Aaroc Sims

Asa Reloaded 22: Sibling Rivalry

2009-12-05T01:36:16Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust, our second generation heir had taken the helm, gotten married and conceived the first kids of generation three. Elly had been assigned new points to earn, thus crushing her hopes and dreams of ever leaving Asa Manor, and ... well, I guess that's all that happened that was of note, aside from Tanaris's ghost getting stuck.

It's been a while since I played and took these pictures, so I may not recall the exact story behind each one, but here goes... Rayven continued painting and striving for his painting skill challenges. Let's see.. I started taking notes and I've got a notebook around here somewhere... Aha! here it is.. nothing on Rayven so I guess he didn't get any skill challenges yet.. or at least any more than he had last time.

Feralas continued to collect stuff but he still has yet to find plutonium.

Faust finished another book; a romance novel entitled Lovers' Street. It was a hit worth $3015/wk.

I finally gave Faust a makeover. He's much more attractive without all that hair in his face, I think.

Since I wanted to have as many children as possible born at once, to fill up any gaps in the house, I had Jodi listen to kids music while watching the children's channel on tv. This is actually proven to help raise the chance of a multibirth. I checked the data files and you get some small amount of additional chance for multiples per minute or hour of children's programing participated in.

Eventually Jodi went into birth. I decided to have her stay home.. mainly because I've never had a home birth in the game yet. It wasn't terribly exciting though. Of course it meant that everybody was able to continue doing what they were donig without having to rush Jodi to the hospital.

It was annoying however, to listen to Jodi go about making her birthing sounds while everybody else was busy doing what they were doing, but eventually she gave birth to two beautiful baby girls. Meet the ladies Sylvanas and Windrunner. Born on week 13 day 3, Sylvanas and Windrunner are named after The Banshee Queen, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, leader of the Forsaken; the playable undead faction in world of warcraft. She has a lot of interesting history, but I can't remember any of it at the moment.

At the Ladies' toddler birthday party, some other Schmuck died of old age, and I vowed never to invite old people to my parties anymore. Of course, this particular old lady wasn't invited anyway, so.. there's that. One more penalty point to me. Bleh.

Sylvanas is an Artistic Genius with the favorites of: Aqua, Hot Dogs, and Kids Music.

Windrunner is an Artistic Couch Potato with the favorites of: White, Hamburgers, and Indie Music.

Being that Elly is Good while Rayven is Evil and the Emperor of Evil, their relationship has taken quite a dive into the negatives. One day they both finished up their painting at roughly the same time and before I was able to give them further instruction.. well.. chaos ensued.

First Rayven started throwing insults at Elly, including implying that her mother was a llama.. which.. is kinda funny because her mother is his mother so.. well anyway, after that things quickly escalated and they fought it out there in the painting room.

Of course, Rayven handily whooped Elly's ass, since he has full athletic points and has completed every athletic challenge, while Elly's greatest feat is catching 350 fish and harvesting 650 fruits and vegetables.

After getting her ass whooped, Elly tried apologizing to her brother, which I think meant that she started the fight... maybe?

But Rayven steadfastly refused her apology...

Smacked her around a little bit more, and declared her a nemesis.

See? My legacy can be exciting.

END!!

Points Gained: -1
Total Score: 33
Scorecard

Fun day.

2009-08-16T01:50:26Z

Last night I finished up my latest project for the Sims 3 and uploaded it to MTS, so it should be ready for download within a day or two. I went to my sister's house earlier and helped her tear out her kitchen cabinets so that they could get the new ones installed. Of course who knows how long it'll be before that actually happens. Now she's got no kitchen and basically just a fridge with which to feed her four hungry children.

Anyway, it was really fun demolishing the cabinets. I got to work out some aggression and such. Until you've used a sledgehammer to bust a bunch of cabinets into little tiny pieces you won't know how therapeutic it can be. I wish I could do that at least once a week, even though I did minorly injure myself. I have a booboo on one of my knuckles. I scraped it on something.

After we were finished with that I started reading one of my niece's books. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. I read through the whole thing in one sitting. I absolutely could not put it down from the moment I picked it up. She's got a very easy style of writing to read. Minimalistic in detail but gives you enough to really picture what's happening in the book. With the minimalistic detail it keeps the book moving very quickly and I really felt more like I was watching a movie than reading a book. It was that engrossing. Enough detail to let your mind's eye picture what's happening, but not to much to bog down the flow of the story. The second book in this alleged trilogy will be out in September and I'll be hungrily waiting for more. If you've ever enjoyed reading anything, I would highly recommend giving it a go. It's considered Young Adult, but makes for nice light reading if you are an adult.

Now I just need to decide what will be next on my list of priorities; another Legacy chapter or more lowrise bottom wear for the sim guys out there.

Asa Reloaded 21: Score!

2009-08-13T00:50:25Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Ally, our esteemed Generation 2 Sparess had gotten married and moved away. Faust, our Gen 2 Heir was about to take the helm.

Feralas was out making his collection rounds. As you may recall from our last visit with the Asas, he had finished up his Gem collection challenge, and I had him start working on collecting the various insects. Out behind the Bistro I found this little beauty, a type of which I'd never seen before and thought it might have been the Trilobite. I was wrong, however, and it was a pincer beetle or something of the sort. An Uncommon find.

He also found a zebra butterfly, a rare find.

While Feralas was out collecting bugs, however, his father, Tanaris Asa, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had come to the end of his allowed time here in Asa Valley. On day two of week twelve, the Grim Reaper came to collect his soul. Tanaris was 107 days old, had earned something like 10 points in his lifetime, and had amassed something like 220k LTH. Tanaris was survived by his wife, Lydia Newton-Asa, five children, Rayven James, Elly, Ally, Faust and Feralas, and one Son-in-law, Mitchell Clement-Asa. He will be missed.

That same night, Feralas managed to collect the extremely rare rainbow butterfly in the gully behind Goth Manor.

And the extremely rare Rainbow beetle up in the Simhenge area.

With his finds that day, he finished up his butterfly collection. I have them proudly displayed in the foyer.

Elly got promoted to Mad Scientist and got me a point by reaching the top of the Science Career track.

And she bowled another Salmon. Everybody meet Theodore.

He seems to be just as happy as his predecessor, Amanda.

And don't worry, I'm actually trying to keep this little guy alive.

Ally calls Elly a couple of times per day. Apparently she's very excited about having moved out on her own, even though her husband's ex-wife and her new husband are living with them. Fear not, however, since I did go into Edit Town mode and had them move out. Coincidentally, while Elly was on the phone with Ally, I received notification that Ally and Mitchell are expecting their first child. Elly seemed less than enthusiastic about Ally's happiness at having escaped Chez Asa.

Before too long it was time for Feralas and Faust to have their birthday. Both Jodi and Meagan were invited, but Jodi seemed less than pleased that Meagan was there.

Still not sure which girl I wanted to have Faust marry, he chatted both of them up at the party. things went much more smoothly with Jodi.

Also among the guests were myself and Ally, as well as Renae Dowdy, my niece. I was still thinking about allowing Feralas to marry her one day.

Though I wasn't able to get out to see Faust have his age transition, I made sure to be front and center for Feralas. Even Tanaris, whom I had no idea was haunting that night made it out for Feralas's birthday. It might be possible that I secretly like Feralas better than Faust, but I'm not telling.

Both of the boys were sent to their rooms to change their clothes. Thankfully to AwesomeMod, I was able to purge those crazy genetic hairstyles, so the boys actually grew up with the hairstyles I had assigned them.

I couldn't tell if Feralas approved of his new clothes or not, but I didn't really care.

He was rather excited the next day, however, when he found another Rainbow Butterfly, worth something like $3k. I was excited too.

With Elly's mass amounts of LTH she had amassed, we purchased a Teleporter, which helped Feralas in his endeavors to collect everything quickly.

And he managed to find a Spotted Beetle, a rare find.

He got bitten by a Rhino beetle however, and that did not make him happy. I didn't mind so much, however, because he'd already found one of those.

And that night he found the elusive Trilobite.

Which of course meant there was still one insect left to find; the cockroach. Luckily I knew exactly where to find one of those.

And here is his completed collection of insects, also proudly displayed in the foyer, across from the butterflies.

At that point in time, Feralas had found 94% of space rocks, and aside from that only needed to find plutonium to finish up his collection skill challenge point.

Theodore is still alive and kicking, and yes, I do make sure he gets fed.

On his young adult birthday, Faust had been assigned the Hopeless Romantic trait. Here you can see him after he just finished up his first Romance novel, Lovers' Alley, a best seller worth $3719/week in royalties. Lovers' alley was Faust's 7th book written and his fourth Best Seller.

Elly was apparently on a roll. She must have thought that by completing the skill challenges I had placed before her that she would be able to get married and move out like her sister. Here you can see her catching her 350th fish and completing the Commercial fisherman Skill challenge, the last challenge she needed to get me another point.

Tanaris, meanwhile, was bugged. I had placed his urn on one of those pedestal things and he apparently could not reach it to go back to the netherworld when the sun came up, so he was permanently around the house, no matter what time of day. Unfortunately, since his urn was "in use" I was unable to move it to somewhere he could reach it.

About that time I finally decided to let Elly have some fun and conduct experiments around the house. Here you can see her 'upgrading' the toilet in one of the downstairs bathrooms.

I also noticed that Faust was really cute when he didn't have all his hair in his face all the time. I may have to change his hairstyle because of this.

Elly failed an experiment on her bed, and I thought for certain that if she attempted to use her bed she would get shocked and die or something. I saw an opportunity in this, but unfortunately she only got an Upset Moodlet while near her bed.

Faust wasn't getting any younger and he rolled up a want to have his very first kiss with Jodi, so he invited her over while Rayven was battling one of his opponents needed to become Chess Grand Master.

It was fairly easy for Faust to get his first kiss from Jodi.

He also got his very first Woohoo from Jodi. Their choice of bed for conception of generation three was.. interesting to say the least.

Meanwhile, Rayven James had invited over his next, and final Chess Opponent. Here you can see him beating Irma Helm in a ranked chess match and finally becoming Grand Master. (I've started taking notes)

Since the next generation was on the way, I decided it might be a good idea to get Faust and Jodi married. Jodi readily accepted Faust's proposal.

And they quickly had a private ceremony.. in Elly's bedroom.

Promptly after the wedding, both Faust and Jodi had to head off to work. How romantic.

Meanwhile, I took all of Elly's hopes and dreams of ever escaping Asa Manor, placed them gently on the floor, and crushed them with my big ole boots. Instead of moving out, Elly was given a new task to complete the Painting skill Challenges. I thought the very first painting she completed was interesting. It'll be fun to see what kinds of paintings she comes up with that neurotic trait of hers.

Feralas had been assigned Neat as his final trait, and I was able to pick his LTW. I picked Swimming in Cash, which, for Feralas, meant we needed to have $67,000 in family funds. One day while attempting to find Plutonium, Lydia sold a masterpiece that pushed the family funds above the required threshold and Feralas got me a point for his LTW. He still doesn't have 100k LTH though.

Meanwhile Tanaris was still haunting 24/7 and I got an idea.

There's a handy cheat called MoveObjects. Through use of this cheat, I was able to place his urn on the floor. Hopefully he'll go away come next sunrise.

Jodi Edmond Asa is an Excitable, Light sleeping, Never Nude, Workaholic, Virtuoso. Her favorites are Cobbler, Aqua, and Electronica. She aspires to be a Jack (or perhaps a Jane) of all trades, and she is currently at level one in the Music Career.

END!!

Points Gained: 3 (Elly: Career Science, Fishing, Feralas: LTW Swimming in Cash)
Total Score: 33
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded 20: Quit Bein' Creepy.

2009-07-29T19:40:43Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust, our esteemed Generation 2 Heir had not done a whole lot, but the rest of the family had gained quite a few points. Also, we were about to have our first death in the family.

Before I get to the death however, I forgot to mention last time that Elly had managed to nab her Botanical Boss skill challenge by harvesting 75 perfect quality items, and here she is harvesting her 650th item, thus completing the Commercial Farmer (?) skill challenge. Since Master Planter is no longer a requirement for the gardening skill challenges, and her gardening skill has been maxed for quite some time now, she got me another point.

Also, I made a mistake last time. I had forgotten that Elly had already gained a point by completing the handiness skill challenges, so the first point she gained last time was actually her second point. Third if you count her portrait.. which she really had no part in, aside from existing. Her mother did all the hard work there.

Aside from Elly's point gaining, today's update begins on a sad note. Amanda the Happy Salmon has died. Ally ceremoniusly flushed her down the toilet. What? Did you think Tanaris or Lydia were going to die? They're both over 100 and showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon (knock on wood). At least one of them might even live long enough to see grandchildren.

