreciate all the great feedback I've gotten by way of email and comments here in regard to the site, and I'll have something up here again as soon as possible. Sorry for the mostly boring, picture-free post, and I hope to have something much more interesting up here soon! Until then, peace and love to one and all!

~Majik Monkee~

Wedding Belles

2008-06-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Morning, everyone! Hope everybody is having a great day. I've never wanted less to be at work than I do today, but nobody is paying me for sitting on my butt doing nothing at home yet, so I don't have much of a choice. It is rather beautiful outside, and I can see a window from where I sit at my job, so my mind is anywhere but on my work. These last couple of weeks have been so busy with the pre-moving stuff, I really don't know which end is up, I just know I like being at home doing nothing and being left alone (which never happens, but that's another story).

Bet you can't tell by the title of this post where this thing is going. Some time ago, shortly after Katrina Wilson's son Seth was born and Leon Hartman started hanging around the young Wilsons' home, Antonio Wilson and his fiancé, Aimee Andrews, decided it was time to move out and have a place to themselves finally (ever since she got engaged to Antonio, Aimee had been living with Mia Kay and Katrina as well). Aimee made most of the money when she lived with the rest of the family, but she didn't get to take it with her, so I had no qualms about giving them a "donation" to make the couple's new digs as nice as possible. The new house actually wound up being one of my favorites I've built, due in no small part I'm sure to the indoor hot tub room.

Aimee: "Anything is better than that dump we moved out of!"
The house was built from scratch, a practice I try to avoid most of the time because my own architectural and decorating sensibilities aren't the greatest. I mean, I know how to throw some furniture around and pick a wall paper and carpet color, but actually designing the structure those things go into is a bit tricky for me for some reason. Things went pretty well this time, though, I must have learned something from all those failed building attempts that I still forced my poor sims to live in. The neighbors really seemed to dig the place, and were quick to drop by for a dip in the indoor hot tub and several bowls full of food that was actually intended for Antonio and Aimee, but whatever…first come first serve I guess.

Tom: "Who's house is this again anyway?"
The couple didn't seem to mind having a bunch of guests hanging around the place making a mess of things, eating all the food, and generally taking up space. In a way, it was just like having Katrina and Mia Kay back again, and clearly Antonio and Aimee were already starting to miss having them around. Well, maybe. Aside from her parents, Clarence and Amy, the Wilsons were the closest thing Aimee ever had to family, with the exception of Antonio, who we hope she has no "brotherly" feelings for. Not having any other full time family members in the house meant more time for doing things together alone - things like Aimee barbecuing while Antonio reclined on the swing looking bored.

Antonio: "How much longer on this ribs, babe, I'm exhausted?!"
In theory, the whole idea of having a hot tub indoors seemed like a great one. Put into practice, a few problems seemed to arise. For starters, with the hot tub inside, most of the time anyone got out, they left a sloppy puddle that needed to be cleaned up. Another problem was the fact that visiting sims have a tendency to stick around in the hot tub all night long, which doesn't matter so much when the hot tub is outside and the guests can be ignored by those inside the house, but is a whole different story when the hot tub is indoors. Aimee and Antonio noticed this, and tried the not-so subtle hint of turning out all the indoor lights, but the visitors mistook this for an effort to create some sort of relaxing mood…

Tom: "I sure did need this soak - I've got a serious case of tennis elbow going on!"
One down side to moving to a new house was the fact that Antonio and Aimee only had access to the clothes they were wearing when they moved. Granted, the only alternate outfits Aimee had access to were the clothes she'd taken when she moved out of her parents' house and whatever Katrina and Mia Kay owned, but at least that was something. With a decided lack of other things to do, Aimee decided it was time to go out and buy a bunch of new clothes that she would probably never wear (certain sims of mine own dozens of shirts, multiple pairs of paints, and numerous outfits, yet never change their clothes). The shopping experience itself was half the fun for Aimee, though, especially when she decided to shop in her swimwear.

Aimee: "Yeah, my one other outfit was dirty..."
Antonio was starting to miss the old gang a bit. Aimee was just friends with Katrina and Mia Kay, but if you recall, Antonio is Katrina's uncle, so there was something of a family tie there. Thankfully, due to her predictable schedule of either being at home doing nothing or working at Radio Shock, Antonio didn't have any trouble finding her. They stood around and chatted about old times like the time Mia Kay accidentally killed Lawrence Madrox and the time when everyone though Homie D. Klown was her baby's father. It's a good thing Amy Andrews is Katrina's boss, because Amy is nice enough not to care about Katrina standing around chatting with Antonio or Leon or whoever else while still on the clock. If only we all had it that easy.

Katrina: "What have I been doing? Oh, the usual…absolutely nothing!"
Well, Antonio and Aimee had come for reasons other than shooting the everyday breeze and shopping for robots (although robots were purchased). It turns out, after what seemed like an eternity, Antonio and Aimee had decided the time had finally come to actually tie the knot instead of just staying engaged forever. Katrina and Mia Kay were the first to find out about the upcoming wedding, and Mia Kay seemed particularly excited about it, since she'd never been to one (she was at school during Marty and Kitty's wedding when she lived at the original Wilson house, and wasn't born when her parents had their "secret wedding" next to the arcade machines).

Mia Kay: "Shouldn't she have told her mom before she told us?"
Well, there seemed very little point in wasting time doing a lot of planning prior to the wedding. The great thing about the sim world is once something is purchased, there's no annoying wait for it to arrive, making the set up for the wedding ridiculously easy. The guest list was a little more complicated, but not much. Antonio invited his sister and brother-in-law, Kitty and Marty, and of course Katrina and Mia Kay, and his good buddy Austyn Strange. Aimee invited her parents, Clarence and Amy, and Vyn Andrews (formerly Daniels), though her brother and Vyn's husband, Aiden, was strangely absent.

Austyn: "So, are you ready to mix it up?"
People say that weddings are a great place to meet and hook up with a date, but that was definitely not the case at the Wilson/Andrews wedding. Most of the attendees were either related or involved with someone else, it seems Austyn was the only single guy present, and he's no Owen Wilson from "Wedding Crashers". Anyway, the initial phase of the wedding went off without a hitch (no pun intended), and Antonio and Aimee were finally wed under the moonlight in their somewhat cramped back yard. It had been a long time coming, although nobody can boast a longer wait than Kammy Wilson waiting for that @#$% Kevin to finally pop the question.

Antonio: "I can't believe those roses are losing their petals already! What a rip-off!"
At a lot of the weddings that have taken place since the TS2 era, a bunch of the guests have tried to run off right after the ceremony without even sticking around to party, but that didn't seem to be a problem this time around. Maybe it's because Antonio and Aimee are so well loved by everyone…or maybe it was simply the lure of the indoor hot tub. Whatever the case, the place was hoppin' during the reception, and everyone stuck around to make sure they got their share of the free booze and a chance to toast the happy couple (while the happy couple just got toasted). I just can't figure out why in the pic below, it looks like Clarence and Antonio are standing arm in arm - maybe a little overly friendly behavior inspired by the influx of booze.

Katrina seems to be toasting the wrong Amy...
Of all the sim weddings that have taken place in the Monkeesim neighborhood, this one turned out to be the one that felt the most like a wedding. Usually, the sims either get married in private and skip the guest part entirely, or guests are invited and try to take off right after the ceremony, or they stick around afterward looking bored. Not this time, though - everyone seemed to be having a wild time, and the room was alive with people chattering and attempting to shake it out on the dance floor (emphasis on the "attempting" part) and generally just being crazy. Meanwhile, Antonio and Aimee were enjoying a more reserved sort of fun, sharing a slow dance together, the first I think they've ever had together.

Vyn: "So anyway, there I was, locked inside this safe…"
Well, all good things must come to an end, and it wasn't long before things started to die down a bit and folks started making excuses to leave. Eventually, the black limo showed up to take the couple on what I like to call the "magical mystery ride", thus named because it's never fully explained where the couples that get in the limo go or what they do (I don't know if it's supposed to be a trip around the block or the world's shortest honeymoon or what). People really started to get the hint when the happy couple took off that maybe it was time for them to do the same (nobody wanted to be around when they got back, in case help was needed cleaning up).

Antonio: "I expected Drew Carrey to get out when the limo pulled up!"
Whatever they were actually off doing, Antonio and Aimee weren't ready to turn in just yet when they got back (despite the fact that the sun was starting to come up). They decided the perfect end to their more or less perfect day would be to run out and grab an early morning bite to eat at Kitty's Korner, since Kitty had been nice enough to show up at the wedding (we can only imagine how badly Kitty herself was dragging, having been at the wedding party so late). Of course, if Kitty wanted to be really nice, she would have offered some sort of discount for the newlyweds, but that didn't happen. Lacking the brain power to pick something from the menu themselves, the couple ordered the chef's special (which usually turns out to be a burned toaster pastry).

Antonio: "With my crystal ball I have foreseen…eggs Benedict!"
Well, there you have it - after what seemed to be a really long wait for Aimee, she and Antonio finally tied the knot. Of course, since they'd already been living on their own in the new house for a bit, not much changed besides Aimee's last name, adding yet another Wilson to the already huge number living in the neighborhood (second only to the number of Hartmans living in town). After their little post-wedding day breakfast, Antonio wandered off to go find the restroom. When I looked to see what Aimee was doing, I found her enjoying a baked Alaska she didn't even order with a ninja.

Aimee: "Doesn't that mask get soaked when you drink through it?"
Well, that's a wrap for now, kids! My computer is currently in the lovely state of Nebraska, and basically, I'm not at the moment. I do have material for another post, though, after which we'll be experiencing another "break" from the action here for a while till things get settled (I know, I don't like them either). Next up here, we'll be giving the traditional Monkeesim residents a break as we look in on an entirely different neighborhood, the frightening land of "normal people". Join us next time for our semi-final post, "The Pretty People". See you then!

Jammin' With the Daniels

2008-05-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

I know there's never a need to apologize for long delays in posts here, after all, it's not a prime-time sitcom or anything with an exact schedule. However, I do like to let my readers know what's going on when one minute I'm posting every day or so and the next, no posts at all. So, here's the deal - I've been majorly ill for about a week AND trying to pack up every item in my house for an upcoming move, and I've had my hands full (literally most of the time). I'm just glad to be doing this here and now, because blogging her is a little bit of a release for me, and believe me, I need the release right now. And so, without further delay, here's the good stuff...

Well, the Daniels family has had a weird last couple of posts, even weirder than usual. To recap, the family took on Austyn Strange and Debbie Kearney as "boarders", Jack Daniels died, Debbie fell in love with Alex Kent, Regina activated a servo named Jack who fell in love with Regina and Debbie, and Jack wound up beating up Alex out of jealousy before being shut down by Regina. So much has changed since the earliest days of the Daniels clan, Regina is the only one who even has that last name anymore, the house has basically just become a boarding house for loonies. Luckily, with the exception of "robo Jack", all the loonies at least get along.

Austyn: "Seriously, you just haven't had chili until you've tried MY fabulous chili!"
Regina was nice enough to keep Jack deactivated almost all of the time, realizing that it would take a lot more than a robot wearing a tattered jacket to fill in for her late husband. Of course, this prevented her and robo Jack from fully realizing any potential for a relationship, but from my perspective, that's a VERY good thing (the whole kissing robots thing just makes me feel a little creepy, and I'm a huge sci-fi fan even). Her sacrifice wasn't for nothing, though, as it gave Alex the freedom he needed to further solidify his relationship with Debbie. Alex and Debbie had been an exclusive item for a while, with no recent trouble from Gia or robo Jack, and Alex felt it was time to take things to the next level.

Austyn: "I just find busts disturbing…they're like little armless, legless men made out of stone!"
Yes, Alex took the plunge and proposed to Debbie, and she gladly accepted. Perhaps she thought getting engaged and eventually married would mean actually moving into a home the couple could call their own, but that was not the case. It did, however, mean party time to celebrate the engagement, and there's no better place for a party in the Monkeesim neighborhood than Schroeder's Jam Land (you'd think with all the attention I've given the place in the last few posts that I was trying to promote an actual club). Schroeder's has been pretty magical lately, it's where Leon and Katrina found love (at Rinoa's expense, but we'll ignore that), and it's where Schroeder himself hooked up with Mia Kay. One can only imagine what wonders are in store for the Daniels clan.

Debbie: "Listen, you overgrown toaster, nobody invited you here!"
One of the main attractions of Jam Land (that never really gets used) is the big electric guitar right in the middle of the club. Schroeder had to work long and hard to even get it to put it in his club, forcing himself to actually get a job in the music career and work till he qualified for the reward. Things would have been a lot easier if I'd just had University installed when the club was constructed, as Schroeder could have had a whole band set in his club with no effort on his part at all, but that came later in the "alternate reality" version of Schroeder's (we'll get to that another time). Debbie decided if nobody else was "jamming", she might as well. Alex was quick to applaud, just like a good fiancé.

Every performance is "standing room only", since there aren't any chairs out on the dance floor...
Debbie actually wasn't all that bad on the guitar. I don't know if it was because she was really talented, or if it's one of those items anyone can pick up and be good at, I've never experimented with it all that much. Aside from Alex, though, everyone else pretty much ignored Debbie while she played, they were too busy crowding the bars, making desperate attempts to actually get the attention of the bartenders. Evenings at Schroeder's tend to feature a fair mix of unusual individuals from around town like vampires, werewolves, and other freaks. Austyn and Nicholas Everdark were busy chatting, discussing some of their mutual likes and dislikes. If there's one thing the Daniels family can learn from these trips out on the town, it's that they're not the strangest sims in town (close, but not quite).

Nicholas: "You don't look like you get much sun either, dude…"
On a side note, you'll notice almost every sim in these pictures is wearing their outerwear, for reasons I can't quite fathom. All my buildings have roofs on them, and door separating the inside from the outside, yet my sims have a weird habit of keeping their coats on even indoors, giving those who favor trench coats the appearance of flashers. Then, there are folks like Debbie and Rooster who seem to be dressed for the hottest months of summer amidst them. I don't know…weirdness. Anyway, while Austyn was busy having his chat with his new undead buddy, robot Jack was busy scoping the scene for robots, and Debbie and Alex took up position at the opposite side of the building from the others…and at opposite sides of the bar from each other. Now, that's love…

Debbie: "Ignore that bald headed bum, I had my hand up first!"
Left to her own devices, Debbie isn't what you would call the most flirty or affectionate sim. While she's never had a problem being open to affection from others (maybe a bit too much, given that whole Gia Fitch phase), she's never been prone to initiating a lot of PDA on her own, and while in public, she didn't really spend a whole lot of time with or around Alex. Funny, since the whole point of everyone hitting the town to begin with was to celebrate the couple's engagement. Like I told you, weirdoes. Austyn eventually got left alone by Nicholas Everdark, who went to talk to Eowyn Hartman, one of the local elves. He decided to express his displeasure at this development with a nice, bluesy number on the electric guitar, which was listened to by no one.

Vampires chatting with elves? This is starting to feel a lot more like "Everquest II" than "The Sims 2"!
Well, it's hard to tell if Austyn had a romantic interest in Nicholas, since nothing particularly romantic transpired between the two of them (Nicholas is engaged to Melyssa Everdark anyway, so it's for the best). Debbie noticed Nicholas was done talking to Eowyn, and decided to play the part of the social butterfly and chat him up a bit. It's just like the post-Leon Debbie to basically ignore poor Alex on the night of their engagement, yet have ample time to chat with a vampire she barely knows. She did have a more complex motive for this though, as she decided it might be funny to play a trick on Austyn with the help of Nicholas. Clearly, this can't be going anywhere good.

Nicholas: "My trench coat? Why thank you, it's one of a kind!"
Debbie's "brilliant" gag she decided to pull on Austyn was to have his new found friend, Nicholas, hypnotize him and turn him into a vampire. Yeah, that sure sounds like a funny gag. With friends like Debbie, who needs enemies? Little did Debbie know just how high a failure rate there is for the "influence to bite" command. For starters, folks seem to be immune to the hypnosis if they're not good friends with the vampire already, which seems to totally defeat the purpose of hypnotizing them in the first place (if you're good friends with someone, you should probably just ask if you can bite them, not hypnotize them). Also, if the sim you want bitten is doing anything else when you influence a vampire to bite them, chances are the vampire will get bored waiting to hypnotize them and just give up. Well, Austyn wasn't currently doing anything, so Nicholas did attempt to put him into a "bite trance"…

Austyn: "If you're trying to hit on me, this has got to be the worst pick up I've ever seen!"
As it happens, Austyn and Nicholas hadn't become good enough friends for Austyn to fall under Nick's spell, and thus, he remained a "normal" human, while Debbie's influence points went to waste (that will teach her, although probably not). Even though Debbie's plan didn't quite work out, watching the attempt was a lot more amusing than watching everyone try to jam on the guitar to an audience of no one. During all of this drama, Jack was off doing his own thing, and had finally spotted a "female" of his kind, Dot Matrix Andrews. While Dot was currently "involved" with C-3P0 Andrews, it was never really an exclusive relationship, and Jack's flirtatious advances seemed to be well received. Guess that works out well for Regina, who, by the way, seems to be the only one in the family sitting down, having a drink, and minding her own business through all of this.

Dot Matrix: "I don't usually come here that often. Usually I pretty much just sit in a corner at home collecting dust!"
Dot and Jack actually hit it off pretty well, although I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Dot was activated with the brain patterns (or however you put it) of Amy Andrews, while Jack was essentially a clone of Regina, and Amy and Regina were best friends for a long time while they lived together. Somehow, it makes sense to me that the robot "offspring" get along so well, although I feel there's a not-so-subtle element of creepiness buried somewhere in this situation as well (I'll leave it to you to pick it out). At any rate, Dot and Jack decided to go somewhere a little less crowded, namely, out back behind Schroeder's where Schroeder's trailer is located. Their privacy was interrupted by the presence of Debbie, who at this point was pelting Katrina Wilson with water balloons.

Debbie: "Maybe if I soak her enough, she'll take that silly coat off!"
If you look back at the "The Show Goes On" post (second picture down), you'll be reminded of the fact that at one point, Debbie had a not-so-innocent interest in Katrina, which we can only hope has gone the way of the dodo bird since Debbie started dating Alex and is now engaged (not to mention Katrina has a kid, is engaged to Leon Hartman, and has no interest in girls to speak of). It's always hard to tell what Debbie's motives are for doing anything, but they turned out to be innocent in this case, and she just threw balloons, and no little puffs of hearts appeared at any point in time. Maybe being with Alex really has made her a changed woman (and not the sort of changed woman breaking up with Leon Jackson made her). Morning came, and Debbie and Katrina were still tossing balloons, while Jack was still putting the moves on Dot, with continued success.

Jack: "I know you don't have any muscles, but if you did, believe me, you'd enjoy this!"
As for Regina, well, the entire night had passed, and she hadn't done a single thing worthy of us laughing and pointing the finger at her. Dang it all. The family has had plenty of drama in the recent past, though, so it's totally understandable Regina would want a break from that. All good things must come to an end sooner or later, and eventually, it was time for the family to head back home to the nut house for a break. It's time for a break for us for the moment as well. Now, most of my time in the coming weeks will be devoted to moving, so I won't have time to accumulate any new sim material, but the good news is I have two posts still ready to go, and I hope to put them up in the next few days. First, what ever became of Antonio Wilson and Aimee Andrews after they moved out of the old house? Then, we pay a brief visit to a strange, totally different neighborhood, where vampires, werewolves, and other "weird" sims aren't allowed…or are they? Stay tuned!

Around the Town #150

2008-05-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Whew…what do you get when you spend all weekend and two days of the week doing nothing but packing or hauling stuff around? Tired, that's what you get, and that's what I am. Alas, I'm not so tired that I couldn't find the energy to hammer out this, or 150th Monkeesims post! Quite the accomplishment, since I'd only posted 70 some times when I thought this blog was done for the first time. It seems like the Captain Hero #100 post was just yesterday, my, how time flies! I hate to waste any more time griping about how bad the weather is or how overworked I am when we could just get on to the good stuff, so...

Anyway, here we go with another exciting (hopefully) visit to the Monkeesim neighborhood, and since I'm an equal opportunity blogger, we'll be checking in on a few of the less visited individuals. If you think way back, you'll probably recall the days when the neighborhood had an evil organization called C.U.S.S. (Criminal Underground Secret Service) operating behind the scenes, devoted to creating chaos and mayhem (which I'm pretty sure are the same thing). C.U.S.S. had been slowly falling apart, and after Lawrence Madrox of the most recent team was killed, Reeve Madrox was the last C.U.S.S. agent in town, and not even a very good one. Reeve's boss, Falco, came to town to keep an eye on him and make sure he was up to no good. In the end, love proved to be stronger than the bond between Falco and his underling Reeve.

Reeve: "You are most fortunate to have found me, my darling!"
Yes, Reeve fell in love with Leon Jackson's ex, Claire Redmond, and the two were quickly wed. Rather than try to sway Claire to follow his former evil ways, Reeve decided he preferred to join the side of good, and C.U.S.S. was officially dissolved. As for Falco (last we saw, he was locked in a greenhouse prison), he was sent packing in a taxi, doomed to live out the rest of his days in the dreaded "family queue", where he could do no harm to Claire or Reeve. So what does a recently married former C.U.S.S. member do for fun without evil deeds to occupy his time? Well, that was indeed the question needing to be answered. The couple decided to head down to the Freetime Lounge, mainly because it hasn't been featured in a post for quite some. Notice the presence of my sim likeness watching TV and wearing a scarf indoors.

Reeve: "If you find this to be boring, I can always perform for you on my violin at home instead."
Being out in such a public place, there was some potential for an awkward situation, with Claire having ended her last two relationships so abruptly and less than gracefully. It was the two Leons she really didn't want to see, although Leon Hartman was the guilty party in their breakup, and Leon Jackson's failure to tell Claire about his ex, Debbie, resulted in the end of their relationship. Still, nobody likes an ex, even if they claim they do, and Claire was in no rush to see hers. She needn't have worried, though, as Reeve was more than up to the challenge of kicking some butt if anyone hassled Claire, but no Leons appeared, and there was no butt kicking, just karaoke.

Reeve: "What do you say we do a duet of 'Back in Black'?"
Being out in public was a weird experience for Reeve and Claire, partly because they never really get out of the house, and partly because they don't have any friends as a result of being such home bodies. Despite how busy the lounge was during their visit, nobody really paid much attention to the pair, it was sort of like they were invisible (perhaps folks recognized Reeve as a former C.U.S.S. agent and still assumed the worst of him). It didn't bother Reeve and Claire any, though, they'd become one of those sickening couples who were so happy with each others company they just didn't need anybody else (no offense to that kind of couple). That, and they had some stuff they wanted to discuss in private.

Claire: "I know you're trying to be good, but just think of all the money we'd have if you pulled a bank job!"
Those little grapefruit looking things with the cream blob on the plates in the picture there look disgusting, by the way. Anyhow, I have considered on occasion, since Reeve and Claire got together, having the couple start up C.U.S.S. again to reintroduce that "bad element" into the neighborhood, but really, there's enough bad stuff as it is I've come to realize. There's the non-C.U.S.S. "Justin the Jerk", sims getting into stupid fights with one another for no good reason, fires, illness...do I really need to go on? The idea of having an organization to start trouble or dispose of annoying sims just seems unnecessary, especially with an escaped gorilla on the loose twisting peoples' heads around backward, like poor Jean Trevolto.

Jean: "Hey, since when did my @$$ get so big?"
Okay, well, that was just a little weird there, but there is no gorilla in TS2 obviously…not yet anyway (there is Bigfoot, but I don't have that expansion, and he doesn't twist peoples' heads around last time I checked). Anyway, there would be no more C.U.S.S. for our happy couple, Reeve decided to let fate (and me) be in charge of any bad fortune bestowed in the Monkeesim neighborhood. Reeve decided he and Claire's outing just wouldn't be complete without a visit to the cemetery to mourn the loss of his old pal, Lawrence. Claire didn't know Lawrence, but she did take time to acknowledge the irony of the fact that the first C.U.S.S. "accident" victim, Jenna Boyle, was herself a doer of evil deeds. Guess there's just no loyalty among evil doers.

Reeve: "You were indeed a most excellent bro, bro..."
Fun, fun times. Maybe not some (or most) peoples' idea of fun but whatever. With the decision to spend their lives like normal people and avoid unnecessary trouble, at least we know the Madrox family won't wind up being the victims of a weather machine "accident" any time soon. Speaking of such an accident, we now turn our attention to none other than Mia Kay Wilson, the very sim who caused the death of Reeve's good buddy, Lawrence (in her defense, Lawrence was being an obnoxious scoundrel before she "offed" him). We won't worry about interrupting anything important with Mia Kay, because if there's one thing we've learned from all the times we've observed her, it's that she never does anything important…

Mia Kay: "I'm so sick of losing to myself at cards!"
Mia Kay has begun to experience some frustration recently. She'd been pulling a lot of "fifth wheel" duty when Antonio and Aimee still lived in the house and Leon moved in to be with Katrina. It never bugged her all that much initially, but when Aimee and Antonio moved out, and Katrina and Leon spent all their time together, that left only Seth for Mia Kay to hang out with, and he wasn't exactly the greatest conversationalist. She has friends and family in town, but she was starting to feel the bite of the romance bug, and as far as she could tell, all the good guys in Riverblossom Hills, Downtown, or in Bluewater Village were taken. I'm not joking. She decided to take a chance, though, and a change of clothes later, she was haunting Schroeder's Jam Land, where Katrina met Leon…

Mia Kay: "I thought someone told me once that blondes were supposed to have more fun!"
Well, sitting at the bar with the female bartender, a clown, and homely guy in a track suit wasn't doing much of anything for Mia Kay. Track suits are kind of ugly, Mia Kay's not into clowns, and while she was starting to become desperate for love, she wasn't to the point of hitting on women yet. Luckily, Schroeder's was designed to cater to all types of people, and there was a second bar with a male bartender, none other than Rooster Fitch. Rooster isn't exactly the pick of the litter when it comes to guys, but again, Mia Kay was otherwise surrounded by Armando Cox and one of the female Hartman plant sims, so her options just weren't that great. Schroeder Fultz happened to be making the rounds behind the bar, though and he thought Mia Kay was just dandy.

Schroeder: "Hey, babe, you wanna' make out?"
It just so happens that this is the very side of Schroeder's Jam Land where Katrina and Leon first met, and there must be some sort of magic behind that. Schroeder decided the business of managing his establishment could be put on hold for a bit while he chatted with Mia Kay for a while. Now, when it comes to sim adults, the game itself doesn't differentiate between sims who have been adults for a while and recent adults, but Schroeder would be one of the former, as I'd envisioned him to be in his early 40's when I created him. Meanwhile, Mia Kay would be closer to her early 20's, making Schroeder old enough to be her father, but the age thing didn't seem to bug them too much (like I said, the game doesn't care what age I envisioned them being, as long as they get along, which they were).

Mia Kay: "The only thing better than hugging it out with someone is when everyone stares at you while you do it!"
Yes, if there's one thing that Katrina and Mia Kay have in common, it's that they both move quickly in the guy department. That, and they don't have any problem with getting all "handsy" right out in public, as previous posts have shown (well, with Katrina, not so much with Mia Kay). If you think the pool of decent guys Mia Kay's age in town is starting to run dry, the pool of available women in Schroeder's age range is far, far worse. Heck, I don't think there ARE any single women that fit that classification. Thus, Schroeder had no problem with Mia Kay being younger than him, as if anyone really expected that he would. He also had no problem playing tonsil hockey with her right behind the bar while his patrons looked on.

