Here is where I write stuff

Oh hey LJ, I haven't really updated in about five years or something. Let's make a list. Well, a list-ish thing.

TODAY: I went to dinner with my dad for belated Father's Day goodness. Of course, since I left straight from work, I couldn't give him his present, since it was at home, but that can be delivered later.

YESTERDAY: I harangued the OwnerGuy of NEW YORK'S FAMOUS PIZZA AND FRIED CHICKEN (that name will never get old) for not having falafel. You see, last week he told me that he does have falafel and hummus, just not on the menu. Yesterday, he was all "oh noooooo, I hate falafel, it looks gross, whine whine whine" so I griped at him. Then he gave me free hummus to shut me up. The hummus was delicious. By the way, have I told you guys about this place? It's pretty amazing. I drive by it on my way home from work, and the sign has intrigued me since they put it up a few months ago. I was really curious, but also kind of frightened- I figured that no place could really do pizza and fried chicken well. Then finally a few weeks ago we gave the place a try and it turns out the food is delicious, and they also serve burgers, Italian food, Greek food, and wing in addition to the pizza and fried chicken. And the OwnerGuy is a firm believer in picking on people. The abuse we've been missing since Steve left Coffee Haus can now be gotten at NEW YORK'S FAMOUS PIZZA AND FRIED CHICKEN. (seriously, say that name out loud, it's amazing)

LAST WEEKEND: I worked. Guys, going from 4 8-hour days to suddenly working long days PLUS long weekend days is hard. But we are getting crap done, and that is a Good Thing(tm). That's part of the reason I've not been so posty- I'm just tired.

RECENTLY: I've also been playing a lot of The Sims 3. My homeless girl grew up, suffered through her teenage years (high school was very stressful, and trying to work a job on top of that while sleeping in a park was hard on her), and finally became a young adult. Then she moved out of her dad's abandoned park to her own empty lot, and bought a couch with the money she made working at the grocery store as a teen. She had just a couch on the lot, then she got a job in an office building and saved up until she could make a 2x2 room for a toilet. She doesn't have a sink yet, but that's definitely next. Her lifetime wish is to have a net worth of 100,000 Simoleans. So far she's up to almost 2,000. As soon as she can afford a bed, so she can actually get enough sleep to function, she's going to start fishing and rock collecting and gardening for money. She is very determined to get herself out of the pit her father is in. I'm secretly rooting for her.

NOT RECENTLY AT ALL: I took this picture:

I actually took this picture in May of 2008, and forgot to post it. I think it's another example of an amazingly-named business.

BACK TO RECENTLY: So last... uhh... Saturday? I think? Let's call it Saturday. On Saturday I met up with drninja at Tandoor for delicious Indian food and excellent hanging-out-age. We caught up and reminisced, and then the waitress assumed we were a couple, just like old times. It was kind of hilarious. And now I need to find that program I used to rip DVDs to my computer, so I can get the last two episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide DVD set that I borrowed from him. I can't even remember what it's called anymore.

OVERALL: Life is busy, but quite good!

So after reading Alice & Kev, I decided that I needed to make some homeless Sims, too. Yesterday I started up the game, started a new save file so my other sims would remain in stasis, and set to work creating my homeless sims.

Just for grins, I gave them blue skin, black-and-blue hair, and gray eyes. I used the "Create a Twin" button after creating the father, then changed the gender and age to make him a daughter that is his spitting image. That was much easier than trying to match his skin and hair colors.

The father is Joe. His traits are Insane, Neurotic, Inappropriate, Hot-Headed, and Mooch. His favorite things to do are fishing and talking to himself. When he talks to himself, his mood goes way up. He has no desire to work, so he just mooches off of anyone who will have him, fishes whenever he gets the chance, and bathes in the public restrooms at the local park:


He's a classy guy.

Jill, his daughter, has the traits Inappropriate, Mooch, and Kleptomaniac. She will mooch off people and visit them just to use their bathroom and kitchen without shame. She also gets a kick out of stealing things, but she always feels bad afterward and mails the stolen good back to their owners. It's the only interaction she can have with the mailbox as a child sim. She tries hard to succeed in life, despite the circumstances her father's insanity and joblessness have landed her in.

They live in a park, and she does her homework every night by streetlamp-light:


It's hard sleeping on park benches, but Jill takes pleasure in the small things (and the occasional theft) so it's not all bad for her:

So if y'all don't hear from me for a few days, it's because I got The Sims 3 yesterday and... yeah. It's pretty excellent. I would tell you all about the shiny new interface and how cool the mood stuff is now and how much fun it is to zoom between Sims in town and in their house and how handy it is to just send a Sim to the store while making the other one shower or something and all of that... but half of you probably don't care, half of you have already played it and thus know, and half of you will just be jealous because you WANT to play it but haven't yet. So I'll spare you.

It's crazy fun though.

Oh and this- I'm kind of surprised by how much I like it. For a long time, I wasn't even sure if I would ever get it, and then when I did decide to get it, I wasn't really expecting huge amounts of goodness. I guess I expected it to be a pain to have to deal with the town so much, and I thought that taking the focus off juggling needs would defeat the purpose of the game. But, thankfully, I was wrong, and it's totally awesome to deal with the town, and easing up the needs makes it more fun to play the Sims' lives. So hooray for that! Now to wait for the inevitable expansion packs so I can have seasons again.