While Elly was finishing up her gardening skill challenges, Ally was down at the park finishing up her charisma skill challenges. She had met over 25 people, befriended at least 20 of them, become best friends with at least 10 of them, and learned at least 50 traits. Now all that was left was the telling of about 50 jokes, as she had already told about 50 of them already and she needed to tell 100 jokes to finish up with charisma.

With all the perks she got from having completed all her other charisma challenges, as well as having the Attractive LTR, Ally made super bestest friends with anyone new she met, just by performing a charismatic introduction. It was quite ridiculuos. It was retardedly easy to get in about 8 jokes per sim without even having to repeat herself.

I was wondering if the Scary Lady With the Wrench was perhaps a romantic interest of The Old Geezer here, because she looked mighty intimidating, flipping her wrench in the air while Ally was conversing with him, but Ally perseverd nonetheless.

She told her final jokes to Jarvis Roth. Remember Kathy Green? The green girl who wouldn't stop playing with the sprinkler way back in the early chapters of this legacy? Jarvis and Igor are the spawn of her sister, Patti, and a Hunter Cottoneye clone I plopped down in Asa Valley to help get the population going early on. I believe Kathy also got married eventually, but alas, she did not do so until she was an elder, so she has no spawn of her own. (After this picture was taken, I promtly Dressered him and gave him some proper clothes instead of those hiedous overalls)

Of course after having completed all of her skill challenges for charisma, Ally still needed to max the skill. So she headed over to the bistro for a bit of food and then to the Library to read Volume 3. One more point for me.

About that time I realized that Rayven was becoming rather useless. Granted, he was the Emperor of Evil and bringing in loads of money, and he was still working on his logic skill challenges, but I figured he needed more to do. Since he had already topped his career and athletic skill challenges, I decided to give him a ~~Lobotomy~~ Midlife Crisis. Of course he's still evil and a genius, but I dropped Ambitious, Workaholic, and Athletic for Artistic, Lucky, and... something else.. Charismatic? If I'd been smart, however, I would have given him a Good Sense of Humor. I suspect that if I had given him that trait, he would autonomously choose to tell jokes while socializing. I decided that he's going to get me MOAR POINTS for charisma and painting.

Now, instead of trying to work from home, which is useless, or train his brethren on the excercise equipment, which was also useless, Rayven would almost always be found in the painting room, autonomously attempting to complatete the painting skill challenges which I had set before him. ~~Lobomized~~ Rayven is such a good little boy. *~~fondles~~pats him*

Even though we didn't quite need for Ally to move out yet, I decided that she had completed the tasks set before her with a vigorous and positive attitude, especially since gaining $25,000 in tips is quite a feat of endurance. Thus, I allowed her to call her beloved and invite him over.

It had been about a week since I had promised to Ally that she would get engaged to Mitchell, and only a few days less that I had promised to Lydia and Tanaris that Ally would get married. She warmly greeted Mitchell when he arrived.

And she promptly got down on one knee, pulled out a ring, and asked Mitchell Clement to be her ~~lovely bride~~ husband.

Of course he accepted.

After that the oddest thing happened. I left the two lovebirds to their own devices while I went around to check on the rest of the family. When I returned to Ally and Mitchell, I noticed that Mitchell was relaxing in her bed, Ally was on her way to relax in her bed, and she had "Woohoo" in her queue. I don't have any autonomous woohoo mods in my game O_o...

Then Feralas got creepy.

I had to wonder if he could guess the reason why his future brother in law was in his skivvies, but when he continued to try and socialize with him, even after Ally had come to continue autonomously romance her fiance, I just got wierded out and told him to go paint me a masterpiece. Because he was being creepy.

Since love was in the air already, I decided now might be a good time to invite Meagan over and try to get things rolling between her and Faust.

However, it appeared that I was wrong, and when she rejected Faust for his very first kiss, I decide dthat she simply wasn't worth the trouble. Ally was still in the house and still had plenty of teenaged girl friends, so I used her wedding party as on opportunity for Faust to meet some new girls.

Before the wedding was properly started, however, Ally had to have her birthday. She did so in the bathroom. I will refrain from making potty jokes this time since nobody seemed to notice the one I made last update. Whatever.

As the ceremony was about to begin, Elly also aged up.

Since all the girls in this town are simply clones of eachother with different hair, skin, and eye colors, the thing I was really looking for in them was interesting genetics in so far as colors are concerned. The first girl to catch my eye was this yellow eyed girl whose name I forgot.

The second one to do so was this red eyed girl. I couldn't decide who to go for first, so I let Faust socialize with both of them a little before the ceremony began.

However, before Faust could get too far with either, it was getting late and I decided I'd best get this show on the road before the guests started leaving.

The happy couple said their vows and exchanged their rings.

Mitchell Clement became mitchell Asa... and his teenaged son Jaleel Clement became Jaleel Asa. Aparently Mitchell had been married before and that union had produced a son. One of the Clement women who had been invited to the aprty, and I'd assumed was his sister, was actually his ex-wife. Huh.

After they were happily wed, niether of the newdly-weds could get out of the house quick enough. Both of them darted for the door.

Most of the guests at the party just watched in silence as the cermony occured. I can understand the rest of the Asas not being thrilled about their sister being able to leave and live a happy life on her own, but as for the rest of the guests I was stumped. there were only two sims present to even feign interest in the wedding, one of which was the yellow eyed girl from earlier.

And the other was this fat guy in his swimwear.

Shortly after the ceremony I realized the true reason everybody seemed to be in such a bad mood during it. aparently they were all fiercely resisting the urge to run screaming away from Rayven's evil aura and mine.

Since the yellow eyed girl was apparently good, and lost relationship with myself and Rayven whenever she saw either of us, I decided that she was simply not cut out to be Legacy queen material. Thus it was the Red Etyed girl that Faust chatted up for a bit.

Things were going well, and eventually he started going in for some flirts, which she eagerly accepted.

However, it was getting very late by this point in time, so she had to leave. And really, it was very late.. like 3:30 in the morning, so completely understandable.

Of course it would seem that being late doesn't mean much to the Nunya Clan. The sun rose at about 5:30 the next morning to find me and my niece, Renae (which my sister would totally never name one of her daughters), chatting it up on the party deck.

END!!

Points Gained: 2 (Elly: Gardening, Ally: Charisma)
Total Score: 30
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded 19: Invasion of the Clones

2009-07-28T15:07:01Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust, our esteemed Generation 2 Heir had become a teenager, starting on his quest for a bride, Rayven had joined the Evil Criminal Career track, and the boys finally got their own rooms.

Even though he keeps rolling related wishes, Faust hates writing. It stresses him out something fierce, which I think is bullshit. Writing, gardening, and working out should be fun, at least for the sims with the related traits.

I'm constantly having to use the moodlet manager on poor Faust, but at least it fills his fun up and makes him Have a Blast, so he's always in a splendid mood when he starts writing. Even if he is never Well Rested.

Everyone else has a hobby they enjoy; Painting.

Well, maybe not everyone, but at least Rayven and Elly are never lonely. Granted, Elly should be out catching her last 100 fish, but she's got plenty of time for that since I have decided she's going to stay with us until she dies of old age. Fishing and gardening are rather lucrative hobbies.

Lydia painted a portrait of Feralas. It didn't give me a point, since he's still a teenager, but it did give Feralas a good bit of LTH - Yes, he rolled a wish to obtain a portrait of himself - and it was Lydia's most valuable Masterpiece yet, valued at something like $3300. I'm sure we'll be able to sell it for quite a bit of money if she ever dies.

Faust finished up his third book. It was a scifi piece entitled "An Attack In The bear Cave". He must be referring to the bears that electrocute people in the Catacombs of the Mausoleum. It was a best seller, as were his first two books.

Rayven is rank 3 in the local chess tournament. One of his opponents was one my my manslaves, Angla. Angla is apparently a Rock Star now. And while I never had him learn any logic while I was playing him, Rayven had quite a bit of trouble beating him.

So he enlisted the help of his mother, the local Grand Master, so he could learn the chess skill a little faster and do better on his own quest to be Grand Master.

Elly, the bum, finally managed to gain her first point. She reached level 8 of the Science Career, which gave her a nice LTH boost, putting her total above 100,000. Now she'll gain me a point with each subsequent promotion, since at lvl 9 she'll achieve her LTW, and at lvl 10 she'll top the career.

Feralas found a Pink diamond! The shiny is where it was located, if it's any help to anyone else trying to find a pink diamond. I've found them elsewhere though, so I don't think it spawns in just one place.

And he found a Rainbow Gem later that same day, thus finishing out his Gem collection. It was located behind the lane with 7 empty lots up near the Military base.

He was on a roll that day and I thought for sure he had found plutonium too. See how green and shiny this ore is? I was wrong however, and it turned out to just be iron.

In other news, I finally finished decorating the house, for the most part. Each room has a purpose now. Well, the only purpose for the big green room on the east side of the house is to be pretty, I suppose, but it's still a purpose nonetheless.

And a quick look at the upstairs, for those of you interested. I do still need to put decorations on the balconies outside the master suites, but since the bulk of the work is done, I'm just taking baby steps from here on out.

The kitchen is still my favorite room, so far as decor goes.

Of course my sims seem to disagree with me, as they prefer to eat outside most of the time.

Rayven had his birthday in the bathroom. It's his potty and he'll cry if he wants to. He didn't though. He's a tough guy.

Then I downloaded more stuff from MTS. I never really cared about downloading stuff for the Sims 2, but I can't get enough of it with the Sims 3 for some reason. In any event, because of this, Ally got yet another makeover.

And then so did Rayven. It's ok, you can drool if you feel the need to.

I finally gave in and had my sims hire a maid. It was at this point that I noticed something very strange going on in Asa Valley...

Everybody

Looks

The Same

I did find one girl who looked different from the rest, but she's the spawn of some of the sims I made and plopped down so long ago. Her parents are Edward Swan and Connie Jones. I was wondering if Maybe I should rename Asa Valley to Pod Person Valley.

In any event, Tanaris gained me a point by completing all the Painting skill Challenges. I thought he was still working on the first one, to complete 30 paintings, but it turned out this was his 38th painting and his fifth masterpiece. I must have missed the notifications for his 30th painting his 6th brilliant painting. Whoops.

He then commenced to paint a masterpiece the likes of which I'd never seen, even though Lydia and Ally have painted metric tons of masterpieces. I liked it and put it up in the hallway next to the samurai painting he did. It makes me think of Roland, The Gunslinger, of Stephen King's Dark tower series.

Rayven became Emperor of Evil and got me a point.

Then Elly got promoted to Creature Robot Crossbreeder, her LTW, and got me a point.

And Ally finally earned $25000 in tips, finishing up her Guitar Skill Challenges, which also got me a point.

And we had out first death in the family. More on that next time.

END!!

Points Gained: 5 (Elly: LTH, LTW, Rayven: Career, Ally: Guitar, Tanaris: Painting)
Total Score: 28
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded 18: The Unwilling Bride.

2009-07-28T00:30:35Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust, our esteemed Generation 2 Heir had become a teenager and was supposed to be starting his quest to find a girlfriend.

Hey, didn't we start the last chapter this same way? Yes, but now the boys are teens and Rayven can tutor them again. It only took an hour or two for Rayven to complete his skill challenge.

And once that was done, it was back to the chess match grind with him.

It made me happy the next day when Faust brought Meagan Justice home from school with him. I decided that she was going to be his wife. I like her funky green eyes.

Elly invited her boss over so she could ask him for another promotion but the option never came up. I guess you can only ever ask for one promotion, which sucks, because she left work that day with the tiniest little sliver of performance needed for a promotion... something she's gotten into the habit of doing, so no matter what she always takes two days to get promoted.

While all that was going on, Ally was having quite a time at Central Park. This lady went into labor.

"Huh? What's everybody freaking out like that for? You'd think somebody was in labor."

"Oh snap! I'm in labor!"

Ally brought her to the hospital. Apparently it was a boy. At least that's what Ally's moodlet said.

Things weren't going so great between Faust and Meagan. If I turned my head for a second, they were bickering.. actually she was insulting him for no apparent reason. Faust being the friendly sim that he is, however refused to retaliate and just let her walk all over him.

Until I finally had enough of her and had him ask her to leave.

In other news, Rayven reached level 6 or 7 of the Criminal Career Track and was given the option of going Thief or Evil. He went Evil and got a decent LTH boost for it.

He then insisted that he become bestest friends with his boss... who really should have been me. After all, we're already bestest friends. Maybe that's why I'm not his boss. Huh.

He chatted her up for a bit and then made her get on the treadmill so he could yell at her. That's one way to get on your boss's good side, I suppose.

