October 3, 2001

I bought a new game last night. I'm pretty excited about it. I buy about 2-3 games a year (mostly cause the games I play last for a LONG time)... so it's a pretty big deal for me to buy a game. But I've wanted this game for a long time. I really wanted it. Every time I go to Costco, I walk past the Software Table (cause it's right there by the entrance) and I have to talk myself into not buying it every time.

Last night, in my fastest (and cheapest) Costco trip ever, I bought the game. But when I tell you what it is, you can't laugh. Cause that wouldn't be nice.

I bought The Sims. And it is so much fun. I just wish it was multiplayer so I could play it with Davian.

October 5, 2001

Okay! So I haven't done too much with the Sims cause I've been working late lately, and we found out the Father of Rachel's baby and Josh (who I have a big crush on) was featured very prevalently on The West Wing, so there's been a Lot going on. Hooray for TV!

But anyway. So far, here's my game. I made a me, and moved her into one house. Then I made a Davian, and moved him into another house. I evicted the newbie family from the newbie house and deleted them. OK so here's my question. Will NPC families automatically move into the other empty houses? Or do I have to create everyone? Cause if I have to create everyone, I don't have enough family slots.

I played me for a while and got myself on the Doctor track. I met Davian. I met the Goth family. I went to work a couple of times, and then skipped work once on accident and got called by my work and yelled at. Oops. Then last night I played Davian. I think he's more fun to play (but maybe I just know more now). I put in a swimming pool and he doesn't seem to use it.  I put in a stove and he set the kitchen on fire. He is too dumb to use the potty when he needs it, and kind of bobs up and down and whimpers when he's gotta go.

Sleep and work take too much time out of a simday. I don't have enough time to get done with everything I want to get done with. If I make a highly active sim, does he need to sleep less? I made both of these sims very neat cause I hate that fly buzzing sound. But now I am thinking I'd just rather have them sleep as little as possible and hire a maid.

October 6, 2001

OK so tonight I made some new families to put into these other houses. The first family I made was the Soderstrom family. There's Hjalmar and his wife Ingrid, their children, Jonas and Margareta, and Ingrid's blonde bombshell younger sister Katrine.

Then I made the Corleone family. There's Vito (he doesn't have a job yet; I'm hoping to get him on the Criminal track), Michael (he's in the military), Santino (he's a cop - bwahaha), and Fredo, who's a mailroom clerk. I couldn't remember Talia Shire's name in the movie so I just gave the Corleone family some Random Women to marry later on if they want. Their names are Marina (she's on the Professional Athlete track), Angelina (who is unemployed), and Abriana, who wants to be an actress/singer, but right now she's just an Extra. She's got big hair that I downloaded from someplace on the net.

Anyway - I built the Corleones a house, and I didn't do a very good job. I mean there's a LOT of them, you know? So I figured I'd make a couple of big rooms and stuff ... so I did that ... but one bathroom with all those sims just isn't cutting it. And they hate the beds I bought them but I can't afford anything else. For a long time I had no money and everybody was starving and complaining :P But it took me that long to get everybody jobs ... and Marina won 1000 simoleons on a radio contest, so we've got a little money in the bank.  Aside from the random piddle-accident, everybody seems to be pretty happy.

I went AFK to do some housework and let the sim run unattended. I came back, the kitchen was on fire, all the sims were freaking out - jumping around - and they trapped Marina in the fire and she died. I didn't save the game when I exited.

Anyway, I'm hoping that Katrine likes one of the Corleone boys so I can marry them up and give them their own house.

One thing that bugs me about this game though ... One of the funnest things about SimCity was that you could leave it on ALL NIGHT LONG and come back in the morning and see what happened. But in The Sims, you get this: "The carpool for Michael Corleone will be here in 1 hour." [ok]

And you have to hit the [ok] button to get the box to go away. so you can't play for longer than 1 sim day at a time without having to do something.

October 8, 2001

Ingrid and Hjalmar fell in love last night. :)

And Ingrid made her first out-of-family friend - Vito Corleone. She chain-complimented him till he was a friend, and then she flirted with him once to cement things up. hehehe.

Ingrid needs 1 more friend and Katrine needs 2 before they can advance in their jobs. But it's tough when the Corleones all have jobs and can't come over while they're at work. :P I may have them all get fired to Powerlevel the Soderstroms.

