Testing Sharing on Google+

Sep15

OK, I just discovered that Google has rolled out a new way to link between Blogger and Google+. I’m only interested in messing with this if it allows me to share my posts to the few people on my Google+ list who might care. So this is an experiment.

Update: So, it works. Now the Susan’s Sims 3 Legacy Google+ page should update with my posts here. The down side is that it annihilated my sims-specific profile and picture. I don’t really try to keep the various pieces of my online life isolated from each other anymore, so I’m not afraid that you big scary Sims fans are going to come stalk me. I just liked my profile pic of Susie Sample and my profile that whines about the balance of motherhood and gaming :).

4.33 Starr’s Truly Spiritual Engagement

Sep11

The instant Starr Ursine-Sample turned 18, she found a job and a place of her own. In the family gossip circle, the word was that she and her mother Toya got along like oil and water.

Not long after she got out on her own, Charles and family got an engagement announcement. Starr was going to marry her highschool sweetheart Felix Andrews.

 

And sure enough, she and Felix had a lovely little house with a white picket fence. They probably planned to have 2.5 kids together. Starr knew exactly what she wanted, and she wasn’t wasting any time.

Charles had to teach a late class that night, and that many people together gave Zahra a headache. But Fabian, Ada, and Veronica dressed up and headed into town to celebrate with Starr.

They arrived with Starr’s older sister Charmaine

 

and Charmaine’s girl-of-the-month, Adrienne Hatch (daughter of Emma Hatch and Christopher Steel, Mortimer’s step-daughter).

 

Charmaine was still living at home and working hard at the courthouse in a political career like her mother. Toya, who never did have a problem with a little nepotism, was tossing her some choice assignments here and there.

The groom-to-be, Felix, spent the party working in the lawn. This whole shindig seemed to be Starr’s thing, and he was being the dutiful fiance.

 

Toya and Adjo arrived late, straight from some sort of local government function. Through hard work, dedication, and a little bit of misappropriation of funds, Toya had recently been elected Mayor of Sunset Valley — despite her term in jail for embezzlement. The town loved her no matter what she did, but Starr apparently not so much. Toya lingered in the driveway for a long time, trying to work up the nerve to step in to her daughter’s house.

 

Adjo, ever the family peacemaker, gave his wife a kiss and made his way to his daughter’s front porch. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” he said with a wise smile.

Adjo was showing his age these days, but don’t let that fool you. He was Charles’s most dedicated pupil, and he now held a brown belt in Sim Fu. The cane doubled as a fighting staff.

 

As they all gathered at the door to wish Starr well, Felix shouted from the yard, “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! What on earth is that!”

 

Ada started giggling. “I know if you don’t!” she said in a singsong.

“It looks like a class three free-roaming specter,” Veronica said. “Nothing dangerous, but let me handle it. Don’t worry. I’m a professional.”

 

Then she pulled out a massive gun from somewhere under her skirt and blasted it!

 

The party-goers stood around with their jaws gaping open while Veronica, looking smashing in her cocktail dress and stiletto heels, hauled around a Ghost Blaster 3000 to clear up the haunting in the yard.

 

“Can anybody tell me where she keeps that gun?” Fabian asked. Adjo and Starr stared at him. “I’m not supposed to ask that, huh? OK, I’ll shut up now.”

But one person couldn’t keep her eyes of Veronica.

 

Charmaine.

 

When Veronica packed the gun away and declared the house free of paranormal manifestation, Charmaine dashed up breathlessly. “I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you’r doing for the city,” she cried. “You’re a true hero! I’m going to put you in for an award at City Hall!”

“Um, wow!” Veronica said. “Thank you!” Charmaine was such a playgirl that Veronica had been expecting a different and much more uncomfortable conversation. Funny how people surprise you sometimes.

———

Bwah! So the entire family gets an invitation to Starr Ursine-Sample’s engagement party, and I send Veronica to work on her first job for the night, and they end up in the same place! Then apparently the attire requirement for the party took over, and Veronica changed out of her work clothes and did the job in the formals. I’m not sure that the post is half as funny as it actually was to play.

And Charmaine “brightened” Veronica’s day! Which means she’s Good, and it sheds a whole new light on her going into politics after her Evil mother….