I finally got around to giving Feralas and Faust their own rooms. Since Feralas is a Snob whose favorite color is yellow, I gave him dark wood furniture with gold trim, as well as yellow bedding and curtains. And of course I decorated his room in nothing but mirrors.

Faust got purple stripes, and since I was sick of the white wood everywhere, I gave him dark wood as well.

I made doubly sure that Faust had a Beautifully Decorated Moodlet in his room, since that was where I planned on him writing his novels. Even though he was never allowed to sleep, he always had a tip top mood.

Of course Faust wasn't the only one who wasn't allowed to sleep. While he was up writing novels, the rest of the family was up painting.

Or, in Elly's case, fishing.

She insisted that we put her salmon into a fishbowl. Meet Amanda. Such a happy looking fish, isn't she?

Faust did occasionally get a break from writing. Instead of writing, he got to hear about the wonders of Logic from his older brother, who needed to perform 30 hours of skill tutoring.

During the day Feralas was sent out to collect things. It was easiest to do this on the weekends, though.

And I finally figured out what to do with the giant room on the western side of the house. It is now the Athletic and Logic Skill Challenge Room. Apparently Logic, Athletic, and Painting are the only ones that need such a space.

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 21
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded 17: Celebrity What?

2009-07-24T12:21:36Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Elly and Ally, our esteemed Generation 2 Spares, had just gotten their shared bedroom redecorated. The entire family was starting to get on my nerves, and now that I think about it, i kinda wish I had AwesomeMod still installed so I could threaten them with DiscoInferno if they started acting up again.

After having tutored Faust the previous day, and managed to get his grades up to an A in one sitting, Rayven sat Feralas down after his first day of school and commenced to tutor him for a good while.

Lydia managed to nab me another point by painting a portrait of Elly.

Elly meanwhile, was out fishing. She had maxxed her fishing skill long ago, but she still needed something like 200 fish to get the commercial farmer skill challenge.

Then Lydia went and painted a portrait of Ally, which gave me another point. This made me happy. I think this is actually one of the best portraits I've seen in game yet. Hardly any distortion at all.

After a while, I realized that all that money I had spent on ~~redecorating~~ decorating Elly and Ally's room was kind of a waste. I wanted to completely redo the house, and we had quite a bit of money with which to do so. Or at least I thought we did when I started.

Above is what the first floor looked like beforehand, and below is what the second floor looked like.

I sort of ran out of money while building the new house. Apparently walls and foundation and wall covering are more expensive than I thought they were. On the plus side I didn't have to buy any new furniture, however, putting everything into the faily inventory and taking it back out was quite a pain ~~in my ass~~.

Second floor above, first floor below. As you can see, I put in a bedroom for each sim in the house. In the northwest room, I plan on putting the heir of the Legacy, which is why the bathroom is bigger. Same for the northeast bedroom, though it is for the current reigning matriarch and patriarch of the family. This will probably end up getting flip-flopped every generation so that my sims don't have to switch bedrooms when the old folks die.

Along the hallway on either side of the house are two more bedrooms, one for each of the spares living in the house, and each has their own bathroom which can only be accessed from their own room. As you can (or maybe you can't) see, I gave Elly's room a watermelon makeover, and I changed Ally's room to have a blue butterfly pattern as opposed to the pinkish purple butterfly decor in the room they shared before the rebuild. Also, I gave ally an easel in her own room. You may notice that I seem to be missing furniture in two of the bedrooms, but that's beause Rayven and Feralas share a bed while Faust and Elly share a bed. This will be rectified... eventually.

On the bottom floor, I have a nursery in the northwest and the painting room in the southwest. The big room in between is undecided yet, as is the big room on the eastern side of the house.

The kitchen/dining room is in the northeast corner of the house, and in the southeast is the TV room.

Lydia continued working on her Skill tutoring challenge by tutoring Tanaris in the Logic skill. Had I been smart Lydia would have tutored himin painting. Duh.

Rayven finally got high enough in the Criminal Career track that he was able to choose Evil or Thief. He chose Evil of course, and got a nice aspiration boost because of it.

Elly kept rolling wishes to become friends and best friends and so on with her boss, who I think is the real Ken Mattingly and the guy from the last chapter was some other doofus. Or perhaps I just can't remember Elly's boss's name. Like I said, I need to start taking notes or something. And it really pisses me off that every single fracking young adult or adult male is wearing those fracking overalls! No damn wonder I'm so confused with the names.

In any event, she became such good friends with him that I noticed she was able to ask for a promotion. Since she was only a tiny little bit away from getting a promotion anyway, she asked, and he gave her a promotion right there on the spot. She even got a bonus from it, like she normally would have if she'd gotten it at the end of a hard day of work. That made me happy.

A bit later that night, Lydia finally got her Skill tutoring skill challenge, which got me a point since that was the last Logic skill challenge she needed.

Almost on cue, Rayven finished up the last of his Athletics skill challenges by having done 75 hours worth of cardio workouts.

Both of these challenges were finished up in just enough time for Faust and Feralas to have their teen birthday.

Faust went first and ended up in clothes that weren't that bad. He still got a makeover and a change of clothes though. During his childhood, after having eaten one of his father's perfectly cooked meals, he had rolled the LTW to become a Celebrate Five Star Chef, and I had locked it in, even though he really had no related traits. He had picked up an interest in writing, however, so I gave him a trait that could help both; Bookworm.

Up second was Feralas. I made an appearance at the party and heartily cheered Feralas on. I had plans for Feralas, and he had not yet foiled them. Also included on the guest list was every single child and teen girl in the town, so far as I knew. Of course I suppose it's possible that Ally doesnt know every single one of them, though she does have a contact list of about 150 sims, over 100 of which are her friends. Playing the guitar for tips in the park makes it EXTREMELY easy to make friends.

In any event, I planned on Feralas fulfilling one of the money related LTWs, so he obtained Snob as his fourth trait. I figured that mixed with Frugal should help. At his adult birthday I plan on giving him Schmoozer, because he's going to follow his father's footsteps and join the Business Career. His other task will be completing the Collection skill challenges, so wish me luck. I figure business is a good choice for career for him, since he's already shaping up with a decent personality for it, and it will allow him to focus primarily on collecting without the need for skills in order to advance in his career. (Though I do plan on making him get the Painting challenges as well, if it doesn't take him too long for the collection points)

I thought it was funny that he actually kinda looks like a snob.

In addition to myself and all the young girls of the town, Mitchel was at the party. Ally snagged him as her boyfriend before Indie Stone had a chance to marry him off to some other woman.

After the party was over, Faust finished writing his very first book. It was a best seller. I was shocked. He still only got like $63 in royalties though. When I paused the game for this shot, by the way, I thought he was doing some sort of victory dance in his seat. I later realized that he was complaining because he was tired.

I thought it was cute after the party that Rayven James complimented his father on throwing a great party autonomously. then Tanaris thanked him for cleaning up. It was cute, but it was not conducive to gaining points, so both of them were put to work doing something useful.

END!!

Points Gained: 4 (Elly: Portrait, Ally: Portrait, Lydia: Logic, Rayven: Athletics)
Total Score: 21
Scorecard

Of Cats and AwesomeMod

2009-07-24T12:01:48Z

So I was in the bathroom earlier, and I suddenly realized that that's the only time I ever spend any quality time with my cat, Hazelnut. Yes, it's odd, but whenever I'm using the bathroom, she'll come scratching at the door until I let her in. She's just over 2 years old now, and she used to be practically attached to my lap whenever I was sitting at my computer. This stopped basically once we moved from Owings Mills to Aberdeen. Occasionally she'll come and sit with me, curl up on my lap or snuggle herself in my sweater. But for the most part, she really only ever wants to be around me when I'm sitting on the toilet.. which I find most odd, but I guess you take what you can get, eh.. even if it is rather inappropriate. Of course, what do you really expect from a cat? Oh, and speaking of inappropriate, when she was still rather small, if she was on your lap and you were petting her, she would push up your shirt so that she could suckle on your belly.. while digging her claws into you. We rescued her and Troy from the Baltimore County animal shelter, and I have a feeling she might have been separated from her mother at too young of an age. I remember the people at the shelter said they estimated her age at 4 months when we got her, and I'm not sure how long she was in there.. long enough to have been euthanised had I not shown up that day, apparently, but I still have no idea how long that is. She used to be simply fascinated by water. We had a leaky faucet in the bathroom when we first moved in, and she would hop up on the sink's edge in the bathroom or the counter in the kitchen and watch the water drip, occasionally batting at it. I think her biggest thing was trying to figure out where it was coming from. Of course now we can't even get water from the bathroom sink, which means I have to go all the way around to the kitchen to clean my hands when I'm done whatever I'm doing in the bathroom.

In other news, I reinstalled AwesomeMod. I saw a few new options in the configuration setup thinggy, so I loaded up the save game where I spent so much time getting my simself and his manslaves to perfect the art of staying young and beautiful before I installed Indie Stone. I had my simself quickly train one of his manslaves in the Athletics and Logic skill. I was shocked and amazed that being trained on the weight lifting machine, using the highest workout mode possible resulted in him maxing his athletics skill in 24 hours. I guess that means.. I don't know what that means.. I'll have to run some more tests later. in any event, once that was taken care of I started tutoring him in Logic skill, which he got up to a fairly high level before I cheated him up to lvl nine in the Evil criminal Career track. Finally the day came where he would get promoted to Emperor of Evil. (And it took long enough too, since he got arrested twice in two nights, and then had two nights off) But unfortunately, instead of getting promoted to Emperor of Evil, he simply got a raise. so I uninstalled AwesomeMod, because, honestly, I don't think it's awesome at all.

Nunya Non-Leg 8: Motherly Instincts.

2009-07-23T18:23:24Z

Welcome back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Nunya Non-Legacy!

As we left off last time, Emma, our Generation 2 Heiress, had befallen a few misfortunes, invited Susie Broke to move in with her, and continued to have steamy dreams about her late husband Larry.

As with the last time she had such dreams about her husband, Emma had gotten pregnant, proving of course, that these were much more than dreams. Late one night, Emma went into labor.

And she brought home a pair of fire ghost twin boys, Trevor and Dimitrius. Both were absent Minded Loners.

Both Laura and Joanna had grown up into children by this time and they were rather close friends. they did their homework together every day after school.

And they both disapproved of their brothers and their ghostly ways.

Whenever Susie wasn't at work, she was trying to work on her cooking skills by watching the cooking channel on TV. It may not have been the most efficient way to go about getting cooking skill, but work drained her fun beyond belief.

And the poor girl was plagued by ghosts. She could never sleep in her own bed because either Rainer or Larry would be sleeping on it. Of course if she slept in Emma's bed, the fire twins would wake her up with their crying.

It was during one such night that I noticed Susie and Emma wore the same shirt to bed.

This had to be remedied, so I went into CAS to fix Susie's nightwear, when I noticed that this woman is a Brickhouse Amazon. Look at her!

Since hiding such a body from the world is a crime against humanity, I picked out a sexy new outfit for Susie. It goes along with her favorite color being yellow to boot.

Emma continued to try and complete her collection of bugs and butterflies, and one day she struck gold.. or rainbow as the case may be. In one day she nabbed a rainbow butterfly, which is extremely rare, and she managed to collect a rare spotted beetle.

That meant her butterfly collection was complete, though she still needed quite a few more beetles.

Surprisingly enough, Emma manged to grab another rainbow butterfly, and she added this cute little fellow to her collection, a light bug.

Before too long it was time for the fire twins to have their birthday. The whole family was invited. Roy had grown into a fat young adult and Troy had grown into a cute teenager. Elly had aged to adult as well, and her hair had defaulted back to that of their mother's.

Odin Crosby, Joanna's father, had not been invited, but he saw fit to attend anyway.

Joanna decided that she wanted to become friends with her estranged father, but he wasn't having it. It made me wonder why he even bothered to show up at all.

Due to Emma's neglect of her baby boys, they weren't in a very happy mood for their birthday, and that made everyone else uncomfortable. Everyone except Evil Uncle Aaroc, who seemed strangely at peace.

The twins grew up into cute toddlers.. or at least one can only assume that they were cute, anyway, and Emma continued to ignore them.

Apparently she'd much rather chat it up with the maid than bother herself with taking care of her children who were desperately in need of a diaper change and some food.

Susie took it upon herself to see to the wellbeing of her friends children. She fed the boys, changed their diapers and put them to bed.

Afterwards she fixed the broken TV and tried to get some cooking skill time in before bed.

Of course, as luck would have it, Larry was asleep in her bed, so she was forced, yet again, to sleep with Emma.

Over the next few days Emma continued to ignore her baby boys. Instead Susie was left to seeing after their wellbeing.

It might be argued that she's not exactly the best role model for the boys, but at least she takes care of them better than their mother does.

