boredom

so apparently i get bored easily with my sims and delete entire neighborhoods on a whim.

the family i'm currently working with has a lady who wants to be level 10 in the culinary career track. the guy wants to be popular or something... i don't really remember. but what i really wanted was for him to run a daycare business out of his home. last time i tried this, i only got to the point where i was taking in 4 toddlers. now my guy has progressed to the level where he has some toddlers and a kid who comes after school!

i started my sims out by following a guide i found to optimize their skills. the lady getting to the top of the cooking career was easy. i made her good at cooking and then made her spend every waking hour studying cooking and practicing cooking while at work until it was maxed. then i had her socialize with her coworkers/boss during work hours from there on out. once she was maxed at cooking, i made her start working on writing. i figured it might be a good way to rake in some dough. she made it to level 10 of that pretty quickly as well.

the guy i had be charismatic to help him befriend the kids when he started his daycare job. i maxed him out on charisma in just a week's time, then started him on gardening and logic. i also made him nurturing. this seemed to help a lot, too. after just 2 or 3 days, he got promoted.

the one major downside to my sims working so hard on their skills is that they have not really developed a relationship with each other, despite being married. they both want to have a kid, but whenever i try to make them, they reject their partner. maybe they want kids, just not with each other.

i really really want to get my guy to the top of the daycare career, but i get so bored with doing the same thing. i guess because my real life is all about doing what i do and not wildly changing professions, etc. i don't want my sims to have boring lives!

ipad

i tried out the sims 3 ambitions for the ipad/pod. it's... interesting. not at all the same as far as game play. there are things i like better and things i dislike. for instance, when traveling from home to the town or vice versa, there is a loading screen, much like in the sims 2. however, the load time is really short, so it's not that big of a deal. also, when traveling from home to town or vice versa, the time goes to speed 1 automatically. for most people, i'm sure that's not a problem. but i'm a micromanaging nazi. i don't like any seconds wasted. so i like to pause and queue things up.

oh, yeah, and pausing. it's not so good. when you unpause, it launches you into the high speed! ahhh! wasted seconds! and you can only queue up 3 actions, so that sucks.

i do like the gardening aspect of things. you have a little plot that you have to buy seeds, fertilizer and a watering can to use. you can sell your produce to the grocery store or use it in recipes that you can buy at the corner bistro. no eating out in this game!

the inventory is silly. you can have all sorts of things, but a limited quantity of certain items. like i max out on green pepper storage at 10. each plant i harvested gave me 6, so if i already had 6, the next plant would max me out and i'd lose 2 peppers! traveling from home to town between EVERY harvest is obnoxious.

the job thing is different, too. at some point during work, they give you a challenge. my dude was an artist, so i got to color in a picture to earn a promotion. it's a little hard to do when you only have your finger and a screen, but i managed to get promoted after the 2nd try.

overall, i like the game and will continue to play it when i'm not playing the computer version.

laughing through my tears

so. i sort of hate eagames. i lost another neighborhood due to crashing. it loaded up fine, then when i went to save it, it said there was an error. i was like, whatever, i'll just go back to the main menu and not save then. BAM! neighborhood disappeared from the main menu.

on the plus side, i did some exploring with yet another sim. she was a babysitter. it was neat having toddlers show up to play with and then give them back at the end of the day. it's pretty easy money. just keep the kids happy and you get paid. and i didn't worry too much about teaching them to talk/walk or buying learning books.  they aren't my kids, so i don't really care if they develop good traits since i won't be playing them anyway.

the lady had artistic traits, so she ended up with a lifetime wish of maxing out guitar and painting. those are both great ways to supplement the daycare income, especially the guitar! i'm liking this play for tips in the subway exploit. she raked in about $25,000 simoleans in one night.

buggy as fuck

my celebrity girl who was doing so well? yeah, the game crashed and didn't save any progress after a few HOURS of play. and now it won't even load. so i had to delete the whole 'hood. the sims is so awesome... no bugs or anything!

hottest celebrity in town

well, my girl managed to make it to level 5 of the celebrity status. now she just needs to get to $100,000 simoleans to get her life goal. right now she's at $14,000 or so. this could take a while...

electrocution

you know what's awesome? when the idiot asshat who wants 5 fucking kids electrocutes himself, leaving his pregnant wife alone to raise the 3 kids they already have. i'm not having that. i didn't save and went to the main menu.

i'm taking a break from the mixology/breeder family to play a single lady who wants to be a 5 star celebrity and have more than $100,000 simoleans. she's at level 1 after 2 days and is acquainted with 3 or 4 famous peeps. i might have her quit her job as a police officer if it means she can climb the social ladder faster.

mixology lady

somehow i managed to get the chick at full skill in mixology. she got a professional bar dive edition to work on custom drinks at home and did some moonlighting at the closest dive bar to earn some tips and gain experience. now the only thing left to do is own a bar and she will have her lifetime wish fulfilled. this will be hard though, because they just had their 3rd child and she's pregnant again.

children aren't free, so i have the dad working full time in the police career track and both parents have enough logic skill to make money on the telescope. as soon as the mom is done cranking out kids, (should be about 6 more days) i'm sending her ass back to work.

the mom works at the school, but not for very much pay as she got pregnant before she had any time to get promoted. at least she's been getting maternity leave money!

i'm thinking these people will not really do much as far as raising their kids. with both parents working full time and the dad doing a lot of "searching the galaxy" for cash, that really only leaves the mom to do the grunt work. and i plan on getting her into some bars to make money on tips at night.

also of note, though not really important, the lady has the trait "star material" and is already at a level 2 star status. this means paparazzi show up to capture them playing in the park... just like us!! it also seems to help her get into bars she might not otherwise be able to get into.

i'm thinking of having the lady leave her husband when the last kid is born to go off and marry a rich celebrity sim. then she'd be able to afford her dream of owning a bar.

fuck

my city won't load. fuck that noise.

best website ever

http://www.carls-sims-3-guide.com
i have gotten hella mad help from this site. it's like what i used to do on my own in notebooks to help my sims get awesome, but totally more extensive.

last night i tried to advance a sim through the mixology aspiration with mixed success. i say mixed because she was married to a dude who wanted a bunch of kids. so she had a hard time learning the skill while barfing, fucking, and changing diapers. that site helped me learn that i needed a specific bar to make special drinks. yay! i'll be playing more of that family after i put this crabby kid of mine to bed.

experiments with bridgeport

i just got a bunch of expansion packs from a sweet steam sale. now i have the town of bridgeport! i decided to use some premade sims to learn a bit about how the town worked before sacrificing one of my awesome sims to it.

some observations:

• traveling from the outskirts of town to the town center is a bitch. it takes forever, like seriously.
• apartment living is kind of crappy. not nearly enough space for all my sims' shit, especially in a studio apartment with a couple and their kid.
• having a midlife crisis is stupid. my sim wanted to move a day after she just moved. and she ended up moving into a crappy little apartment cuz it was all she could afford.
• the library has no learning books. i fucking hate that shit.
• the stroller is cool. being able to take a walk is interesting, though my sim didn't go very far.
• gardening is impossible in an apartment. you need grass to garden.
• living in an apartment saved me from a burglar. by the time she got into the elevator and off at my floor, i had already called the cops.
• there are some neat looking new items, but few of them are actually worth the price. but they look cool!