I'm trying not to use the Money Cheat, but I think I may have to cause there are five Soderstroms, and I still only have 4 beds. Now that Ingrid and Hjalmar are in love, at least they'll sleep in the same bed. Poor Katrine is still sleeping on the couch/easy chair though. She gets pissy when the kids wake up early and turn on Cartoons.

I got Katrine and Ingrid 4 bars of cooking each. Hjalmar has 2 bars. I want all of them to have decent cooking so they won't burn the house down any more (I did buy a smoke alarm though).

Another game that has to do with The Sims is the Download Game. There is sooooo much stuff out there to download, it is amazing. I have MEGS upon megs of downloaded stuff... and every day, there is more.  I swear I spend as much time surfing, downloading, unzipping, and organizing as I spend actually playing the game.

October 9, 2001

Last night, I downloaded a WHOLE BUNCH of Sims stuff off the net. Wall coverings, objects, skins, etc etc etc. Seriously - I bet I downloaded 150 files.

Then, the Soderstroms got a new house. It is a pretty big upgrade for them... nobody is bumping into each other in the kitchen any more, pointing at chairs, wanting to move them out of the way so they can do dishes. Speaking of dishes - I spent so much on the house that I had to give up the dishwasher. We're back to using a sink.

The new house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Katrine is very happy to have her own room now. And everybody is very happy to not have someone barging in to use the toilet while they are in the shower.

I need to look at some real house plans, though, I think. I've got the master bedroom, a bathroom, and the kids bedroom on one side of the house... Katrine's bedroom, another bathroom, on the other side of the house... then the rest of the house is one big huge room, which contains the kitchen, living room, dining room, and a desk/computer so the kids can play video games.

When I look at their bars to see how they like the house... the layout has *no* ticks in the bar. Size is almost all the way full, so that's good. But they hate the layout and I'm not sure why.

Also, I get the house all built and stuff, and then I can't fit furniture in there. The living room is terrible. The couch is either too close to the TV or too close to the dining room table, and people will be pointing at chairs again. I'm thinking maybe I should put furniture in first and then put walls in.

They had a burglar last night and got $1000 for the apprehension of the criminal and $769 reimbursement from the insurance company, even though nothing was stolen, as far as I can tell. Ka-Ching!

October 16, 2001

Davian and I are married now. And we have a net worth of about $55,000, so I built a new ho use for us 2 nights ago. It is a great house. I wish I had that house for real.

We threw our first party (a housewarming party), and a mime showed up to entertain the guests. Heheheh.

There is a huge kitchen with glass-front cabinets, and a dining room, and then a rec-room with a chess table, a piano, a TV, 2 couches, and a bookshelf. There are 2 bedrooms, one of which is a den/study area, and 2 bathrooms, which both feature hi-tech toilets that have a Bladder score of 9. The previous toilet had a bladder score of 8, and i'm not sure how a *toilet* can make you go easier than another toilet. Whatever.

I bought us an "Energy 10" bed - cause the sims NEVER have enough energy. Seriously. They sleep way too much. They're always too tired to have friends over, and friendships decay too fast.

Speaking of Friendships, we have 7 friends, and I need 2 more so I can advance in my job. I'm currently "Surgeon" ... I'm not sure what I advance to after that - chief of medicine? Owell, we'll see. I am raking in the dough though.

Last time I needed friends, I created Rob Petrie and Laura Moore. I hope to marry them off soon. Rob is on the Corporate track, while Laura was a reporter (which really stunk - way too many shift changes). I accidentally got Laura fired, so I think I'll have to figure out some better job for her. But if I can just marry her off to Rob, then they can be Rob & Laura Petrie and she can be a housewife and wear Capri pants once a week.

Anyway, I'm going to have to create 2 more Friend-mules, I think, and I'm stuck on who to make. Now that I have Livin' Large and House Party ... there are a lot of hippy/pimpy stuff in there, so I think I may make a house of hippies so I can use the bizzare furniture. But it might be fun to make the Jetsons and have a futuristic house, cause there's a lot of futuristic things in there. There's even a "Servo" robot that is a maid.

That's a great idea.  :D  I think I'll do that.