She does have to rely on the babysitter when she heads in to work, but the babysitter isn't much help, considering she seems to be afraid of the boys because of their 'condition'.

END!!

Asa Reloaded 16: West of Thousand Needles.

2009-07-23T01:34:39Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust and Feralas, our esteemed Legacy Larvae of generation two, had just become children.

At this point in time my sims stopped being the good little mindless automatons they're supposed to be. Notice the bus leaving? Notice the child still at home? Notice Ally playing her guitar NOT at the park, and NOT for tips? Yeah. CHAOS!

Oh, what's that, Lydia? you want to read 'Totally Preggers: An expecting Mother's Tale' yet again? What does that make.. five times now? NO! Go paint me a masterpiece before I kill you.

It turned out that Faust apparently aged up after midnight, so he was unable to go to school the first day after becoming a child. This was fine with me since it just meant that Rayven had some time to get in his tutoring hours.

Nobody in this house is allowed to have fun unless there's a purpose behind that fun.

Speaking of fun with a purpose, Ally was sent down to Central Park where she was to play her guitar for tips. She still needed some $15000 in tips before she could move out. She also still needs to max her charisma skill. While at the park, she ran into her dear boyfriend.. uh.. whatsismane.. Gerrard? Bernard? Bernard, I think.

Her brightened her day, because he's such a Good boyfriend... and she promptly broke up with him.

I had other plans in mind for Ally's love life. That evening she went to the bistro with Mitchel(I think? I seriously need to start taking notes or something) and invited him back to the house.

One thing led to another and.. well let's just say he ended up staying over that night.

Meanwhile Rayven got a wild hair up his ass and autonomously started training Elly on the treadmill. I thought it was cute, but he still needed to finish out those athletics skill challenges, so I promptly stopped this nonsense. Honestly, I have no idea why he wasn't already gainfully employed. We have no time for such things as autonomy in this house, young man!

I was extremely pleased the next morning to see Mitchel's choice of Underpants. I knew there was a reason I liked him better than Bernard. Of course, I have no idea why Ally is playing her guitar instead of painting me a masterpiece.

Ahh, that's better.

I had Tanaris start working on the painting skill challenge with the rest of the family. I doubt he'll live long enough to achieve it, which is why I have him painting large paintings instead of small, but I figured that little bit of extra income for the house won't hurt anything, especially since he's basically useless now as there's no need for a primary child care giver, and no reason to ~~kick~~ move him out since we don't need the room yet.

I have learned that it's best to send Ally down to the park after about 15:00 because everybody seems to be at work before then and she doesn't get as many tips.

But she sure does know how to pull a crowd.

In other news, Lydia can be seen here jotting down the location of her 20th celestial find. That means she only has one skill challenge left for the logic skill.

And that's the skill tutoring one.

Speaking of skill challenges, Rayven has run 500 km on his treadmill, which means he just completed one more of the challenges for athletics. He still has about 20 hours of cardio workouts left before getting me a point though.

Remember Ken Mattingly? (Yeah, hilarious that I can remember his name, but not Ally's suitors, eh?) The guy who interrupted Lydia from searching the galaxy a few chapters ago, so she started tutoring him in mechanical skill?

Well he came by to visit one day, and the only reason I could imagine he came by was so that he could get more skill tutoring.

So Lydia did just that.

In other news, I noticed we had about $40k just sitting in our bank account doing nothing, and the girls' room was completed undecorated, so I splurged a little.

I was really very pleased with the results, but it turned out that my efforts were a tad bit wasted. More on that next time.

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 17
Scorecard

Learning With Aaroc, Volume 2: In the Bubble and the Library.

2009-07-22T04:18:42Z

Hello and Welcome back to Learning With Aaroc.

Today's test has to do with Skilling based on mood levels and how they stack with the Library Skilling Bonus.

In this test, my subjects only have two or three traits each. I don't want any extra traits getting in the way, so the three men are all Couch Potatoes, and the three women are all Grumpy. (I figured this was a decent replication of real life, eh?) all 6 of them Hate The Outdoors as well, which will prevent them from getting Stir ~~Craxy~~ Crazy.

The first thing I needed to do was unlevel the playing fields a bit. I figured if I threw in some dirty sinks it would counteract the automatic Beautifully Decorated Moodlet that comes with Using Static Motives. I was wrong, however.

Because of this, I was forced to test the first segment of skilling without using the Static Motives Cheat. To counteract this, I gave them all No Sense of Humor to make their Having a Blast Moodlet last longer.

I had the women sit in the disgusting room and start skilling. All their moods were of varying level and not "In the bubble"

As you can see, they all skilled at the same rate regardless. The blue girl had the highest mood of the three, and was just slightly in a "bubble" mood during parts of the first segment.

Both of these pictures were taken three hours after the command to skill was given. As you can see by comparing the above picture to the below picture, the men, who were all at various levels of "In the bubble" moods skilled much faster than the women. The blue guy had the highest mood possible, and after three hours he gained his first skill point. At this point in time, you can see that the women were all halfway to their first skill point. The other two men are at varying stages between halfway and full.

After six hours, the women all gained their first skill point. Double the amount of time it took our max mood fellow to gain his first skill point.

I made an interesting observation during the first part of our test. I took the women 6 hours to gain their first skill point, 4 hours for their second skill point, and 8 hours for their third skill point. I found it odd that the first skill point took longer than the second.

Due to the dynamic motives, Our Blue Fellow was not at his peak mood for the entire duration of the first part of the test. His total time for skilling three points was 10.5 hours. The women all took 18 hours. My guess is that if he had been in max mood for the entire duration, he would have only taken 9 hours to reach his third point.

For the second part of the test, I had the test subjects read the second volume of Logic skill. For this segment, I realized that having an incomplete room negated the beautifully decorated moodlet, so I made sure to remove all paint and floor coverings from the room that the girls were in. I also removed the windows, so they lost the beautiful vista moodlet as well. of course having no windows or lights in there room meant that they also got an "It's dark" negative moodlet to go along with it.

Through these means I was able to get our Red Girl into a normal mood, i.e. not in the bubble.

The other two girls were both slightly in the bubble. Green girl was negligibly so, and Blue Girl only slightly more so.

Green Guy went and got the most expensive package at the spa, which gave him a nice +75 moodlet which lasted for a week. Through this moodlet, I was able to make him at the peak of "In the bubble" Mood. His job was to skill at the library with Peak Mood.

Blue Guy was at home and with the Beautiful Vista Moodlet, as well as the insane comfy moodlet he got because of being a Couch Potato, he was also at Peak Mood.

Red Guy was unable to become not "In the bubble" I tried various methods of lowering his mood; Making him Grumpy, Removing the paint and windows and lights in the room of the Library that he was to study in, and all sorts of other things. I didn't think of putting a chair outside so that his "Plagued By Nature" Moodlet would inflict him, but I doubt that measly -10 would do much to affect his mood. He was supposed to study in the library while being "Out of Bubble" but I was unable to accomplish this with Static Motives.

The results of Round two are as follows:

Green Guy total time to read second book: 8 hours.

Red Guy total time: 13.5 hours

Blue Guy total time: 16 hours.

Blue girl total time: 30 hours.

Red and Green Girl total time: 32 hours.

As you can see from this picture, even though Green girl was technically in the bubble, she was only barely bubbled enough to receive LTH points from her mood. She was so very slightly in the bubble that she still skilled at the same rate as if she wasn't.

So as you can see, it took the girls with no skill buffs 4 times as long to finish reading their book. The blue girl got a slight advantage due to her being "In the bubble" but since she was not very bubbled, she didn't get much of an advantage.

Blue Guy took twice as long to read his book as Green Guy. Red Guy was in between. My guess is that he would have taken 16 hours had I been able to get him out of bubble for skilling at the library.

In conclusion, with a nonbubble mood at home, a sim will skill at the Base Skilling Rate.

In bubble, a sim can skill up to twice as fast as Base.

At the library, a sim will skill at least twice as fast as Base.

The max skilling rate, with no traits that increase skilling, is 4 times base. This is achieved by skilling with maximum mood at the library.

So in closing, Skill at the library whenever possible, if you plan on skilling by reading a book.

Future tests will include figuring out which skills are affected by the Library Buff, and which skills are not (One would assume that this applies only to book based skilling, but we'll see). Also, I will do some tests to decide whether skilling from books or by other means are more efficient, where applicable.

Also, it has been confirmed that the number of books read by a sim influences how quickly they can skill from reading a book, the max buff gained from this is apparently 50 books.

Also, having higher Logic skill increases the skilling rate of all skills but Charisma and Athletics. I know that this increase is a maximum increase of 33%, but I plan on finding out exactly how effective this is, and whether or not half points count.

I hope to eventually have a "How To" for each skill, but there are a lot of factors involved with how quickly a sim skills. It may take several installation to compile everything.

Learning With Aaroc, Volume 1: Library and Gym Skill Bonuses.

2009-07-21T03:55:11Z

Hello and Welcome back to Aaroc Sims. today I do not have a Legacy entry, but instead I have the first installment in a section I'm going to call "Learning with Aaroc."

Today's test has to do with the bonuses from gaining skills at the gym or library versus learning at home. The results may surprise you. I know that I was certainly surprised by my findings.

Before we begin I'd like you to meet our test subjects today. They are a household consisting of 7 sims, five of which have the last name Logiclearner, and 2 with the last name Bodylearner.

Computer, like his brothers, is a Genius, Computer Whiz, Couch Potato, Bookworm, and Inappropriate. He will be learning the Logic Skill by Playing Chess on the computer.

Homereader has the same traits as his brother Computer. he will be learning logic by reading a book at home.

Telescope and Chess have the same traits as their other brothers. Telescope is purple and will be learning the Logic skill by looking through the telescope. Chess, the green one, will be learning Logic by practicing chess by himself.

Library has slightly different traits from his brothers. He is Grumpy and Hates Art instead of being an Inappropriate Couch Potato.

These two are Gym and Home Bodylearner. Like the Logiclearner brothers, they have the Genius, bookworm, Computer Whiz, and Inappropriate traits. However, instead of being Couch Potatoes, they are Athletic. Oh, and Gym is grumpy instead of being Innapropriate. this is to make up for the permanent Beautifully decorated moodlet that comes with making motives static.

Since I wanted Gym and Home to be able to gain as many skillpoints a possible between becoming fatigued, i had to wait until the morning to have them take a class in Athletics. I later learned that this was not necessary due to having needs made static by using testingcheatsenabled true. Oh well.

At 09:00 on Monday, after Gym and Home had taken their classes, I gave the commands to all involved in the test to start skilling.

I was surprised an hour later to find that Home was the first to gain a skill point. Mainly because he already had one athletic skill point, but also because his brother Gym, who supposedly had a boost to skilling by working out at the gym, only had half of his second bar filled up.

The only difference is that Gym does not have a Beautiful vista moodlet, which is worth 30 mood, and he is grumpy, which subtracts an additional 20 or so from his mood at all times.

The second to gain a skill point was telescope, roughly 20 minutes after Home got his first (or second, I supose) Athletic Skill point, was the first of the Loglearner brothers to gain a Logic Skill Point. As you can see here, Homereader has only gained one half of a skill point by this time, and is roughly even with Chess.

Computer was second to gain his first skill point in Logic, at about 10:34, roughly 20 minutes after Telescope got his first skill point. As you can see, Homereader doesn't seem to be very far behind him.

I seem to have missed getting a picture of it, but Gym and Library both gained their first skill points at 10:52, roughly 2 hours after beginning. Homereader still had not gained his first skill point, so that confirmed that one definitely does get a boost from reading at the library, and it even surpasses some of the best moodlets, considering that Library is Grumpy, on a 10 comfort chair as opposed to a 50 comfort chair, and is missing out on the beautiful vista moodlet.

at 11:03, Telescope gained his second skill point. Homereader and Chess both had yet to gain their first.

at 11:08, chess gained his first skill point, followed by Homereader 7 minutes later at 11:15.

At 11:33, Home gained his second (or third, depending on how you're counting) Athletic Skill Point.

At 11:55, Computer gained his second Logic Skill Point. As you can see here, Telescope is halfway through his third, while Chess and Homereader are both only halfway through their second.

Shortly thereafter, at 12:08, Library received his second Skill point. Here is a picture of Homereader so you can compare how much more quickly Library is gaining points.

At 12:36, Chess gained his second skill point at the same time Telescope gained his third.

Roughly 15 minutes later, at 12:49, Homereader gained his second skill point. Here is a picture of Library so you can gage the difference between the two.

At that point, I stopped checking the time on every single skill point, but I'm glad I did not stop the experiment. I still kept tabs of the halfway marks, and the finish marks for each sim, however, and when the readers finished each volume of logic. I didn't get pictures of it, but Library finished his first book at 14:26 (5 and a half hours after beginning) and Homereader finished his first book at 15:40 (almost 7 hours after beginning).