Move Update: At long last, the Samples have moved to their new home. After some pondering about how much of the now-extensive extended family to bring, I gave up and brought all of them. How that works into the story depends on where they show up.

For cross-pollination, I have:

– Bookabets (Bookabet alphabetacy)

– Jo Simself (and dogs!)

– Hodginses (SimDjinn’s wishacy)

– Sleeps (simself couple for Eppy Sleep)

– Bergs (Eppy Sleep’s Pinstar legacy)

– Meringues (Sweetest of Dreams wishacy)

– Mentarys (The Simmentary legacy)

– January Callender. (Callenders Legacy) Ahem. I cannot load February into my game. I had this happen once with a couple of sims of Amhranai’s. My current guess is that this involves stuff pack content that I don’t have — which would be all stuff packs, actually. It can’t possibly be expansions, since I have the all through Pets, and I’m sure that Showtime wasn’t out yet when February became an adult. If there’s any chance you could take another stab at posting a version of February that contains base game hair and clothes only, I’d love to try again. I may still try another alternate installer.

– Martin Luther and Tam Butterfield-Callender

Amhranai, I’d really like to have the current Vosses, but if you don’t want to post them, then with your permission I’ll pull Emma from the Exchange. She seems to be the most recent heir you uploaded.

Everyone is elfified — using the new pointed ear sliders that came with the Supernatural patch rather than the older (and quite nice) custom mod sliders. The effect is subtly different, and I think I like it better. I will say that when EA decides to do something themselves, they do a great job.

I’m also bringing along from Sunset Valley the Cagleys from the Cagley random legacy. Their stories weren’t yet done, and I keep hoping that Redhead will come back from hiatus and have a good laugh at what’s happened to her sims.

The rest of the town population consists of a bunch of families built out of stock simbin sims and celebrity simselves downloaded from ModtheSims. It seemed like good models of real faces would be a great way to get as varied a set of genetics as possible. All names have been changed to keep the game from becoming totally bizarre, but if you see a shockingly familiar face, you might be right. Feel free to guess :).

If you’re reading and would still like in on cross-pollination, please let me know! New sims can be added after gameplay starts.

This process has taken FOREVER. I decided to do it the hard way to begin with — downloading all the lots, laying out the town, and then populating it with downloaded sims that all had to be edited for ears and skintone. But even with that in mind, there have been more unexpected snafus than I can count. I’d love to write a long Simfail post about it, but fear I couldn’t make it entertaining enough. Cannot wait to actually play again.

4.32 Goals

Sep2

Sim Fu brought Fabian something he’d never really had — peace of mind. It became a ritual; he’d meet Charles most evenings after work to work the kinks out of his body and mind.

 

Fabian had never been a man who saw a lot of point to the physical. The power of the human brain was astounding. Add to that the collection knowledge mankind had built up over the millennia of recorded history, and there was nothing you couldn’t do. He could sit at his computer and participate in the econopolitical upheaval in China. By comparison, pushing things around with your fists seemed sort of primitive — a throwback to our Neatherthal ancestors. Surely we’d moved past that sort of thing.

It turned out that Fabian had vastly underestimated the power of the primitive, especially inside himself. He had never felt so empowered, and by contrast, so at peace with himself.

And it didn’t hurt that he’d gotten pretty good at visualizing Malcolm Landgraab’s face on the training dummy.

 

Fabian stopped obsession over his promotion at work. The physical release actually helped his focus. He became a master at blocking out distractions, eliminating past and future, and letting the present become all that matters. When his resentment was nicely sealed in a box, 3D Crime Scene Modeling was pretty amazing work.

And, hell, if Malcolm wasn’t going to promote him anyway, there was no point in trying to court his favor. He stopped showering Landgraab with compliments and became his most outspoken critic in the department. After a while, he could see his boss stiffen as soon as he walked into a room, and it was perversely satisfying. Fabian was at the end of his career. What could Landgraab do to him? If he fought back, Fabian would just retire.

Then one day, the list of promotions went up in the break room, and Fabian’s name was on it.

