Before we jump over to the story of Helvetica’s time at college, I just had to share this. So far, her father Jimmy has cooked exactly three meals. (None of them at my behest.) The first two meals, he set the kitchen on fire. The third meal was just GROSS.
When a Sim is fixing a meal, there are several points where if their action gets canceled, they just set the meal fixings down on the counter. Later they can come back and continue preparing the meal, or clean up the ingredients, or put them away in the fridge.
Apparently at some point Makoto had been preparing a meal of Lobster Thermidor, but was interrupted. He set down the fixings and – quite a while later – Jimmy wandered over and proceeded to finish cooking.
Okay, are you ready for this?
Rotten lobster! Delish!
Anyway, off to college with Helvetica. She has her father’s musical leanings, but she prefers the piano and the regular guitar.
I’m having a terrible problem with the rival mascot this time around. Our college mascot is the llama. He comes over and runs around singing the school cheer.
I hate that cheer, because it gets stuck in my head for hours. (Vooooh, gerbits!)
The rival mascot is the cow. He comes over and causes trouble. He picks fights with everyone, including the cafeteria staff.
Dude, seriously. She’s just trying to make pancakes. Lay off.
He even went into the girl’s bathroom to pick on Helvetica. (Which is weird, because I thought the gender-specific doors excluded men from the women’s restroom, but maybe the giant cow outfit with the udder throws off the door’s programming logic.)
He used a lighter to set off the sprinklers so often that I finally gave up and removed them. (Don’t worry – I replaced them with fire alarms.)
Another weird thing happened, and I’m not sure if I just didn’t understand what was going on, or if it was an actual glitch. Helvetica had done all her homework that semester, so she was on track to make the Dean’s List. Then a big snowstorm hit when she was leaving to sit for her final exam.
She would go outside, stand on the top step, then turn around and go back inside…
… where she would… err… wave at the fire alarm while thinking about the cheerleader. (???) I couldn’t get her out of the dorm, so she passed that semester with only a C+. Flarn!
At about this time, she developed chemistry with a fellow student whose haircut was out of date when the game was originally released (2004).
Even though she was head over heels, I couldn’t stand him. The problem is, he doesn’t like to do… stuff. When she asks him to play chess with her, he makes one move, then puts all the pieces away and walks off.
He similarly disliked playing pool, using the bubble blower (what kind of college student doesn’t like using the bubble blower?), and playing video games. When she tried to interest him in a game of kicky ball (Hackey Sack), he just walked away.
I think everyone has had a friend who dated a guy like this. Frankly, I’d had enough of him.
I sent her off to the community lots to mingle. She developed chemistry with another student, Robert Shaikh. He seemed far more pleasant, although his haircut was similarly out of date.
I even checked her likes/dislikes panel, but “lousy 90s haircut” wasn’t on there. (Her turn-ons are “full face makeup” [e.g. mimes] and “creativity.”)
Two questions.
1. How does that floor lamp in the second screen shot work? The shade and lighted part appear to be floating in the air.
2. If the mascot has udders, why is it a he? Cannot there be a female mascot?
Poor Helvetica. She needs some Dr. Phil to help her pick better boyfriends.
Looks like a wall sconce to me.
She’s dating Flock of Seagulls! (Oh, and big question for you…. do you plan to buy the new Sims game tomorrow? Inquiring minds want to know!)
I’d very much like to! But… fiddy bux… phone bill overdue… it probably will have to wait at least until later this week.
Kmkat, Franz is right – it’s a wall sconce, and that’s the guitar stand below it.
It’s the tattoos. Reminds her of Jimmy Phoenix.
Is it possible for a Sim to die of food poisoning?
I was seriously considering buying the new sims game when it comes out. However, I have just decided to go back to school and get my bachelor’s, and I need a 4.0 average, so no sims for me. I have enough distractions as it is.
I was worried about you when there was no Sims Sunday post…
I’m a little concerned about Robert’s trenchcoat – my first thought was “Flasher!”
Can you tinker with the non-Alphabetti characters? i.e. make the boyfriends a little less doofus-y? Or are you stuck with what the game throws out there?
The “stink cloud” coming of the lobsters kills me. I love all the funny little details on this.
And yes, I had a friend who dated a guy like the tattooed dude Helvetica fell for…
I know nothing about this game, but your posts totally crack me up. Mascots harassing cafeteria workers? Slacker boyfriends? Rotten lobster? I have been laughing all morning over this.
Forget the 80′s haircuts – that dorm fireplace is so 70′s!! My parents had one just like it at the cottage. Who does this decor? I’m fascinated!
I heart Sims Sunday!
Do you let the AI do most of the action for the characters, or do you do it?
Great– now I have a burning desire to wave at a fire alarm while thinking about cheerleaders. In fact, I plan to do that every time it snows, or even better, every time my entire academic future hangs in the balance.
Ahahahaha. I know exactly where you’re coming from with the “Vooooh GERBITS!” cheer. God that gets stuck in your head. An ex boyfriend would beg me to turn the sound off whenever I sent my sims to college. He’d be across the room or in the kitchen, but once that cheer gets into your head it’s there for the duration. “Bada anna baby anna jong jong jong! Gerbits! Gerbits!” …You know the rest…
Also “with the udder” sent me into hysterics. I used to have sims marry the mascots after graduating college, because the mascots, like those in the service industries, usually have really high skills when you get them into your family. But this practice ended abruptly when I discovered that through what I really hope is some glitch, they’ll continue walking around in their mascot outfits even after college, married, with children, while gardening, in bed “relaxing”… I’d have them change but setting a new default outfit didn’t work; every time they went into the shower they came back out as a cow or a llama. Which was difficult to explain to my parents on visits home. “Hey you might want to go back to your computer, something’s beeping and…hon…there’s a giant cow on fire in your kitchen.”
Oh excellent. I’ve got my Sims fix for the week.