The first of our test subjects to reach the halfway mark for their skill was Home Bodylearner, at 17:53, 8 hours after beginning.

At 18:29, roughly 9.5 hours after beginning, the second to do so was Telescope, at roughly the same time Homereader gained his fourth skill point.

An hour later, at about 19:25, Library reached his halfway mark. At this point in time, Chess was in last place with about 3.9 skill points. this surprised me because Homereader had been the last to gain the first two skill points.

At 23:47 Monday night, Library finished reading his second book and moved on the final Logic Skill Volume.

At 01:57 Tuesday morning, Chess was the last of the Logiclearners to gain his fifth Logic Skillpoint. As you can see here, Homereader appears to have overcome Computer in Logic skill.

At 03:16 Tuesday, Homereader finished up the second volume of Logic Skill and moved on to the third and final.

At 03:43 I was surprised to see that Library had overtaken Telescope in logic skill. Library learned his 7th skill point while Telescope still only had about 6.5

Two and a half hours later, 20 hours after starting, Gym finally hit his halfway mark in Athletic skill. By this time, Home was a whole point and a half ahead of him, with roughly 6.5 Athletic Skill points.

At 06:06, Computer attained his 6th Logic Skill Point. As you can see in the background, Chess is still a good deal behind him with 5 points. Telescope and Homereader both have 6 points.

Roughly five hours later, I was surprised to see that Homereader had caught up to Telescope. In this picture they both have 7.5 skill points.

At 00:32 on Wednesday, Library was the first to maximize his Logic skill, roughly 41.5 hours after starting.

Ten hours later, at 10:21, Homereader reaches his goal of Ten Logic Points. Total elapsed time: 51.5 hours.

Nine and a half hours later, at 19:58, Home Bodylearner maxes his Athletics Skill. according to his skill journal he has done 59 hours of cardio exercise and run 590 kilometers.

At 22:08 telescope maximizes his Logic Skill. Total elapsed time: 59 hours.

00:48, Friday, yes, a whole day after Telescope maxed his Logic skill, Computer reached level ten in Logic on the Computer. As you can see in the background, Chess still has quite a ways to go for that last point. Total elapsed time: 85 hours!

A whopping 20 hours later, at 20:01 Friday night, Chess finally managed to maximize his Logic skill. total elapsed time: 105 hours! (Now just imagine how long that would have been if he wasn't a genius)

Gym, meanwhile, still has half of a point in Athletic Skill to learn.

Finally, at 14:21 on Saturday, Gym manages to maximize his Athletic skill. According to his skill journal he has done 125 hours of cardio exercise and had jogged 1253 kilometers.

In a final attempt to see if working out at the gym has any sort of benefits, I have both Gym and Home switch to Strength training machines. Maybe you are able to work out longer at the gym or something? Nope. Both become fatigued after 14 hours and 40 minutes.

Now I will talk about the analysis if these data. Obviously, DO NOT WORK OUT AT THE GYM IF YOU CAN HELP IT! AVOID THE GYM AT ALL COSTS. For these tests I had both Athletics Skillers using the "Don't break A Sweat" tone. Obviously using Push Self and Quick Burst when they become available will help speed things along. I may test these modes at a later date, to find out which is most useful when all you want to do is have your sim use a moodlet manager to get rid of fatigue and stink in between workout sessions so you can max Athletics as quickly as possible.

For Logic, it appears that using the telescope until skill level 5 or 6 is superior to reading at the library. After one reaches level 5 or 6, reading at the Library becomes the most efficient way to skill Logic. My guess here is because of the final Logic volume containing four skill points in it as opposed to 3 like the first two. Keep in mind, however, that my test subjects are not only geniuses, but also bookworms. It is possible that sims who are niether will gain skill points faster on the telescope regardless of skill level. this will also be tested at a future date.

Now, in theory, the sims who were skilling on the computer and at the chess table were also gaining chess skill. There really isn't much of a way to test this, however, until the chess skill is able to be measured in some form or fashion.

That is all. I hope this demonstration will help you in some way or another. Especially the misconceptions about gaining skill faster at the gym. Of course it's debatable that townies who work out at the gym will be more fit than townies who do not, and theoretically they will not work out at the gym if none of your sims do, so it might be wise to use the facilities at the gym at least periodically if you do not want your town to be full of fat people. This, however, is only speculative, and not a problem if you have mods that prevent sims from being mutilated by Story Progression.

Nunya Non-Leg 7: Are you happy, Craxy?

2009-07-18T21:07:28Z

Welcome back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Nunya Non-Legacy!

As we left off last time, Emma, our Generation 2 Heiress, had moved out on her own, gotten married to an unfortunate man, and had two children, Joanna and Laura.

The birth of her second child, Laura, did nothing to diminish the love Emma felt for her first-born, Joanna.

Before we knew it, however, it was time for Laura's toddler birthday. Despite her lack of clothing and her apparent boyishness, Laura is a cute little girl.

Of course familial bliss seems to be a rare thing in this house, as shortly after Laura's birthday, the trash compactor broke, and even though he had no handiness skill, Rainer insisted that he fix it. The results were.. unfortunate.

And there was yet another death in the family.

Rainer's grave was sent to the backyard under the weeping willow.

May he rest in peace next to his best friend, Larry.

After Rainer's death, Emma was terribly distraught. She had two babies to take care of and she was unable to work because of the forced maternity leave.

She invited Susie broke, one of her best friends, over and cried on her shoulder for a bit. Susie Broke was living in the old Spenster place by herself at this point in time and rather lonely by herself in that big house, so she offered to move in with her friend and help her out.

As it turned out, Susie had quite a good deal of handiness skill so it wasn't long before the trash compactor was once again in good working condition.

Susie was a Natural Cook, and her biggest lifetime dream was to one day become a celebrated five start chef. It was a wonder that she could afford to move into the old Spenster place by herself considering she had no job and came from a rather poor family.

In any event, she headed out and got a job at the local bistro.

Once Susie had moved in, life returned to some semblance of normal, at least for a while.

Emma spent her time teaching her little girls their life skills, like learning to speak and make lots of rich friends in case things in life went sour, such as had happened to poor Emma twice now in a short time.

Walking was also an important life skill.

Susie Broke was much like her cousin (and Emma's Stepfather), Trigger Broke. Both were slobs, which meant it nearly took an act of God to get them dressed in the mornings.

They also both liked to make things self-cleaning. One big difference between Susie and Trigger, however, was that Susie broke everything she touched because she was terribly unlucky in addition to being a slob.

Needless to say, Susie's handiness skills came in quite.. handy.

At least until one day when she wanted to boost the channels on the TV.

Emma was at work and the babies were sleeping upstairs while Susie was tinkering with the television, when suddenly Susie got a shock.

Death came and gazed upon Susie's lifeless body on the floor. He checked his lists and shook his head.

Much to Susie's disgust and horror, the Grim reaper started laughing at her.

"Your misfortune is a constant source of amusement to both myself and those around you," he told her, "for this, I will let you live so that I may continue to be amused by your antics."

Having been given a new chance at life, Susie was overjoyed.

She was not, however, overjoyed that death is no excuse to miss work.

Susie never did tell Emma about her little mishap, so Emma went on blissfully unaware, and helped Little Laura read a few books.

Once again, all was well with the world.

Before too long, one night while she was out making collection runs, Emma's time as a young adult came to an end, and she became a full fledged adult.

Her choice of attire at this life stage was unfortunate, but easily remedied.

Of course Emma wasn't the only one who had a birthday. Joanna became a child with the Virtuoso trait.

Little did I realize at the time that children are unable to play the guitar.

Of course, during all these hectic times, Emma never did stop dreaming about her late husband, Larry.

Don't you wish I would hurry and update already?

2009-07-18T17:46:38Z

Yeah, me too. Unfortunately duet o my game crashing I lost a lot of stuff the other day. Ally had nearly completed her Music Skill Challenge Point, Lydia had completed her Logic skill challenge Point. Rayven had completed his Athletics Skill Challenge Point. Faust and Feralas had become teenagers and were scoping out potential spouses. Then all of the sudden my game froze up and Windows kicked it. I hadn't saved all day while playing and achieving all those points (From now on I'm going to save and save often, mind you) Elly was actually closing in on her Fishing and Gardening Skill Challenge Points. Plus she had gotten the opportunity to grow meat plants.

Since the crash, I haven't played my family much. It's a bit depressing, but I'm coming along and getting a few pictures. I just now went to post an entry, only to find that I didn't have enough content to make an update. It's still early though, and hopefully I'll be able to get something out today.

At least this time around I have a bit more knowledge about playing for tips in the park, and will be able to get Ally closer to her Charisma Skill Challenge Point sooner than I did last time. Still bummed out, however.

Asa Reloaded! Part 15: Where's Feralas?

2009-07-14T20:00:24Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust and Feralas, our esteemed Legacy Larvae of generation two, had just become toddlers, Lydia had reached her LTW, gotten me a bunch of points, and the Family decided that Faust was going to be the heir because nobody wanted to interact with Feralas.

Ally was down at the park working on her guitar skills, when I received notification that she had completed the Super Friendly Skill Challenge. She now has over 20 friends and no longer loses relationship over time.

This time around instead of cycling through the toddler skill books like I did with the first batch of kidcakes, I just left them all on the floor for the toddlers to read at their leisure. this was not a good plan. I think Faust managed to read most of the books, but Feralas read very few.

Lydia, since she needed to get her Logic and Painting Skill Challenge points still, retired from her job after having worked at the top level for a day.

And I had her pick out some new clothes that I thought fit her a bit better.

With her Spiffy Cool Gothy Grannie Getup, she was inspired to go downstairs and paint her 5th Masterpiece.

The next painting she painted was her 30th, so she had now completed all Painting Skill Challenges, but she needed to max her actual painting skill.

Which she did in the middle of painting her next painting, thus getting me one point for completing the Painting Skill Challenges.

The next order of business of course, was for Lydia to get me that Logic Challenge Point, so I sent her out to search the galaxy. However, she was interrupted by this guy.

So she started tutoring him in the Handiness skill. He didn't stick around for very much longer though.

Meanwhile, Ally was down at the park meeting and greeting people and working on her Charisma and Guitar Skills. She ran into Gahdna D'Aaroc, one of my manslaves, who had apparently been promoted to Mad Scientist.

And here is one of the features I love about Indie Stone:

Notice how Ally and the guy pictured above are talking about their shared trait, Virtuoso. Then notice that he's in one of the lower tiers of the Music career track (if you can't recognize that outfit by now...). He actually chose his job based on his traits, and possibly his LTW.

Ding ding ding! Elly got me a point by fixing her tenth dishwasher, and finally fulfilling the Electrician Skill Challenge under Handiness.

Rayven completed the Bodybuilder Skill Challenge.

So then I redecorated his room until he got a Beautifully Decorated Moodlet and gave him his very own treadmill. While jogging he maxed his Athletics Skill and got me two points: One for achieving his LTW, and one for LTH.

Pro-tip: Did you know that working out on the treadmill adds to your sim's Jog Distance?

Senility started settling in on Tanaris. While Ally was taking a shower in the downstairs bathroom, he came in to empty the toddler potty, and ended up stopping and staring at his daughter's naked form in the shower. Ally was not pleased.

Oddly enough though, she didn't get an embarrassed moodlet.

Since the boys' birthday was coming up, and Ally wanted to throw a party, I had her invite everyone for the Birthday Party. Of course.. Ally got confused and thought she was throwing a birthday party for herself, because she rolled up the want to have a great birthday. Another interesting want she rolled up was to ask this Mitchell guy if he was single, even though she already had a boyfriend

Of course, Bernard hadn't grown up so well, so who would you choose out of the two?

The whole point of the party was to grow up the toddlers, however, not for Ally to get a new boyfriend, and that's what Tanaris did. For some reason I was not invited to this party.

Feralas went first. He rolled Frugal for his third trait. That means I'm going to make him a snob when he hits teen in hopes of getting a Money LTW to roll in for him.

And I gave Faust the Genius trait. I plan on trying to get him to roll Astronaut for his LTW, which should be ridiculously easy.

END!!

Points Gained: 4 (Rayven: LTW, LTH. Lydia: Painting. Elly: Handiness)
Total Score: 17
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 14: Point Plethora

2009-07-14T07:29:50Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Faust and Feralas, our esteemed Legacy Larvae of generation two, had just been born and had their very first birthday.

Ally was still working on her guitar skills, waiting until her birthday before she did anymore painting skill challenges.

Tanaris was busy teaching Everybody's Favorite Toddler, Faust, his life skills. Seriously. Everybody constantly wanted to snuggle, tickle, and everything else with Faust, but nobody ever rolled up any wants for poor Feralas. I guess my generation two heir has been chosen for me.