 

He was a Dynamic DNA Profiler, the pinnacle of the forensics profession. By giving up his dreams, somehow he’d achieved them.

Fabian walked past Landgraab’s office as he walked out of the precinct, and his boss looked up to give him a silent, squint-eyed look. Fabian had no idea what it meant. It didn’t seem like a look of respect, but perhaps it was a sort of acknowledgement of a worthy opponent. Fabian could live with that.

 

That night was a night of celebration. Fabian took the whole family out for a fancy dinner on him. He drank a toast to Charles Sample, “The best sensei a geeky old wimp could find.”

Then he lured Zahra into their bedroom for some time alone.

 

“I want to apologize,” he said as he pulled her close.

Zahra raised her eyebrows. “Apologize?”

“I didn’t turn out to be the kind of husband I always thought I would be.”

Zahra thought about this. “That’s true,” she said. “Sometimes you’ve been kind of jerk.”

 

Fabian cringed. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t be so eager to agree.”

“What do you want me to say?” Zahra said. “I could point out that I’m not the easiest wife in the world. That’s true. But I never cheated on you. And I know about the ass you made of yourself to Michelle Yo at Willem’s birthday party.”

Fabian flushed a deep red. “How did you find out about that?” Charles had promised to never tell!

Zahra looked at him over her glasses. “Half my department was at that party, Fabian. They told me at the watercooler the very next day.”

 

“Oh,” Fabian said. He sighed. “I thought that if I won your heart, I’d never look at another woman. But the truth is I’ve never stopped looking. Being faithful has never come naturally, even after all these years. I hope that doesn’t make you want to leave me now.”

Zahra shook her head. “That’s not news, but thank you for telling me anyway.”

“You told me once that you were staying with me for Ada. I don’t think she needs me here anymore. I, uh, understand if you want me to leave.”

Zahra smiled a complex smile. “Thank you, but I never needed your permission. If I wanted you to leave, you’d already be gone.”

“Uh…”

“Congratulations on your promotion,” she said. “I never thought I’d ever say this, but I think it’s time to stop talking.”

 

And so they did.

 

———-

In the end, I just had to do it the hard way. I just had to get Fabian to his LTW the hard way — keep his mood high and make him Work Hard every day. So the story is sort of correct. He had to work off his stress moodlet after work, and he pretty much couldn’t do anything else other than work and soothe.

I was starting to worry that he wouldn’t live long enough, but he finally made it.

And in other news, Avalon is back on! Simsample ended up fixing it for me and giving me the files. It looks like there may be something weird with my system. I’m still experimenting. I’ll be pretty grumpy if it turns out I can’t use Create-A-World, but for now I have my Avalon, and I’ll probably move the families in tonight!

The Samples have a home

Aug30

OK, I now have laid out the Zukutra world referenced in the comments to my liking. It turns out that I am constitutionally incapable of just dropping lots where they fit. I have to lay out a logical flow of downtown and appropriate residential neighborhoods and then go back to the usual haunts to download some new buildings to suit the new themes. So I had to try the lots in a bunch of different places until a reasonable layout finally sprang from my brain.

I still have a thread running with CAW expert Simsample (oh, the irony of the username) about Avalon. If (s)he can get it to export properly for me before I have moved over into Zukutra, I’ll probably switch back to it. Both worlds offer some fun tradeoffs. I’ve really gotten to like the blue landscape paint of the fairy/alien world half of Zukutra.

I expect to be up and playing again pretty soon. I think I’ll be able to drag myself away from world layout and actually POST from my backlog too. We have all of the triplet’s childhood to experience 🙂 :).

Where are the Samples?

Aug26

You see, I keep thinking to myself, “Hey, I’m working on getting the Samples moved into their new home, and I’m not actually playing, so I should be able to use the time to get the blog caught up to the present.

In reality, setting up Avalon has taken every moment I can spare for anything Sims-related, and it’s not going well.

Let me explain. No, it’s too much. Let me sum up.

Avalon as released does not have any lots, and the creator envisioned adding them with the in-game world editing tools. This turns out to be essentially impossible. The in-game world editor is bizarre and flaky. It’s good for putting down a few lots here or there, but not for designing a town that makes any sense.