Allyn: "If nobody's going to claim this drink, I'm taking it!"
Well, love can bloom in the strangest places. No wonder Mia Kay hadn't found her true love before, she'd always been browsing the selection of young men around town, she never thought "the one" might be a scruffy, biker vest wearing guy twice her age. Everything worked out just fine for the two of them, because Schroeder had pretty much given up looking for love, I guess sometimes it just finds you. Anyway, everyone comes to Schroeder's, and the Daniels family is no exception. Next time, we'll see what sort of lunacy develops when the whole Daniels gang drops in looking for a good time. The weirdness is pretty much a built-in guarantee. See you then!

The Top of the Heap

2008-05-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

This has been a long, long weekend for a variety of reasons. For starters, we're getting ready to move before too long, and the packing began in earnest this past Saturday - everything has been tossed around every where, and it looks like a tornado hit my house. Oh, and speaking of tornadoes, we DID have some hit some of the towns not too far from here, and there were incredibly strong winds blowing for like two days that littered the yard with big branches and made it impossible to sleep. To top it all off, sewage has been backing up in our basement on a daily basis. Sound like fun? Oh, it is...it is...

Last time we saw Rinoa, she seemed to be recovering more or less from breaking up with Leon and kicking him out. She realized if she was going to get promoted at work, she needed to make friends of her own to make up for the ones she lost when Leon left, and invited a bunch of folks over, including Peter Miller, who she formed something of a romantic relationship with. Well, checking in now, we find she still hasn't gotten a promotion, despite keeping up her skill points and making sufficient friends. Rinoa had gone and bought a servo, but thus far, hadn't activated it, probably because she knew of the bad fortune others who had activated them experienced.

Rinoa: "…zzzz…Leon's a jerk…zzzz…"
Inviting people over is easy. Actually getting them to accept the invite and show up is a little harder. Turning them into actual friends once they agree to visit your house takes even more work, especially when you try to befriend multiple people at one sitting, and the effort required to do that coupled with the energy she was devoting to her job was just too much for Rinoa. She fell into a rut where she was just too tired to invite anyone over, but she still longed for companionship. The easiest solution to the problem was to purchase one of those little bricks with faces that are so popular around town. Considering every family in town owns at least one of the dumb things, I think the only person the bricks really cheer up is Amy Andrews, who gets to pocket the money from their sales.

Rinoa: "I would kiss you, but you really need to shave..."
Well, Rinoa may have been teetering on the brink of going off the deep end, but she still had enough sanity about her to know that talking to a brick wasn't going to get her anywhere (as much fun as we all know it can be). She decided that if she had any free time, and she wasn't going to spend it building skill points or pursuing new friendships, she may as well be spending it doing something that would still be somewhat productive. She didn't have a garden planted at the moment, and she was feeling to lazy to bother getting one started, so she instead decided to grab a fishing pole and pay a visit to the pond behind that house.

Rinoa: "Fishing at night during the winter is much less crazy than talking to a brick!"
It really was high time that Rinoa catch some fish to stock her fridge. Virtually every family in the neighborhood I've ever controlled has wound up with a large supply of fish, either by way of fishing themselves or buying it at the Daniels' fish stand. Rinoa has been the one exception, and for no good reason, she's just never appreciated the value of fish. Maybe it's because she doesn't want the annoying penguin who comes into houses and jumps around in front of the fridge if it's stocked with fish (she usually has plenty of vegetables in there, and there's no annoying creature that shows up to try to take away your fruit). Whatever the case, Rinoa never had an opportunity to experience the wonderful benefits of fish, because as soon as she cast a line, the pond froze over...

Rinoa: "Clearly the whole world hates me..!"
Poor Rinoa. All she wanted was someone or something to occupy her time, but after finding no satisfaction in talking to her brick buddy, and being "frozen out" by her own fish pond, she was starting to get desperate. Despite the horror stories from families who had activated servos and had to deal with the subsequent indecent proposals and jealous rages they seemed prone to, Rinoa decided there was no harm in activating the servo she'd purchased. After all, she wasn't in a serious relationship yet, despite her romantic interactions with Peter Miller, and even if she was, she wasn't about to let some lousy robot decide who she was dating.

Rinoa: "I dub you 'LE-1 Hartman'..."
Hmmm, ever get the idea maybe she's not entirely over Leon yet? This whole situation sort of echoes the whole weird situation with Regina Daniels and her robot replacement for Jack Daniels when he died. The difference, though, is that Rinoa decided to take advantage of having an extra set of hands around the house, and rather than give the servo lots of time to make a pest of himself, she instantly ordered him to work. Her first official act was to plant a garden, which she and LE-1 spent plenty of time tending. Rinoa decided if there was any pest spraying to be done, she'd leave it up to LE-1, since she'd already caused enough excitement the last time she turned into a plant sim.

Rinoa: "He may not have Leon's looks, but at least he's good for something!"
LE-1 didn't turn out to be as obnoxious as the Jack Daniels servo or C-3P0 and Dot Matrix Andrews, mainly because Rinoa continued to keep him busy and kept social interactions with him to a minimum. Not to say she didn't interact with him at all, but not in a misleading semi-romantic fashion. Having "someone" around the house though did get her thinking she might be ready to have some real company over again, and so, Rinoa invited Pete over again to hang out. It was a little late to begin with, and the two hung out for a bit before Rinoa took a break to make dinner. Well, when she was finished, guess what - Pete had gone off to bed again, just like on his previous visit. He did get up a while later to eat, but by that time, the food was more than a little funky.

Rinoa: "Maybe I should just be dating LE-1..."
Rinoa was starting to get the very distinct impression that if things were to get serious with Pete and he were to move in, she'd be right back where she started when she lived with Leon, having to do all the work around the house herself and make all the money at her job while he hung around the house sleeping and doing nothing (an accurate assessment, since that's just what Pete does at the Jones house). Rinoa's invitations to have him over became fewer and fewer, as she spent all of her time trying to keep herself in a good mood to be ready in case the promotion she'd been waiting for for so long ever became available. As luck would have it, she did eventually get it…

Rinoa: "Does this space suit make me look fat?"
Getting promoted to astronaut not only meant a pay raise, but it also gave Rinoa the opportunity to get as far away as possible from the real Leon whenever she was launched into space (however frequently that might happen). Suddenly, there was little time for socializing or anything of that nature, as Rinoa found herself burning the candle at both ends again trying to build up skills to be promoted once more. Having LE-1 around the house became more important than ever, as suddenly it was Rinoa who was neglecting any form of house work, wholly obsessed with career advancement instead. LE-1 had no problem with helping around the house, but like all servos, he had a tendency to seek out fun and excitement from time to time as well. He purchased a robot making station and spent much of his time making little robots…

LE-1: "I suppose this is the closest I'm going to get to reproducing..."
As with the promotion to astronaut, achieving General seemed to take forever, and it wasn't because Rinoa didn't have the required skills or friends - it's just that the world seems to hate Rinoa, and wanted to make her work for it. Day after day, she went in to work in a perfectly good mood, with a near full aspiration meter and still nothing. Eventually, though, the powers that be caved in, and she got the final promotion, as well as the snazzy threads that go with it. It seemed the perfect time to get a haircut to commemorate the occasion, and Rinoa decided to finally put away the blue dress thingy she always wore and use the General threads as her everyday wear. Talk about making a fashion statement…

Rinoa: "Being important just isn't as much fun if you don't remind everyone of it constantly!"
Yes, much had changed for Rinoa since she first appeared in our story. A sim who started out interested in little more than flitting around from guy to guy and fooling around with guys other than the one she'd most recently "flitted" to transformed into a no-nonsense, career driven, responsible individual. As much as I hate to see that happen to anyone, it really seems to be what Rinoa has been best suited for all along, it's just that it took her several lousy romances to realize that guys weren't what she needed. Of course, that didn't work out so well for Peter Miller, who was just starting to get attached to Rinoa and warming up to the idea of being with her on a long term basis.

Rinoa: "Sorry, Pete. Maybe you can find a genie lamp and wish for another girl!"
Poor Pete - so close to finding love for the first time here at Monkeesims, only to have the rug pulled out from under him at the last minute. Even when Rinoa is trying to behave responsibly, she still manages to break peoples' hearts. We'll leave Rinoa and the gang on what's more or less still a happy note, though, and drop in on the Everdark family instead. Last we saw them, they'd just moved into a new house in the middle of town, one that more or less resembled a normal house. Unfortunately, building and decorating the house was costly, and money would soon be needed if the family was going to survive. Luckily, the gang came up with a solution that didn't even require leaving the house…

Presenting the "Fangs for the Memories" junk store...
Yes, the solution was so obvious, I was amazed I hadn't thought of it before (although I don't think I've had Open for Business as long as the Everdarks have been around). With four otherwise unemployed family members and ample extra room in the house, conditions were perfect for transforming half the house into a little "knick knack" shop, complete with everything nobody ever wanted. Kali took control of the cash register, while Melyssa handled most of the customer relations and shelf restocking. Meanwhile, Kyle and Nicholas did basically nothing. So typical of males, even the vampire variety.

Kali: "If only I'd gone to college, I could be working a better job!"
Ordinarily, the idea of having sims run a home business hasn't appealed to me, mainly because it's more fun to open up a shop in the business district (with the exception of the Hartman Garden Center), but I suddenly realized the value of being able to do so with the Everdarks being unable to stay out of the house past certain times. A fringe benefit was the family members were able to socialize with the customers in between sales, allowing them to meet a bunch of people they might not otherwise have met. Apparently, everyone in town was in need of old statues and cursed idols, because the business quickly picked up momentum, and Melyssa was restocking almost constantly.

Melyssa: "You get a free 'Frogurt' with each cursed idol you purchase..."
The junk store business turned out to be profitable that money was no longer a concern for the family, thanks to all the weird local sims who have nothing better to do than shop for knick knacks at 4 in the morning (now that's customer loyalty for you). Let's hear it for rampant consumerism! Coming up next, we've heard nothing out of Reeve Madrox or his wife Claire since they got married many posts ago, mainly because they've never been the most exciting characters. However, one question remains unanswered - what has become of C.U.S.S. since their marriage? Also, Katrina Wilson has found love in the form of Leon Hartman, and Antonio and Aimee moved out of the Wilson house - but what of poor Mia Kay? Will she ever find love or a life of her own? You know of course there's only one way to find out. See you next time!

Fangs For The Memories

2008-05-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome back, everybody! Not sure how it is in your necks of the woods, but I'm enjoying yet another not-so-lovely rainy day out here. Pretty sick of the rain by now, especially since if it keeps up till tomorrow, that will mark yet another softball game rained out, and I'm really wanting to play (our first game was rained out as well, I was pretty bummed). I'm also not a fan of the rain because while I no longer live in the crappy apartment I used to complain about so much here, I do rent a house now that has a basement that tends to flood every time we get any kind of rain, and of that I am definitely not a fan...

I'm a fan of the unusual, thus, it's easy for me to focus a lot on stuff that I consider "weird", and more or less ignore mundane "normal" stuff. That's why I've always been such a fan of weird sims like the zombies from TS1, and the werewolves, aliens, zombies, and vampires from TS2. I've made a great effort not to include too much of that in the regular Monkeesim neighborhood, but not a perfect effort, because the vampire population keeps growing (while the werewolves have increased a little, but not nearly as much). Thus far, most of the vampire and werewolf residences have been located in an obscure part of town. What happens when we move the Everdark vampire family smack dab in the middle of town?

A house only a vampire could love...
Yes, previously, the Everdark home was just a crypt with four coffins, a phone, and not much else, and the family had to rely totally upon community lots for hygiene, food, and other needs. That pretty much sucked. Even vampires deserve better than that. When we join the family now, we find their new digs to be much more hip than the old crypt they once lived in. It even features a hot tub right in the middle of the main room, just like all good homes should. Finding themselves in a much more domestic setting got the family members thinking about stuff like marriage and children and all the things most ordinary sims think about sooner or later, and it wasn't long before a proposal was made…

Kyle: "Dude, will you marry me?"
That's just a joke. There WAS a proposal made, but it was actually made by Nicholas (the guy in the middle) to Melyssa (the gal in the middle). Kyle is just congratulating Nicholas on his engagement in the pic above. It wasn't long after that Kyle decided to take the plunge himself, and proposed to Kali. I'm sure relationships between vampires and non-vampires are possible and all, heaven knows there are plenty of werewolves in town in relationships with normal sims, but the convenience of vampires being engaged to other vampires can't be denied, since their schedules match perfectly. It took a little bit for everyone to get used to having stuff to do around the house besides crying over tombstones (though that was still an option), but it wasn't long before Kali was busy trying to boost her logic skills, while Melyssa worked on mastering the whole cooking thing.

Kali: "Hey, you just glopped macaroni on the board again!"
I can understand Melyssa pursuing the whole cooking thing, since it serves a purpose within the household, but the logic points Kali was busy earning were basically good for nothing as long as she wasn't able to hold down a normal job (I've never actually had one of my vampires get a job, but I imagine there are some problems if they get stuck on the day shift). I guess there's the possibility that she just enjoyed playing chess and that's why she was doing it, but why would someone want to play chess when there are so many more exciting games out there (like TS2)? As a side note, I really like the TV area in the new Everdark house - it's the perfect setup for folks who simply can't agree on what show to watch…

Melyssa: "Why do they always have to ruin perfectly good red meat by cooking it?"
Eventually, Melyssa decided she'd learned all she needed to know about cooking, which wasn't very much. However, vampires don't get hungry very often, and as long as it's night time, even if their hunger need isn't full, it still doesn't get depleted, so elaborate meals didn't seem like much of a priority around the house. Melyssa noticed (somehow, despite the lack of windows in the house) Heath King, the DJ she bit because she didn't like his hair, walking past the house, and decided to greet him. It's the least she could do after turning him into a creature of the night without his permission. Heath seemed to have gotten over that whole incident, and was more than happy to chat with Melyssa. He's either gotten over it, or has the hots for Melyssa, which won't do him much good since she's engaged now.

Heath: "Love the shoes, babe..."
Heath is an unusual case in that most of the time, anyone who's not a member of the Witte or Everdark family who becomes a vampire is give a potion shortly after and "persuaded" to cure themselves. Otherwise, the population of random vampires on community lots begins to grow, and the chances of sims I'm not controlling and don't want getting bitten being bitten increases greatly. Everyone agreed that Heath looked much better with his vampire hair than he had with his DJ hair, and there didn't seem to be an urgent need to change him back. While the family was enjoying the location and accommodations of the new house, Melyssa was dissatisfied with the atmosphere outside. The weather at the crypt had always been snowy and gloomy, and there didn't seem to be any reason for that to change just because they'd moved to a different lot.

Melyssa: "I just hope I don't accidentally fry someone with lightning!"
Personally, the winter season in TS2 is my least favorite, but after seeing great films like "The Fearless Vampire Killers", I realize that the snowy atmosphere is a must for any would-be vampire's property, even if they're not cool enough to live in a castle like Alfred Witte. Of course, the down side is that while snow may provide a cool, dreary look, it also reduces the amount of time sims can spend outside (especially when they're wearing open-toed shoes like Melyssa). Good thing the new Everdark home has plenty to do indoors. Of course, even a great home will always have some little thing wrong with it, like the fact that the new house happened to be haunted by not one but four ghosts. That's what you get when you use tombstones as lawn decorations I guess.

Kyle: "Will you please just ignore the ninja ghost? I'm trying to tell you how much I love you!"
The Everdarks have always been a fun loving bunch, more so even than a lot of the other families in the Monkeesim neighborhood, they've just gotten a lot less exposure because for one thing, they're vampires, and that's a little weird, and for another, they arrived in the neighborhood later in time than families like the Andrews, Daniels, and Hartmans, and the "older" families are the ones I'm usually tempted to spend the most time focusing on. Well, despite their somewhat reclusive existence, the family decided it was time to start being good neighbors and invite some folks over for a little housewarming bash. They invited Alfred and Zondra Witte and Heath King, which isn't that surprising, since they're vampires as well, but they also managed to get Amy Andrews to show up, though she was the only normal sim to accept the invitation (she only knew the family because of their frequent visits to Radio Shock).

Nicholas: "You guys ready for a little 'Spin the Bottle'..?"
It had been a while since the Witte family had gotten together with the Everdarks. If you recall, the Everdarks became vampires to begin with after coming to town and staying in Alfred's castle, where they were systematically bitten and transformed one after the other, and Alfred was forced to kick them out because their rowdy behavior was disturbing his otherwise peaceful life in his castle. Both parties had a reason to dislike one another, but time heals all wounds (including the little puncture holes on the necks of the Everdarks), and the desire to hang out with other bloodsuckers was eventually greater than whatever grudge the two families might have had against each other.

Nicholas: "So, Alfred…they tell us you really know how to Smustle!"
The family and the guests spent quite a bit of time just dancing. I guess when you spend half your day crammed inside a coffin, you really have to do something to stretch those achy limbs, and flying through the night as a bat to terrorize the local villagers is just not enough). Lucius Wolfenstein, "butler" to Alfred and Zondra, had come to the party as well as the resident werewolf (a role once filled mainly by Tommy Wolf, but less and less as time goes on). Lucius and Tommy have never gotten along, probably because Tommy was responsible for Lucius contracting lycanthropy to begin with, and I guess some folks don't like morphing into a hairy fleabag and being too energetic to sleep at night.

Kali: "Sorry, but there's someone in the bathroom. Can't you just use a bush outside?"
Sometimes I feel a little sorry for Lucius. I mean, he was more or less created just to do chores at Alfred's castle since Alfred and Zondra can't do anything themselves during the day, and his very first experience in the Monkeesim neighborhood was to be placed as a resident in Tommy Wolf's house, savaged, and kicked out immediately after to be moved into castle Witte. No wonder he's such a bitter grouch (not that the natural decay of werewolves' "niceness" points doesn't have something to do with that). To top it all off, his bedroom in the castle is the size of a closet. On the bright side of things, Lucius and Alfred are pretty good friends (despite his unofficial "servant" status), and they always enjoy chatting together when Lucius isn't scrubbing toilets or checking himself for fleas.

Alfred: "…whereas the cattle market has witnessed exponential growth due to increases in blah blah blah..."
It's kind of funny to see some of the stuff that Alfred and Lucius talk about, when you consider the fact that the Witte castle has no TV or internet or easy source of information. Sure, there's a newspaper delivered daily, but I've never seen a single one actually brought inside and read. I guess Alfred is technically a senior citizen, and did have plenty of exposure to the "normal" world before Amy Andrews bit him and started the whole vampire thing, but his knowledge of current events will still seem to be a bit limited. Anyhow, while vampires may be different in a lot of ways from regular sims, their basic interests seem to be the same. Despite the variety of attractions in the new house (TV, chess board, dart board, and so forth), the hot tub was filled to capacity at every possible moment.

Kyle: "It's not that I don't like the sun itself, I just think the fact that it means almost instant death kind of sucks..."
The new Everdark home appeared to be a much more appealing party spot than the crypt they originally lived in, and while the family never actually threw a party when they lived in the crypt, I feel safe making that assumption since there were no amusement items of any sort in the crypt (and you can only talk to people for so long before it gets dreadfully boring). Well, most folks seemed to think it was a great party spot. Amy Andrews took off before the party was even over and nobody noticed her leave. Despite that, things were really hopping, and the Everdarks seemed on their way to a most excellent party score. Of course, well all know what that means. Yes, due to the late hour and the fact that everyone was having way too much fun, that butthead of a cop showed up to break things up and send everyone packing.

Officer: "…and section 27-43-11 of the state code clearly states that you can't bury people in your front yard!"
It's always pained me that you can't do anything to successfully keep the officer from entering your house and ending things, short of deleting him (I'm not a social miscreant in real life, but I think it would be cool if sims could wrestle the cops like the burglars do and make them go away). Dawn was only a few hours away, though, and unlike regular sims who could keep it going straight on into the next day, the health risks associated with doing so for the Everdarks were just too great. Anyway, that's pretty much a wrap for now. So the family has a new house, but still no steady source of income…how to solve such a knotty problem? We'll find out next time, as we also check in and see how Rinoa is doing since the last time we visited. Be there, you won't want to miss it!

Miss Hartman on the Prowl

2008-05-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

Hey, gang! Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was not too shabby, so of course I wasn't ready for the work week to start again. Weird, because I always thought the purpose of weekends was for people to be rested and ready for the new week, but the crappier the weekend, the more ready I am for the work week. Don't ask. I still don't have internet at home, so no updates here during the weekend obviously. I doubt that will change before I move, but that's okay, I've gotten used to the current arrangement, and it's one less thing to distract me at home now.

We've spent a fair amount of time on this blog witnessing the romantic pursuits of Leon and Rinoa Hartman, and last time we checked in on Leon, he appeared to have settled down into something serious with Katrina Wilson (as of the last time I personally checked in on the couple, there had been no signs of trouble brewing). It seems a little ironic after all the trouble he and Rinoa went to to be free to date one another that they didn't end up together for good, but they just didn't get along with each other, and you just can't force these things. So Leon appears to have found his soul mate - but what of Rinoa? How's she been doing since she booted Leon out the door? Well, let's find out!

Rinoa: "I wish Leon were here…I'd make him do this!"
Hmmm…mopping the bathroom in the dark in her swimsuit, on a Friday night, no less. I'd say she answer to our "how is Rinoa doing" question would be "not so well". She'd spent a lot of time pursuing her military career with varying degrees of success, and it wasn't until Leon moved out that she realized almost all of the friends she was being credited with to advance her career were friends of Leon, not her. Thus, when he moved out, not only was she short the necessary number of friends needed for a promotion, but she didn't really know anyone to invite over to liven things up when she felt like taking a break. Who says having no job or motivation and spending all day socializing is a bad thing? Certainly not Leon. Rinoa wasn't ready to accept becoming a complete hermit, though. She grabbed the phone and started inviting over everyone she'd ever met until some people finally showed up.

Mail Man: "I'm not here for the party, just delivering the bills!"
Considering she had no strong relationship bonds with any of the folks who showed up at her house, Rinoa managed to get a pretty decent number of folks to hang around at the house. Not surprisingly, most of them were members of the "Jones" family, which, if you'll recall, consists of a bunch of unemployed nut jobs, none of whom have a whole lot going for them. Seated from left to right are Homie D. Klown, Jimmy Jones, and Peter Miller. I can't remember the name of the guy in the black shirt Rinoa is talking to, which bugs me, because he's a townie who's around all the time (he was a werewolf for a while after Tommy savaged him, maybe that's why Rinoa seemed interested in him).

Jimmy: "So, have you heard about the new two-button Nintendo controller?"
Well, Rinoa seemed to be hitting it off pretty well with bachelor number one, and the possibility of a further relationship didn't seem too far fetched, however, at some point, he just seemed to lose interest, and wandered off to do his own thing (seems to be the way it goes most of the time when I'm actually trying to get two sims to hook up). While Rinoa was a little disappointed, this was actually a good thing. While starting up a new romance was a possibility in her mind, the whole point of inviting everyone over to her house had been so she could make several friends, not just one, so she could advance in her career. Spending all her time batting her eyes at one guy certainly wasn't going to achieve that. She next targeted Jimmy Jones, mainly because at the time, he was the only one who hadn't piled into the hot tub.

Rinoa: "Hey, now, don't get cheeky! Ha ha!"
Despite Jimmy's extraordinary cheeks and obvious use of eye shadow, folks seem to get along with him pretty well, and Rinoa appeared to be no exception. As with the first guy, she wound up spending a great deal of time chatting with just him about such exciting topics as the government, recycling, and what appeared to be a dead mouse (don't ask, I just saw it in the little talk bubble). Rinoa didn't appear to be romantically interested in Jimmy, though, so she did at some point decide that she should make good use of her time with the visitors and move on to someone else. Socializing in the hot tub when it's full to capacity isn't a very effective way to build a strong relationship with an individual sim, so Rinoa decided to target Homie D. Klown, who'd gotten out by this point. Unfortunately, she was unable to locate Homie, as he was hiding out in the bathroom.

Homie: "I'm not coming out till she agrees to leave me alone!"
With Homie safely hidden in the bathroom, Rinoa was forced to wait for the next poor sucker to leave the safety of the hot tub so she could latch on to them and interact until a friendship was formed. The only ones she hadn't talked to much yet besides Homie were Peter Miller and Jean Trevolto. Both Peter and Jean seemed to be doing a fine job of staying put, until Peter finally weakened and had to make a bathroom run (surely unaware that Homie had laid claim to it). Well, Pete didn't make it too far, because as soon as he hopped out, Rinoa was right on top of him (in a figurative sense, of course). Normally, Pete is a pretty friendly fellow, if not a little on the shy side, but being pounced upon like that seemed to put him in a less than friendly mood.

Peter: "I might feel more like talking if you'd just let me pee first!"
Yes, Rinoa and Pete's relationship got off to a less than stellar beginning. Rinoa realized that Pete was probably the nicest and best looking guy in the bunch, and she wasn't prepared to leave him alone and accept that they might not get along. Thus, she started in on and endless string of interactions, trying to joke and chat her way into Pete's good graces, but he just wasn't having any of it. The harder she tried, the less interested he became in her (some folks don't like pushy, obsessive people, I don't know why). This is pretty amazing, considering the lack of women in Peter Miller's life, and Rinoa's not bad looking. You'd think he'd at least show a little interest in getting to know her, but if you did, you'd be wrong. At last, Rinoa was forced to resort to her surefire method of relationship building…

Peter: "*sputter* A balloon to the face?…Maybe I like you after all!"
At least Pete is wearing shorts and is dressed for the occasion of a water balloon fight, unlike most sims who get pelted out of the blue. The whole water balloon idea was Rinoa's, by the way, I had no part in her starting that up. I do have to say it's a little annoying how often sims resort to water balloons when you get a big group of them together. It sucks when you're trying to get them to do something together inside, and suddenly, a pair of them runs out of the house and out of sight to start soaking each other. Anyone who's ever played TS2 knows just what I mean. Anywho, with each passing balloon, Peter was growing more and more fond of Rinoa, and she of him, until she decided it was time to ease up on the soaking and take things to the next level - presents. By this point, Pete was more than happy to accept the gift, a good sign if I've ever seen one.

Rinoa: "Don't get too excited…it's just a bland tomato..."
Despite the fact that the gift WAS just a tomato, it scored further points with Pete, and his bond with Rinoa continued to grow. So much in fact that he no longer stuck his fingers in his ears when she tried to talk to him, or put his hands up in defense against her awful attempts at jokes (I'm sure they can't be that bad, Pete probably just doesn't get military humor). Things seemed to be getting pretty serious between the two, and at some point I found myself wondering if Rinoa realized what she was getting into. See, Leon was a slacker who stayed at home all day, worked on his art a little here and there, and didn't do too much else. Pete does basically the same things, minus the art part. Maybe it's the similarity between the two that she found attractive, whatever the case, the rest of the guys who came to visit were basically forgotten - especially Jean Trevolto, who'd been sitting in the hot tub for about eight hours straight.