Rayven James was supposed to be working on his Athletics Skill, but instead he was being rude to some random guy at the gym. One of the problems with Athletic sims. I click on him to go to the gym, and he goes to the gym, but never autonomously works out. Instead he does everything else he can possibly do. Notice the spiffy green eyes on the guy Ray's being rude to? Another of my custom eyes ganked by the game, but I don't mind so much in this case.

And before too long it was time for the older set of twins to celebrate their young Adult birthday.

First up for transition was Elly, followed by Ally, who turned out to be a really pretty young adult. A little surprising when you think about how she looked like a drag queen when she was a toddler.

Ally Asa: Artistic, Charismatic, Virtuoso, Perfectionist, Loves the Outdoors
Favorites: Electronica, Stu Surprise?, Blue
LTW: Master of The Arts.

I gave both of them makeovers. I was still in love with Elly's watermelon theme, so I continued to stick with it. She better hope she doesn't turn into an elder in this house, or she's going to be dressed like a watermelon for the rest of her life.

Elly Asa: Neurotic, Loves The Outdoors, Angler, Loner, Good
Favorites: Electronica, Fruit Parfait, Red.

The very next thing she did after getting a makeover was to go catch a Death Fish. She couldn't catch one before her birthday because of the crazy psychic curfew police. But the Death Fish wasn't the last fish she needed.

Meet Binky! The 15,000 LTH Vampire Fish. Elly got 15,000 LTH when she caught this bad boy, because she got 7500 for catching every type of fish, and another 7500 for mastering the Fishing Skill. Elly sold Binky for like $400.

Ally painted like 3 masterpieces in a row once she was assigned the Perfectionist Trait. I was impressed, but I still needed her to paint a few brilliant paintings as well.

She had finally painted 30 painting, so she was able to graduate from small paintings to other sizes without taking years to complete each one.

It just so happened that she mastered the Painting Skill while working on her first Large Painting.

In other news, Faust is adorable. I didn't take nearly as many pictures of him as I would have liked.

And Rayven is the worst Evil sim ever. Instead of rolling wants to Steal Candy from his nephews, he rolls wants to snuggle them and tickle them whenever he sees them. Especially Faust.

Remember Ally's first Large Painting? The one from three slides ago? The one where she mastered her Painting Skill? Well it was the last Brilliant Painting she needed for the Skill challenge, so now she only has to paint a few more Masterpieces and she'll get me a point.

All hail Lydia! She just got me three points by Reaching the top of the Forensics Career Track, obtaining her LTW, and amassing over ... 160,000 LTH?!? Well, I guess it has been a week since I last checked her LTH.

Now that her job was out of the way, Lydia was free to devote her time to completing those Painting Skill Challenges.

Ally took a moment out of her busy schedule to get me another point by painting a portrait of Rayven. So far it's the best TS3 portrait I've seen.

Of course her attempts at painting Elly weren't so successful. At least she did sell this one for $2200. Surprised anyone would pay that much.

Speaking of Elly, I had purchased a dishwasher and put it outside for her to upgrade, which she did happily.

And then she upgraded the speakers on the radio in the Painting room, thus completing the Tinkerer Skill challenge. At that point in time she only needed to repair one more electrical appliance to get me a Handiness Skill Challenge Point.

Ally, however, got me a Painting Skill challenge Point by painting her 5th Masterpiece.

END!!

Points Gained: 5 (Lydia: LTW, Career: Forensics, LTH, Rayven James: Portrait, Ally: Painting Skill Challenge)
Total Score: 13
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 13: Evil Eyes.

2009-07-14T05:41:17Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Lydia, our esteemed Legacy Spouse of generation one, had just gone into labor for the third time.

Which lead to her giving birth to her fourth and fifth children, Faust and Feralas, both boys. Faust is named after another of my old Yahoo RP characters from the nineties while Feralas is named after a forest in World of Warcraft. (Tanaris, coincidently, is a dessert? desert? in World of Warcraft)

Both children were placed in their cribs and promptly forgotten for the next three days.

The older children were busy working on their respective skill challenges. Ally needed painting, but I decided to hold off on that for a bit, until she became a young adult and got the Perfectionist Trait, which seems to have helped her mother immensely with painting better quality paintings. Once finished with the painting shown (which I believe was her 30th painting done, and one of the Challenges), she was sent to the park to work on her guitar skill.

Elly was busy with her Mechanical Skill Challenges.

And Rayven was busy with his Logic Skill Challenges.

Here we can see him logging the coordinates to his 20th celestial discovery, which meant that he needed to work on his other Challenges, so he invited over and beat three ranked Chess Opponents in one day.

Since Tanaris had finished 2 out of 3 Cooking Skill Challenges, all that was left was maxing his Cooking Skill and learning all recipes. It might have been quicker to have him go to the Library and read a book, but I figured that if he were home, he would be able to take care of the Larvae if they needed attention.

Lydia, after having completed one of her Painting Skill Challenges, by painting 6 Brilliants paintings, was slowly working her way up. Here we can see her finishing her very first masterpiece; something Ally has yet to do, even though Ally had painted 30 paintings by this point, and I believe Lydia had only painted about 20 or so.

Of course Lydia wasn't neglecting her job or her Logic Skill Challenges. she was still climbing the ranks to become Grand Master. I believe Emma Kouga-Lypse bumped her up to rank 4, so Lydia questioned her so she could write a report for work.

While attempting to challenge her next ranked opponent, however (Cornelia Goth, from the looks of it, though I could be wrong) Lydia celebrated her final birthday before death.

While she was doing that, Tanaris was finishing up his cooking skill.

I can't tell here if Lydia is disappointed that ~~her husband~~ Everyone ignored her birthday or if she hates her new clothes, or perhaps she just plain didn't like being old.

In any event, Elly got her Plumber achievement by fixing her tenth toilet.

And Tanaris ran out to the bookstore so he could buy all his missing recipes. Here you can see him learning Ambrosia, which I thought was his last recipe, but I was wrong.

Somehow he had gone all this time without having ever learned to make ratatouille.

So after learning how to make ratatouille, which is fun to say, he earned me one point by completing all the Cooking Skill Challenges.

Shortly thereafter, it was time for the twins to celebrate their first birthday. If you haven't been able to tell by now, I love birthday parties. I'm always right there, front and center for every age transition to which I am invited.

First up for transition was Feralas.

Feralas Asa: Absent-Minded, Genius
Favorites: Pop, Hot Dogs, Yellow

His very first interaction with anybody outside the family was with this guy:

This guy stole candy from Feralas, which means he Evil. At least in this case, the creepy red eyes and black trenchcoat thinggy were put to good use. Even if the guy's ugly.

Next up for transition was, obviously, Faust.

Faust Asa: Brave, Friendly.
Favorites: custom, sushi?, Purple

During the birthday party Lydia was able to beat her last ranked Chess opponent and reach Rank 5, thus completing one of her Logic Skill Challenges. That meant she only had to discover 20 new celestial bodies and tutor skills to other sims for 30 hours to complete her Logic Skill Challenges and get me one stinking point.

END!!

Points Gained: 2 (Tanaris: Cooking Skill Challenge, Faust or Feralas: Gen 2 heir)
Total Score: 8
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 12: The Pitter Patter of New Feet.

2009-07-12T00:21:24Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Lydia, our esteemed Legacy Spouse of generation one, had finally managed to beat Rose McGovern so she could continue climbing the Official Chess Ranks, and she nabbed the Tutor skill Challenge from Logic. Of course this meant she was still a long way from completing the Logic skill challenge Point.

Lydia wasn't the only one working on Skill Challenges though. Tanaris managed to prepare a total of 50 meals. Only 25 to go.

I bought another fireplace. If it looks familiar it's because it's pretty much the same one that Tanaris practiced upgrades on, only new. Shortly after Elly upgraded it with Auto-lite, it auto-caught-fire.

And I got notice that it was time to conceive an heir. Actually I got notice that Lydia was going to turn into an elder, which is close enough. I was highly upset by this, however, since it was Saturday, Lydia needed only one more day at work to reach her LTW, and she only worked four days a week. This all meant it was going to be a week and some change before she got me those three points (she was at a LTH total that would have meant she reached 100,000).

Since the kids' sleep schedules were all borked and we had tons of money, I decided to get them each their own most expensive double bed. This, however, meant expanding the house. I figured it was probably a good idea for the girls to not share a room with their brother anymore.

As you can see, the bottom floor hasn't changed much since our last house upgrade.

Before too long, Lydia started showing signs of a Mysterious Illness.

Tanaris was still going for 75 prepared meals, most of which were autumn salad or fruit parfait, provided we had the ingredients for such. Since we had an overload of tomatoes, he sometimes made spaghetti.

Elly of course, since her favorite food was Fruit Parfait, didn't mind his efforts a bit.

Tan's 75th meal that he prepared was a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. And let me tell you, he makes a mean PB&J. That sandwich right there is of outstanding quality.

After having prepared so many meals, Tanaris was forced to watch the cooking channel at every waking, nonworking hour.

Lydia started showing her pregnancy. She seems happy at the prospect of stalling her elder years.

In a rare moment, all the kids got together to do their homework. Most of the time I didn't let them bother with homework since they always went to school in splendid moods and still got on the honor roll.

Since ungrumpifying Lydia, she seems much more open to autonomous flirting and kissing with Tanaris. I have no idea why she's not painting and he's not watching the cooking channel, however. Stupid sims. Work MOAR.

Actually when she did that she was just waiting on her next chess opponent, Gunther Goth, whom she swiftly beat into submission.

After that she painted her sixth brilliant painting. By this point, Ally had painted twice as many total paintings and half as many of them were brilliant. I decided then what her fifth trait was going to be.

Elly went home with one of her friends from school. They all had those freaky eyes, and I couldn't figure out why they were all just mingling around creepily while Elly did her homework.

Then I looked around and realized they lived in one of the Homeless Shelters I'd built, so they didn't have much to do besides mingling around creepily. Elly promptly finished her homework and ran home.

Meanwhile Ally had brought a friend home from school with her. I figured since she was the most likely to leave home early, I decided to secure her a future spouse now, before Indie Stone took over and made him unavailable for her.

Rayven had reached the top of his career at the mausoleum. Or at least I think he's at the top, since he was level 3. I suppose I'll find out in a few days when he either gets promoted or a raise, but in any event, it was his birthday.

He grew up into the dreaded overalls, so I swiftly had him run upstairs and fix it.

I liked his teenage look, and decided to keep it.

Lydia promptly went into labor.

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 6
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 11: Troubled Tutor

2009-07-11T23:32:34Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Rayven, Ally, and Elly, our esteemed Legacy Teens of generation two, had all turned into teens and gotten their LTWs.

Lydia wasted no time in trying to get more tutored hours in for her Logic Skill Challenge point. Of course between that, her job, her other Logic Challenges, and her Painting Challenges, she didn't manage to get too much tutor time out of her children before they all had As and could no longer benefit from such actions.

Elly and Ally, both Lovers of the Outdoors, started taking their meals ad eating them outside, which meant they would grab a plate of food from the kitchen, which was in the rear of the house, and walk it all the way around to the front of the house where the outside party tables were. Needless to say, I immediately moved these tables around to the back of the house.

Of course having a new setup for the parties did nothing to remind me that Tanaris was due to have his final birthday before death

He didn't seem to mind me forgetting his birthday though. He immediately retired and picked up a job in politics.

One day one of the girls brought a friend home from school with them, so I tried an experiment. as luck would have it, Lydia was able to tutor him in his schoolwork.

She tutored him until she was about to pass out, but her total tutored hours were still 2 shy of the achievement: 20.

Things got a bit more difficult from there since the kids never brought any more friends home from school. I wonder why.

In other news, apparently Rayven got mooned while searching the galaxy.

Ok, so that was a bad joke, but he did manage to spot another meteor, which did sadly not add to his celestial body count. However, it did appraise for $6900 and was promptly sold for a solid profit.

Since Elly will be needing Handiness for her LTW of reaching Creature-robot Crossbreeder, I had her start working on her Handiness Skill Challenges.

Ally was more than happy to help her dear sister out.

Tanaris may be old, but he sure does think he's still got it. He's constantly stopping and posing whenever I let him do anything on his own.

Of course when I do catch him goofing off, I send him to the kitchen to make several single plates of autumn salad or fruit parfait at a time. I decided he does still have time to get the Cooking Skill Challenge.

Ally managed to paint a portrait of Lydia. I think it catches her grumpy essence nicely, don't you?

In other news, Elly was ACROSS THE STREET fishing when I was informed that it was past her curfew, so I had her stop fishing and head home. Before she was able to take a single step towards the house, the psychic curfew police picked her up and brought her ACROSS THE STREET back home.