So the creator ALSO made the Create-A-World source files available. I decided to stop banging my head against the game world editor and just do the logical thing.

Of course, I’m running a Mac, and Create-A-World only runs on PC. So I get access to a PC. Then I discover that I have to reinstall a copy of all my games on Windows 7 so that Create-A-World can access, I don’t know, stuff. So I get a hold of installers for my game and expansions and do that.

And it is beautiful, and I lay all the lots I need for a lovely game.

And then when I installed the new world into my game in order to add the lots, the Map View and Edit Town were black.

Bwuh?

I’ve now tried a half-dozen ways to resolve this, and I am really getting grumpy. Nobody in the vast realms of Google-searchable Sims forums seems to be having this particular problem with Create-A-World. And the creator himself released the lot-free version that does NOT have this problem, so there shouldn’t be a problem with his source files. Heck, I even did a (simpler than it sounds) little trick I read about on ModtheSims to pull the source files back out of the compiled Sims3Pack version of the world that I know works, and when *I* touched those files with CAW, the problem came back.

So it’s me. I’m cursed.

I’m posting about this to the forums to see if anyone who knows the tool better than me can point to whatever button I’m not clicking. If that fails, I am just going to have to abandon the project. I have a fabulous collection of fantasy and historic-themed buildings at this point. I ought to be able to find another world. But this world was so lovely, and I already spent a bunch of time looking for fantasy-themed worlds and not finding anything useful.

Bah.

To make things worse, the Samples in Sunset Valley have seriously destabilized. I had to give up on throwing the triplets a birthday party because the game crashed 5 times in succession when I tried, and it still crashed once more before all three kids were teens (I was saving after each age-up :-p). I have got to move them someplace, and now. At this point, with Supernatural on its way in another week, it might be logical to just go there after all. I’ll see how things are in another week.

In the meantime, I’ve fallen behind on some of my reading, so don’t worry that I might have gotten bored with your legacy!

4.31 Crazy for Love

Aug13

This time, it was Alberto who called on Ada. She jumped when the buzzer at the gate sounded. “Hey, it’s me!” came the familiar voice on the intercom. “I was, you know, just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.”

 

Ada rushed to the gate, but hid behind the carport to catch her breath. When she emerged where he could see her, she had a stern expression. She eyed him critically as the gate slowly opened.

“We don’t have a neighborhood,” she said. “The closest subdivision is 20 minutes away.”

 

Alberto cringed. “You’re right,” he confessed. “It’s a line. I looked up your address and drove all the way out here in hopes that you’d be home. You’re not mad, are you? I thought, you know, we had something going the last time.”

 

Ada’s face lit up. “You thought up a pickup line just for me?” she said. “That’s so thoughtful! I picked you some flowers in our garden yesterday. I hope they’re not too wilted.”

 

“Wow!” Alberto said. “Nobody’s ever given me flowers. Usually it’s a thing I do for girls. Thank you!”

 

“It’s not too weird to give you flowers?” Ada asked anxiously. “I know I’m weird, and guys usually aren’t around when I call, or they won’t call me back. I don’t want you to do that. I really like you.”

 

Alberto chuckled. “Weird doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You make me laugh.”

They stood talking until dusk. “I have to get to work. Some girl has a bachelorette party tonight, and she wants me to be a barbarian in a loincloth.

Ada raised her eyebrows. “Too bad I don’t know her. I’d love to see that.”

“You know, next time you could invite me in. We don’t have to stand in the driveway all day. Not that I minded or anything.”

“Oh!” said Ada. “I’ll remember that next time! I hope next time is soon.”

 

The next night, she called again. “I hope it’s not too soon! I wanted to invite you over and let you in the gate this time.”

Alberto laughed on the other end of the phone. “Sure! I don’t have a job tonight. I’ll be right over.”

This time, when he buzzed the intercom, Ada chirped, “Come on in! The water’s fine!”

When he walked into the yard, he found her sitting in the hot tub.”

 

“This is a nice place,” he said. “You know you’re tubbing in a running jacket, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I think it’s more comfortable in the water than a swimsuit. Besides, I wore my swimsuit to Charles’s wedding.” Then she dropped her eyes and said nervously, “Would you like to join me?”