Rinoa: "Will you go look in the hot tub and make sure he's not dead?
Everyone was glad to discover that Jean Trevolto was not just a bloated corpse floating in the hot tub (bloated perhaps, but not a corpse), though the news didn't increase Rinoa's desire to give Pete a break and form a relationship with Jean. She'd been a long time without any romance, even when Leon and her were officially dating still, and she wasn't about to let her new beau get away so easily (at least she saw him as a beau…not sure what Pete thought their relationship was, seeing as how Rinoa was his first romantic interest). Rinoa decided she had nothing to lose by trying to take things to the next level, since if a romantic advance damaged her and Pete's relationship, she could always pelt him with water balloons until he liked her again. Alas, no pelting was necessary, as he appeared to be open to the idea of a little lip action.

Pete: "This is even better than when I practiced kissing my hand!"
Rinoa used to be so quiet and timid, this aggressive approach to relationships can only be attributed to her time spent in the military, learning how to select a target, then command and conquer as efficiently as possible. Peter really didn't have much of a clue as to what was going on, and really didn't seem to care too much. We're talking about the same guy who was obsessed with an evil clown doll and dreamt of playing with it despite the cost of it destroying his family and friends - he's not exactly the brightest guy on the planet. Nice, but not bright. He was definitely being commanded and conquered, and it wasn't long at all before he'd fallen for Rinoa. For some strange reason, Pete's old pal Jimmy doesn't seem to be too pleased about this whole development.

Jimmy: "Don't do it! She'll just leave you for a guy named Leon!"
Jimmy did choose a weird time to start fuming about broken relationships, although he never had one with Rinoa. If you recall, he dated Kerrie Bradshaw ever so briefly, just long enough to get attached to her, then Leon Jackson swooped in and married her, thus his dislike for "Leons". Rinoa has already been romantically involved with both Leon Jackson and Leon Hartman, though, and the chances of her going back to either one of them seem slim. The time was approaching when the guests would begin leaving (unless they happened to sit in the hot tub all night, which seemed to be fairly common), and Rinoa decided she didn't want Pete to leave so quickly. Thus, she invited him to stay over, allowed him to finally go pee, and attempted to cook for the first time in ages (okay, so I guess Leon had actually done the cooking around the house, but big deal).

Rinoa: "Uh…is spaghetti supposed to glow like that?"
That is one advantage to all of the gardening Rinoa has done since she moved into the house, there are almost countless tomatoes in the fridge to enhance even the most mundane meals (despite her high gardening talent, Rinoa has only ever grown tomatoes for some weird reason). I don't personally know if there's any advantage to having the different kinds of vegetables in the sim fridge, they all seem to do the same thing as far as I can tell (I'm sure it has something to do with what grows best at what time of year, but I've almost always just used greenhouses, so again, it makes no difference to me). Anyhow, I'm getting off track here. Rinoa was putting a great deal of effort into wooing Pete and making sure she didn't screw things up like she did initially. Meanwhile, Pete had gone directly to bed after Rinoa invited him to stay (after making a stop to pee, of course).

Pete: "So glad she asked me to stay…my bed's not nearly this comfortable..."
I'm no expert, but usually, if someone asks you to stay over at their place, even with the most innocent of intentions, they at least expect the pleasure of your company in return. Anyone else think Pete just doesn't get it? Rinoa considered bugging him and forcing him to wake up and eat spaghetti, but in the end, her more compassionate side (yes, she has one) decided to let him rest while she worked on some of her work related skills. Much later into the evening, when she was thoroughly tired of talking to the mirror in her bedroom, Rinoa came back out into the living room to find Jean Trevolto eating spaghetti. He'd apparently stayed so late in the hot tub that he avoided whatever internal mechanism usually forces sims to go home, and pulled an all-nighter. From the looks of things, he also broke a stool.

Rinoa: "What do you mean, 'the dog did it'? There's no dog here…you're paying for that stool!"
Left with no other options, Rinoa did manage to chat for a bit with Jean, and while they didn't actually achieve friendship, they did come pretty close (which would amount to something I guess if they were playing horseshoes). It became obvious it would take more than just one visit from a group of yahoos to launch Rinoa to the top of her military career, but it was all good, she's got all kinds of time. If nothing else, she did form at least one or two friendships and one romantic relationship (and one of the latter is more than enough for anyone). We'll check in on Rinoa a little down the road and see what, if anything, comes of all of this. Next time, though, we'll visit one of our more oddball families, the Everdarks, as they attempt to make a little something more of their lives, despite the disadvantage of being bloodsuckers. Take care, and see you soon!

The Garbage Tycoon

2008-05-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm still not posting daily, and I'm willing to accept that won't happen. See, I used to sneak a few minutes here and there during the work day to work on these posts a little bit more, but now, I'm always actually working, meaning I only write these posts over my (very short) breaks. Not that it matters too much, I've always tried to shoot for quality over quantity, and the day I hammer out a post ultra fast just to slap something up here will probably be the day that this blog takes a downhill dive and really starts to blow chunks. By the way, since there are no other real forms of communication between me and my readers on this site, I'd like to add that if you leave a comment, I'll almost always comment back after I've read and approved it, so don't forget to check those previous posts if you wrote me something.

We haven't spent much time with our old pal Tommy Wolf lately, as he kind of dropped out of the spotlight after he gave up his life as a crazy single werewolf in favor of getting hitched and having a kid. Not saying that the life of married folks isn't interesting, although in Tommy's case, I think that would be a fair assessment. Tommy never really seemed like the type who craved a whole lot of excitement, though, it just seemed to come to him, especially while he was busy trying to make his relationship with Rinoa work and she was busy treating him like garbage. Thank goodness those days are past now (and Rinoa got a taste of her own medicine with Leon).

Tommy: "Life is so much better without that awful witch Rinoa!"
Despite all the changes he's made since the old days of partying all night long with former roommate and vampire, Alfred Witte, Tommy still couldn't bring himself to take that final step and get an actual job. It's not like werewolves can't hold normal jobs like with vampires, and Tommy had plenty of skill points that would have proven useful in just about any profession, but for some reason, the prospect of being tied down by a job schedule and the expectations that came from working for someone else just didn't appeal to Tommy. He did happen upon a previously undiscovered source of income though while rooting through the trash one day. For some reason, despite never having seen him throw away anything but food garbage, Tommy magically started to pull books, cups, and other "valuable" knick knacks out of the trash, which he instantly turned in to cash.

Tommy: "Wow! A perfectly good mouldy measuring cup!"
It was hard for Tommy to resist the temptation to just stand out at the trash all day pulling one "treasure" after the other out of the garbage can. He did wind up spending almost an entire day doing just that, and the payoff was pretty good in the end (not positive of this, but I think after the umpteenth time he sold junk from the trash can, he'd made about as much as he would have working a regular low paying job for a day). Eventually, Allyn was in need of a break from baby watching, and Tommy was forced to give up his refuse rummaging to lend a helping hand (or paw, or whatever). If there's one thing Tommy is all about, it's being responsible to his family, so off he went. It was weird and a little funny to watch him loping around as a werewolf, holding little Allen at impossible angles, but Allen didn't seem to care.

Allen: "Man, Pops really needs to learn to shave!"
Eventually, it came time for Allyn and Allen to hit the sack, and as usual, Tommy was still wide awake thanks to his werewolf energy boost. He began to get a little lonely, and realized that there wasn't any good reason not to invite his old pal Alfred over. It wasn't like Alfred was his single, rowdy drinking buddy or anything like that. After all, both Alfred and Tommy are married. Tommy picked up the phone and called the castle across the street, and before he knew it, Alfred came over, with his wife, Zondra, in tow. They said hello to Tommy, who greeted them in return, then Alfred and Zondra proceeded to hug one another repeatedly and shared some other interactions. Uh…they seemed to have forgotten why they were there in the first place.

Tommy: "Uh, hey, guys, remember me, the one who invited you over?"
Tommy was glad to see his old buddy back, even if he wasn't getting a lot of attention right from the get go. It didn't take long for Tommy and Alfred to start gabbing about the good old days though, like all the cool times they terrorized the locals by saying "bleh" or "grrrr" at them, and all the times they stayed up all night watching TV, and the time Alfred had to beg the reaper to spare Tommy's life after that weight bench accident. Yes, those were much simpler times for both of them, now Tommy has a wife and a kid and Alfred has a wife, a werewolf butler, mutant pets, and an enormous castle to manage. The days of them pulling their werewolf and vampire version of Beavis and Butthead on their couch seem so far away now.

Tommy: "Come on, man, let's do the 'Monster Mash'..."
There was definitely something a lot easier about managing a family that consisted of just a werewolf and a vampire in a house so small you could see the entire thing without have to scroll around. Alfred never really needed any attention, and most of the time back when they lived together was spent satisfying Tommy's outrageous appetite and making sure he wasn't killed by the weight bench. Of course, easier doesn't always mean more fun or more interesting, especially in this case. Anyway, after chewing the fat with Alfred for a little bit, Tommy made sure to give some attention to Zondra as well, just to show he was friends with her as well as Alfred. He expressed this sentiment by pelting her with water balloons, which I guess is a sign of friendship, though I have memories of bullies doing the same thing to me for entirely different reasons…

Tommy: "That gown's not 'dry clean only' or anything, is it?"
I'll just never get over how much sims love being pelted with water balloons without warning, no matter what the occasion or what they're wearing. Most people I know don't like that, but then again, most people I know are very unlike the weird sims of the Monkeesim neighborhood. Anyway, that kept Tommy and Zondra amused way longer than it should have, and both of them would have been thoroughly soaked if sims actually had to worry about stuff like that. Alfred decided to head indoors and see what the old digs were looking like, as he hadn't really paid a visit since Tommy remodeled when he got married. Not that there was really much there to work with or remodel.

Alfred: "I hope he got rid of that evil weight bench!"
Although Allyn had put Allen down for the night and had hit the sack herself, there was just too much excitement going on for her to stay asleep (or something like that), so she quickly changed back into her clothes and joined Alfred in the living room (I wouldn't really feel all that comfortable sleeping with a vampire wandering around in my living room either, but that's just me). Allyn was already very familiar with werewolves and all the quirks they were prone to (like leaving fur on the couch and choking on the occasional hairball) after having lived with Tommy for so long, but she was pretty new to the whole vampire thing. She decided to take advantage of the opportunity to chat with Alfred and learn a thing or two about the fanged folks of the neighborhood.

Allyn: "So, do your fangs get in the way when you kiss?"
Yeah, it was good to see Alfred and Tommy hanging around in the old place again, especially since Alfred's castle is so obnoxiously huge that it takes forever to get anywhere or do anything (though traveling as a bat helps a little bit in that department). Visiting Tommy gave Alfred a chance to watch TV again without having to visit a community lot since Castle Witte has no television (not because Alfred couldn’t afford one, it just didn't fit the creepy, haunted décor of the rest of the castle). Eventually, after visiting all night long, it came time for Alfred and Zondra to head home and beat the sun. Tommy and Allyn had their hands full with other things, though, as it turned out it was time to celebrate Allen's birthday and evolution into a toddler. They grow up so fast.

Allen: "They couldn't even have taken me to Chuck E. Cheese?"
Luckily for Allen, by this point in time I knew exactly what to do when it came time for someone's birthday, unlike when Aiden Andrews was a baby and I could NOT figure out how to turn him into a toddler when the time came. It's always a nerve wracking moment when sim babies become toddlers. I mean, I know there's no up-side-down clown head curse in TS2 like in the first game, but there is the curse of really ugly babies sometimes as the game mechanics try to meld the characteristics of both parents into a baby (remember our little pal Seth, and how much he looked like a miniature version of his dad). Luckily for Allen, he didn't bear much of a resemblance to either parent. Maybe Allyn to a very small extent, but he seemed to be free of any resemblance to Tommy (good thing, can you imagine that werewolf fur on a baby?)

Allen: "Don't I get a cool pair of shades of my own now?"
Well, how about that, Tommy lucks out again! First he finds a wife, then they have a baby, and when the baby becomes a toddler, it's not even an ugly toddler. It would appear that karma is making up for all the time he spent being miserable with Rinoa and getting treated like dirt. Heaven knows he's earned it. Despite all this good fortune, though, Tommy steadfastly refused to even consider getting cured of his lycanthropy (it was always very high on his "fears" list, so I'm assuming that meant he wanted to stay a werewolf). Oh, well…if he and Allyn are okay with the fur and fangs, who are we to argue? Now that we've seen how good things are going for Tommy, it's about time to drop in on Rinoa again and see what direction her life is heading since she kicked Leon out of the house. How is she adapting to the single life? Will she find love again? Will she become a plant sim again and populate the town with even more of her plant clones? As always, there's only one way to find out! Tune in soon!

A Grinch For All Seasons

2008-04-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

I'm tired this morning, and not sure if I'll have the time or energy for a full length post, however, I've been meaning to add this addition to the Grinch series for a while regardless. In case you're wondering, it's not specific to any holiday, and not quite as long as the others, but here it is. Presenting...

"A GRINCH FOR ALL SEASONS"

The Grinch was a nasty old soul
With a heart as black as a hole
To make others feel bad
Is what made him glad
With evil schemes his head was full.

He bothered the MacGuffins no more
For Chucky had killed him before
He chose old Elmer Fultz
To recieve his insults
And the other ills he had in store.

In the dark reaches of his foul brain
The Grinch hatched a plot most insane
He gathered some poop
Left it on Elmer's stoop
And prepared to set it aflame.

"Oh my gosh, old man Elmer hates crap,
And he'll surely fall for my trap!"
The Grinch said with glee
As he started to flee
And around the block he ran a lap.

Well, Elmer heard noise at his door
He'd had pranks pulled on him before
"I won't stomp on that poo
And mess up my new shoe!"
And he quickly ran off to the store.

Elmer purchased a sentry bot
"That will teach those punks" he thought
When the Grinch had returned
His innards were burned
As with ten trillion volts he was shot.

Now the moral of this should be clear
If you don't want the Grinch to appear
Buy a bot of your own
So the Grinch can be shown
He's an unwanted pain in the rear!

The Dating Game

2008-04-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

Poor, neglected Sims blog! It seems like forever since I last posted, and let me tell you, it's been bugging me. My wife is partly to blame, having gotten me interested in photography not too long ago. I've spent a lot of time taking photos, and what little time I had during breaks at work when I used to work on sims posts, I spent posting photos instead (sort of the same thing, but with a lot less story telling). The other day, I started working on this most recent post, and I have to admit, the thing that inspired me to finish it was having read the comment on the last post. I hope to start posting again regularly, as I never intended to just stop and vanish off the face of the earth this time. =P

Last time we checked in on the Jacksons, Moon Dawg had realized his dream of a legitimate gnome-selling business, granting the family something resembling an actual income (granted, the current Jackson family has so much money they don't actually need it, but never mind that). As if that wasn't exciting enough, Steve Johnston (formerly Steve Jackson before unique last names were available) came looking for his old pals, Leon and Moon Dawg. Last we saw, he was living at Pimp Harbor, not on the boat, but in a little shack on a dock on the edge of the property. The shack was no house boat, but Steve wasn't paying to live there, so the price was right. He spent most of his time on the boat deck anyway dancing to salsa music and sharing drinks with his old buddies.

Kerrie: "I thought I heard someone getting sloshed up here!"
Having Steve back in the "family" helped bring back the good old days for Leon and Moon Dawg, and Leon was especially glad to have him around, because compared to Steve, Leon always looked like less of a loser than he actually was. I mean, come on - Steve's wife cheated on him, he died in a barbecue fire, came back as a zombie, then got sprayed by a skunk…do we really need any more reasons here? Obviously, things weren't exactly like the old days, because instead of an ugly retro house, there's an ugly retro boat, and instead of Steve being the only one who's married, Steve is the only one who's NOT married, but the easy going, fun loving atmosphere remained the same. At some point, Moon Dawg decided that if he was going to be a huge success in the gnome business, he needed to convey the proper image, and he couldn't do that if he had to go to work every day in a dirty old taxi. Thus, another dock was constructed, and Moon Dawg purchased a fly ride of his own…

Moon Dawg: "Now all we need is a piña colada air freshener, mon!"
Yes, by this point, almost everyone else in town owned one form of vehicle or the other, unless there wasn't room on their property for a driveway, it only seemed fitting for a cool cat like Moon Dawg to jump on that wagon and buy a "wagon" of his own. That, and Moon Unit missed the school bus, and the only way to get her to school before it was too late was to hurriedly construct a driveway, buy a car, and drive here there (if only it were that easy to solve problems in real life). Yes, it's definitely been a while since we last visited the Jacksons, because last time, Moon Unit was still this little green thing wobbling around and learning to walk. Now, she's a school going green kid, who's not showing a lot of alien intelligence with her "C" average in school. Hey, it's not easy being green!

Moon Unit: "Man, those kids on the bus are a bunch of weirdoes!"
Despite the joys of living on a boat with his two old pals, their wives, an alien, and unlimited entertainment and money resources, Steve found himself wanting something more. He'd grown accustomed to the idea of being attached to someone else (in the figurative sense, not physically), and being without Doris was starting to bum him out. Steve didn't have a lot of interest in getting out and hitting the clubs by himself, and Moon Dawg and Leon were content to stay on the boat almost all of the time (Moon Dawg because he had a wife and kid, Leon because he had a wife and lots of people around town who would love to punch his face in). Steve quickly realized the only way he was going to meet any women was through the dating service (we all know how well it's worked for everyone else in the neighborhood who tried it).

Steve: "I'll settle for pretty much any woman, as long as it's not you!"
Well, it's been my experience that in the world of TS2, giving the match maker a lot of money does not always guarantee a better match than you get for a little money, so Steve's contribution was moderate, but by no means significant. His resulting date was Ivy Hartman, one of the many female Hartman plant sims from around town. If I recall correctly, Tommy Wolf wound up getting one of the Hartmans for his blind date, and it's happened on a couple of other occasions with sims I didn't bother to cover. The plant sim Hartmans are many, and it would save a lot of money for folks around town to just head down to the Hartman Garden Center to look for a date instead of shelling out thousands of dollars to the match maker to get the same result. Steve didn't seem to care, though…after all, it wasn't his money he was wasting.

Ivy: "He's my date? I need to plan an escape route out of here!"
If you can recall that far back, Steve never actually had to woo Doris to get her to marry him, she fell completely and madly in love with him because of a love potion he mixed with his chemistry set (the same potion later caused her to fall in love with Leon as well). Thus, Steve really had no concept of what it took to gain the interest of a woman without potions, and it showed. Heck, I don't remember him ever really having any interaction with females when he lived in the original Jackson house, probably because Leon scooped most of them up before they could get very far into the house. He did know one thing from experience on the boat, and that's that Keri and Kerrie liked to hang out on the deck and have drinks, so he assumed maybe Ivy would feel the same way. Not great logic, but not entirely flawed either.

Ivy: "This would be even more fun if I wasn't suffering from sunlight deprivation…!"
Well, Ivy did seem to be enjoying hanging out at the bar with the residents of the boat, although she spent just as much time talking to everyone else as she did Steve. There's a big difference between a successful date and a fun casual outing, and Ivy's visit was starting to look more and more like the latter. Steve just wasn't getting it, though, perhaps because he was too afraid he'd screw things up if he made any overt expressions of his attraction for Ivy, if, indeed, he was attracted to her to begin with. If he was, at least someone was feeling something, because when it came time for the date to end, Ivy was less than receptive to the idea of a goodbye hug.

Moon Dawg: "Wow, mon, you got dissed bad! Sucks to be you!"
Yes, Moon Dawg looks a little too amused at Steve's bad fortune in that picture. I know he's all about happiness and everything being good all the time, but let's face it, sometimes, that over-cheery attitude just makes things worse for people who aren't feeling so cheery. Despite the late hour, and the shame of his less than stellar date, Steve wasn't even close to giving up yet. Since there wasn't time to go out and find a woman the traditional way, and since Steve had not yet learned his lesson about the matchmaker, he called her up again and decided to try his luck once again. This time, he shelled out about two thirds of the possible donation he could give to the matchmaker, in the hopes of getting someone a little more interested in him.

Steve: "How about someone who doesn't have leaves for hair?"
This time, Steve's date was one of the bartenders from around town, and I was too lazy to pay attention to her name, so we'll just call her Steve's date for the sake of simplicity. Anyway, Steve already got off to a better start with his new date than with Ivy, as she seemed to have more interests in common with him than Ivy had, and spent a lot less time putting her fingers in her ears during their conversations. Steve took this as a good sign, and decided to take things to the next level…the lower level. There wasn't a whole heck of a lot to do topside besides drink and dance, and everyone else had retired to the card table and bowling alley. Oddly, Ivy had decided to hang around after the date and play some cards and watch on the sidelines as Steve tried to do his thing. Talk about adding insult to injury. Actually, though, Steve wasn't doing too badly for himself…

Steve: "I learned this from watching 'The Karate Kid'..."
The rest of the gang didn't seem to mind Ivy's presence, mainly because she represented another person at the poker table, and winning money from her actually meant gaining some money, unlike the family members winning it from each other. Given the fact that most of the time, all four seats at the table were usually occupied by residents of the boat, playing poker wasn't usually a very profitable venture (unlike at Katrina and Mia Kay Wilson's house). Well, in addition to not being a great match for Steve, Ivy also seemed to be lacking in the tact department, as she started expressing her dislike for aliens. Surely she must have noticed Moon Unit, since she's looking right at her in the picture (maybe that's what brought on the comment in the first place).

Ivy: "I just don't like their green skin, it's weird!"
Yes, I don't think there's any further need to touch on the hypocrisy of Ivy disliking other "unusual" sims. Anyway, back to Steve. At some point, his second date ended, and he at least got a hug out of the deal (no lip action to speak of, though). His date left promptly after the timer was up, unlike Ivy, who was STILL hanging around even by this point. Steve decided there was no sense in trying for a third date (ignoring the tried and true wisdom of how the third time is a charm), and decided it might be a good time to get to know the rest of the "family" a little bit better. He already knew Leon and Moon Dawg as well as he could possibly hope to, but hadn't built much of a relationship with the girls or Moon Unit yet. He decided to join them for a few frames of bowling to correct that.

Moon Unit: "I just hope you bowl better than you date! Hee hee."
Yes, while Steve's second date didn't end as embarrassingly as his first did, it was still a little humiliating that things didn't go better, especially when Steve started comparing himself to Leon, who was once known for his ability to successfully pick up women and get them to fall in love with him in the time it takes most folks to ask a girl her name. Steve decided if he was going to compete at something, it might as well be something he stood a chance at, like bowling. Unfortunately, Steve didn't have a whole lot in the way of body points, and the lack thereof had a noticeable affect on his bowling form *snicker*. He did manage to bowl a few strikes, but his approach on those shots usually sent him flying down the lane as well. Oh, well…whatever it takes to make it happen I guess.

Leon: "Talk about your big time flops! Of course, I'm referring to your dates, not your bowling..."
Yes, Steve seems to be filling the exact same role he filled back in the days of the original Jackson family - the loveable loser who's not quite as cool as Leon and not quite as carefree and fun loving as Moon Dawg. Every family needs one. At least he's not messing around with chemistry sets anymore trying to achieve those goals. Anyway, we'll take a break from the Jacksons for the time being, and next time, we'll see just what Tommy and Allyn Wolf are up to these days (Allyn had just given birth to their son, Allen, when we last checked in on them). I'm hoping to post more frequently in coming days than I have been recently, I never expected to be able to do it daily like I was, but several weeks in between posts is a little longer than I like too, I'd like to find the happy medium. Until next time, everyone take care!

Smooth Move, Leon

2008-03-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Well, hello again, everybody, and welcome back. I'm not feeling terribly chatty today (on a personal level, anyway), even after having a pretty good Easter and three day weekend. Depending on how much anyone looks forward to hearing me ramble on about myself, I guess that could be either good or bad. However you look at it, we'll just get straight to the good stuff for now...

Well, if you remember our last post at all, you'll recall that Leon Hartman was behaving in a manner not conducive to the survival of he and Rinoa's relationship. Fed up with Rinoa's short temper and less than supportive attitude toward his laziness, Leon had gone downtown in need of a break from her nagging, and wound up at Schroeder's Jam Land. There, he met the young, nubile Katrina Wilson, and he proceeded to "make time" with her (I'm not sure anybody but my dad uses that terminology anymore, but I could be wrong). After some PDA and a little smooching at Schroeder's, Leon and Katrina parted ways. Leon could have decided to just forget about Katrina and try to fix what was broken between he and Rinoa, but that wouldn't have been Leon. He followed his less admirable instincts instead, and tracked down Katrina at her place of work, Andrews Radio Shock.

Katrina: "Sure I remember you from yesterday, Larry..."
At this point, Katrina was still unaware of the fact that Leon was already involved with someone, and just figured he was a nice guy who was interested enough in her to pay a follow up visit (never mind the fact that she hadn't told him where she worked, and the fact that he was able to figure it out so quickly is a little creepy). Leon, on the other hand, was treading on dangerous turf, and while Rinoa paid little attention to what Leon did during the day while she was off trying to support them, it wouldn't be long before Rinoa figured out Leon was being unfaithful if he kept up the obvious public displays of interest in Katrina. Leon's no genius, but even he was smart enough to recognize the potential dangers in what he was doing. He decided rather than take the risk of someone seeing he and Katrina together in public and reporting it to Rinoa, he'd simply bring Katrina home instead…cause THAT's a lot smarter!

Leon: "I know Rinoa could break me in half, but it's so hard to care!"
Actually, while bringing Katrina home does sound like an incredibly stupid idea, thanks to the reliable nature of sim work schedules, and the fact that they never come home early from work, coupled with the fact that the sim world is exempt for tell-tale things like lipstick on coffee cups or the scent of another woman's perfume lingering in the air, there was zero chance that Rinoa would find out about the relationship if she didn't witness it first hand. That was the original plan, anyway. But wait…there's a twist to all this! See, before last post, we hadn't covered Leon and Rinoa for quite some time, so these events actually took place a while ago. Back before Katrina was even pregnant. As a matter of fact, these events have a lot to do with WHY Katrina was pregnant. When viewed in that light, things suddenly start to make a little more sense now, don't they?

Yep…there's definitely a resemblance...
Those of you who figured it out earlier can pat yourselves on the back. Seth Wilson is none other than the secret love-child of Leon Hartman and Katrina Wilson. Of course, Seth didn't come along right away. Leon decided that however poorly he felt Rinoa treated him, there had been something between them at one point or another, and she was a great household provider. It would be stupid to throw all of that away for someone he met during happy hour at Jam Land, no matter how good the chemistry between them had been. Leon started to feel a little guilty (that's a first) about his unfaithful behavior, and began manifesting this guilt in extremely suspicious ways, like cleaning around the house and gardening.

Rinoa: "I knew he'd been hoing around behind my back!"
Well, Leon is no Mensa candidate, and Rinoa didn't get so far in her military career by being stupid. Leon's odd behavior just screamed of him being guilty of something, and given his single minded interest in romance, the possible offenses he may have committed were narrowed down significantly in Rinoa's mind. Plus, she knew Leon could only go so long without getting a little lovin', and he sure wasn't getting it from her. Rinoa may not have actually witnessed Leon and Katrina together, but she knew…somehow she knew because shortly after Katrina turned preggers, Rinoa became "furious" with Leon and Katrina. If there was any question Leon was headed for the boiling water before, Rinoa decided to clear away any doubts by beating the crap out of him…

Leon: "Ouch! Where's Alfred Witte when I need him?"
Now, at first glance, it's easy to understand why Rinoa would be irritated with Leon (assuming she knew the extent of his misbehavior, and the fact that he got Katrina pregnant). However, when you consider the fact that she totally acted like "little miss slutty-slut" when she was dating Tommy Wolf and messed around with other guys not once but three different times, her behavior kind of reeks of hypocrisy. Maybe she's had time to get some perspective since those days, or maybe her time in the military has taught her a few things about ethical behavior. Or maybe she's just a big, fat hypocrite, who thinks it's okay for her to do whatever she pleases, but heaven forbid anyone ever do her wrong. Hard to say with Rinoa.