Lydia was none too pleased with this. I'm not exactly sure which part of this she was displeased with, but I digress.

Can't say I really blame her for getting upset though. She's been rather stressed lately, and she was completely and utterly unable to defeat Rose McGovern in chess.

Finally I'd had enough so I purchased her a Midlife Crisis, replacing Grumpy and Loner with Genius and Lucky. Lydia won her very next match against Rose, who looks a bit sarcastic with that little clap of hers.

"Oh well isn't that nice, you finally managed to beat me. Good job, deary."

The next day at work, with her new Lucky trait, Lydia managed to get a raise of over $300/hour. She was only making about $150/hour before, so that raise TRIPLED her daily take home pay. I was quite impressed.Also, she had managed to reach level 9 of her LTW career, so she was only one promotion away.

So she had ally or Elly invite over one of their high school friends so she could try and get those last two hours of tutoring in. Unfortunately, the friend invited over was apparently no longer a teenager.

He was quickly shooed off the lot, however it took quite some doing for any of the kids to invite over any of their "friends". Finally this girl was duped into coming for a visit. Lydia achieved the Tutoring Skill Challenge for Logic.

END!!

Points Gained: 1 (Lydia: Portrait)
Total Score: 6
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 10: Teens and LTWs

2009-07-11T03:34:21Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Tanaris, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had a few more mishaps while trying to get the Handiness Skill Challenge Point as his children were growing up and skilling their little brains out. Rayven had turned into a teenager, and soon it would be time for his sisters to follow suit.

I had intended for Rayven to become the Emperor of Evil. That was, after all, why I made him Evil in the first place, however he was rolling a myriad of all sorts of OTHER LTWs instead. In fact his very first want ever had been the LTW to become an Illustrious Author, which had promptly been right-clicked into oblivion. He also rolled up the LTWs for: Astronaut, Super Secret Agent, Chess Grandmaster, as well as many others which were all promptly right-clicked into oblivion, and upon receiving his first body skill point, Perfect Body/Perfect Mind. Once that rolled in, I had a small debate with myself. Did I really want him to stay in the Legacy Household Long enough to become the Emperor of Evil? Especially since that's going to take a lot more time than most jobs, considering you usually are forced a day off when you get promoted. At that rate he'll stay in the house for generations before I can move him out. Finally, I made my decision to lock in Perfect Body/Perfect Mind. After all, his sister, Elly, had already rolled and locked in a LTW to reach the (almost) top of a career, so that would be two spares living in the house for a long long time.

Meanwhile, Tanaris was still working on that Handiness Skill Challenge Point. Here you can see him fixing his ninth electrical object.

Elly was an Angler, and she enjoyed fishing. Unfortunately this meant she was breaking curfew a lot, even though the pond was right across the street. Since Tanaris had boosted the channels on the television, however, I finally figured out that she could raise her fishing skill by watching TV. Score!

Ally, meanwhile, was chained to her easel if she had no motives that needed immediate care.

Rayven was fortunate enough to spot a meteor as it plummeted to the ground, and he miraculously fit it in his pocket long enough to bring it home. It was initially appraised at $3300 or so, but upon examining it, the value jumped up to about $4500.

Since the children were performing their duties so well, their LTH totals were disastrous, and I felt like being kind, I let them fulfill a few wishes to play with each other.

Of course Ally wasn't so thrilled at the prospect once she actually started playing catch with her brother.

One day while Tanaris was at the Library reading up on Handiness (I keep calling it Mechanical don't I? oops) I received notification that he had reached level ten. as if on cue, Elly broke the dishwasher.

Tanaris swiftly returned home and promptly finished up his Handiness Skill Challenges and got me another point.

Lydia, of course, was still trying to get her Logic Skill Challenge Point, so she invited over another Ranked Chess opponent.

Unfortunately, she was simply unable to defeat Rose McGovern, and after about three tries, Rose left because she had to go to work or something.

Rayven took a part time job at the mausoleum. I believe this was before he had rolled in his Perfect Body/Perfect Mind LTW, and I had still been trying to coax Emperor of Evil out of him. I figured working with the dead might inspire him, but of course it didn't.

Ally was progressing nicely with her painting skill, and the amount of paintings she'd completed. I saved each and every one of them in anticipation of future painting skill opportunities.

And she finally had enough skill points to paint Still Life images, so I had her paint a portrait of Tanaris, which got me a point.

Before too long it was time for the girls to grow up, and this time I actually remembered to throw a birthday party for them. Of course, Tanaris had rolled a want to throw them a birthday party, which was a good reminder.

I think they both turned out rather pretty, if a bit puddingy.

Now that she was a teenager, Elly's neurotic trait started showing itself and she ran screaming from my Evil Glow, which I thought was amusing.

Ally was up first for a makeover, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I can't remember the last trait I gave her, but I think it was Charismatic. I thought about giving her the Technophobe trait so I could have her sabotage electronic devices for her sister to fix, but I might still do that when she becomes a young adult.

Ally's Stats: Artistic, Virtuoso, Loves the Outdoors, Charismatic
Favorite: Stu surprise, Electronica, Blue
LTW: Master of the Arts

I gave Elly a makeover as well. I see her as kind of tomboyish, hence the hair and boots, but I thought the watermelon theme from when she was a child was ridiculously cute, so I kept it going.

Elly's Stats: Loves the Outdoors, Angler, Neurotic, Loner
Favorites: Fruit Parfait, Electronica, Red
LTW: Creature-Robot Crossbreeder

I was extremely pleased when I whipped out my laptop and saw that it was the same custom laptop I had made while playing my simself. :)

END!!

Points Gained: 2 (Tanaris: Handiness Skill, Portrait)
Total Score: 5
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 9: More Mishaps

2009-07-11T02:33:11Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Tanaris, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had a few mishaps while trying to get the Handiness Skill Challenge Point as his children were growing up and skilling their little brains out.

I was watching Lydia play chess with her latest ranked opponent when I suddenly received notification that it was Ally's birthday and she was growing up.

She turned into an OK child, if a bit odd looking, and if memory serves me correctly she received the trait of Loves the Outdoors.

Elly grew up automatically right behind her, even though she had missed out on reading one of her toddler skill books, which was okay because I later found out it was the last Writing skill book, and I had no intentions of her ever writing, really.

She received the Angler Trait, and despite not having gotten that last toddler writing skill, bot she and her sister shared their very first wish to roll in; Become an Illustrious Author, which I had no intention for either of them to do. I didn't mention it, but that was also Rayven's very first want (which had also been promptly right-clicked into oblivion).

Lydia, meanwhile was beating her latest ranked chess opponent into submission while Tanaris was attempting to revive his poor neglected garden.

Of course after winning, Lydia did her routine questioning so she could improve her work performance.

Over the next few days Lydia managed to win quite a few ranked matches and write just as many reports for work.

Of course some sims didn't take to losing very well.

While all this was going on, Ally, Elly, and Rayven were busy working on their blocks skill, aka Handiness for the future. Rayven had finished with his block skill, but I let him play anyway so that he could gain some relationship with his sisters. In hindsight, this was unnecessary for all the children but one: Elly, since she eventually rolled the LTW to become a Creature-Robot Crossbreeder, which I now regret having accepted for her.

Tanaris was also busy; he managed to repair enough plumbing objects to receive the Plumber Skill Challenge.

Of course he still needed to complete all the unique upgrades, or so I thought anyway, so I had him bang on the front door with a hammer until he changed the doorbell sound.

After he had completed that task, I purchased the cheapest fireplace for him to perform more upgrades on. I believe he started with fireproof.

Lydia reached Chess Rank 3 upon beating my Gardener Servant, Gahdna D'Aaroc into submission. He was one of those who didn't take to losing very well. I forget whether or not she questioned him, but being that he lives with me, the current reigning Emperor of Evil, I suppose it's better that she not question him.

Before too long I received sudden notification that it was Rayven James's birthday. He was supposed to be searching the Galaxy, but he decided to Grow Up instead.

He grew up with Tan's hairstyle and into clothes that didn't really suit him that well. I gave him a nice makeover. his outfit actually looks a bit like one of the work Uniforms in the Evil Criminal Career track, which is what I intended for Rayven's LTW to be.

In hopes of giving Rayven some Divine Inspiration for his LTW, I invited myself over for a little chat. Of course I wore my Emperor of Evil uniform.

While he didn't roll in the LTW to become Emperor of Evil, he did think it was spiffy cool that we shared almost every trait; Evil, Genius, Ambitious, and Athletic.

In other news, Tanaris completed his second upgrade to the fireplace. I believe it was Auto Light.

Apparently, he thought this was sexy.

In any event, he still had one more unique upgrade to give the fireplace, and that was the ability to change the color of the fire.

Upon completing this upgrade, I received notification that Tanaris has accomplished the Tinkerer skill Challenge. I was surprised because I thought he had to perform all unique upgrades. Apparently he only needed ten. Immediately after accomplishing this, however, he had to run off to work.

Unfortunately, since the auto light feature had been replaced, the fireplace never auto-turned off, so it caught fire that day while everybody was out of the house. Luckily the only thing lost in the blaze was a set of curtains.

Lydia was still beating ranked chess opponents and one that she invited over really caught my interest. Y'see, I had saved the custom eye color that I gave my simself, and apparently the game decided that meant it was free reign to give to Random Story-Progression-Created Sims.

Lydia beat that woman, whose name escapes me, not that it really matters, and she turned out to be a really sore loser. Immediately upon losing to Lydia, she got up, walked into the living room, and passed out on the floor.

Of course Lydia still needed to write a report for work, so she promptly woke her up and questioned her.

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 3
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 8: Mishaps

2009-07-10T22:42:57Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Tanaris, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had just had twin girls, Elly and Ally, after having a baby boy, Rayven James.

By this time, Tanaris had gained quite a few LTH points, enough to buy a Moodlet Manager, and well over 100,000 total, which gave me a point.

At this juncture, I wasn't sure what to do with Tanaris, since most of his skills aside from Charisma were pretty low. I figured it might not be a bad idea to try and get a Cooking point, since he's the only one in the family to have ever served a meal. So at night while everyone else was sleeping, Tanaris would be glued to the cooking channel.

During the day, he would be glued to his children, helping them learn those ever important life skills.

Before too long it was Rayven's birthday, which meant he was going to need to move out of the nursery, so I built an upstairs and gave the house a small makeover.

And after having taught Elly how to walk, Tanaris threw a birthday party for Rayven James.

Of course my simself was at the party. I did get a little worried when he started carrying Elly around everywhere. After all, Elly is what I want to name my daughter if I ever have one in real life.

Luckily, I didn't steal Elly from her family. What kind of Sim God would I be if I robbed my own Legacy Family of a point source? An Evil one? Well, that I am, but still.

In any event, Rayven James grew up and he's still a pretty cute kid.

After the party, Lydia wasted no time in trying to get closer to her Logic Challenge Point; she sat Rayven down and tutored him in his schoolwork.

I had spent so much money on home renovations that day that I didn't have enough money to pay the bills when I got the notification that they were due. The next morning, of course, I had enough money to pay the bills, but I forgot about them and got notification that the repo man was on his way to take my stuff. I had Lydia pay the bills before she went to work that morning, but unfortunately we still got a Repo (wo)man visit. She took our telescope, thus negating the point I got earlier. sigh.

Tanaris was still trying to max his cooking skill, and on some nights Chaim would come and keep him company while watching the Cooking Channel.

When the bathtub broke, however, I got otherly inspired. Tan had 5 mechanical skill points, and he'd fixed quite a few objects already. Instead of cooking, I decided I would try and go for the Handiness Skill Challenge Point with Tanaris. Maybe he could still do Cooking afterwards.

Lydia was still trying to become a Chess Grandmaster, so she invited over another ~~Chess Victim~~ Opponent, Angla D'Aaroc, one of my Simself's sexy servants.

She beat him handily, and then I got an idea. Since she needed to write reports for work, and playing that one game of chess was a decent relationship booster, why not question her chess opponents before shooing them off the lot?

Questioning certainly took a lot less time and was way less motive-intensive than rummaging through peoples' trash. Things worked out quite nicely.

Tanaris was progressing on his Handiness challenge nicely. He banged on the stove for a while and ended up giving it the Improved Meal Quality Upgrade. I think this particular stove came prequipped with Fireproof and Self Cleaning.

I'm fairly certain Lydia reached rank 2 after she beat Angla, and her next opponent was Flamey Gay. She beat him handily, but by that time it was getting late and I wanted her to be able to write her report before going to bed. She would only have enough time to write one report before bed, she was going to get a promotion the next day, and unused reports are simply discarded, so she didn't bother with questioning Flamey.

The girls were coming along nicely with their toddler skills. Ally had finished up with all the books, and Elly only had two books left to read. Elly had finished with the Peg Box and Xylophone, but Ally still needed to finish up on the Xylophone.