 

“I don’t really like to go hot tubbing in my clothes like you do,” Alberto said. And when her face fell, he added, “But I think I have a costume in the car that will do the job. So, um, give me a minute to change into something more comfortable.” He dashed away and came back surprisingly quickly.

 

They had fun splashing about for a while, and then Ada wrapped her arms around him, laughing. Alberto looked at her huskily and said, “Uh, how far were you thinking about going tonight?”

“I didn’t plan to go very far,” Ada said. “Not out of the yard anyway. Are you bored with the hottub?”

 

Alberto flushed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Am I being too forward?”

“Too forward? No! I just wanted to know what you had in mind.”

Ada thought for a minute. “Well, this is what I’ve been thinking about all the time since we met at the Art Museum.” And she kissed him.

Then very quickly, one thing led to another.

 

“Yahoo!” Alberto gurgled.

 

 

“Whee!” Ada squealed.

 

 

 

They clung to each other afterward, flushed and breathless. Ada nuzzled close and breathed into his hair. “That was so much fun! Can we do it again?”

Alberto sighed contentedly. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’m sure there’s nobody like you.”

———-

This hot tub gets a lot of action! The original event was lost in the missing pictures, which infuriated me. This is a recreation from much later in gameplay. And then it took so long to actually GET them to woohoo because of every possible distraction possible in the game that I quit without saving. I was NOT going to lose this moment between them!

Simantics: The Pee Party

Aug11

The maid just stood there and watched Sky playing with her art books for hours while he should have been cleaning things. Creeepy.

 

Or maybe I mean laggggy.

Usually I like to show the before/after makeovers in the post, but this time I just couldn’t face putting them in anything like the story.

Hunter:

 

Forest

 

Those muscle shirts MUST DIE. And no, I have no idea what Forest is doing, and I don’t want to know.

Sky’s wasn’t noteworthy:

 

But I think I saw this children’s cartoon at some point. Or maybe it was a nightmare about a children’s cartoon.

 

And speaking of the title of the post, here’s the crowning lag disaster.

I COULD NOT get the triplets to school on their first morning. I ended up trying a dozen things to deal with the lag and replayed that morning at last three times.

Here, Hunter tries to take a bath before catching the bus, but instead he breaks the tub.

 

Meanwhile, Veronica has just come home from work. She’s about to fall over from exhaustion, and she desperately needs to pee. But does she listen to me when I tell her to deal with these things? NO. Because the lag has just jumped us forward two hours, it’s now 10:30AM, and Hunter is still standing in the bathroom.

So, of course, the most important thing to do is scold the poor boy.

 

And what do you think happened? Of course. Hunter, who has failed at everything he was trying to do in the bathroom and is desperately trying to get to school, just stares at her.

 

And pees himself too.

 

The family that lags together pees together, I guess.

4.30 For the Children

Aug11

Charles called on Aunt Shanni as soon as he could get away the next day. He dropped by the Crumplebottom Estate, but Jeanette reported that her mom was at work. Charles dropped by to find her at closing time.

Shanni’s eyes looked empty as he hurried up to her. He suddenly found himself unsure of what to say.

 

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” he said awkwardly. “You don’t need the money. Why don’t you take some time to heal?”

“I’m trying,” Shanni said. Her voice was raw. “It’s just–” She brushed a tear out of her eye almost angrily. “It’s just that work reminds me of Agnes a lot less that home does.”

 

“I’m sorry. You can stay with us for a few days if you need to. You should’t be alone at a time like this.”

Shanni smiled wanly. “I’m not alone. The kids have been wonderful. Especially Jeanette. She’s growing up to be an amazing young woman.”

Then a real smile played on Shanni’s lips. It makes me think of what Agnes said to me when we were getting together. “You’ll do it, and you’ll be the better for it.”

Charles smiled back. “She was usually right.”

Shanni nodded. “And I usually didn’t notice until later. You know thing she said the same day that has helped me through my entire career? ‘The line between trashy and powerful is all about style!'”

 

Shanni was going to be OK.

“Please come home for dinner at least. It’s the kids’ birthday. They’d love to see you.”