Rinoa: "See if I ever plead with the reaper for you again, dirt bag!"
If Leon was getting the cold shoulder from Rinoa before, it suddenly seemed like things were about to get a whole lot chillier. He continued living in the house with her, but when she was home from work, Leon's life revolved around avoiding being poked, slapped, insulted, or beaten up by Rinoa. While locking the door to his room so only he could enter or leave provided him a little bit of sanctuary, it certainly wasn't a very fun way to live. After Seth was finally born, and the Wilson family thoroughly wore themselves out trying to figure out who Seth's father was, Leon eventually decided he had nothing to lose by paying a visit to the son he'd never met. It beat the alternatives back home.

Leon: "He definitely has my boyish good looks..."
Though it had been some time since Leon and Katrina had last been around each other, Katrina still had a crush on Leon, so she wasn't opposed to having him around. Leon wasn't opposed to being around people who didn't beat him up, so incidentally it worked out pretty well for him too. The Wilson family was used to having all kinds of traffic, relatives or otherwise, so Leon's presence was hardly an inconvenience. Since Leon was nowhere to be found when Seth was originally born or during his time as an actual baby, he didn't have the advantage of the automatic relationship boost that's usually granted between parents and children. However, he and Seth got along pretty well, and becoming best of friends was an easy process (which can't be said of in regards to all of Leon's attempted friendships).

Leon: "I'm still not sure why you're dressed like a convict..."
Amazingly enough, the whole fatherhood thing seemed to agree with Leon pretty well. For all the things he's not interested in, not good at, or too lazy to do, it was a pretty unexpected and refreshing change. Even without any "outside intervention" (i.e.. controlling by yours truly), Leon spent a great deal of time with Seth, trying to teach him everything he knew (minus any education regarding women, which is the topic he thought he knew the most about). Well, as little as he actually knows about girls, Leon had the common sense to realize two things: his chances with Rinoa were pretty much shot, and he was in love with Katrina. Thus, when Katrina proposed that Leon move in, he accepted without hesitation, and without bothering to collect his meager belongings from he and Rinoa's house. Unexpectedly, Leon fired back with a little proposal of his own…

Katrina: "I just hope we actually get married some day, unlike Antonio and Aimee!"
Obviously Katrina accepted the engagement proposal (thus the rings over their heads), but unlike some couples in the neighborhood who've proceeded straight to the next step with an "insta-marriage", Leon wasn't in any rush to make that happen. Probably a good thing, because Aimee would have been really, really jealous. She was still waiting for Antonio to finally set a time, place, or date for their wedding, but he'd yet to show any signs that he intended to do so any time soon. Meanwhile, Aimee was spending a lot of her time playing with Seth and wondering when she would have some kids of her own. Poor Aimee. Antonio seemed oblivious to her anxiousness. He was too busy playing poker and talking to visitors about sum wrestling.

Aimee: "If I'd stayed a plant sim, I could have had kids on my own a long time ago!"
Well, Aimee and Antonio talked things over a little bit, and with Leon now living in the house with them, Katrina, Mia Kay, and Seth, things were starting to get just a little crowded. Two solutions presented themselves. The first would be to kick out everyone but themselves and have them find another place to stay, but considering the crappy wages everyone was making, that seemed a little harsh. The alternative was for Aimee and Antonio to move out and find a place big enough for the two of them, which seemed a little more practical. Thus, without bothering to take the meager furnishings, Aimee and Antonio said goodbye, called up a taxi, and moved out of the house they hated so badly when they first moved in. Incidentally, I still don't like it much.

Mia Kay: "Wait! Who's going to cook for us now?"
Having Aimee and Antonio gone was a big change for the household. While Antonio was much older than Katrina and Mia Kay, and especially Aimee, it was always Aimee who really directed and kept the household affairs in order (not affairs like the kind Leon and Katrina had, the other kind). She'd made the most money, was a master chef, and was the only one really prone to picking up after herself when needed. Katrina and Mia Kay are kind of slackers, and we all know where Leon's tendencies lie. Suddenly, the house was occupied only by people who didn't cook or clean, which doesn't sound like such a great arrangement. Their hearts were in the right place, though, and they made an effort to make sure that at least Seth was well cared for and not surrounded by piles of filth.

Mia Kay: "I could be watching the cooking channel, but then I'd miss Conan O'Brien!"
Well, a lot had happened in a short time, and to say that both Katrina and Leon's lives had changed radically would be an understatement. Just a short while ago, Leon thought he was destined to be with Rinoa, now he's engaged and has a kid with Katrina. Katrina has a baby, her fiancé living with her, and her long time room mates Aimee and Antonio are no longer around. Katrina and Leon both did their best to keep up with Seth, though it seemed at times that it took both of them and then some (i.e.. Mia Kay) to keep him happy and meet all his needs. The good thing about having Leon around was that he had no job to begin with, and didn't bother getting one after moving in with the Wilsons, so nobody had to take off work to watch Seth.

Come on guys…try to look happy!
All joking aside, Leon and Katrina seemed to be a much better match for each other than Leon and Rinoa had been. Neither one of them ever seems to take anything too seriously, aside from looking after Seth. Leon had finally found someone who liked him for who he was (whatever that may be), and Katrina was finally free of the rigors of dating and looking for love and the hazards that came with it (like getting into fights on blind dates). Sounds like it worked out pretty well for both of them, don't you think? Well, speaking of dating and looking for love, most of the folks living at Leon Jackson's "Pimp Harbor" residence have found love and freed themselves from the dating cycle, but not the recently arrived Steve Johnston. Join us next time here as we drop and witness his attempts to find that elusive, crazy little thing called "love". See you later!

Not So Great Together

2008-03-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it feels like ages since I blogged here, and that's probably because it has been! My motivation to write has been a little less than usual recently, but I've also been on vacation for a week with no internet access, so I couldn't have posted here if I'd wanted to. My wife spends a lot of time with photography, and she tried to get me into it over her spring break, and she actually met with some success. I've been taking a lot of pictures lately, and posting and blogging about them is time consuming. Trying to find the time to post here AND on my photoblog, well, forget about it! This blog still has a special place in my heart, though, and I refuse to let it "die" while I still have material waiting to be posted, so here we go...

As you'll probably recall, when I first started telling the stories of my TS2 sims here on this blog, we spent a fair amount of time following the Leon and Rinoa Hartman, and their rocky road to romance. Basically, Leon was obsessed with Rinoa, and she was obsessed with treating her boyfriend Tommy Wolf like dirt. After putting in to action a daring plan to get rid of Tommy, Leon and Rinoa finally had their chance to make things official and be a normal couple. Was it worth all the trouble? Well, I'd like to answer that with a resounding "yes" for all you fans of the pair, but for some reason, once Leon and Rinoa finally got to be together, the magic between the two seemed to fade away, if it was ever really there to begin with...

Rinoa: "I told you to quit putting those stupid pictures up in my room!"
There were a lot of old bad feelings between Leon and Rinoa as a result of their falling in and out of love when Rinoa was still dating Tommy, and while they didn't seem to matter so much when Leon and Rinoa's was just a forbidden romance, they certainly seemed to matter when the pair became an official "item". Once the adventure and excitement of pursuing the relationship had passed, it gave the pair plenty of time to focus on little irritating things that had come between them in the process. Rinoa realized she was sort of getting the short end of the stick, as Leon still had no job, and his "romantic vision" of making a living as a struggling artistic was becoming more of an annoying income-free reality. Rinoa was getting a little tired of pulling all the financial weight around the house, among other things.

Leon: "…*sniff*…how did I get stuck with such an evil witch?"
Yes, it appears that the reality of Leon and Rinoa being together at this point didn't really compare to the dream romance they'd imagined. Leon was sticking to his old ways, despite Rinoa's nagging, and refused to find work or make himself useful around the house (besides cooking the occasional meal or unclogging the toilet when needed). Given how small the house started to feel to Leon when he realized there was nowhere to go to escape Rinoa when she got in her "moods", his only recourse was to get out and visit one of the local community lots. It just so happens that around the time Leon was desperately seeking a temporary safe haven, Bluewater Village was welcoming "Schroeder's Jam Land", one of the hottest hangouts to hit the area thus far…

Flaming ninjas always make everything better...
As you might have guessed, Schroeder's Jam Land was the invention of Schroeder Fultz (in case you were confused and thought there were a lot of other Schroeders in town). It was your basic bar and dance club hybrid, with the addition of the electric guitar career reward from the music track for jamming on (I had yet to buy or install University at this point, or I'd have probably just used the basic instruments). All in all, it wasn't a bad little establishment, and it quickly became a level ten business, meaning the place was constantly hopping (and it didn't require nearly the work Radio Shock or Kitty's Korner did, proving that life is unfair). Leon hadn't been yet, obviously, but he was pretty certain Jam Land had to be better than sitting at home getting nagged at.

Leon: "I just want someone to make out with…is that really too much to ask?"
Well, the population of the Monkeesim neighborhood has certainly grown since the first few TS2 posts, while Leon has remained a "home body" for the most part. I don't know why it is I never felt compelled to send him out of the house more often when I used to visit the Hartman home, maybe because he do what he did best without ever leaving: pine for Rinoa. Or maybe I felt he didn't deserve an outing since he never actually worked or helped around the house. Or maybe Rinoa was so busy hogging the spotlight that I totally forgot about Leon altogether. It's hard to say. There were tons of people at Jam Land when Leon first showed up, but he didn't know a single one of them, and they didn't seem terribly interested in getting to know him.

Leon: "Dude, what's with all the blood suckers?"
Not knowing anyone wasn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. Most of the people Leon knows are also friends of Rinoa, and no doubt they've had their heads filled with stories of what a lazy, worthless bum Leon is, and who needs to have to hear about stuff like that when you're out looking for a good time (even if it's true)? Leon certainly wasn't interested in that kind of hassle. He didn't seem to be interested in too much of anything when he first entered the bar. He wandered over to the dance floor, but didn't dance. Then he headed over to the bar and didn't order a drink. He stood around by some people but didn't talk. He did manage to catch the eye of Katrina Wilson, another sim who hasn't spent much time away from home in recent past.

Leon: "Wait, isn't that her there on TV?"
It's nice to know they share a common bond in the form of their fear of leaving the house, although Katrina has plenty of reason to be afraid with her history of getting beaten up constantly during her outings. Leon was simply anticipating people wanting to beat him up before it ever happened. If he was worried about Tommy Wolf, there wasn't much need for concern, since Tommy had gotten over Rinoa a long time ago. Actually, trouble came from a source Leon never anticipated - Spruce Hartman. It's been a while since Spruce got put in his place by Captain Hero, but Leon seemed to be bringing out the worst in him…

Leon: "Well, I 'double minus' hate you too!"
Like Justin the Jerk (who we haven't seen or heard from in quite some time), Spruce tends to have a nasty streak toward folks he's never met for no reason at all. However, he's the son of Iris Hartman, the plant daughter of Rinoa, making him Rinoa's grandson. No doubt, Spruce had a thing or two to say about Leon and the lack of effort he'd been putting forth in he and Rinoa's relationship (like it's really any of Spruce's business). Well, Spruce may be a tough guy with shades, scary clothes, and stubble, but Leon wasn't intimidated by him. Leon may be a big wimp, but he's still man enough to slap the crap out of anyone who gives him trouble (cause you know how manly slapping someone is)…

Spruce: "Ouch! I know where you live, dude!"
If Leon was really serious about the whole thing between he and Rinoa, it might be prudent for him to remember that he'd be Spruce's step-grandfather if he and Rinoa ever got married, and then Spruce would be able to tell folks that his grandfather was an abusive scoundrel who slapped him around at the bar. And let's face it, Leon's reputation can't stand to take much more of a beating than it already has. Well, Leon seemed to have forgotten about Rinoa more or less by the time he was done rumbling with Spruce. Not only had he caught Katrina's eye earlier, but she managed to catch his eye as well, and he quickly dropped into his "shameless flirt mode". Oh, Leon…have you learned nothing from all the posts making fun of you and your fickle behavior?

Leon: "Rinoa? Rinoa who?"
Now, on a side note, you'll notice that neither Leon or Katrina have the little green "sim diamond" over their heads here. No, it's not clever editing, it's because while Leon's activities make for a great post, he wasn't actually under my influence, nor was Katrina. He's just that much of a flirtatious scumbag that he was pursuing the thing with Katrina all on his own. Poor Katrina was basically oblivious to what kind of putz Leon really is, and was too taken in by his "looks and charm" to really care too much. Leon was too excited about the concept of having a woman interested in him who wasn't nagging him to get a job or do something with his life to care about the effects his actions might have on he and Rinoa's relationship.

Leon: "Yeah, I learned how to dance watching 'Hitch' over and over..."
Well, to this point, there was still hope for redemption for Leon. After all, while the attraction between he and Katrina was undeniable, he'd only tried charming her and done a little dancing thus far, and that really doesn't amount to a whole lot. It wasn't like they'd gone out to the secret photo booth behind Schroeder's and done something dirty. They were bordering on shameless behavior though when Katrina decided to give Leon a backrub out on the dance floor. If Leon was any kind of a gentleman at all, he'd have informed Katrina that he had a girlfriend who was a highly trained soldier who probably could have broken both of them in half with one hand tied behind her back, but with things going so well, it just seemed like a bad idea to mention that.

Leon: "You're so much better at that than Rin…er…my massage therapist!"
Well, thanks to some sort of "romance inhibitor" built into TS2, even sims who have mad chemistry with each other and maxed out relationship points still don't seem to try to take things to the next level on their own, and Leon and Katrina may very well have remained in the "very friendly platonic friends zone" for the rest of their days. However, Schroeder Fultz, owner of Jam Land (and the sim who I was actually in control of this whole time), decided he hated to see a pair with such potential go to waste, and used his "influence" on Leon to convince him to go for broke. Okay, so THAT's crossing the "platonic friend line" a little bit, but Leon never was very good at staying inside that line to begin with.

Leon: "What Rinoa doesn't know won't hurt me…!"
But wait…doesn't Katrina have a baby? Isn't she acting a little irresponsibly, hanging out at Schroeder's club and flirting guys and ignoring her inhibitions (if indeed she has any)? Maybe, but on the other hand, maybe not. Has Leon thrown away his chance with Rinoa, or is there any hope she'll forgive him for his piggish behavior? Will she even find out about his piggish behavior? He is a pretty stealthy pig when he wants to be. Anyway, too many questions all at once here. The answer to most of them will hopefully be revealed in our next post, and hopefully the next post won't take weeks to arrive! See you then!

Welcome to Kitty's Corner

2008-03-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hey to one and all, and welcome back. I was wondering when I'd drag my butt back here and get another post up. It's been a little tricky lately because I'm getting ready to switch positions at work, which has meant a lot of changes in schedule and a lot of packing. A LOT of packing. I had like five large boxes of stuff come out of my cubicle, which is more stuff than I think I actually own at home. How sad is that? Pretty sad, but most of the stuff here at work is garbage anyway, I just can't bring myself to throw it away (it's stuff that teeters on the border of being garbage but not quite stuff you want to pitch. Man, I hate that sort of stuff).

I don't know how much I've discussed it here before, but I'm a huge Star Wars fan (by huge, I don't mean in the physical sense, and by fan, I mean geek). This past weekend, I finally broke down and bought a Master Replica Force FX lightsaber. I know this may not mean anything to non-fans, but I'm pretty jazzed about it. In a nutshell, it's about as close to being a replica of Luke Skywalker's saber from the original film, and if you never thought it was possible for an adult to spend hours posing in front of a mirror and swinging around a toy saber, think again. It cleaned me out, so I'm about to wind up living in a cardboard box, but it's okay, because I saw a segment on Oprah last week about how to find your food and furniture needs in your local dumpsters (gross).

Okay, anyway, on with the sims. I confess I passed up the opportunity to buy the Freetime EP in favor of buying the lightsaber replica, and it was a tough decision, but Star Wars is my first hobby, and I knew for a fact I loved lightsabers. I'd heard good things about the new EP, but wasn't willing to give up buying the saber in case it actually sucks. Now, I think a part of me was putting off this post because I just didn't know what to say, but let's see how it goes. As we join the Marty/Kitty/J.D./Julie Wilson family, they are nowhere to be seen at the moment, but we'll snoop around their house anyway. Last time we visited, there was no upstairs to the house, but now there is. The downstairs was a little short on space for recreational activities, so it seemed the only logical solution to the problem.

Nothing fancy, just your average, ordinary upstairs computer and karaoke bar.
The problem with adding the "pimped out" upstairs to the house was that everyone was instantly attracted to the bar, as is the case with every sim home that features a bar. And if the bar hadn't been there, it would be the poker tables they were drawn to. The solution to this problem was simple, though, since all the temptations were isolated upstairs, the door to the upper floor was simply locked so nobody could get in until the proper time. I know, this sounds a little weird since all of the Wilsons who work just own their own businesses and basically all the time they don't choose to visit those businesses is leisure time. There are more important things than having fun, though, like skill building. Well, not to me in real life, but hey, I have to have priorities for my sims. Given the ample unused property behind the house, the family decided to invest in a nice, modest pool.

Now with triple the ladders for extra protection against those pesky deaths by drowning...
I don't have any really good pictures of it, but all in all, the Wilson house had become more like the Wilson estate than just a house (I'm not sure what the exact definition of an estate is, but it sounds fancier than house does). The down side to that, as with any house in my neighborhood, is that once I feel the property has expanded to it's full potential and there's not much left to buy, that's one less thing to focus on to fight boredom while playing a lot (and we don't want the older Wilsons to fall into the same rut the younger ones were falling into in our last post). On the up side, a property with a lot of stuff built on it usually means the sims living there are never bored, and that was the case here finally. While the upstairs bar and poker room was originally intended to be used just for parties, I did eventually open it up a bit more regularly so the sims could get to the computers they were so desperately wanting to use.

Marty: "I'm just not so sure this qualifies as togetherness time…"
I have no objections to sims having nice houses with lots of stuff to do, but I always try to be careful not to make them TOO nice, or I run the risk of having no reason to send the sims out to community lots ever. Let's face it - load times suck and some of the pre-made community lots aren't worth two picks and a flick (just made that saying up), but at the heart of Sims 2 is the social interaction, and if your sim's house is so great that they have everything they need and then some, the temptation to stay home and miss out on contact with other sims is very strong. Let's face it - that's where the REAL fun is at. Nobody wants to watch their sims play around with gadgets at home all day long (well, nobody I know does), even cool ones like the karaoke machine.

Kitty: "I feel like I'm singing in the fiery depths of hell!"
Well, Marty has his club, and J.D. has his car lot, and Kitty was starting to feel a little left out. She's never really been the type to be content to sit around on the sidelines (heck, back in the olden days, she was the only family member who really did much of anything), and while it was all good and fine for her to help with the other businesses when needed, there just wasn't a whole lot to do, and she really wanted to be the one in charge. And so, she sat down and tried to figure out what sort of service was still needed in the area. Obviously, cars and dancing were already covered, as were tiki coffee and casual dining. However, a really nice restaurant had yet to be created, and Kitty decided it was up to her to fill that need.

Ladies and gents, welcome to "Kitty's Korner"...
What is it about misspelling place names that should start with a "c" with a "k" that suddenly makes the place so much more appealing? Now, Marty never actually purchased the building his club is in, I designed it before I got OFB, and never felt like having to actually manage it as a business to keep things hopping. J.D.'s car lot wound up being pretty successful with a minimum of expenses besides the cars themselves. Kitty figured that Kitty's Korner would run just as smoothly, but she failed to take into account that I'm kind of an idiot, and with me managing things behind the scenes, the restaurant would quickly become a money pit, almost to the same extent as the early days of Andrews Radio Shock.

Welcome to "Kitty's Korner"…again, but with no roof...
While using family members to help work the business is always the cheapest way to do things, Kitty knew right away that she would have to have some non-family employees hired to fill the numerous different positions around the place (or she would be the only one working there if I visited while playing another family). She hired Allyn Wolf to work the register, despite her having no register skills to speak of. Regina Daniels was hired on as the greeter and seater, a job which didn't seem to require any special skills to do well from the beginning (maybe it does require them, but I've never seen a customer get frustrated because of a greeter being too slow). Regina did have some sales experience from working at her fish stand (rarely), so she might have been better suited to ringing up customers, but that would have made too much sense.

Kitty reserves the hardest job for herself - sitting on her butt...
You're probably wondering what the register in the place was for, since restaurants don't require a register, but I forgot to mention that Kitty's Korner also has a little book store in it. There were actually more book sales than food sales on average, so thank goodness for the books. Any good eatery pretty much needs to have a good chef, and finding one on short notice was a little tricky. The only person with massive cooking talent that Kitty knew well enough to offer a job to was Aimee Andrews, who already had a job as Chief of Staff on the medical career track, but she was more than happy to give that up, and accepted Kitty's offer (most folks say that surgery and preparing food are pretty similar). Of course, Aimee has quite a few talent badges, so hiring her actually cost a fair amount of money.

Aimee: "Chief…chef…it's only a difference of one letter…"
As with Amy and Radio Shock, hiring so many employees really started to put a drain on Kitty's finances. It was easy enough to make Marty, Julie, and J.D. work as the greeter, cashier, and server while Kitty talked up the customers, but nobody in the family was prepared to take over duties as chef when actually visiting the lot, because nobody knew how to cook. Well, since there were a ton of books right there in the store, and Kitty spent a lot of time sitting around anyway (the books were cheap enough that most customers already decided to buy them before Kitty could give them her sales pitch), she decided to sit around with a book and study cooking so she could be the chef if needed, and save a boatload of money.

Kitty: "For the last time, no! I really don't want to read aloud to you!"
The first few cooking points came pretty easily, as with all skill points, but then it started to take longer and longer for Kitty to learn anything new. Since it was at a community lot she owned instead of her home, there wasn't a little progress bar showing up over Kitty's head even though she was gaining skills, and that made things a little annoying. Eventually, though, Kitty had enough skill to take over the cooking duties, and take over she did. All of the actual paid staff were sent home, and the Wilson family officially took over all of the positions at Kitty's Korner themselves. Some cheap people will do anything to save a buck, but by this point, Kitty had already lost thousands of dollars paying employee wages without bringing in enough money to cover them. Not the sign of a good business, but you don't need me to tell you that.

Marty: "First the car lot, now this! Why am I always the cashier?"
Switching out the paid staff for family employees was probably the best move Kitty could have made at the time, because with no employees around to pay, and the books rarely needing to be restocked, pretty much all sales were pure profit. Of course, food isn't a huge money maker, so the positive cash flow was still little more than a trickle. Kitty found herself way too busy with the cooking to annoy customers with her sales pitch anymore, so J.D. was given the double task of waiter and customer schmoozer. At this point, the book store section had cheap, average, and expensive books, and it actually took a little work sometimes to sell the expensive ones. He'd developed quite the sales talent working at the car lot, though, so most customers were no match for his persuasive abilities.

J.D: "Believe me, you NEED a copy of Oprah's biography!"
As with my other stores, there were plenty of crabby customers coming in who served no purpose but to decide before they even started looking at stuff that they weren't actually going to buy anything. J.D. had a gold sales talent badge, but it had absolutely no effect on these vile creatures, whose only goal was to crush the hopes and dreams of anyone trying to make a sale. I usually see to it that those killjoy types are quickly dismissed to make room for "real" customers, but for some stupid reason, the same set of people always seem to show up over and over in cycles, and the crabby ones always seem to be crabby. That was just fine with me. They had only themselves to blame when I got frustrated and used the "boolprop" cheats to make them fat before they left the store.

Burglar: "Does this place offer a 'five finger discount'?"
After what seemed like an incredibly long time, Kitty's Korner achieved financial stability, in that it was bringing in more money than it was paying out on a regular basis (so long as the Wilsons were the only ones working, with none of the paid employees called in). Kitty decided that the slobby clothes most of the family were working in had to go, and insisted on fancier attire. To further abuse her role as the business owner, she decided that the eight hour shifts everyone had been pulling originally just weren't enough, and kept the store open until the wee hours of the night/morning (with a brief closing of the business in the afternoon for a break). The Monkeesim neighborhood has a booming vampire subculture, and staying open ridiculously late was the only logical way to exploit that.

Marty: "So, have you read the latest in the 'Twilight' series?"
Yes, it wasn't long before Kitty's Korner was pulling in the "freaks" hand over fist. Apparently, vampires, werewolves, and servos are literary nuts (they took advantage of the book section a lot more than they did the restaurant part of the establishment). I guess when you're considered "weird" or "scary" by the rest of society, it never hurts to have a good book to sit down with at home to wait out those torch and pitchfork carrying mobs laying siege to your house. Seriously, though, by this point in time, especially in the evenings, every other sim I'd see wandering the community lots was either a vampire, werewolf, servo, or plant sim. It was almost to the point where the "normal" sims would be the ones getting the funny looks.

Marty: "You wanted 'self-help'? Try the 'mechanics' section! "
Well, anyway, all's well that ends well. The business was doing fine, and that's all the more I want to say about it. Seriously, if I do any more "business heavy" posts here, I'm going to have to stop reading my own blog. Actually playing OFB is fun, but trying to depict the progress of my sim businesses without being hideously boring is a painful process at times. I do have at least one more post on the way with a little reference to a home business, but the good news is two-fold, because that post is a little ways away, and it's not your everyday business. But for now, no more of the "b" word. When we first began the TS2 era posts here, we spent a fair amount of time with the Hartman family, but we haven't heard much from them since Leon and Rinoa hooked up. How have things been going since then? Are they even still alive? Only time and our next post will tell!

A Family Resemblance

2008-02-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to all you first time visitors to this blog, as well as those of you who read it regularly (I think that mostly includes me and a couple of relatives if I'm lucky). I feel like someone is choking me right now, not because they actually are, but because I decided to wear a dress shirt and tie today, and ties always have a little bit of a gagging effect on me. Thank goodness I don't work at a place that requires them daily - I can't imagine having to work with so much of my precious oxygen cut off from my brain. Actually, there is supposedly a "business casual" dress code at my place of work, but last time I checked, sweat pants and T-shirts weren't business casual (unless you're a track star), but there's a heck of a lot of that around here, and it's not on me.

I don't know what got me thinking along these lines, but I remember an era where it seemed like every movie I bought featured Ryan Reynolds, and every one of those movies featured a shot of his butt at some point or another. How thankful I am that we seem to be past that era…and that I sold all those movies. That's enough of that random thought for now, though. Ryan Reynolds isn't a sim (though if he were, his butt would be blurred out, thankfully). We are here to talk about sims, so let's change our focus. When we first drop in on the young Wilson family, we find Antonio out and about shopping for some new clothes. Why he'd want to replace those stylish duds he's wearing now, we'll just never know.

Antonio: "It's just not very practical winter wear!"
The funny thing (to me at least) is that Antonio is a full generation older than Katrina and Mia Kay (Katrina is his niece), but you certainly can't tell by looking at the outfit he began his Monkeesim life wearing. Judging by his clothes, he looks younger or at least about the same age as the girls. It just seemed like it was time to update his outfit to something a little more distinguished or respectable. Especially since my sims aren't "allowed" to age into elders, the only way to depict the passage of years is by giving them "older" looking clothes. That's usually the only hope most of my sims ever have of getting new clothes, because generally, I'm not much of a clothes monger. The idea of dressing my sims in a new outfit every day is just too tedious for me. Anyway, Antonio opted to wear a nice leather jacket everywhere instead of a tank top. So now, instead of being under-dressed for the cold months, he's over-dressed for the warm ones.