Meanwhile, Rayven was working on his Blocks Skill.

Rayven would often roll wants to see a ghost, so he would sometimes sneak out to get a peek at Chaim the SCHMUCK!! while he was haunting. At least his ghost was useful for something other than getting me penalties.

Before too long, Ally had maxed all of her toddler skills, so she was sent to the block table so she could socialize with her brother, whom, aside from being in her relationship panel, she had never shared any interactions.

Meanwhile, Tanaris had a few mishaps while trying to boost the channels on the tv.

END!!

Points Gained: 1, Tanaris, LTH
Points Lost: 1, repo Woman visit
Total Score: 3
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 7: Babies 'n Birthdays

2009-07-10T04:44:10Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Lydia, our esteemed Legacy Founder's wife, had given birth to a bouncing baby boy named Rayven James, gotten knocked up a second time, and was going into glitchy labor.

This time I got pictures of the Larvae. Meet Elly and Ally. Ally is light-skinned one Tanaris is holding and Elly is the darker of the two, being held by Lydia.

I wasn't expecting twins, but I was glad they came nonetheless, because that meant Lydia was able to get a job now. Immediately after dropping the twins off at home, Lydia went down to the Police Station and got herself a job in Law Enforcement.

Of course the nursery wasn't quite big enough to fit three cribs, so we had to expand a little bit.

I got a tad overzealous while expanding the nursery and buying baby books, so we didn't have enough money to pay for the maid the following day.

That ~~bitch~~ wonderful woman took our butterfly as payment instead.

I was pleased to find that Rayven was able to read the baby books on his own.

I couldn't really tell if reading them on his own was faster or slower than reading them with an adult though, so after having read a couple with his mother, I decided to have him read on his own unless he was getting lonely.

Following suit with Rayven James, I had Tanaris throw a birthday party for the girls the day after they came home from the hospital.

Instead of the usual suspects, I had him invite Lydia's old roommates over, as well as a portion of the usual suspects.

Cornelia goth decided that the wall was the best company for conversation, however.

There was one new face at the party, however, and that was Apoco Lypse. as you can imagine, with his name, Apoco is my test dummy for the apocalypse challenge Scallywag and I were working on. I decided to plop a copy of him in Asa Valley and he seems to be getting on rather well, since in the middle of the party I received notification that he and Emma Kouga had gotten married. By the way, I traded out the Awesome Mod for the Indie Stone Story Progression Mod and I'm much happier with it.

Also in attendance was my simself, Emperor of Evil version. After having gone through a lengthy process of giving me two servants to grow and catch the ingredients for Ambrosia, as well as a servant to cook the Ambrosia. so my plan was to switch over once every week or two to have myself eat some ambrosia, thus staying immortal for the duration of the Legacy. With Indie Stone, however, I was able to simply make my simself immortal, so all the hard work I put into setting up my Diabolical Plan, was essentially wasted. At least I was able to replace my sister's simself with one that actually looks like her in the process, and of course I deleted the old models.

I was pleased, however to see that my Evil Glow was working properly after having removed AwesomeMod, since it wasn't working at all the whole time I'd been actually playing my simself.

Anyway, Tanaris did the honors of toddler.. well, it's not called toddler tossing anymore is it, since they just put em on the ground to grow up. He helped them blow out the candles on their birthday cakes.

Elly's cute. She has her father's skin and her mother's hair and eyes. She looks a lot like Tanaris, I believe.

Elly Asa: Neurotic, Loves the Outdoors
Favorites: Fruit Parfait, Electronica, Red

Ally looks a bit like a drag queen... she has a lighter version of Tan's skin, his hair, and his eyes color. She looks mostly like Lydia though.

Ally Asa: Artistic Virtuoso
Favorites: Stu Surprise?, Electronica, Blue

Yes, that means that every single Asa currently in existence likes electronica.

And last up for blowing out their candles was Lydia; she was becoming an adult, however, instead of a toddler.

After the party, not time was wasted in getting these tots to learn their life skills. Lydia taught Ally to walk.

While Tanaris taught Elly to talk.

Everywhere you looked, there were little green or purple bars filling up over sims' heads

Due to the fact that toddlers are retarded and like to crawl halfway around the world when an adult wants to pick them up, I was forced to redecorate the nursery so there was more floor room. this alleviated much stress, and I didn't mind the toddlers so much anymore.

While the tots were skilling on their own, Tanaris and Lydia grabbed a moment to fulfill a mutual Woohoo want. Tanaris had been wanting to have a child since they brought the girls home from the hospital, but I wasn't going to grant that one to him... or was I?

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 3
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 6: Babination

2009-07-09T01:46:36Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Tanaris, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had just gotten his new bride knocked up and she went into labor.

Somehow I missed getting a picture of the bouncing baby boy, but here's a picture of what the house looks like now.

I plan on putting another bathroom in between the Nursery and the Master Bedroom, so for now it's just an empty room. The new baby's favorite color is Lime Green, so he got a Lime Green crib. You can see on the northern extremity of the house, I added a porch where Lydia has her chess matches.

With the massive It's a Boy Moodlet, Tanaris easily got a promotion to Power Broker the next day at work, giving me a point for reaching the top of his career. I thought long and hard about having him switch careers to try and top Political, but decided against it, and now I'm glad I did.

The happy couple wasted no time trying (and succeeding) for another baby.

And then it was time for the baby's first birthday. It makes me extremely happy that sims can multitask while carrying around their larvae. See? Having fun and skilling all while carrying around the tot. Still though, I don't mess around when it comes to useless sims, which is what babies are. So even though he was only a day old, I still felt the need to move him along to his toddler years.

Tanaris did the honors of growing up the kid and I was surprised to see Lydia suddenly get a Rude Guest Moodlet.

As it turned out, Tanaris was still apparently remembering his "Sausage Fest" days, and autonomously started flirting with this guy, Trevor, whose last name escapes me for the moment.

Rayven James, Evil Genius that he is, got a Deviously Delighted Moodlet from the rude guest, however.

Rayven James Asa: Evil Genius
Favorites: Goopy Carbonara, Electronica, Lime Green.

I think he's the most adorable baby I've seen in this game. He looks a lot like Tanaris, I think.

Tanaris was pretty worn out from having gone to the hospital so late the previous night to deliver Rayven, so he went to bed early.. while the party was still going on around him.

The guests still had an awesome time without him.

The next day, Lydia informed me that she was, indeed, pregnant again. I think she even managed to forgo the whole morning sickness thing too.

I thought Rayven James was just too cute, and I couldn't stop taking pictures of him. Hard to believe he's evil, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought too until I started watching Lydia teach him to talk.

Lydia: Can you say "fire" honey?
Rayven James: Fire! Yes, that is how I shall kill my first victim, Mwahahahaha!
Lydia: Ok.. well how about "Spa" then? Mommy wants to go to the spa and get a massage for her aching back.
Rayven James: Yes, Mother, go to the spa, and while you're at it you should get a facial too.

Of course no baby photo montage would be complete without the classic Potty training photos, right?

And once most of his basic skills were taken care of, it was Peg Box Skilling time. I don't understand why these baby skills don't just translate into regular skill points with a hard limit of how many they can earn.

This time around, Tanaris wanted a little girl and Lydia had no preference for baby gender, so I had her eat some watermelons.

And after a long day at work, followed by lots of long meetings, Tanaris came home to teach his son how to walk.

The next day Lydia invited over her next Ranked Chess Opponent, Laura King, and handily beat her into submission.

I knew Lydia was close to going into labor, so we had hired a babysitter, and Tanaris took it upon himself to tell those last two jokes needed for the Comedian Skill Challenge, and I finally got that Charisma Point for Tanaris.

And that night, right on schedule, Lydia went into labor for the second time. Unfortunately Tanaris was the only one who noticed. Lydia didn't even notice and I had to Resetsim her in order for her to go to the hospital.

END!!

Points Gained: 2 (Tanaris: Power Broker, Charisma Skill)
Total Score: 3
Scorecard

Asa Reloaded! Part 5: Lotsa Logic

2009-07-09T00:38:09Z

Welcome Back, Fair Reader, to Aaroc's Asa Aaroc-Legacy Reloaded!

As we left off last time, Tanaris, our esteemed Legacy Founder, had just gotten married to his suddenly beloved Lydia Newton now Asa. During the wedding party, his old boss, Chaim Moses the SCHMUCK, died of old age and gave me a penalty point.

Lydia is a Grumpy, Computer Whiz, Loner, Perfectionist, who has No Sense of Humor. Having No Sense of Humor does have its perks though. Her Having A Blast Moodlet lasts for 14 hours.

She likes Sushi, Black, and Electronica. Her LTW is to be a Forensics Analyst. And now I'll tell you why I love her so much and wanted Tan to marry her in the first place. I was messing around in CAS making the Girls household, when I randomly came up with her looks. I changed her hair and clothes and make up so that she was all gothy looking, and then I made a personality that I thought fit her looks. When it came time to choosing her LTW, the first option was Forensics Analyst and I immediately thought of that chick from NCIS. She kinda looks like her, so the LTW was perfect. I figured it wasn't cheating to marry her since I gave her a non-optimal personality, as I did with all the Girls in her household.

Of course one of the first things she wanted was to learn the Logic Skill. Upon taking a class, her Logic skill jumped from nonexistent to a whopping 2.5 points. I was impressed. Then she went to the library to read up on Logic.

After gaining a few more Logic Points, Lydia started rolling wants to win ranked chess matched, so Johnny Appleseed was invited over for that purpose. I don't remember Johnny's personality, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a Green Thumb or Love the Outdoors or anything like you would expect from his name. He's only so named because he's green.

Unfortunately she lost her ranked chess match against Mr. Appleseed.

Tanaris was having success in his job, however. He returned home from work with a promotion to Vise President... or whatever it is that comes after CEO but before Power Broker.

In an attempt to get Lydia Logic Skillpoints as quickly as possible, as well as a good amount of LTH to go along with it, I bought her a computer and decorated the bedroom as much as money would allow. Since Lydia is a Computer Whiz, she gains Logic faster from playing Chess on the computer, and since she's a Loner her mood is higher when she's alone, thus she skills faster when she's alone. With all the decorated and comfy moodlets while playing chess on the computer, Lydia gains Logic with ridiculous speed.

Since Lydia's LTW is Career Related, I decided to start having babies before she gets a job. That way I won't have to worry about her missing all sorts of work because of Maternity Leave. After all, Tanaris was close to reaching the top of the Business Career, which meant he would soon only be working for three hours a day, three days a week. Perfect for being the Primary Childcare Giver.

It wasn't long before Generation two was on its way.

I realized at one point that Tanaris had never taken a charisma class, so I decided to have him do so. He had 9 Charisma skill points, and I figured if he took a class, he'd probably get that last point.

I was wrong, however, as he only got the tiniest boost from the class.

Apparently with the thought of little ones on the way meaning more money spent on food, Tanaris finally started rolling up those gardening wants. I decided to keep his garden very small this time around though.

Before I knew it, Lydia started showing her pregnancy. I realized that I need to make my sims try for baby earlier in the day; She woke up at about 1am to inform me that she was officially pregnant.

Since it was the weekend, I started having Tanaris try in earnest to gain that last charisma skill point.

Unfortunately, the going was slow trying to practice speech on his mirror so I got a different idea, and had him gussy up on the mirror instead.

Then we bought a rubber ducky and he took a bath, getting the "Duck Time" moodlet.

He's a Great Kisser, so I had him give his wife a big ole smooch, and got the "Great Kiss" moodlet.

And he went to the Library in a tip top mood, where he would get an additional skilling bonus from reading a book.

Meanwhile Lydia wanted to read a book about Logic, so she did that at home. She only did so long enough to fulfill the wish before switching over to the computer.

After about an hour or two, Tanaris gained his tenth Charisma Skill Point. Somehow I had still neglected to get him to tell those last two jokes for the Comedian Skill Challenge.

By this time Lydia had some crazy Logic Skill Points. 7, I think (yes, over the course of like 3 or 4 sim days), so she invited Johnny over for a rematch.

This time she beat the pants off him. Johnny wasn't quite the sore loser that Lydia was.

That night it was Tan's adult birthday. I forgot to throw him a party, but he didn't seem to mind.

He still looks pretty much the same, though his adult outfit defaulted back to what he wore as a young young adult.

Both Lydia and Tanaris had rolled up wants to have a boy, so the next morning I sent Lydia down to the grocery store to buy some apples.

She ate them and headed off to spend the day at the spa while Tanaris held meetings all day.

Tanaris threw himself a belated birthday party that night and Lydia went into labor just after it started.

END!!

Points Gained: 0
Total Score: 1
Scorecard