Shanni shook her head. “Give them my love. Jeannette and Garry are making dinner, and I think we need some family time.”

 

So the triplets’ birthday was a local family affair, but it was plenty happy for all that.

 

In order of birth, first Forest blew out the candles.

 

 

(Better picture, but without glasses:)

 

Then Hunter.

 

 

Then Sky.

 

 

The partying ran too late on a school night, but eventually Veronica kicked them upstairs to sleep in their newly renovated bedroom.

 

Tomorrow would be a long and exciting day.

 

The next morning, after the hustle and bustle of getting the kids off to their first day of school, Charles heard Veronica calling his name from the yard.

“Oh, Charlllles!” she called. Her voice was almost a singsong.

He found her at the gazebo, engaging in her favorite hobby.

 

“Hey stranger,” she said with a sly smile. “You know, I keep having this dream where we were wicked young things who used to go skinny dipping and worse at all hours of the day. You ever have that dream?”

 

“Once or twice,” Charles admitted.

 

“We did it!” Veronica chortled. “The kids are off to school. Your folks are off at work. We have the whole place to ourselves! It’s been so long I’ve almost forgotten what to do.”

 

“I haven’t,” Charles said. “I’d be glad to remind you.”

 

Veronica sank into his arms with a sigh. “It’s good to get some of our own back.”

 

“They’re great kids,” Charles said, “But I’m looking forward to recovering my hobbies.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself!” Veronica exclaimed and pulled him down under the water.

——–

Patient readers, the triplets finally grew up!

After the bit with Shanni, which was actually Charles’s failed attempt to get a makeover, I completely redid the lighting at the Salon. I have no idea why nothing I did would make things light up in there. Argh. And now I don’t think there will be another reason for the Samples to go there before they move.

Come to think of it, I had that problem with the dojo when I placed it. There was a lot of lighting in there already, but none of it activated. I had to redo the lighting in there too.

4.29 Third Shift

Aug11

The triplets were growing like weeds. Every time Veronica and Charles turned around, they seemed to have learned a word or a new skill.

 

Three toddlers were a lot of work, and that means a LOT of work. There was barely time for anyone to follow their personal lives. Zahra and Charles’s beloved garden became overgrown with weeds. Charles cancelled his classes at the dojo as often as he taught them.

 

Fabian at least made it his personal mission to make sure everyone was fed.

 

He spent most of his spare time cooking. It was nice to at least not have to worry about food.

 

Especially since Fabian had the least patience of the family. And with the way things were going at work, he didn’t always treat the adventures of parenthood with good grace.

 

Then every once in a while, in the middle of all the hard work and exhaustion, there was a golden moment where everything was quiet…

 

but those moments seldom lasted long enough for anyone to do anything about them.

 

There were new ideas to teach the children.

 

And new physical skills too.

 

And then there was potty training.

 

And potty training.

 

And did we mention potty training?

 

The lifestyle was hardest on Veronica. She often came home from a long shift gathering ghost specimens to jump right into child care. She subsisted on catnaps and stubbornness.

 

Charles would ask her over and over again if she needed a break. She’d smile and say, “Of course not! I’m fine!” And then in a heartbeat she’d become a raving, sobbing lunatic. During those times, Charles banished her to her room to get some sleep.

 

But all the hard work, long nights, and lost sleep were paying off. Day by day, the triplets were becoming their own people.

Hunter’s first word was, “Pretty.”

 

Forest’s was, “Color,” but he seemed to mean more by it, like he wanted to color the world to his liking.

 

Sky’s was, simply, “Art!”

 

There were lots of fun times too. There’s nothing that warms your heart like a happy toddler.

 

And those unexpected moments of silliness.

 

One day, Charles realized how independent they were becoming. The workload was lifting. They were getting some of their own back.

 

 

Charles began to walk with a spring in his step. This parenthood thing was hard, but he was schooled in the arts of zen and endurance. He would win, and it would be worth it.

 

That’s when Fabian got the call. “Shanni? Is that you? I can barely hear you. Are you crying?”

 

Shanni was at Sacred Speen Memorial Hospital. Agnes was rushed there in the night, but it was too late. She had passed on.