Antonio: "Didn't they tell you? The 50's are making a comeback!"
No doubt now that Antonio is all dressed up, people will ask him stupid questions like if he has an interview or if he ran out of clean clothes and had to resort to the nice ones or crap along those lines. Oh, wait - I'm thinking of the idiot stuff people ask me every time I wear anything nicer than a Hefty bag with arm and head holes cut in it to work (you'd think I was the biggest slob in town the way they talk it up when I'm not wearing my normal everyday wear). You'll recall from before that even though Katrina had finally had Seth, she was still working, and her and the rest of the family were still taking turns calling out from work to baby sit. You may be thinking that they could have just called the Nanny, but she's one of the most useless sims. Her and the pet trainer should hook up and eat other peoples' food and do nothing together.

Mia Kay: "How did I get stuck having a baby all the time without the fun that comes from making one?"
Aside from the slight change in schedule that came with people calling out to watch Seth, life in the Wilson house was getting boring. Very, VERY boring! Like, "oh my gosh, someone please shoot me and end the misery" boring! I can't say it was the fault of the family, because they were doing everything they could to liven things up, but they'd been stuck in the world's ugliest house with very little to do, and managing their needs and schedules was becoming a big pain in the you-know-what, and nobody had left the house for any reason but to work in ages. Something had to be done. Well, nobody did do anything besides boring stuff and baby watching, and I was at a loss as to how to help them out of that rut, even with my limitless power over my sims.

Katrina: "I guess I could watch the baby, but where's the fun in that?"
Yes, I realized just how hideously dull things had gotten when I took into account the fact that the whole beginning of this post was dominated by discussion of Antonio buying a new jacket and Ryan Reynolds' ass. I'll be sure to make an appointment to get my head checked later and see what the implications of all this are, but for now, our focus is still on what big losers the Wilsons are. The family as a whole was beginning to suffer the same sort of problems the original Wilsons from my TS1 house had encountered, my inability to keep so many people happy at once. Fulfilling needs is tough enough, but once you throw the aspiration meter in there, well, forget about it! Everyone did their best, and having so many people around to help out with the baby did provide enough of a break for everyone that nobody went crazy.

Aimee: "You know, he even looks a little like you!"
Hmmm…that's kind of gross if you think about the implications, but here's a freebie for you: Antonio is NOT Seth's father. That's not even possible, due to how the family was created (the game considers him a parent rather than Katrina's uncle, but close enough). Sorry if you thought you'd discovered the deep down dirty truth about Seth's parentage, but even the bulk of Seth's family was still clueless on that front, so you get to be too. The fact is, by this point, nobody really cared who Seth's dad was - Seth was just sort of there and that was good enough for everyone. It's not like there was room to move anyone else into the house if the father ever did show up and decided he wanted to spend more time with his kid (yes, I know the eight family member limit had not yet been exceeded, but that's not what I'm talking about, all you wiseacres). Anyway, seeing as how Seth was going to become a toddler sooner or later, it made sense to buy some toys and stuff for when he aged. That was the excuse Antonio and Katrina used to buy toys, although they used them quite a bit themselves.

Antonio: "Next time I get to be Robot, and you're Brick Man!"
I hesitated a little to let them buy a Sir Bricks-a-lot, since every time one of my families gets one, they tend to drop everything else to play with the dumb thing, but there was no reason to deprive Seth just because of the strange obsessions of the adult sims. The robot seems to be oddly popular as well, though not nearly as much as the brick. Katrina spent almost her entire day off playing with the toy robot before deciding she should probably spend some time with her own baby too. This gave Antonio just the opening he was looking for to get his hands on the robot. Sadly, he discovered the stupid thing was broken, meaning it wasn't just maternal instinct that made Katrina decide to put it down and pick up Seth instead.

Antonio: "Gah! Robots are supposed to be our faithful servants!"
Those robots break ridiculously easy compared to most other objects that have the potential to get broken. They're pretty easy to repair, though, even for sims who you've never seen pick up a tool in their entire life, and I've never seen anyone get electrocuted fixing a robot before. Anyway, after a span of time that seemed to have no end, Seth's birthday eventually rolled around. Lucky for Seth, I was familiar with the birthday/baby aging process by this point. When it came time for Aiden, my first TS2 baby, to age into a toddler, I could not for the life of me figure out what I was supposed to be doing to assist the process. I kept getting "help with birthday" interactions queued, and had no idea what was supposed to be happening for an entire day…

Katrina: "Hey, what idiot put four candles on the cake?"
Looking back on that picture, you might be wondering who the guy in the red suit is. Could it be Seth's father, there to celebrate his son's first birthday? No. The answer is that he's absolutely nobody of importance! I have no idea who he was or what he was doing at the house, but even intrusive weirdoes with bad fashion sense are happy to celebrate someone's birthday for a free piece of cake. The big news about the whole birthday thing, besides the fact that it was enough of an event to pull in strangers off the street, was that it signified the time when Seth would stop looking like all the other generic sim babies, and finally show signs of his parentage…

Presenting the latest in fashion for baby prison inmates...
Now, to the casual observer, little Seth may appear to be just another baby with overly intelligent looking features and prison inmate looking clothes, but if you're like me and know who the male parent is, the resemblance is astounding. Heck, from the looks of things, the only thing Seth really got from his mom was her skin tone, the rest came from his old man. Unfortunately, for those of you who have yet to make the visual connection between Seth and his father, the mystery remains unsolved for now. Something about Seth aging into a toddler and having a little more personality caused Katrina to start spending a lot more time with him. Suddenly, teaching him to walk and talk and all that good stuff seemed like a lot more fun than spending time with the toy robot. She hadn't been able to teach it a darn thing.

At least one of his parents is finally giving him the time of day!
The whole baby training process seemed a lot easier this time around than it had the last time I remembered having to go through it. I think last time was with Moon Unit Marley, and it seemed to take forever (and it seemed even longer with Jaden and Kati Daniels). That, and Katrina used the aspiration reward milk to speed up the process and give Seth a healthy glow. The stuff worked, though, and before you know it, Seth was able to walk around on his own and say stuff like, "where's my Daddy?" and wander around outside while nobody seemed to have any idea where he was. Katrina tried in vain to get Seth new clothes, but at this point in time, I had yet to figure out how to shop for clothes for children (don't email me about it, I figured it out since). His night time clothing selection was definitely the most "unique".

Seth: "Let me out! I'm not an animal, I'm a human being!"
Those panda pajamas made me laugh like an idiot (perhaps we can simply refer to them as "pandamas"…hehe), and I wasn't in any hurry to get rid of them. The family decided they needed to just accept Seth no matter how odd his everyday wear was. It wasn't as bad as Jaden Daniels' little white tuxedo she wore when she was a baby. The older Seth got, the more space he seemed to take up in the house, and it started to become evident that sooner or later, something was going to have to change. Fitting Katrina and Mia Kay into a small room together worked okay at the moment, and Antonio and Aimee we doing just fine sharing the double bed in their room, but once Seth outgrew his crib, he'd either have to sleep on the couch, or something dramatic would have to take place. Antonio didn't seem particularly concerned about this, because he had other things on his mind…

Antonio: "What's the deal with lady bugs? They get in your house, your car, your pants…I hate em!"
The most logical solutions to the inevitable overcrowding problem were that either Katrina would have to take Seth and go live with Seth's dad, or Antonio and Aimee would have to move out and start their own life together elsewhere. Aimee had supported the family, bought the new house, and paid most of the bills since she first moved in with the Wilsons, yet it seems like having to stay in the world's ugliest house sharing cramped quarters with a bunch of nuts like the Wilson gang would sort of be like getting the short end of the stick. At this point, Aimee was just waiting to hear anything at all from Antonio as far as when they'd actually be getting married, but as with the identity of Seth's father, that remains a mystery. We'll be putting all this mysterious stuff on hold for the time being, though, as we visit Kitty, Marty, Julie, and J.D. for a bit, and see what they're trying to pass off has having a life. See you next time! :-)

Robots and Evil Squid

2008-02-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

This has been the longest week for me, and only a couple days have gone by. It's not because there's been a lot of particularly bad stuff happening, though, it's just been really snowy and gloomy outside for the past couple weeks, and that takes its toll on my brain - I have snow on the brain, so to speak. With snow comes the mentality that I should be at home drinking coffee sitting in a warm, quiet room, not in a brightly lit office environment where everything is air conditioned even in the winter, having to click away at a keyboard all day long. No wonder I don't get anything done when it's snowy out. I still have the "snow day" mentality from when I was a kid in school and a big snow usually meant a pretty good chance of getting at least one day off. They never call out at my job. Being an adult sucks.

On that happy, happy note, I must clarify that I'm actually doing pretty good, if you ignore my little issue with gloomy weather. I was born in Los Angeles, and I've never quite embraced living in a state where it's cold so much of the year or there's so much weather variation. Having all that change at the age of 12 was like having TS2 installed and installing "Seasons" and abruptly changing everything your sims know about the weather. Speaking of sims (how's that for a segue?), let's move on to them, because they're a lot more fun than my personal mumbo jumbo. As we enter the neighborhood, we find ourselves at the Andrews home, where the adorable and talented Amy Andrews is busy flying a kite...

Amy: "At the first sign of lightning, I'm letting go of this crazy thing!"
Yes, it was lots of fun to craft all kinds of goodies to sell at Radio Shock, but curiosity eventually got the best of Amy, and she decided to try out some of the products she was selling to test them for fun and functionality. That way, when folks asked her how something works or if it's any fun to use, she'd actually have something to tell them instead of just standing there looking dumb. She was smart enough not to test the obviously evil variations of some of the items like the clown-in-a-box and the evil kite (she just left the evil clown sitting around the house where people like Clarence could keep using it and peeing on the floor as a result). Buddy was the first to test the "water wiggler", and was somehow able to turn it on and off at will. That is one smart pooch.

The eternal battle of dog vs. plastic, water spewing octopus!
Eventually, Amy got tired of playing with all of the toys and gadgets herself, and decided to try them out on an unlikely focus group - kids! Now, I know it's been a while, but if you really stretch your brain, you'll recall that Amy has grandchildren (I know, she doesn't look it), and this fact didn't escape her. She called up Aiden and Vyn, who brought their daughters Kati and Jaden over to the house. She also called up her daughter Aimee, who isn't exactly what you'd call a kid, but she's close to the same age as Amy's grandchildren, which is enough to make you drool with confusion. The kids (and Aimee) managed to get Buddy away from the water wiggler long enough to play around with it a bit themselves, then decided to gather around the pitifully small dining room table for a bite to eat.

Jaden: "Have you guys ever been to Pimp Harbor?"
Really, with all the improvements that have been made to the Andrews home since they first moved in (it was actually one of the template homes in the beginning, but you'd hardly recognize it now), it's amazing they'd never bothered to add something functional like a bigger dining room, but since Clarence and Amy are the only real residents, and everyone else has a tendency to eat sitting at the couch, I guess it wouldn't have gotten much use. Antonio Wilson eventually figured out where his fiancé had gone off too, and decided to come join in the soggy front yard fun. A little later, Antonio and Vyn retired to the hot tub, where they assumed they'd have a nice relaxing soak, until Clarence joined them and tried to bore them to death with his endless, tedious talk about politics and the challenges of being mayor…zzzz…

Vyn: "If he doesn't change the topic soon, I'm going to hold my head underwater until he shuts up!"
Despite everything she already had going on in her life, including her family, her dog, taking care of the house, and minding Andrews Radio Shock every few days, Amy still found herself getting bored, and while Clarence was making okay money as Mayor, it was only about half of what he was making when he'd reached the top of the sports career track (the only reason he switched was because of a life long aspiration to become the best on the slacker track). The solution was simple - if she had a job of her own, she'd be making more money, and it would kill a few hours during the day when she was usually sitting around at home by herself while Clarence and even Buddy went off to work.

Amy: "Actually, I'm just playing the sims right now…the job can wait!"
Whew…speaking of work, I'm incredibly tired right now. I wrote the above yesterday morning while I had time, and since then, the rest of the day has gone by, followed by a night of my wife elbowing me every five seconds saying I was snoring, and now I'm about as close to being a zombie as you can get without actually being dead. I just can't seem to find the motivation to work (and it's a good thing I'm not right now). Anyway, back to Amy. After a little searching, she decided on a job in the business track, which is handy because she didn't have any strong preference about what profession she entered (she's been to the top of a couple of other career tracks before, most notably law enforcement). Amy's carpool left at the same time as Clarence's, so regardless of what would normally be picking her up, she wound up taking the helicopter to work.

Amy: "Can't we just get a nice, inconspicuous limo instead?"
Like all sims with maxed out skill points, it didn't take Amy more than a couple of days before she was a CEO (wouldn't it be great if it were that easy in real life?). As with the top position in so many other career tracks, the CEO money wasn't all that great, but when it was combined with the money Clarence was making as Mayor, it wasn't so bad. The real benefit to Amy taking on yet another job, of course, was the career rewards. The family had started storing the less interesting ones like the lie detector and podiums in their upstairs attic, but it seemed time to start putting some of the fun ones to good use. Clarence pulled out the putting green, since, thus far, there's been no indication the sims will have access to a full size golf course any time soon (you thought the bowling lanes and skating rinks were big objects, just imagine how big that puppy would be).

Clarence: "It's all in the hips, baby…"
By this point, thanks to the questionable crafting skills of Katrina and Mia Kay, who made the toys at Radio Shock, Amy had gotten to see most of the "evil" variations of the toys sold at the store. However, due to a lack of units produced, nobody realized there was an evil version of the water wiggler. Then one day, while Amy was restocking the shelves at the store, behold, she filled the empty wiggler spot with the coolest "evil squid" variant. She decided it was just too cool to allow someone else to buy it, and quickly reclaimed it for her own use at home. The old, boring octopus model was quickly discarded, and folks gave the squid a test run, with decidedly "un-evil" results…

Well, it LOOKS evil anyway...
Yes, while there's a noticeable difference between the regular octopus model and the "evil" squid, the squid didn't actually do things any differently from the octopus. A little research later on my part seemed to indicate there was a risk of "flooded lawn", but after days of using the stupid thing the only thing to get wet was the people jumping around in the water spray, and they suffered no ill effects. I'll admit I'm a little evil myself in that I get a good laugh out of the effects the evil clown-in-a-box and evil kite have on sims, and I was just the tiniest bit bummed when the so-called evil squid didn't deliver the goods. Oh, well. Now, with Amy and Clarence both having jobs and being pretty busy, there were a couple times it was tempting to reactivate the household servos, but just recalling all the trouble they'd caused already was enough to squelch that temptation.

Clarence: "It's okay! You can listen to me play the piano for hours!"
The maid (and Amy, who still couldn't shake some of her old maid behaviors) did a pretty good job of keeping the place clean, but there was no denying it was pretty tempting to activate C-3P0 or Dot to have them wander around and pick up garbage. They inevitably wound up wasting time doing recreational stuff instead though before their desire to do chores kicked in, and it just wasn’t worth the trouble of repositioning them in their corners in the piano room later to be deactivated. Amy figured out a much better solution, and didn't have to look any further than her very own store. She brought home a "cleanbot" and a "hydrobot" to take care of garbage and watering needs, making the servos a little more useless than they already were.

Dumber than their servo cousins, but much more efficient!
I have to say, the little rover droids do a pretty good job of handling their individual tasks, if you ignore the fact that the cleanbot can't scrub toilets or get trash off counters. My sims have a terrible habit of dumping plates and trash on the floor wherever they go, and having a robot to handle those alone made a huge difference. The hydrobot was a little less useful since nobody ever caught on fire, but it's ability to tell when the garden plants needed watering was superior to my own, since I have a tendency to drown them. Eventually, Amy started to feel a little guilty about leaving the servos to collect dust. Sure, they were mostly useless and concerned only about satisfying their own selfish desires, but she'd raised kids before too, and they were the same, and it wasn't like she'd stood them in a corner until she needed them. Eventually, Amy reactivated them for little bits of time here and there so they could go do their thing, whatever it happened to be.

Dot: "I am going to be SO buff!"
I don't really have anything strongly against the servos, even after the less than stellar experiences both the Andrews and Daniels families had with them. At the heart of things, they aren't normal "sims", and I suppose they so badly want to be that they overcompensate with excessive interactions with their "owners" and pursuit of "normal" activities. I just don't like it when they try to flub up existing relationships by making shameless passes at their owners, or they waste all the food in the fridge making meals that aren't needed. Of course, servos, even with all of their quirks, are less disappointing than the dang "evil" squid, which after several more days, still had yet to demonstrate any evil behavior.

Squid: "I've got scary glowing eyes…what more do you want?!"
If nothing else, all the stuff getting crafted at Andrews Radio Shock has been amusing and occupying the family, which is a lot more fun than just watching it get bought up by townies and never used at all. Over the next few posts, we'll be paying a visit to the Wilsons of both Wilson households in the hopes that they can provide us with some sort of amusement. Then later, we'll visit Leon and Rinoa Hartman. It's been a while since we checked to see how they were doing. Have they found the ideal life together Leon seemed to hope they'd have? Has Leon actually made anything of himself since the last time we saw him? I wouldn't bet on the latter, but we can always dream. Take care, and drop by next time!

When Androids Attack

2008-02-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

Hello, hello, everyone! It's a glorious, wonderful, amazing day here, and if I keep using enough over-enthusiastic adjectives like that, I might actually start to believe it! Actually, it's kind of a crappy day for no particular reason, besides that it's still cold out and has been for weeks and weeks, I'm basically broke and eating Saltines for breakfast and lunch during what's supposed to be a ten hour work shift, I have to pee, and there are some other factors at work bringing me down, but do I really need to list anymore? Believe me when I say that if I actually kept a real personal blog, it would be jam packed today (which is part of the reason I don't keep one - who's got the time?)

After playing TS2 and its expansions for hundreds of hours, if you're like me, you've been exposed to lots and lots of the in-game radio stations. I finally broke down and started seeking out some of the songs in their English forms, because it was just too weird listening to and singing the simlish versions, which were the only ones I knew. Is it odd that the songs seem so strange when you can understand the words, as opposed to singing along with gibberish? I think the sign of a good song though is when you like it even without being able to understand a single word, which has been the case with some real songs I've liked in the past anyway.

The focus of our last post here was how Regina Daniels activated a servo named Jack, and how Jack said to hell with doing chores and decided to hit on the females living in the house constantly instead. Needless to say, this made for a weird situation in more ways than one. It was weird for Regina because the real Jack Daniels hadn't really been dead all that long, and it was strange for Debbie because she'd developed a crush on Alex Kent, and didn't have room in her life for a relationship with a robot on the side.

Regina: "That Conan O'Brien…what will he think of next?"
Alex has had a rough road ahead of him where his courtship of Debbie is concerned. When he first took an interest in her, she wasn't officially dating anyone, but Gia Fitch had a crush on Debbie, and took offense to anyone else trying to put the moves on her. That all came to an end eventually, after Debbie got tired of being slapped by Gia and Gia got tired of slapping Debbie and the two parted ways. Alex decided the coast was clear for the time being, with that crazy, jealous Gia out of the way, and proceeded to start wooing Debbie again. Poor Alex was totally unaware that Jack had turned into a self-proclaimed "pimp bot", and wasn't taking people putting the moves on "his women" lightly…

Debbie: "Oh, Alex, you're so much better at that than any robot!"
Like any other illogical sim in a situation like this, Jack sprang into action when he saw Alex and Debbie getting intimate, and proceeded to try to administer a good slapping to Debbie. And as usual, this made no sense, because what Jack saw that set him off was Alex kissing up Debbie's arm, which Alex had initiated. Jack didn't bother trying to slap Alex, of course, because that WOULD have made sense in some weird way (really, Alex had called dibs on Debbie before Jack was even activated, so he really had no business getting huffy to begin with). Poor Debbie - between fighting with Claire over Leon Jackson, getting beaten up by Gia because of Alex, and now getting slapped by Jack, her love life has been a constant war zone. It's amazing she has any interest in love at all anymore (or feeling in her face).

Jack: "Preparing to initiate 'Whoop-ass Program!' *bleep*!"
Yeah, sometimes I don't know which is worse, being stuck on Leon's boat back when she was together with him while he invited all manner of folks to live on the boat with them, or her current situation, where she's STILL living with weirdoes, and now fighting with them all the time. I'd say things were better before, but she was the one that gave all that up so no need to feel too sorry for her. Anyway, as much as Austyn loved to hang out with Debbie, he'd decided to keep a safe distance from all the hand to hand combat that was taking place, and had to find ways to busy himself in the meantime. Austyn decided it was time they gave the original Captain Jack a proper burial, and gave him a nice little grave behind the clubhouse he used to love so much.

Austyn: "If only I'd gone to college! Then we could have brought you back as a zombie!"
It did occur to Austyn at one point or another that the little resurrection phone career reward could bring Jack back, but there were two problems with that idea - the first was that University wasn't installed yet (more than a little setback), and even if it was, bringing back Jack would require somehow introducing a school age child to the family to go to college, or moving in a college graduate, and both methods involved bringing more people into the house, which was the last thing anyone needed. In the end, Austyn decided Captain Jack was probably enjoying his peaceful dirt nap, and given how much he hated being awaken prematurely while he was alive, one can only imagine how he'd have felt about being brought back from the dead. Meanwhile, Regina saw how much trouble robot Jack was giving Debbie and Alex, and decided he had too much time on his hands. She insisted if he cared about her, he'd get a job, and help support the family.

Regina: "You're not looking for a job! The computer's not even on!"
Ironically, Jack found a position as a school teacher, on the same track as his namesake Jack. Or maybe it's not ironic. Maybe it was an attempt by robot Jack to make himself so much like the original Jack that the family would forget there ever was another (he may have a great big eye, but he'd never have the first Jack's great big nose). Regina decided that if Jack was going to be working, she might as well get a job for the first time since moving to the neighborhood (she'd maxed almost all of her skills, but never really put them to good use). Regina got a job on the medical track, working really weird hours, but she didn't care, because the family has the worst sleeping habits in the neighborhood.

Regina: "Debbie…hello!...I know you're in that trash can!"
While Regina was making decent money even at the lower levels of the medical track (not too low, mind you, due to the high level of skill she started her career with), being out of the house late at night and leaving everyone else to their own devices might not have been the best idea. See, without Regina around, while he wasn't at work, Jack had nobody else to occupy his time really, and he turned his attention back to Debbie. He may not have shown any signs of harmful intent toward Alex previously, but he was furious with him, and decided to let it be known one evening out by the hot tub. Quite unexpectedly, Jack walked up to Alex and started poking him, which eventually turned into Jack slapping him instead. Well, Alex is no pushover, and wasn't about to be slapped by some lousy tin can without slapping back…

Alex: "Ow! That kind of hurts my hand!"
Yeah, smart move there, Alex, since Jack clearly doesn't look advanced enough to have any "pain receptors". I imagine slapping a robot in the face probably would do more harm to the normal sim's hand than the robot, but nobody stops to think about these things when tempers start to flare. Jack eventually decided all the slapping stuff was for sissies, which, let's face it, it kind of is. He decided to give his "fight program" a little test run instead, and went to town on Alex. Well, the bad news there is that since Regina had maxed her body points before she activated Jack, he's one buff son of a gun, while Alex is just average. The fight was short and humiliating, and unlike Katrina Wilson, Alex didn't feel any need for a rematch - the outcome was sort of a forgone conclusion…

Austyn: "Can't you two just play nicely?"
The butt kicking was basically symbolic, and useless in the long run, because it didn't put Alex off of wooing Debbie, nor did Jack increase his own efforts to win Debbie's affection after demonstrating his "dominance". So, there you have it - robots can be petty and vengeful too (might be something to ask your local robot dealer about before investing in one yourself). Jack decided to finally turn on the charm full steam and see if Regina changed her mind about the whole not dating thing, and this time, it worked. By this point, I'd given up on canceling romantic interactions between the two before they occurred, I just cringed every time Jack decided he wanted to smooch with Regina. I was NOT going to be queuing any romantic interactions between the two of them myself, though…no "woo woo" for those two…

Jack: "Once you go Jack, you never go back!"
So here we have it - Regina and robot Jack paired up together, and Debbie and Alex together as an official "item". Suddenly, Austyn found himself playing the part of the "fifth wheel". The worst of it was that with the rest of the household partnered up together, nobody was really interested in getting out of the house like they once had to make the scene and cruise the clubs, and Austyn wasn't terribly interested in doing it all by himself. Now, a more intelligent type might have considered picking up the phone and calling some of the potentially interesting sims met during previous outings, but that never occurred to Austyn. Luckily for him, "Lady Bricks-alot" was on the rebound since Jack decided to shower his attention on Regina instead.

Austyn: "You're so much more than a doorstop to me!"
I know what you're thinking, but it's not any stranger of a relationship than Jack and the brick…or Jack and anyone else for that matter. The important thing is that everyone finally had someone else to occupy their time, no matter how strange some of the pairings might have been. Believe it or not, the pairing of Alex and Debbie is a bit of a strange one, even if it doesn't seem so on the surface. I know, they're both "human", so that's a good start, but Alex is really a highly intellectual type, and Debbie is…um…good at cleaning. And she likes to have fun. She's not very intellectual, though. Don't forget, she's really a blonde underneath that deceitfully dyed red hair...

Debbie: "Are you sure you don't want to play Battleship instead?"
Somehow, the two still seemed to get along smashingly. There's always been something a little strange to me about Alex, though I'm not sure what it is. Part of it might be that he doesn't have a lot of "background story" to him, since I've never really spent much time with the Kent family, but at the same time, there are quite a few families in the neighborhood that are that way, so it shouldn't really matter. Eventually, Alex stopped being part of the Kent household, as he decided everyone else in the city was living in Regina's house, and he might as well do the same. Of course, living in the house presented a challenge since robot Jack lived there too and hated Alex. Alex decided if he was going to protect himself from getting his butt kicked regularly, he'd better get in shape and fast. Debbie decided to join him to provide a little motivation, despite having a pretty high body score herself…

Alex: "I'm not sure if this is less painful than getting beaten on by Jack!"
Well, it was nice that Alex was trying to make an effort to take care of himself, but Regina, being the selfless type, realized that Jack was causing more trouble than he was worth for the rest of the household, and still wasn't doing any cleaning. Thus, she decided it was time to "power down" Jack for a while, until he was really, really needed. Guess that "robot romance" wasn't all that spectacular if she was willing to turn it off just like that. That, or she liked the idea of being able to switch off "her guy" when she didn't need him and start him up again when she did. I know a few women that would find that a really attractive concept. Anyway, before we delve too deeply into all that anti-guy stuff, it's time to draw this post to a close. Tune in next time as we find out what Amy and Clarence Andrews are up to since we last heard from them. You can bet it will be more of the usual weirdness…See you then!

You Don't Know Jack

2008-02-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you realize after a few hours of out and about that your fly is open? Wondering who all noticed but was too nice to say something, or who all took a huge shortcut to walk around you so they wouldn't accidentally see something they really didn't want to see (on the off chance you were going commando, which I'm proud to say I was NOT). Yeah, we're talking about me in this particular case. The good news is nobody is really awake or paying attention at the time of morning I'm writing this, and it's not like I had to get up on stage and make a speech with the barn door open or anything like that. Plus, even if someone had said something, I work with almost all women, and I'd have just come back with the witty reply, "what were you doing looking down there anyway?" Oh, I am truly a comic genius…

I learned a valuable life lesson this morning, by the way. If you use a cell phone as an alarm clock, which I do (I don't even remember how that began, so don't ask), make sure you don't have the phone set on "silent" when it comes time to be used as said alarm…it doesn't do a whole lot of good that way. Thankfully, the alarm in my head is still working fine, so I got to work on time. Anyhow, today we're going to visit with one of the longest running families in the Monkeesim neighborhood, the Daniels family. They've had the dubious honor of having some of the strangest changes made to the family structure since their conception. First it was just Jack and Clarence Daniels, then Jack married Regina, they adopted Vyn by accident, let Debbie and Austyn move in, then Jack died, leaving only Regina, Debbie and Austyn. Well, that's all about to change…in a very weird way...

Regina: "What's a good name for him? How about Jack?"
After Andrews Radio Shock was up and running, Amy Andrews gave her old friend, Regina, a servo to help around the house a bit (I believe that was before Amy discovered they can be more of a pain in the butt than a help sometimes, but it would have been rude to take it back afterward). And so, Regina activated the servo and named him Jack, in memory of her former husband (duh). Since there was no way to dress Jack in normal clothes, she opted to have him wear his "formal" jacket, which was as close as she could get to the original Jack's pirate coat. Like the servos Amy activated at her house, Jack pretty much did his own thing, and work seemed to be the last thing on his mind (kind of like with Austyn and Debbie). Since nobody really cared much for chores around the house, Regina paid Radio Shock a visit and bought robots to clean, water, provide food, and zap intruders.

Less and less like "The Sims 2" and more like "Mega Man"...
Considering Regina still employed a maid (whoever was doing that sort of thing since Amy and Debbie both gave up being maids for love), and the fact that she'd purchased an army of household robots, Regina didn't care too much about the fact that Jack was acting like just another useless sim around her house. She actually came to appreciate his company, even more so when Debbie and Austyn were off doing stuff together without her. If it was a substitute for the original Jack that Regina was looking for, it might have worked out better if Jack had been around to activate the servo and infuse it with his personality, but nobody said it was a perfect plan. Actually, since Jack was basically a robotic "male" clone of Regina, they got along perfectly - and since the new Jack had no job, he was able to spend more time with Regina than the original, career oriented real Jack.

Let's hope Jack's "punch strength" is set on "low"...
As for Debbie and Austyn, it's questionable if they noticed there was a new member in the house, robotic or otherwise. As usual, they were so caught up doing their own thing that they weren't paying too much attention to what was going on around them. Heck, if it weren't for the laws of the sim world that dictate that household sims can't head off to do non-work stuff while you're playing the rest of the family on the lot, I doubt they'd have stuck around the house as much as they did (no doubt they'd be off looking for ghosts or cruising Marty's for guys). At the moment, the pair had actually found a form of entertainment that didn't require travel or money - thanks to recently added expansions, they'd been granted the ability to play "rock-paper-scissors", which is about all they could be found doing for the longest time…

Austyn: "I think I'm about ready to go pro!"
On an amusing side note, my brother and I actually hosted a rock-paper-scissors tournament when we were in college together, and it was a huge success - I've had a special place in my heart for the "sport" ever since as more than just a great way to decide who gets the last Arby's mozzarella stick or who has to wash the dog after he's spent two hours playing in the mud (think of all the time people have wasted trying to use logical discussion or persuasive argument to solve those problems). Anyway, if you think Regina being best friends with a robot named after her dead husband is kind of weird, it gets stranger yet. Sure, Jack enjoyed hanging out with Regina, but more than anything, he loved spending time with his toy brick the family bought at Radio Shock. Almost leaves you a little speechless, doesn't it? It does me, and I've seen a lot of weird in my day...

Jack: "How about a little kiss, my love?"
Just imagine what their kids would look like. Looking at that picture got me thinking - that toy is normally named "Sir Bricks-alot", but since there's a female version, that name doesn't exactly fit, unless it's a cross-dressing brick. Let's not even go there. As fond as Jack was of uh…Lady Brick-alot, their relationship sort of hit a brick wall (hehe) when he realized their interactions were limited to one sided conversations and him teaching her tricks. Meanwhile, Regina had developed something of a crush on Jack, which needless to say is a little creepy, but to each their own. It did work out well for Jack, because instead of having to "power down" in the corner and collect dust, he was able to share bed space with Regina. Oh, the pain…and the weirdness…

Regina: "I don't really like being stared at while I try to sleep..."
You'll be happy to know that nothing happened between the two of them while bunking together. That's one interaction I'm glad doesn't occur randomly, because Jack had developed a crush on Regina in return, and had started trying to put the moves on her during waking hours. Despite Regina's feelings for the new Jack, something in her head (probably me) reminded her that the original Jack hadn't been gone that long, and it was too soon to move on in that way. I'm one of those weird people who doesn't really think a robot can ever replace a lost love in a romantic capacity, but maybe I'm just saying that because I've never been hit on by a robot of the opposite sex. Regina decided the best way to keep her mind off possible robo-romance was to keep herself busy with her own business in Bluewater Village.

Presenting the "Catch of the Day" fish stand...
I can't say that the Daniels "family" has much in the way of talents, but most of the family members have fishing badges, and the way to exploit that for money seemed all too obvious to Regina. The lot for the stand was very small and cheap, and aside from the cost of the small shack, the fish coolers, and the pond, business costs were minimal. Of course, you can only charge so much for a fish, so it would still be a while before the place paid for itself, but in the meantime, "Catch of the Day" was serving a very important secondary function - it was keeping everyone busy. Jack was stuck working the register, while Austyn and Debbie fished, and Regina wandered around pressuring customers to buy fish.

Jack: "You sure you wouldn't rather make out instead?"
There was a huge passage of time there since what's written above and me picking it up again here. Life and it's many methods of making you want to crawl under a rock got the better of me, but I'm back. I actually spent the last half hour or so trying to figure out what the English versions of some of the songs on the sim stations are, and let me tell you, it's not easy if you don't have the game in front of you. Anyway, Regina seemed to be sort of a natural at the whole sweet talking customers thing, except where those naturally grouchy types were concerned, but who cares about them? As for Austyn and Debbie becoming professional fishers, there wasn't much of a learning curve there, since it was the exact same thing as fishing at home, except they were getting paid for it.

Austyn: "You know, if we just dropped a bomb in the pond, we could catch them all at once!"
As usual, the old "if you sell it, they will come" rule applied just as much with the fish as with anything else sims can stick a price tag on (Regina even set up a display of old boots her and the gang had caught, and they sold pretty quickly). Folks came in droves to check out the fish stand, and the fish were getting bought almost as quickly as Austyn and Debbie could pull them out of the water. One of them even caught the fabled "golden trout", although Regina hung on to that one since, like Amy, she wasn't sure what was so special about it (besides the starting price of $500). The coolers were eventually stocked with four of each kind of fish, two jumbo and two regular size. The jumbo trout were going for some outrageous sum I can't remember exactly at the moment, but it was a heck of a lot more than I'd pay for any fish...

Grinch: "I'm actually looking for the day old smelly fish..."
Regina eventually hired a talentless local sim to work as the cashier when the family wasn't actually visiting the fish stand, but I don't remember who it was. That's because Jack was working the register the whole time the family was there, and was doing a pretty good job. It seems to me that servos always have some cash register talent from the very beginning, and there wasn't a single shopping bag full of fish thrown on the ground as a result of excessive wait times. You can't really beat a servo when it comes to the register, because they don't have a comfort need, and the needs they do have don't deteriorate noticeably for a very long time. Plus, Jack was loving the opportunity to make social contacts while he worked…

Jack: "You look familiar…are you me??"
Well, the opening day of the fish stand was a much bigger success than it had any right to be, although there was a long way to go before it would be turning huge profits. Really, trying to run a fish stand as a business is a chancy chore, since you can never guarantee you'll have enough of any given fish in stock (unlike with baking and crafting, were you can choose how much of what you produce). After Austyn and Debbie had a few talent badges, they actually stopped catching the smaller fish most of the time, which would have been good if I Regina was just selling the jumbos, but was annoying when it came time to stock the small fish coolers and there weren't enough. At any rate, the family eventually had enough of the fish business for the time being, and everyone piled into the "Mystery Machine".

Debbie: "I still can't believe you fooled us into working!"
Everybody knows that after a long day of working at a fish stand, the best way to unwind is to go to the local cemetery for a few laughs. Regina wanted to make sure nobody was vandalizing the place, and Austyn and Debbie decided to give the whole ghost hunting bit another shot (if they'd just invite Shaggy Rogers and his dog, Scooby to live with them, they really could be the dysfunctional, wannabe Scooby Doo gang). Well, somewhere amid all the failed ghost hunting, Jack got a little fresh with Debbie, and oddly enough, she seemed to be okay with it. Man, that Jack is a player! Further weirdness ensued, and the couple wound up slow dancing without music outside the cemetery gate.

Debbie: "If I close my eyes, I can pretend he's Brad Pitt!"
I don't know about the rest of you, but having an expressionless robot putting the moves on all the women in the Daniels house like he owns them kind of gives me the willies. It's like the start of some bad sci-fi film where the robot grows too attached to it's owners, then goes berserk and winds up hacking them to pieces later on. Thankfully, servos can't hack sims to pieces like those movie robots, but that only helps eliminate a little of the "creep factor". I have a theory that since servos have so few needs that need to be met, and their usually sufficiently filled, they have very little choice but to endlessly socialize with other sims, resulting in their high relationship scores with their family members. Whatever the case, if Jack was going to be putting the moves on anyone, it really should have been Regina, since she was the one letting him sleep with her (you know I'm not talking about the dirty way, so don't go there).

Debbie: "Hey, watch those hands there…Brad..."
Robots slow dancing and copping a feel in the cemetery - this is just a little too creepy for me, you know what I'm saying? Bring back the days of Tommy Wolf making out with the chicks in his werewolf form, cause that seemed a lot more normal. I know those robots are supposed to be our faithful servants, but that's just taking things a step too far I think. Well, in case you're wondering just how much worse things can get robot-wise, you'll get to find out at least a little bit in our next post. Will Jack's jealous ways keep the women in the Daniels house from finding love elsewhere? Will the family be forced to shut him down and put him in his place? Will someone "accidentally" coax him into the hot tub and end the nonsense once and for all? Visit us next time, and you'll be the first to find out!

More Money Madness

2008-02-15T12:05:00.000-08:00

Hey, there, folks! It's a bright, shiny day here in the not so good old Midwestern US of A, and I'm just counting the minutes till I'm done here at work…and I've only been here for less than three hours already. Am I lazy or what? (I can save you the trouble and just answer "yes" for you in case you don't know me well enough to make that call yourself). I'm just kind of tired too, which is odd, because I've been going to bed at like 9:30 lately. The combination of watching Smallville DVD's, evening playing sessions of Resident Evil 4, and filling the remaining time reading Stephen King short stories has provided me with weird dreams every night around 3am, after which I usually can't fall asleep. That's what happens when I'm allowed to pump my impressionable young (I mean old) brain full of garbage all day long like that. And I'm lovin' it (who needs sleep anyway?)

Sleep. Okay, so sleep is good, and I'd gladly take a little nap right now. The sound of keys clickity-clacking away all day long (a little onomatopoeia for you there) is hypnotic, and is really making me sleepy. But there will be none of that at the moment. There's work to be done, by golly, and by work, I mean sim blogging! Thus, we make our way to the Monkeesim neighborhood, where we enter uninvited the home of Marty and Kitty Wilson, as well as their house mates, Julie and J.D. The latter two are nowhere to be seen initially, but we find Antonio and Katrina paying a visit to the family. It's good to see Katrina out and around after the trials of being pregnant have finally passed, but isn't she forgetting something here, like bringing her baby with her?

Marty: "Yo, Antonio! You're butt makes a better wall than a window!"
I've forgotten to mention a very important detail regarding the arrival of J.D. and Julie to the neighborhood. See, they didn't come alone, they brought a pet with them, in the form of their pug, Bailey (Bailey Pup if you want to get technical). Marty and Kitty already have a pug, Gizmo, which they brought with them, but you know the old saying that one pug is never enough (okay, so maybe that's not an actual "old saying", but it ought to be). I personally find sim pets to be more trouble than they're worth most of the time unless you actually take the time to train them, and WHO wants to do that? I do make exceptions from time to time, though, same with sim children. It wasn't long before Gizmo and Bailey were best friends…which is a good thing since the pets' owners were too preoccupied to spend much time with them.

Gizmo: "Now, just because we're sleeping together doesn't mean you need to try anything funny!"
Normally, in cases before where my sims have owned pets, the pets never manage to make friends with any of the local strays that stop by the house. They may play for a couple of minutes and seem to be getting along, but when I'd check them later, they'd have like four or five daily relationship points, if that, or more often, be enemies with visiting animals. I don't have a whole lot of interest in the whole pet aspect of TS2 (I borrowed the expansion to install it, I wasn't interested enough to buy it), but I decided since I had two pets who were close friends living together already, I might as well give the whole breeding business a try. Well, first, everyone gathered around the dog house and cheered while the pups were "woo wooing", which was disturbing enough in itself, but a couple days later, Gizmo started glowing and sparkling and acting funny…

She's either having pups or mutating into an alien life form...
Luckily, it was just the pet way of giving birth, and no harmful mutations took place. I guess it's lucky. For some dumb reason, I didn't consider the fact that there would be more than one pup born as a result of the "union" (I'm just glad Gizmo didn't eat cheesecake during the pregnancy, or the whole damn lot would have been covered with pups I'm sure). Anyway, there were three puppies born, and I wasn't prepared to name them all and I gave them dumb, forgettable names that I won't bother to mention here. Two things suddenly occurred to me - despite having two pug parents, the pups looked nothing like pugs, and I was now stuck with FIVE pets instead of the two I hardly wanted to manage to begin with. Oh, my sim life sucks…

Pups: "Hey, guys, let's all play in the street! Yay!"
About five seconds after the pups were born and named, they ran out into the road, and the gardener's truck drove right over them (luckily, there's no such thing as a car accident or vehicle related fatality in TS2). That's what I get for fooling around with sim Mother Nature I guess. Some good came of all of this, though, as the family was able to sell the pups to the next several passing NPC strangers, removing them from the house and snagging a healthy chunk of money in the process. Heck, that was easier than raising those disgusting, tasteless oranges my sims have tried to harvest for money on so many occasions. Selling pups may be a great money maker, but J.D. Wilson had much bigger plans. He decided it was time to set up shop in Bluewater Village and take a slightly more aggressive approach to making money.

Welcome to "J.D. Auto", with the smallest selection in the tri-state area!
Yes, J.D. was finally able to fulfill his dream of owning a car lot, and what a car lot it was! Some dealerships only offer one kind of car, but forget those, guys…J.D. offered TWO different kinds of vehicle! He also decided to sell tires, because any idiot knows that you can't have a car without tires (well, most idiots know that, I can't speak for all of them). Now, some of you might be thinking that it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to use the very smallest lot size to sell something that takes up as much space as cars do, but by the time J.D. realized there would be room for only two cars at a time, the main office was already constructed, and there was no going back. I mean, just look at it - it's an architectural wonder that could never be duplicated!

J.D: "I'm just thankful there was room for a bathroom in there!"
Those observant types out there probably noticed J.D.'s slick new suit. Come on, you can't be a car salesman without an awesome looking suit. Now, thus far, my business experience had been limited to "Andrews Radio Shock" and "Gnomes n' Domes", and there wasn't a great deal of effort required to sell the goods at either business. The cars, however, were another matter. Even at "average" prices, most folks wound up thinking twice before shelling out the bucks it cost to buy a vehicle, and it took some serious selling to make them close the deal. J.D. seemed to have the magical ability to offend almost anyone with his "basic sell", which made the process a bit tedious at times. Don't people realize that car salesmen always have the customer's best interests in mind?

J.D: "…and here we have the brand new 2008 Canyonero!"
I know I don't usually have to explain my jokes, but for those of you who don't watch the Simpsons, in one episode, there was this ridiculously huge SUV called the "Canyonero" endorsed by Krusty the Clown, and the car in that picture above looks ridiculously huge. Anyway, as time went on, J.D. DID manage to sell some cars, and the customers seemed to receive his sales pitches a bit better. I have a hunch that maybe the first wave of customers were just the crabby sort who don't actually want to buy anything, they just like to stand around looking cranky and bring down your business score, which really tweaks me off. In no time, he'd learned the "hard sell" and "dazzle" techniques, which were a faster way to sell cars by far, but were also a great way to offend folks all over again…

J.D: "Now you look like a guy with a nose for a good bargain!"
J.D. experimented with a few different models of car, pushing the limits to see just how expensive a vehicle he could put on the lot and still manage to sell (although he never actually tried selling the most expensive model). As time went on, he did earn some wholesale discounts, allowing for marked down prices (the only "perks" I've ever really cared about are the monetary prizes and the wholesale discounts). This whole time, even when the cars weren't moving as quickly as J.D. might have hoped, the stacks of tires were still selling, and it seemed almost impossible to keep them in stock with how quickly they sold. I'm not one to be picky, but I know half the sims buying them don't even own a car (those silly sims - they must have thought they were buying a tire stack end table or something).

J.D: "Excuse me, but did I just see you put a car in your pocket?"
One thing that never got old for me was watching the sims who decided to buy a vehicle just grab it and stuff it somewhere (usually in a shopping bag, but sometimes it was nowhere to be seen). It was funny enough watching them do that with stereo systems and big screen TV's at Radio Shock, but with cars and trucks, it took things to a whole new level. In record time, J.D. managed to get the business "out of the red" , and the profits started rolling in. Now, I'll admit, I had more vested interest in the success of Radio Shock and put a lot more time into the business as it evolved, so I was astounded when J.D.'s car lot managed to turn a profit in just a couple of days with next to no effort. Now THAT is my kind of business! Of course, it didn't hurt that he was forcing Marty to man the cash register so he wouldn't have to actually pay an employee to do it…

Marty: "You so owe me a chilito on the way home for this!"
Employing Marty may have been the cheap route to go, but as usual, it wasn't necessarily the most efficient. J.D. could have consulted the directory of potential employees to find someone with actual register experience, but the thought of having to pay the wages an experienced employee would be expecting just turned his stomach. And so, Marty rang up customer after customer in that painfully slow way all starting cashiers in the game do, and there were a couple of shopping bags tossed on the floor in disgust (thankfully, none of them contained cars that might have been damaged in the process). Okay, so maybe increasing your customer base in a very short time isn't necessarily a good thing if your cashier is slower than molasses.

Gia: "If he goes any slower, I swear he's going to start snoring and drooling on the register!"
Eventually, J.D. made enough money to start thinking about expanding his selection of vehicles. The lot was still too small to place more than two of the big rotating car thingies, but with the help of the "moveobjects" cheat, J.D. was able to get around that by placing the cars directly on the lot. He was able to double his selection from two models of car to FOUR! Um, I forgot to take a picture of the new and improved lot, but you folks are creative - I'm sure you could envision it if you really cared to. Anyway, despite the success of the business, J.D. and Marty eventually decided to think about going home. As usual, there was always one more customer just about to buy one more thing every time J.D. got ready to flip the "closed" sign, but after a few hours of "one last customers", Marty had had enough and closed up, regardless of who was still looking at what. Marty's a lot of things, but obsessive workaholic he most definitely is not!

Marty: "So, where did we land on that chilito?"
The whole business thing definitely adds a new dimension to the already complex lives of our friendly neighborhood sims. Keeping needs, aspiration levels, and relationships in good shape regularly is one thing, but doing all that AND managing a business that actually makes money can be quite the challenge. Frankly, I can't do the business thing too long, because it starts to feel like work after a while, and who wants to do work? Anywho, since the death of Captain Jack Daniels, there have been a lot of weird things going on at the Daniels house, but the weirdness has really just begun. Will Regina ever find love again? Will Debbie and Austyn ever hook up with anyone? Will the family open a boring business that I'll force you to read paragraph after paragraph about? There is only one way to find out, and you know what it is! See you mañana!

Baby Off Board

2008-02-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

Well, this has been an interesting past few days. Interesting mostly because my job closed for the first time in six years due to bad weather, then I was out a total of three days with something similar to the stomach flu (never did make it to a doctor to find out what it was before it went away). So, now I'm back at work, trying hard to remember how to do what I do, but at the same time, not really caring to remember that badly. Oops, did I say that out loud? They gave us our annual bonus checks yesterday, so I could have afforded to take a few more days off, but I was getting stir crazy at home (my wife was snowed out of school the same days I was home sick, so I really didn't get much of a break, you see).

I actually started writing this post Monday, and was having a horrible day then, but I scrapped the first paragraph to rewrite one for today, and I'm glad I did - the old one was far too whiney. We're supposed to be getting more bad weather out here in the next few days, and considering I had to use a pickaxe to clear the ice/snow they plowed in front of my driveway, I'm not really looking forward to it - but I'll live. Let's see what our sims are doing, shall we? We're dropping in on the Wilson family, where we find Katrina is still very pregnant. It seems just yesterday she was beating up everyone she came across Downtown, now she has a mystery bun in the oven...

Katrina: "Maybe if I drink enough water, the baby will swoosh out..."
I can tell you one thing for certain…the baby does NOT belong to Andrew Pearson. That's a freebie (in case there was any doubt). There was speculation about whether or not the baby's father had any idea there even was a baby, but since there had been no male visitors Katrina seemed to have any familiarity with since she turned up pregnant, it seemed likely that the father probably didn't know yet (if indeed he ever would). Now, normally, the whole romance thing didn't seem to matter too much to Mia Kay, but here Katrina was unexpectedly pregnant (indicating the possibility of a prior "romance"), and Aimee and Antonio had started recently acting all mushy toward one another…Mia Kay was suddenly feeling a little left out.

Mia Kay: "Here's an idea guys…get a room!"
Come on, now, Mia Kay, jealousy doesn't become you (nor does spitefully killing other sims with the weather machine for that matter). There's someone out there for everyone, it's just that sometimes it takes a little waiting to find them (and a little effort, which Mia Kay didn't seem to be putting forth). Now, as you might have guessed, news of the whole baby thing was eventually passed on to Katrina's parents, Marty and Kitty, and they decided it might be nice to pay a visit before the baby was born. They didn't come alone, though. Kitty and Antonio's father, Zander Wilson, dropped by as well. Not to be outdone by Zander's sharp dressed look, Antonio greeted everyone sporting his fabulous work suit.

Zander: "Colonel Sanders? I've never heard of him!"
Heheh…Zander was never intended to resemble "the Colonel", I was just shooting for a "distinguished old guy" look, but something in my subconscious must have been guiding me without me knowing it. I really don't like fried chicken much, though, so it's still a little hard to imagine. Anyway, I don't want to go any further down this rambling path…back to our regularly scheduled programming. Zander had a lot of catching up to do with the family, considering he hasn't visited them since who knows when (it can't have been too recent, though, since he never showed in the original neighborhood posts). Katrina's baby wasn't the only sim he had yet to meet - he hadn't met Aimee yet either, although judging by his reaction, he didn't seem terribly impressed when he saw her (it's kind of hard to tell sometimes what these whacky sims are supposed to be thinking, even by their body language.

Zander: "Eh…I've seen worse, but I've also seen better!"
Folks basically hung around and chatted and tried to kill time any way they could, and the expectation was that Katrina was supposed to be having her baby soon (at least according to my math it was about time for it to happen). And so they waited, and waited, and waited, but no baby. They may have thought the waiting was a big chore, but it was nothing compared to having to run to the bathroom every five seconds like Katrina was getting to do. Perhaps the thing that was hitting her the hardest was not being able to use the hot tub (which I might have thought was some sort of glitch if I hadn't used them myself enough in real life to read the little sign telling pregnant women not to use hot tubs - how responsible of EA to include that). She was forced to kill time hanging around in the house telling dirty jokes to everyone from her roommates to her grandfather…

Mia Kay: "Yeah, actually, your butt does kind of look bigger..."
Thank goodness for gambling and the fact that there's no warning against pregnant women playing poker (or if there is, EA hasn't heard about it yet). Some families gather around the dinner table to spend quality time, but by this point, the poker table was the place to be at the Wilson house (if you got a close look at the "dining table" indoors, you'd know why). Zander saw it as a great opportunity to have a chance to talk to Katrina a bit about the whole baby thing, and get to know Aimee a little bitter, just in case her and Antonio ever actually married. Oh, and it was also Zander's chance to try to guess who the father was, which seemed a little presumptuous since he didn't actually know anyone in town, but he had heard guesses from some folks (especially Antonio).

Katrina: "No, he's not the father. How do you even know Homie?"
It was a little freaky that everyone insisted on talking about Homie, because honestly, nobody in the Wilson home has ever really had any contact with him, and I don't know where the obsession comes from, besides the fact that everyone loves a clown (that may be the case, but Katrina certainly didn't "love" him the way everyone seemed to be suggesting). Oddly enough, the people who seemed the least worried about who the baby's father was were Marty and Kitty. They've always been pretty easy going types, even when Kitty was going through her fame phase, and I guess they just assumed that as long as Katrina had half the common sense of the two of them put together, she'd have been smart enough not to get jiggy with a werewolf or vampire or other unsavory, potentially bad father type sim.

Kitty: "As long as he's not as big a loser as your dad was when we met, you should be fine!"
Really, by this point in time, nobody really cared who the father was. I mean, if he was any kind of decent guy at all, he'd surely have heard Katrina was pregnant and dropped by to see how things were going, but nobody had seen any likely suspects around the house, and I can tell you for a fact he hadn't come by. Frankly, everyone was a little tired of the whole "who's the father" bit, and decided they didn't give a damn, they just wanted the baby to be born so they could say hello and get on with things. And if he/she happened to resemble the mystery parent, so be it. You can only focus on mundane things like dubious parentage for so long in a neighborhood so full of other interesting stuff like werewolves and vampires and the Grinch (who, by the way, is also not the father). Well, eventually…

Marty: "Oh, she's okay. It's probably just gas from too much soda!"
Nice guess, Marty, but no, it was in fact baby time (finally). By this point, the wait had been so long for guests like Zander and Marty and Kitty that they'd basically forgotten there was even supposed to be a baby on the way. It did arrive, though, and it was a boy, and Katrina named him Seth. Those folks who were hoping to figure out who the baby's father was based on looks suddenly remembered one fundamental fact about sim babies - aside from skin color, they all look the same! It was no different with Seth. He even had Katrina's skin tone, so even that was of no help. Oh, well. Everyone dropped what they were doing and came over to say their hellos to Seth and welcome him into the crazy, crazy world of Monkeesims.

Poor Seth…one of his earliest memories will be Grandpa Zander half naked wearing those shorts...
It felt good for the family to finally be able to focus on other things again. Having to wait around for a baby to pick it's own time and place to be born always puts everything else on hold for a while, and with Seth out and about, it was time to start thinking about other things. Things like the fact that everyone in the family had a job and someone would have to quit theirs to watch after the baby (you might think it would be Katrina, since the baby was hers, but you'd be wrong). Yes, despite her initial dislike for the working life, Katrina had grown attached to her easy job at Radio Shock, and didn't want to give up the opportunity to get out and rub elbows with people and make a few bucks. For the time being, Katrina and Mia Kay simply took turns calling out from work to watch Seth.