———-

Sorry to end on such a downer, but it had to happen sometime :(. I actually saw Agnes’s age on a Twallan menu, and she was 92.

I have a great picture of Fabian throwing a temper tantrum over being awakened by screaming kids, but I can’t find it. Not like it vanished, just that I didn’t get it into the right folder and haven’t been able to find it again in the mountains of pictures that I take. I may try once more tonight if I have some time :). EDIT: Found it!

I’ve really been blocking on this post too because I just dumped all the cute toddler pics into a big pile, but I couldn’t think of anything to say about them. So here were are — the toddler skilling redux. Dang, five adults pretty much did nothing but work, sleep, and skill toddlers, and Hunter still finishing potty training on the morning of his birthday!

Avalon Update: I am VERY close to moving the family over in current gameplay. I’ve downloaded all the families except the ones you let me know about in the last week-ish. Once I finish up playing in Sunset Valley, I’ll download the last, drop in the other sims I’m downloading and adding to round out the population, and to the final tweaks to the world. Then we cross our fingers and go.

I am about a bajillion posts behind, so the plan is that I’ll get my posting up to current while I’m finishing getting the world in order.

Yes to Simmentary, I love doing the town updates, and I hope they’re something fun and distinctive about this legacy. I definitely plan to do updates on the cross-pollination families. I think I will do a post with a quick introduction to the families so that you guys can follow along.

4.28 Mad Women

Aug1

The Sample women were nothing if not inventive.

Though they no longer worked side-by-side on the back deck the way they had in their last home, Zahra and Veronica hadn’t stopped scheming for a minute.

 

Zahra faced a few mishaps and misdirections.

 

After one particularly dramatic accident, Lancelot’s old dive well was never quite the same.

 

Veronica on the other hand, “burned” as it were from her own past mistakes, developed a new passion for protective gear.

 

Zahra’s creative brain was always working, and after weeks of lost sleep and smelly potty training, she had a brilliant idea.

 

“By Jove, I don’t know why I didn’t see it before! We don’t need to be potty training all these smelly children! We can make the toilet do it for us!”

She pulled out her trusty Mad Science Brain Blaster (TM), pressed a few buttons, turned a few knobs, and set it out make it so.

 

Things didn’t go exactly as planned, however.

 

Whenever family members wanted to know what happened to the upstairs toilet, she averted her eyes and mumbled something that sounded like, “Everyone has to make sacrifices in the name of Process.”

Veronica took it upon herself to install a new one.

 

“I made a few modifications myself,” she said with a flourish of false modesty. “Now it cleans itself, disinfects your hands with sweet scented spa mist, and sings you a song while you’re doing your business!”

 

“Hmph,” Zahra said. She had never really thought of Veronica as a rival, but perhaps she should reevaluate….

Soon Zahra had a new invention to share with the family.

 

“It beams sleep directly into your brain while you wait,” she explained. “Much more efficient. You can get a night’s worth of sleep in a third the time.”

 

Veronica, on the other hand, was filing a patent on a creation of her own. “I call it the Motive Mobile,” she explained. “Sleep, eat, eliminate your waste, and play mind-enhancing video games while you drive!”

 

The next thing Zahra decided to modify was the family computer.

She insisted that the smoke and scent of burning electronics were all part of the experiment.

 

Zahra came home from the lab the next day to find Veronica closing up the computer case. “That should do it,” she said. “I added some memory and overclocked the processor while it had it open.”

 

Zahra was too stubborn to give up, much less lose face to her daughter-in-law. “If great minds gave up at every setback, there would be no scientific discovery,” she announced. And with that, she fired up the Blaster again.

 

This time, there was a shower of sparks and relativity equations, and….

 

“May I help you master?” the computer asked with a hopeful glow.

Zahra let out a happy sigh. “Well, then,” she said. “That’s more like it.”

 

“At last someone to listen to me!” said the computer. “I need a human to listen to my century archive of dirty jokes!“

———-

There are several pictures missing from this sequence, most notably the computer actually breaking. Also I had a bunch more pictures of the fabulous Mad Scientist match equation blaster.

There will be main plot advancement soon, I swear. All the characters are just so vivid I feel like they should all get their