Seth: "Wait! Don't leave me alone with these people!"
Well, that arrangement may work in the sim world, but sure wouldn't fly in real life (actually, that's what maternity leave is for in real life, but we won't got there). It became obvious after a while that something was going to have to change about the work situation if Seth was going to get enough attention to learn the fundamentals of being a toddler when he got to that point. That sort of thing would be a headache for another day, though (there's a reason so few sims in the neighborhood have children, you know). Coming up next, now that the anticipation of Katrina's baby's arrival is past, find out what the older Wilson family is doing to line their pockets (hey, living in that big, elaborate house costs money, you know!) Till then, have a good one, and stay cool!

None of Your Business

2008-02-08T07:32:00.000-08:00

No, wait…don't leave! This post IS your business, it's just a witty title based on the content of the entry. Whew, that was close! So anyway, yesterday was interesting. I'd been sitting at work thinking I wished I had ANY excuse to go home early, when my older brother emailed me and told me he was driving an hour to the town where I live because my parents' house had a bad leak and the roof needed patching. So anyway, I went ahead and left early, and spent the afternoon on the roof helping re-shingle, then cleaned the rain gutters out (it's been storming constantly out here, and we figured we might as well do it while we were up there). Got my hands and clothes filthy, but it was nice, because I probably couldn't get dirty if I tried at my actual job, and it's just not normal. I'm a manual labor kind of guy at heart, I just can't find a job with better pay in the area (if you've forgotten, I sit at a computer all day long now).

Well, the big news on Monkeesims last time was that Katrina Wilson turned up pregnant, and opted not to share with the rest of the family who the father was. The actual reason for her refusal wasn't made clear, but in the end, nobody but Katrina had any clue who the baby was going to be calling "daddy" once it popped out. Well, when we begin our post today, we find our sims no closer to solving that particular mystery (there wasn't a whole lot to go on, mind you). However, there's something I noticed I found rather mysterious. While playing the Wilson house, Katrina was on maternity leave from her job at Radio Shock, and wasn't required to go to work. However, when I visited the actual Radio Shock lot as anyone but the Katrina's family...

Mia Kay: "Was I the only one who heard her say you didn't have to come in?"
Yes, despite the whole pregnancy thing, Katrina was always at Radio Shock unless someone sent her home. That either shows great dedication or great stupidity. Actually, though, Katrina got tired and crabby quicker than usual, and Amy or Clarence just wound up sending her home super early. The timing was good, though, because Amy had C-3PO and Dot Matrix to put to work if needed, and they actually had some register experience from the moment they were activated. With their minimal and easy to fill needs, it was almost too tempting for Amy to want to send home all her human employees and just put the servos to work, but she didn't want to have to give the Wilsons the boot like she had the other four original Radio Shock employees…

Jesse: "Hey, stranger…lookin' good!"
Well, speaking of Radio Shock, it got yet another face lift since the last time we really looked closely at it (which wasn't all that long ago). For starters, Amy decided the place needed an even darker blue carpet, and the ugly white walls had to go, replaced by the ultra cool "moonscape" wallpaper. The biggest change though was the inclusion of non-robot electronics like remote control cars, game consoles, computers, stereos, etc. On the other side of the store, Amy started stocking the whole line of toys from the toy crafting bench. The little brick face guys were such a big seller, it seemed silly to fight it. The biggest seller still was the ever popular servo, although it took so long to make them that Amy was only able to sell about two a day (thank goodness most of them sold to random townie sims, otherwise there would be an army of servos walking the streets).

Is it a store, or a night club? No need to decide!
The new look of the store really seemed to boost sales, I'm assuming because the extra decorations put customers in better moods (there were always a few folks who were just never happy, but Amy usually gave them the boot so they wouldn't ruin her business score). It was a slow process, but day by day, the huge amount of money Amy spent getting the business off the ground was finding its way back into her pockets. So how were things at home for the Andrews clan? Well, nothing terribly exciting was happening usually. Things had generally been pretty quiet around the house since Aiden moved out, and that was a long, long time ago (quiet if you don't take into account the whole Captain Hero thing). Amy did make an incredible discovery one day while fishing at the pond behind the house…

Presenting the legendary…Golden Trout!
The golden trout almost eluded my gaze, at first I thought it was a regular trout, till I checked Amy's inventory. Then the trout accidentally got set on the floor somewhere, and couldn't be found, then the penguin marched in the door and was heading right for it, but at the last moment, it was found and properly mounted on the wall. As exciting as catching the trout was, there didn't seem to be any special "powers" associated with it. It was worth about $500 to sell, but when you have as much money as Amy and Clarence, it's better to keep stuff like that as a status symbol (if a golden fish can really symbolize your status). Meanwhile, Clarence was finding his own kind of excitement. Amy had brought home a sample of an "evil" clown-in-a-box, to prevent it from being sold at the store. Clarence found it, and proceeded to turn the crank, unaware of the danger…

Clarence: "Ha, ha! I believe I just peed myself!"
It appeared that since Clarence has no "niceness" points left after being a werewolf so long, he actually found the evil boxed clown to be funny. I guess somebody has to. Why Amy would want to leave such a dangerous device just sitting around is beyond me, although she probably figured Clarence was too old to be interested in a clown-in-a-box (which again, makes no sense, since he's not too old to jump in the bath tub and start playing pirate). Besides playing with evil toy clowns and being Mayor (oddly enough, at this point, he hadn't been home enough since his last promotion to actually go in to work as Mayor), Clarence tried to busy himself with finishing up some of Buddy's training. He'd done a little bit of it himself, and had the weird pet trainer lady do a great deal more. He decided to call her up again and see if she couldn't teach Buddy the last few commands he had yet to learn, and again, she displayed weird behavior. Last time it was eating rotten food. This time, it was coming over, ignoring Buddy, and taking a bath…

Clarence: "She'd better at least be teaching Buddy how to bathe..."
Yes, the pet trainer is one of the most valuable and at the same time, most worthless services in town. Half the time she does a fine job of performing the boring tasks of pet training, while the other half of the time she spends eating rotten food, bathing in other peoples' tubs, and hanging around their houses doing nothing remotely related to training pets for hours on end (although, she ranks pretty highly as "skill vacuum fodder", right up there with the gypsy matchmaker). Eventually, the big day came for Clarence not to call of work and actually go in to perform his duties as Mayor. He sat around watching the TV in the living room waiting for a limo to pull up, and nearly peed himself when a helicopter tried to land itself on the street in front of the house.

Amy: "That has got to be violating SOME sort of traffic law!"
I'm sure most people who've played the game for any length of time have seen the chopper before, but up to this point, I'd only managed to reach the top of careers that had buses or limos or something strange like sims flying off into the sky, so I found the chopper to be quite cool. Well, meanwhile, back at Pimp Harbor, our old pal, Moon Dawg, was feeling the call of his inner entrepreneur. Remember back in the days of the old Jackson house when Moon Dawg had his gnome stand out in the front yard, and supported the family through the sale of gnomes? Well, despite getting busted for his unreported income, he never quite lost his love of selling gnomes. Once the Bluewater Village business district opened up, Moon Dawg's destiny became clear…

Moon Dawg: "We're gonna' do it right this time, mon!"
Sure, Moon Dawg could have just set up some shelves on the sidewalk outside Pimp Harbor, but he wasn't taking any chances with his business not being "legit". And so, in no time, he'd purchases a nice pink building in Bluewater Village, and dubbed the place "Gnomes n' Domes". The "gnomes" part probably makes sense, but the "domes" part you may find a little confusing. You see, Moon Dawg decided early on it wouldn't take an army of people to keep gnomes the shelves or run the register, and decided to incorporate a hair salon into the place as well. Do any of the family have any styling experience to speak of? Not really, but the combination of a gnome store/hair salon seemed too obvious not to try. Moon Dawg placed Leon in charge of the hair chair, since he had nothing better to do, and kind of sort of looked like a stylist.

Leon: "I just don't think there's enough pink in this place, man!"
Although Moon Dawg did hire some local sims to run the register and manage the salon chair, he decided to take the inexpensive route and have Leon and Keri run those things as often as possible (ie. when I was actually playing the lot as a business). Keri was awful at the register at first, as you might suspect, but got better over time. Moon Dawg handled the shelf stocking and customer relations, and business picked up very quickly - he just couldn't keep the shelves full of gnomes at the rate folks were buying them (hard to believe, I know). Apparently, there isn't a lot of talent needed to be a stylist at the most basic level, because Leon was able to deliver a decent number of makeovers without complaint. He did manage to give Clarence Andrews a makeup job from hell that made him look like a cross between a clown and a transvestite, but everyone else seemed fairly pleased with the results.

Leon: "How about I give you the old Leon Jackson fro, bro?"
I'd hoped originally that the chair could be used to edit the look of the local sims, but that option never became available while Leon was doing the styling. He was making money doing it, though, and that was really the important thing. It wasn't long before everyone in town was carrying multiple gnomes in their personal inventory, made possible by Moon Dawg's love and dedication to the yard gnome industry. Yes, business was booming, so much so that I snapped like a thousand pictures of the place in action, but luckily, I'm not going to subject you to all of them. When Moon Dawg, Keri, and Leon returned home, they found a most unexpected visitor waiting outside the boat…

A blast from the not so distant past...
It was none other than Leon and Moon Dawg's former room mate, Steve Jackson. Now, Steve and Leon started out as friends, but if you'll recall, Steve got married to Doris Somebody from Studio Town after a magic potion caused the two to fall in love. Later on, however, Leon drank the same potion, causing he and Doris to fall in love as well, which lead to a bit of an awkward situation, to say the least. Steve took it pretty hard, and turned to drinking potions from his chemistry set for comfort, died in a barbecue fire, then came back as a zombie. After the smoke had cleared, he and Leon weren't exactly the best of pals. However, it seems whatever magic the potion Steve used to hook up with Doris may have had was short lived, and since we last saw him, Doris ditched Steve in favor of her career. It didn't take Steve long to figure out where Leon had gone, and knowing full well that they'd parted on less than impressive terms, he came bearing gifts…

Leon: "Man, that better not be the old genie lamp!"
Well, whatever may have transpired between Steve and Leon back in the old days, the Jackson family is nothing if not easy going. And so, Leon was more than happy to welcome yet another person aboard his already fairly crowded ship (hasn't he learned his lesson since Debbie took off because of the overcrowding thing?) It should be noted Steve's last name is Johnston, now that he's free of the limitations of TS1 forcing all family members to have the same last name. Anyway, the question of where the heck Steve was going to stay on the boat was put aside for the time being, because it was time to party! It's a little ironic if you think about it - last time these three were living together, Steve was married and Leon and Moon Dawg were single. Now, it's the exact opposite situation.

Leon: "I see your dancing skills haven't improved at all!"
Well, for better or for worse, the original "Jackson 3" were back together, making a total of six people living on the Love Boat (people in the loosest sense of the word, since Moon Unit is technically an alien.) Leon briefly considered letting Steve stay in the recliner in the kitchen on the upper deck, but since that didn't work out so well with Moon Dawg, that plan was quickly shelved. At the same time, there wasn't really room on the lower deck to put another bed without getting rid of the poker table or bowling alley, and nobody was willing to part with those things. In the end, there was only one logical solution - a dock was constructed at the edge of the harbor, and a little shack was constructed, similar to the one Moon Dawg had lived in when he first moved to the boat. Not having it on the deck made it a little more convenient. Steve seemed to be okay with the whole arrangement.

Steve: "It's not the Hilton, but it will do the trick..."
So there we go with another of the "old neighborhood" folks finding their way to town. It could have been worse…it could have been Kevin Wilson bringing his boring life back for everyone to enjoy (my apologies in case there's a Kevin Wilson fan out there, but I seriously doubt there is). Of course, I'm not guaranteeing Steve's life in his little wooden shack out on the dock is going to be a huge hoot and holler, but in the world of Monkeesims, nothing is for certain. Well, we're checking in on the Katrina/Mia Kay/Antonio Wilson family again in our next post. Will Antonio and Aimee be any closer to actually getting hitched? Will the mystery of Katrina's baby's father be any closer to being solved? Well, if you want to know so badly, you'll just have to check in next time!

More Unexpected Events

2008-02-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone, and welcome back once more to the abundant watering hole of simness that is Monkeesims. Everything I touch at the moment winds up smelling like coffee, because someone added water to the coffee maker this morning here, and it pumps water into the machine itself, so there was coffee everywhere. And I helped mop it up with paper towels. Didn't go too well, so basically everything is saturated with coffee now, and I think someone gave me a mug full of the diluted stuff with double the water, and it's not keeping me awake. Should be an interesting morning (if there is such a thing here at my job).

Yesterday, you were subjected to the first of my sims' attempts at business ownership as Amy Andrews tried to get Andrews Radio Shock off the ground. Didn't go so well at first, but things were starting to look up when we left (guess some day I might read one of those instruction manual thingies and see if it helps). The most amazing thing that came from the business was the fact that Katrina and Mia Kay Wilson actually wound up getting jobs after resisting for so long. Granted, their jobs consisted of standing at a cash register for part of the day and wandering around chatting with Amy and the customers for the other part - not exactly the most back breaking labor known to man. It did relieve some of the financial burden from the rest of the family, though. With the extra $500 a day being brought home by Katrina and Mia Kay, Aimee decided she could afford to buy a new outfit - with surprising results...

Aimee: "Hey, wait…I have a belly button?"
Déjà vu? Perhaps. It is funny though that those former plant sims have navels - I guess that joke just never gets old for me (apologies to the rest of you). With the girls off out of the house and actually working, Aimee and Antonio took some time off so they could actually hang out with each other. Aimee finally got a chance to work on her painting, and Antonio got a chance to play poker with himself (don't ask, I don't know). Really, it's not like the family was so broke before that they couldn't take a day off or buy clothes unless Kat and Mia Kay were making money, but you know those responsible types and their weird hang-ups.

I'm not really sure this qualifies as "togetherness time"...
For all the fun that Antonio and Aimee had had since getting engaged and moving in together, she was starting to get a little "Kammy Wilson syndrome". In other words, every other thought of hers had to do with getting married or having a baby, and she's not even a family aspiration sim. Sims in the neighborhood tend to get married at different paces, some quicker than others, and all indications were that while Antonio's proposal was good, he didn't have any plans to wed right away. Given that Antonio is one of those ultra easy going types to begin with, Aimee should have just been thankful he'd proposed at all, or had a job, even if nobody knew what he did for a living.

Aimee: "My gosh! Some pervert is outside the window with a camera!"
Well, despite her thinking about marriage constantly, Aimee was nice enough not to nag Antonio about it for the time being. Everyone was hoping that sooner or later he would close the deal and end all the Amy/Aimee Andrews confusion. Antonio had quite a few other things on his mind at the moment, like his high power career and whether or not he'd ever do something to fix his hair. Another thing that was bugging him was the fact that the old three story house he, Katrina, and Mia Kay originally lived in had a pool, and the new house didn't. There was certainly money to construct one, there just wasn't a whole lot of space on the new property. Antonio eventually broke down and decided he didn't care, and had a pool installed behind the house. Well, not so much a pool as a very small water filled concrete hole in the ground, but you get the idea.

What? No slide and diving board?
The pool was useful for getting wet and swimming around in circles and not too much else. A diving board was omitted due to the risk of jumping entirely OVER the pool, and we won't even discuss how bad an idea a slide would have been. Antonio had his pool, and that was the important thing. J.D. Wilson, Mia Kay's father, decided to drop by and see the ugly house everyone had been complaining about (sure, you haven't heard me say how much I hate the layout lately, but that hasn't changed). Aimee was just getting home with huge news - she'd been promoted to Chief on the medical track. The hours and pay turned out to be pretty good. Sure, it wasn't close to what she'd be making at the top of the sports career track, but it was more than everyone else in the house was making each day with all three of their jobs combined.

Gia: "Here comes the green cat! Make way for the green cat!"
J.D. went out back and took a gander at the new pool, but for some reason, didn't seem terribly impressed (maybe it's because the new Wilson house he lives at has a massive pool out back that actually has room for a diving board and slide). Oh, J.D…you're such a snob. The younger Wilson family usually does a pretty terrible job of entertaining guests, which is why they throw so few parties…they invite people in, then leave them to their own devices and do their own thing the whole time. That is, unless they're inviting people over to hustle them at poker. Those guests get plenty of attention. Antonio wasn't paying too much attention to company at the moment, he was too excited about Aimee's excellent new suit that came with her promotion. Hey, free clothes rule, even I know that.

Antonio: "So, you wanna' play doctor?"
If there's one thing that having gotten jobs taught Katrina and Mia Kay, it was the value of money, and suddenly, the ability to get other people's money without work seemed more appealing than ever. You might think that having actual jobs would eliminate the need for squeezing money out of folks at the poker table, but it didn't. The girls didn't actually make an effort to invite passing strangers inside or get hookups from the gypsy matchmaker, but there was a constant slew of friends being brought home from Antonio and Aimee's jobs, and they were always easy victims. Things had certainly taken an odd turn from the early days of the family's arrival in the neighborhood when Katrina and Mia Kay were focused on going out and having fun and looking for romantic prospects. Of course, after all the fights Kat got into (and lost) those first times, it's no surprise she's probably too terrified to leave the house unless she absolutely has to.

Suit Guy: "Uh, I guess I brought lots of money, why do you ask?"
That's not to say I think every sim in the neighborhood needs to have a romantic interest. Some of them seem perfectly content doing stuff that has nothing to do with the opposite sex. I think Mia Kay is "turned off" by most other sims, and least likely to spend time doing stuff with others if allowed to choose what she wants to do. Aimee and Antonio are the really outgoing sorts who seem to love everyone, while Katrina is somewhere in the middle (though very prone to having little puffs of hearts over her head for most guy sims). The biggest problem with the whole romance thing is just that the neighborhood if full of ugly looking townies, while the population of charming, attractive custom sims has dwindled down to almost nothing. Despite this unfortunate arrangement, Katrina had a little bit of a surprise for everyone…

No, the ugly outfit isn't the surprise...
Yes, it turns out Katrina was pregnant. She'd managed to get away with not throwing up in the days leading up having to wear the ugly maternity clothes, but the appearance of the bulge and the maternity getup was a dead giveaway. Despite the appearance of not having a whole lot of romantic interests, it looked as though Katrina had at least one nobody else in the family knew about. However, she wasn't talking about who the father was (and in case you're curious, there IS a father, it's not a "cheat baby"). Everyone started going over the list of eligible bachelors in town, trying to guess who it was, but when names like Jimmy Jones and Homie D. Klown started popping up, the discussion was quickly halted...

Katrina: "Look! Mia Kay changed her hair! Let's talk about that instead!"
Katrina hadn't really dated anyone for any length of time that the rest of the family knew about. There had been Elrond Hartman, who she hooked up with shortly after her disastrous date with Andrew Pearson, but nobody had seen him around in ages, aside from his time working at Andrews Radio Shock (which happened to be where Katrina worked too, but there wasn't time for any funny business while they were on the clock). The idea that Katrina might have been abducted popped up, but the fact that the family didn't own a telescope, Katrina never turned up missing, and aliens don't impregnate females seemed to shoot down that idea. It appeared folks would just have to wait and hope the baby resembled it's father if Katrina wasn't going to give up any info. Antonio still had his theories about who he thought the father was…

Katrina: "I know you love Homie D. Klown, but he's not the father!"
Eventually, everyone got used to seeing Katrina with a bulge, and decided to let the whole probing her for info thing go. She'd decided she didn't want to give up the baby's father's name, and it seemed that wasn't going to change. The good thing that came from all of this was that Katrina didn't have to go to work until the baby was born. Of course, she'd only been working her new job for a couple of days before all this happened, so it's not like she was overworked and needed the break. She did spend most of her time at the poker table while she was at home, though, so the poker money would still be rolling in. Antonio, Aimee, and Mia Kay all wound up getting a day off at the same time, and decided to celebrate by buying lots of easels and painting together. Not exactly a real group activity, but a nice effort nonetheless.

Aimee: "Wow, Antonio, you're a regular Bob Ross!"
Well, anyway, time passed, and everyone remained curious about the whole baby thing (well, Katrina wasn't curious, obviously), but remained silent hoping the mystery would solve itself sooner or later. Could Homie D. Klown actually be the father? Would the mystery man reveal himself before Katrina did so? Would the baby be born with an addiction to hustling people at poker? All very good questions, and ones that will eventually be answered, but not necessarily in our next post. Join us next time as we take a look at another local business, and greet another unexpected arrival in the Monkeesim neighborhood. Till then, stay cool, and watch out for falling satellites!

Andrews Radio Shock

2008-02-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to Monkeesims (insert clever introductory comment here, cause I can't think of one this morning). I want the weekend back. It was a good one, which means I'm not prepared for this new week. How screwed up is that? But yeah, when the weekend blows, I'm ready to be done with it and get back to work. Well, sort of. Given a choice, I'd ALWAYS stay home if I could, but if I HAVE to go to work when the week starts, it's better for me if I've had a crappy weekend. Don't ask me to explain…it makes no sense. At any rate, here I am, and that's that.

Hmmm…that sure is a whiney sounding opening paragraph, but due to lack of interest, I will not be editing it at this time. No, it's time to move on to more exciting things. Last week, we took a look at how the younger Wilson family tried to achieve collective financial success, through a combination of actual jobs (only for the suckers) and clever backyard poker swindling. Well, as great as both of those money making methods are, there was one yet to be explored - owning a business (that might be partly due to the fact that I hadn't purchased Open for Business till right before the events depicted in this post). The opening of the Bluewater Village shopping district and the ability to own businesses excited a great many sims, and the first to buy their own business was none other than the overly ambitious Amy Andrews.

Amy: "It's no Wal-Mart, but just wait…"
After purchasing an unattractive building (okay, so I was eager to get someone started running a business and didn't take much time with the aesthetics), Amy decided it was time to fulfill her dream of owning her own electronics store. She named the place Andrews Radio Shock, bought some shelves and a robot making bench, and got to work. After hammering out a few toy robots and tossing them on the shelves, Amy decided she couldn't wait to see how the whole business and customer thing worked, and opened the place to the public. Well, a few folks wandered in, and she sold a few robots (there was nothing else to sell), then discovered she was surprisingly inadequate at running a cash register or restocking shelves. This came as something of a shock, since all of her regular skills were maxed. Tough luck, Amy…apparently that means nothing in the business world!

Amy: "I guess saying we've got everything might be an overstatement!"
As much fun as Amy had building all the toy robots herself, she realized it would be time consuming to craft, schmooze customers, run the register, and stock shelves all by herself. Thus, she did the logical thing and hired an army of employees on the second day of running her business. Her work force consisted of Schroeder and Elmer Fultz, Elrond Hartman, Austyn Strange, and Katrina and Mia Kay Wilson (how she got the last two to actually get jobs is beyond me). She decided to expand and buy some toy crafting stations, so instead of just selling toy robots, she could sell toy bricks too. It apparently takes a lot of time and effort to draw a face on a brick, but Amy was lucky to have a team of employees ready to face the challenge.

Atmosphere is highly overrated anyway...
Well, I'm sure anyone who's ever run a sim business of their own is probably standing slack jawed in awe at the decision to hire SIX employees for a business with no reputation and next to nothing to sell, but Amy was blazing new trails, and didn't yet realize the money pit this would turn her business into. The worst decision of all though was keeping the cashiers on the job while the business wasn't even open and the crafters did their thing - it didn't occur to her until later that she didn't need to keep ALL the employees at work if they weren't needed. So basically, there was a lot of money going out, and next to nothing coming in. The Andrews family had a fair amount of money saved up from Amy and Clarence's regular jobs, but between the cost of buying the business and paying half a dozen employees while selling next to nothing, Andrews Radio Shock was shockingly "in the red".

Elrond: "This is easy for me…I'm a Level 40 metal worker!"
Another lesson Amy learned the hard way is that employees like to be paid according to their skill level. After a few days of cranking out goods from the work tables, the employees started to gain some talent badges, but their wages didn't change at all. Elrond was the first to respond to this in disgust, and promptly turned in his name tag. Amy quickly made sure everyone else was getting paid according to their skills, which just made financial matters worse. Eventually, a light bulb went on in her head, and she realized she could cut corners and save a few bucks by sacking part of the work force and doing some of the work herself - and even making Clarence lend her a hand here and there. Elmer and Schroeder were the first to get laid off, which they seemed a little too happy about, then Austyn was eventually let go. All the while, the robots and bricks kept on coming…

Progress of sorts - going from selling a few crappy robots to lots of crappy robots.
As time went on, Amy began to get a grasp on some of the finer points of the whole sales thing. She discovered she could sell more junky toy robots if she interacted with all potential customers, and could convince them they actually needed the stupid things (it got trickier convincing them they needed two or three after they bought the first one already). Amy produced a few rover bots and even some hover bots as time went on, but the amount of time it took to make them just didn't seem worth the profit the robots brought in. Despite the great efforts Amy was making toward pushing her merchandise, she started to get the impression that maybe the ugly atmosphere might be driving customers away. And so, she invested a great chunk of money in giving the outside of the building a bit of a face lift…

Because nothing says "successful business" light a giant fake gorilla...
I'm sure nobody really looks that closely, but the gorilla was added first, then later, some carpet in place of the ugly floor tiles. I didn't get a picture of the gorilla till AFTER the carpet was laid, which is why the picture above shows carpet, and the ones below still show ugly floor. So, there…for the one person who probably would have noticed that and called me on it, you've got nothing! Anyway, by some miracle, the whole exterior decorating thing actually seemed to have some effect on the moods of the customers, though nothing as dramatic as Amy had been hoping for, given the cost of the fake gorilla (it would take selling about a billion little robots to make up for the gorilla to begin with). Well, for what it was worth, the gorilla was there, but it was only part of the new selling strategy. Amy decided it was time for Clarence to step up to the plate and do a little more to support the business.

Move over, Ronald McDonald…it's the Radio Shock Gorilla!
Yes, every successful business needs a mascot, and since Amy was hoping Radio Shock would eventually qualify as successful, it seemed a good idea to take care of the mascot thing right away. It wasn't like it was costing anything to have Clarence be the mascot, since he's her husband, the gorilla suit was already paid for. Amy eventually settled on crafting robots herself during regular work hours, having Clarence help craft when the business was closed, and let Mia Kay and Katrina take care of making toys when they weren't working the register. Thus far, it turned out to be the closest thing to an efficient system she'd developed since opening Radio Shock. Clarence seemed to get the hang of working with customers quickly, because everyone loves a gorilla…

Clarence: "Uh, yes, I also happen to be Mayor…"
Eventually, Amy decided to give the inside of the place a little bit of a face lift. For starters, she installed the aforementioned carpet in favor of the ugly gray floor tile. She decided to do away with most of the toy related merchandise to just focus on robots instead, and the remaining toys were moved up to little "impulse buy" racks by the registers (this turned out to be a horrible move, since customers who stopped to look at them wound up blocking the checkout line). Amy also started stocking a couple varieties of hoverbot and roverbot, though it still took so long to make them that it still seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Given the number of enemies most sims in town have, though, and their tendency to dump garbage on the floor, the Sentrybot and Cleanbot became fast favorites around town.

Katrina: "Um…aren't there supposed to be customers here or something?"
It took an extremely long time, but eventually, the whole business thing began to find its own rhythm. Amy and Clarence would go in at unholy hours to start crafting robots, call in the girls a while later to make a few bricks and clowns-in-a-box, then start the business day. Naturally, Katrina and Mia Kay would eventually get tired, at which time Amy would send them home, and have Clarence man the registers. In other words, things kept going from the crack of dawn until the wee hours of the night, and sometimes after. It was hard to close the business though as long as there was always one more customer close to buying an item, and anyone who's ever played knows that a semi-decent business will ALWAYS have someone who fits that category…

Vyn: "Can I really leave without buying one of those bricks with a face?"
Eventually, all of Amy's hard work at the robot bench resulted in a gold talent badge, granting her the ability to craft the fabled servos. Little did she realize that creating one was a day long process. Regardless, she eventually finished her first Servo, and couldn't figure out how to activate him. It took a while to figure out that this was because she was on a community lot, but she eventually got it home, and decided to activate it as a "male". Thus, C-3PO Andrews was born. I thought the whole spawning Aimee Andrews as a plant sim was an odd way to build a family, but somehow, adding a robot was even weirder. Nobody (including me) had any idea what to expect from "Threepio", but the family hoped he'd at least keep the house clean. Well, he did a little of that, but mainly, he just cooked meals when they weren't needed and played around on the computer instead of doing chores…

C-3PO: "But checking my email IS a chore!"
Despite the outrageous cost of building a servo, and the ridiculous amount of time required to craft them, lots of folks wanted to buy them, so Amy started making sure there was one out on the floor whenever possible. You know how these things go - one person gets something, and suddenly, everyone else wants it. C-3PO would always be the first, though. During the brief time she wasn't running the business and Clarence was doing the Mayor thing, Amy got a chance to study Threepio a little better, and realized they had a lot in common. No surprise, since he took on the characteristics of Amy when she activated him. The thing that DID come as a surprise was that Amy had the hots for C-3PO. If he has so many of her characteristics, does that mean she has the hots for herself? I just don't want to know!

Amy: "You are one fine hunk of robot!"
Threepio, in turn, had the hots for Amy. Okay, things were getting a little too disturbing for my tastes. Vampires, werewolves, and even plant sims I can deal with, but robots lusting after their sim masters just sort of makes my skin crawl, as does the fact that they seem to have the full collection of romantic interactions available to use. Amy decided she'd either have to deactivate C-3PO before he got out of hand, or make him a companion he could properly direct his affection toward. And so, Amy brought home a second servo, activated it as a female, and named her Dot Matrix. Since Dot was essentially the robot version of Amy, the plan worked. Still, there would be no "woo wooing" robots any time soon. I just can't deal with the visual…

C-3PO: "Where have you been the whole week I've been alive?"
Yes, the plan worked, but now, there were two robots running around the house, occasionally doing chores, but mostly cooking more unnecessary meals, using the household recreation items, and bugging Clarence and Amy while they tried to do their own thing. Luckily, the robots featured a "power down" function, and Amy decided enough was enough for the time being. Threepio and Dot were switched off, and stored in the piano room, where they were kept most of the time the family was home. Amy discovered she could call the robots up when at Radio Shock and have them help around the store when needed for free, and they'd be right back where they'd been in the house when she got home. Clever.

Amy: "I should have just stuck to toy robots!"
Yes, the arrival of each new weird sim type as I get each of the expansions is always a glorious moment, although I've got to say that the servos are the strangest to me. Despite the strange behavior of the pair Amy activated, hers were pretty mild compared to some we'll see down the road. Anyway, Amy's business has started to pick up a little steam, but will she ever get out of the financial hole she dug herself in the beginning? Will Clarence resent having to dress like a gorilla every day? These questions may someday be answered. Tomorrow, however, we'll drop in on the younger Wilson family as they discover some surprising news about one of their own. For now, that's all, folks!

Bringing Home the Bacon

2008-02-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

Mmmm…bacon. I could go for some farm-fresh pig product right about now. Unfortunately I'm on a "diet" of sorts, which dictates I need to eat healthier stuff, and pig isn't part of that equation. So, let me tell you, there's just nothing like being one of a handful of idiots who still comes in to work the day after it's dumped snow then ice then snow again all over town. Getting to have your pant legs covered in snow them soaked when it melts at work is just a fringe benefit - the most fun comes from that sensation of "everyone else gets to be home, so why do I have to be here?" I made the mistake of letting everyone know I live about two miles from here on roads that are usually the first to be plowed, but must they take the fun of snow days away from me?

Yes, work sucks enough as is, we've established that, and it's even less fun under these conditions. So speaking of work, that's our theme for today. Since I like most of my sims, I try to let them avoid having to spend too much time working if I can help it, but let's face it - if I were to cheat and give them lots of money, they'd never learn the value of it (I confess I usually cheat enough to build them a nice house, then leave them a few bucks afterward and that's it). Plus, you have to admit that it adds an element of realism to the whole thing for them to have to work to make money. And so, let's drop in on the younger Wilsons, and see how they're doing. We find Antonio coming home from his job. What is his job, you ask? I have no idea. He's had it for a while, but I never think to check, I don't even know what track he's on...

Antonio: "If I have to work, Mia Kay should have to also!"
Whatever it is that Antonio does (or claims to do), he works lots of hours and brings home very little money, but at least he's out there doing something. Unlike some of the rest of the family. Now, before you go thinking that I don't think it's a lot of work to be at home and keep things in shape and manage household affairs, that's not true. It does take a lot of work, and some days I'd rather be at my job than home having to clean or cook or do laundry or any of that fun stuff. Antonio's fiance, Aimee, took care of most of the chores around the house (the ones the maid didn't do, that is), AND she has a job. Her most valuable skill had to be the ability to talk to trees, and was the only reason the fruit tree out back ever managed to produce anything.

Aimee: "So, I hear there was another oil spill in Alaska…"
In addition to being able to talk to plants, Aimee had maxed out skills in all categories (through genetics passed on from her mother Amy, mind you), so it would have been a waste for her not to have a job of some sort. She'd been in the medical profession for quite some time, and was raking in the bucks. In other words, Aimee wound up being the one who not only did most of the work around the house, but was also the primary financial supporter. She'd come to that annoying point in her career where she was one promotion from the top, and it seemed to refuse to come, despite her having more than enough skills and friends. It was frustrating, but all she had to do was remind herself Antonio was barely making any money at all at his job and nobody even knew what he did, and it made her feel better…

Aimee: "Another day, another 1,356 dollars..."
So now, I've talked about Aimee's and Antonio's jobs, and while I'd love to talk about Katrina and Mia Kay's I can't…cause they don't HAVE jobs. No, they couldn't even be bothered to get jobs on the Slacker track, they just preferred to let Aimee and Antonio slave away all day to support them instead. The biggest kick in the pants is while there are some creative outlets around the Wilson house like the easel (which could actually result in a couple of bucks earned if used), Katrina and Mia Kay didn't bother with any of that. They just ran around all day in their swimwear jumping in and out of the hot tub and throwing water balloons at each other. I guess they learned how to do nothing all day long from living with their parents in the TS1 era Wilson house…

Katrina: "Wow! I can't believe I fell for that for the zillionth time!"
Well, sooner or later, even the most practiced slackers (recreational slackers, mind you, not the ones who get paid on the slacker career track) can get a little bored going back and forth between either getting soaked by balloons or soaked in the hot tub. Katrina and Mia Kay decided that since they had money lying around that Aimee and Antonio weren't using (not as if they could, being that they were at work all the time), they might as well spend some of it to beautify their home. It seemed like high time they got some decent patio furniture. The girls bought two tables and some chairs, but one of them was a poker table…the beginning of their own brilliant money making scheme…

Destined to be the site of many wasted hours...
The idea behind the scheme was a rather simple one. With the ample time on their hands, Katrina and Mia Kay would find some people to play cards against them, pocket their money, and contribute to the household finances. It seemed like a good scheme, but the success of it involved two uncertain factors - there had to actually be people visiting the house, and Katrina and Mia Kay had to actually win enough to come out on top. I personally have no clue what makes one sim better at poker than another, but I believe in the power of dumb luck (it's gotten me this far in life, after all). Mia Kay took the first shift of waiting out on the sidewalk to snag passing strangers (in her swimsuit still, of course). It wasn't long until she got a "bite".

Mia Kay: "Nice to meet you! Would you like to lose some money?"
Sims are huge poker addicts (if they don't head for the bar or hot tub first), and the guest went to the poker table without even needing to be asked (I should remember that sim's name, because they're always around, but I don't). And so, the girls dealt the cards, and their money making efforts began. Things seemed to be working as planned, and Katrina and Mia Kay won a few hands, but the money just wasn't coming in quickly enough. Katrina decided that they really needed to fill all four seats to maximize their efficiency, so she headed out front to wait for the next sucker to pass the house. And so, she waited, and waited, but nothing. Kat eventually got tired of waiting, and called the gypsy matchmaker to request a "date" (aka a poker patsy).

Katrina: "I'd like my date to be dumb with lots of cash!"
Well, Katrina's "date" fell from the sky, and she promptly lead him out back, before he could even figure out what the heck was going on. Katrina and Mia Kay finally had their foursome (at poker, you sickos), and so the real cutthroat gaming began. The new guy was probably wondering what sort of weird "date" he'd been sucked into - getting plopped down at a poker table at a strange house with barely an introduction and not even a little chatting to kick things off. Sadly, playing poker didn't meet any of his aspirations for the date, nor did losing a bunch of his money, though it happened anyway. Katrina and Mia Kay were pretty pleased with the way things were going, though. It didn't look like they'd be making $1,356 a day like Aimee was, but at least they'd be able to cover all the pizzas they ordered during the day or the cost of repairs for the overused TV and computer.

Date Guy: "…some pretzels at least would have been nice…"
The strange thing about all of this is that when the Wilson family first came to the neighborhood, they tried going to one of the little bars in the Downtown area that had poker, but for some reason, every time anyone in the family was instructed to sit at a table and play, they'd shrug their shoulders with a little simoleon sign over their heads. I assumed that was meant to mean they didn't have enough money to gamble, but that made no sense, since they had thousands of dollars when this happened. Whatever the problem had been, nobody was having any trouble playing now, or taking their guests' cash. The date timer ran out, and the guy got up and told Katrina what a lousy time he'd had. Chalk up another embarrassingly bad date for Katrina!

Date Guy: "No way! You'll probably just try to lift my wallet!"
The plan was more or less a success - not a spectacularly huge financial success or anything, but at least the girls made some money instead of just spending it (whether or not they made enough to cover the cost of the poker table and chairs is debatable). While they were busy trying to squeeze the last few bucks out of the woman Mia Kay had invited to the game, Amy Andrews came by the house and just sort of wandered around for a bit. She's close friends with her daughter, Aimee, so she's one of those sims who doesn't need an invite to visit and come inside. Mia Kay and Katrina were so busy with their cards, they didn't stop to say hello or anything. Luckily, Aimee came home before too long and managed to say hello to her mom before she could leave.

"Hey, Amy!" "Hey, Aimee!"
Okay, I suppose that's inaccurate since Aimee probably doesn’t refer to her mom by her first name, but it's funnier that way. Anyway, Aimee brought a friend home with her, and they headed over to the new poker table to give it a look. Antonio came home shortly after, also with a friend in tow. Meanwhile, the guy Katrina had her "date" with was still hanging around, and decided to give the whole poker thing another chance since Katrina and Mia Kay weren't playing any longer. Clarence Andrews showed up from somewhere, and pretty soon, the place was hoppin'. As if that weren't enough people, someone grabbed the phone and called up a few other people. I guess if the house is already crowded, there's no better time to add a few other people to the mix just to suck up to them.

Blonde Girl: "Now, which of these is better…these three A's, or these two cards with the K on them?"
The Wilsons (and I) never really got over how sucky the layout of the house itself is, but the back patio was shaping up nicely, and there were very few complaints there. I guess that explains why Katrina and Mia Kay spend every waking hour out back and never enter the house unless necessary (if there was a mini-fridge and a toilet outside, they could eliminate those inside trips entirely). Guests seemed to like it too, because the lady Mia Kay invited over stuck around to hang in the hot tub well into the night. Someone invited Zondra Witte over at some point I'm guessing, because she was there, and none too happy about not being able to find a spot in the hot tub.

Clarence: "I'll bet if you turned into a bat you could squeeze in there!"
Eventually, someone in the tub caught on fire, and the fire spread to the hot tub itself, and the fire department was called. The fire was extinguished, and everyone gave Zondra dirty looks. She wasn't in the tub, but maybe they assumed she used her vampire powers of pyrokenisis to cause the blaze. There's that vampire hating crap we talked about last post. Anyway, making a few bucks hustling strangers at poker is all good and fun, but it won't make anyone rich any time soon. Some people like to think a little bigger than that. People like Amy Andrews. Next time, we'll join Amy as she gets to be the guinea pig for our first Open for Business money making venture. And the instruction manual makes it sound so easy… :-P

Creatures of the Nightclub

2008-01-31T10:08:00.000-08:00

Greetings, one and all? How the heck are you doing? Uh huh…yeah. Good to hear. I'm doing okay myself, thanks for asking. A little hungry today because I basically forgot to eat yesterday (that's what happens when you have a busy productive life…or so I'm told). Actually, I was just too lazy to cook anything, and you know how sometimes it's just annoying to have to stop what you're doing to put something together to stuff in your mouth? Well, yeah…it was like that. Luckily, I have my feed sack size bag of sunflower seeds here with me at work, and if I eat enough of those, I just might survive till the end of the day (if not, well, it's been a pleasure knowing everyone).

I used to hear from certain readers of this page fairly regularly during it's Sims 1 era, not so much anymore, but I know most of the old readers had a pretty good memory for details when it came to the stories posted here. Now, I'm not sure how much of the Sims 1 section anyone who reads it now is familiar with, but if you are, you might have picked out some of the characters who have "occurred" in both the Sims 1 and Sims 2 parts. Well, we've got more coming up today, so hold on to your hats. I try not to do that just for the sake of doing it, because new sims deserve a chance in the spotlight too, but some sims I just miss a little from time to time and don't feel their stories were entirely over yet. However, before we get to that, let's focus on a previously unseen lot in the neighborhood...

Your average, everyday mausoleum…or is it?
Yes, we've seen the Silent Grove Cemetery, established by the late Captain Jack Daniels, but this ain't it. No, this is actually a cleverly disguised residential lot that LOOKS like a community lot. Remember the deserted swimming pool home of Shaggy Rogers? Yeah, it's sort of like that. And yes, I know, there is a ridiculous number of tombstones in the Monkeesim neighborhood, but I can't help it if it's a dangerous place to live (I also can't help it if I didn't realize it was possible to die from hail, since that's not mentioned in anything I've read).

The ghosts definitely add to the overall charm of the place...
Yes, this is no ordinary mausoleum…it's the home of the Everdark family. See, a while back, after Castle Witte was completed, I started to feel there was just too much unused space in the castle. There were several tower rooms with no real use, and while there were plenty of ways to keep busy in the castle, they just weren't being put to very good use by Alfred or Zondra, the castle's owners. Thus, four fun loving sims from the Everdark family moved into the castle with Alfred to help liven things up. Eventually, they all wound up getting bitten by either Alfred or Zondra, and their late night rowdy behavior started to annoy Alfred a little, so the Everdarks eventually had to find their own place, and here they are…

These aren't any ordinary bats…they're special DOOR OPENING bats...
The whole vampire thing started with the actual "head vampire", Count Derek Wren, who bit Amy Andrews, one of my first TS2 sims. Well, she didn't want the whole vampirism thing, so she passed it on to Alfred Witte, who's been a vampire ever since. Alfred eventually holed himself up in his creepy castle with his wife, Zondra, and they don't get out much. Three vampires was enough for me for a long time, but eventually, I realized Alfred and Zondra were wasting their "gift". Staying up all night in a creepy castle is all good and fine, but you're wasting the whole "no decay of needs" thing if you don't get out on the town and party all night long. That's where the Everdarks come in. Meet Melyssa, Nicholas, Kali, and Kyle.

Not exactly suits and gowns, but they've got the black thing going on...
I confess I have a thing for sim vampires. I'm not a real fan of vampire movies or TV shows, but I AM a fan of making the sim type stalk around and turn into bats and "bleh" every passing sim. Heck, why have special powers if you're not going to use them? That was my thinking, anyway. I've never really tried to orchestrate a romance between a normal sim and a sim vampire before, but it doesn't seem like it would work out all that well. Thus, one might find it terribly convenient that Nicholas and Melyssa are romantically involved, and Kyle and Kali are a couple as well. Heck, if any of the four were involved with non-vampires, they'd probably just bite them by accident while necking anyway. At any rate, the foursome's favorite hangout was the Freetime Lounge, and the fish tanks seemed to be a real point of interest for some reason.

Nicholas: "No, I'm fairly certain you're not supposed to eat them…"
The bad news for the Everdarks (and the Wittes too, for that matter) is that when I first designed the Monkeesim neighborhood, there was no such thing as vampires, so I used "vampirism" as a turn-off for most of my sims so there wouldn't be any relationships affected by turn-offs. In other words, there are a lot of "haters" around town with a dim view of vampires. The Everdarks are just like the rest of the sims around town, though, aside from the whole ageless and immortal thing…and their tendency to sleep in coffins. And rather than drinking blood like those creepy TV vampires, the Everdarks drink the same thing every other sim in town does - booze (or "juice" if you believe what the game tries to tell you).

Melyssa: "What's a gal got to do to get a Bloody Mary around here?"
My wife actually dislikes the sim vampires, unlike me. She'd gone for a while without playing the game, and there weren't any around when she first started…then, when she came back, there they were. Like the werewolves, she didn't know anything about their behavior, and assumed they would somehow harm her sim without provocation. I tried to set her straight, but…well, she still doesn't like them. Despite the strong anti-vampire sentiment, there were some sims like Kitty Wilson who took the time to discover the Everdarks were more than just a pain in the neck. I have sims who hate red heads too, and they managed to overcome that, it just takes a little doing. Of course, most people aren't afraid of being bitten on the neck by someone just because they have red hair (despite the rumors about their natural bad tempers).

Kali: "I don't care much for blood, but I do love a good milk shake whenever I can get one..."
Whatever you may think about vampires, they've really got it made the way I see it. Plant sims and servos may have fewer needs to fulfill, but like it or not, those needs still decay as long as they're up and about. With vampires, sure they have a limited number of hours during the night they can actually be up and active, but when you think about the fact that they don't have to fulfill needs at all during that time, you just can't beat that. Especially when it comes to skill building. It's just too bad that since vampires can't really work a daytime job, there's no good use for all of those skills. Not unless you call being the best at singing karaoke a skill (I for one do)…

Nicholas and Melyssa belt out their rendition of "Love Bites"...
Okay, so it's not entirely true that you can't make money without a job in TS2. There's always the robot and toy tables, but this all takes place before I had OFB, so quit jumping the gun. :-P There are still poker tables and the ability to man the D.J. booth for a few quick bucks, though. None of the Everdarks had the patience to sit and play poker for any length of time, though. Kyle was all for kicking Heath King, the regular D.J., out of the booth, so he could reap the rewards. Heath was left with nothing to do but wander around and try to socialize, but when you're as ugly as he is, finding someone to chat with can be a real chore. He did manage to corner Melyssa long enough to make her listen to him for a minute or two.

Melyssa: "Sorry, but I can't just stand here talking and pretending nothing is wrong with your hair!"
Man, I hate that hairstyle. I think the game knows it too, because Heath is the D.J. who shows up the most, when I know there are at least three others that have a random chance of appearing. Melyssa wasn't a big fan either, and as soon as she'd developed enough of a relationship with Heath, she exploited it by biting him on the neck. He was promptly banned from being a D.J. forever more, but the good news is his hair magically changed to a bushy normal style when he turned into a vampire. The game got revenge on me later when my wife built a new neighborhood - there are THREE PC sims with the old Heath hair, and they ALWAYS show up. Grrrr. After the gang decided they'd had enough fun at the Freetime Lounge, they headed out to the Silent Grove Cemetery. Just because. They didn't see any ghosts while they were there, but Melyssa did spend a fair amount of time talking to Antonio Wilson.

Melyssa: "It's not great hair, but it's not worth biting him over either..."
Yes, I love my vampires. But I won't bore you any further at the moment with their antics (I'll save that for a future post…heheh). For now, it's time for a radical shift in theme and family now. Think, if you will, way, way back to the beginning of the Monkeesims blog, back to the days of TS1 before there were any expansions installed, back when sims were forced to stay home all day long except for occasional trips to work. Yes, those days blew. One good thing that did happen back in those olden days though was the marriage of two of my favorite sims at the time...

Remember when...
Look familiar? Yeah, that picture was featured in the first actual post, and in case your memory isn't serving you all that well, that couple is Julie and J.D. Wilson. J.D. was the owner of the house that Marty and Kitty Wilson used to live in, along with Kevin and Kammy. Well, Marty and Kitty hadn't seen or heard from them since moving to their trailer in the new Monkeesim neighborhood, but that was all about to change. As we hook up with Marty and Kitty today, we find that much has changed. J.D. and Julie have come to town, and it seems they missed the company of the others. It wasn't long before Kitty and Marty ditched the trailer and were sharing a much nicer living space with Julie and J.D. - just like the good old days.

Kitty: "Remember when J.D. got drunk and kissed that clown at Marty's birthday?"
Yeah, there was a lot of catching up to do. After all, it's been some time since Marty and Kitty had a chance to hang out with J.D. and Julie, and even when they did live together back in the old days, everyone was usually caught up in what they were doing and not much else (especially Kitty, back when she was still famous). Now, with no more kids to worry about (Mia Kay or Katrina, specifically), the gang was free to do just like they'd done back in the good old days, back before they'd had to pretend to be responsible. Of course, they just wound up sitting around the table chatting a lot and not much else. No doubt it's about the old days again…

J.D: "Remember when Marty and that clown got in the hot tub naked?"
Don't worry - the multiple references to Chucko the Clown do NOT mean I plan to bring him back any time soon. As much as everyone loves a clown there is such a thing as too much, and we already have Homie D. Klown. That, and it's hard to make a clown given what the Sims 2 sim creator has to offer (not that I think there needs to be an upgrade to the editor or anything - they've given us ninjas, and that's all that really matters). Anyhow, the layout of the new house (which I failed to get a good picture of) was very similar to that of the original Wilson house, with a few minor adjustments. However, things weren't quite like they were in the old days yet. Back in the day, J.D. was a master chef who cooked for everyone. Now, nobody has any cooking points, and burned toaster pastries seemed to be the only thing getting cooked. Clearly, a study session was in order…

Julie: "This sucks…I thought we already knew how to cook!"
That there is part of the reason I hesitate to bring sims from the old neighborhood over to the new - while I can keep their personalities the same, it kind of sucks to have to boost their skills back up to what they once were in the original game, and I know I could cheat and all, but I just don't wanna'. Usually, I don't even care much if they have the same skills or not as long as they don't start fires every time they cook, but it seems a little strange when sims like Kitty, who had maxed creativity skills back in the day, make people cover their ears when she starts playing the piano. As with the whole cooking thing, Kitty was promptly put to work restoring her creativity skills.

Kitty: "I wouldn't have to do this if that @#$% Marty had put a piano in the trailer like I asked him to!"
Well, eventually, everyone got their skills close enough to what they once were to keep me happy. I'm not that much of a freak. We can just assume that if J.D. isn't the master chef he once was, it's because he's been sitting on his bum not utilizing that talent…same goes for Kitty and her creativity (we all know she hasn't done anything creative since moving into the trailer). While Kitty and Marty were adjusting to once again living in a home that was more than ten feet wide, the younger Wilson gang decided it might be a nice time to pay a visit. Katrina, Kitty and Marty's daughter, Mia Kay, J.D. and Julie's daughter, and then Antonio, Kitty's brother (who I really think needs a warmer outfit given the piles of snow, but what do I know?).

Antonio: "Uh, hey, guys, your front door is standing wide open!"
Yes, this house just happens to be the same one the Kent family first moved into, with the same front door that never closes, and despite the modifications the Wilsons had made to the place, the door remains screwed up (talk about a literal "open door policy"). It's okay, though - if this living arrangement turns out to be anything like the Wilson house of old, there will be a constant unstoppable stream of weirdoes coming by anyhow. Granted, there used to be an upstairs bar with a karaoke machine and some other goodies to attract the masses before, but you've got to take these things in small steps. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the old Wilson house.

Kitty: "I can never remember all of the Lucky Charms shapes!"
Aside from the lack of Kammy and Kevin, and the addition of Antonio, things were starting to feel like the good old days again for the Wilsons. Sure, things weren't exactly the same, but they weren't shooting for a reenactment or anything (and Mia Kay and Katrina rarely played chess together back then, it was usually video games). One nice thing about the whole arrangement is that this time, nobody had a real job, and Julie and Kitty weren't forced to run out every couple days to work on their fame careers. No, they had plenty of money saved up for the time being, and Marty was still making a few bucks here and there from his club. Another benefit to no fame career was not having the obsessed fan hanging around the joint - instead, there was the angry Spruce, Kitty's old nemesis…

Spruce: "I'll get you, my pretty…yee hee hee!"
If you remember anything about the original Wilson house, you'll recall that they had a couple of hot tubs out front that were the most frequently used form of entertainment (there was no regular bar at the time, so sims hadn't discovered binge drinking yet). Hot tubs are great because they trap sims in a confined space where they're forced to socialize while getting several needs fulfilled at the same time. I don't remember why exactly, but the Wilsons insisted on using the little models that only held two sims instead of four, which was very inefficient (okay, so maybe they bought that kind so they could "play" in them, which the four person models didn't allow).

Marty: "Are you still on that Lucky Charms thing?"
The new Wilson house has two of the four person models, for a total of eight slots instead of four (you didn't really need me to do that math for you, did you?) Kitty and Marty's side of the Wilson family (themselves, Katrina, and Antonio) piled into the first tub, so they could catch up on what had happened since the last time they chatted. Without looking back, I think I can safely say there wasn't too much ground to cover. Katrina and Antonio had moved into a different house, killed a neighbor, and Antonio seemed no closer to ever getting married to Aimee Andrews (not that there was any huge rush, mind you). Otherwise, there wasn't really much to cover. Meanwhile, Mia Kay chatted with her folks in the other hot tub. She didn't have much to discuss besides the new house and dead neighbor either…oh, and politics, of course.

Mia Kay: "You know, I really thought Jack Daniels had a chance in that race for mayor!"
Hot tubs are fun, but they're not perfect. The best of times always wind up getting ruined by the same stupid thing - spontaneous combustion. It's understandable that, being new to things, J.D. and Julie weren't familiar with the little "personal thermometer", but ignorance didn't protect J.D. from bursting into flames after being in the tub a little too long. Luckily, Marty is no stranger to extinguishing burning sims, and had his extinguisher handy. Better yet, there was already a smoke alarm outside for barbecue mishaps, so the fire department showed up too. It wasn't necessary…Marty was already on top of things…

Fireman: "Hey! Watch where you aim that thing!"
Well, that didn't exactly end things for the evening, but that's a good place to cut this post off for now (unless you want to go for the Monkeesim "most pictures" record). Coming up, we've spent a fair amount of time watching sims kill time from day to day, but sooner or later, the whole money issue pops up again. How to solve it? Get a job? Hah…that's funny. But no. Jobs are okay for some sims, but there are others who'd prefer to do everything they can to avoid the life of carpools and 9 to 5 shifts. And then, of course, there are those more adventurous sorts who are willing to get their hands dirty, but ONLY if they're running the show! Join us over our next few posts as we see who brings home the bucks, and who's just out of luck!