Wolfrun, Third Try – Week 29

Well, it worked brilliantly. All through the night, while I slept peacefully, Go Wolfrun stood in his door-less, window-less, TV-less, bed-less, sofa-less, lamp-less house for 169 days. That’s 169 Sim years. When I woke up and checked the date, I was stunned. In the game, Sims live for only 90 years, which meant that not only would all the Sims from week 5 be dead, but the unborn embryo Sims would also be dead, as would their children; their grandchildren, however, could possibly be alive. But 169 years! If Go stepped outside of his time capsule house, it would be an entirely different world from what he knew.

I had to go to class, so I couldn’t check the neighborhood. But I wondered how different everything would be. I wondered how I’d find anyone; if 4 people out of 96 Sims had disappeared after 2 weeks, then after 27 weeks, only half of the Sims from before would be there.

Of course, my math had a few holes in it, but it didn’t matter. As it turns out, I was both right and wrong. It was an entirely different world. But that didn’t mean everyone I knew was gone.

There were a few new names to the neighborhood, like the Dunns and the Austins, but I was surprised that several Sims were still alive. Blair Sw0rd was still alive and pregnant, but her husband Cycl0n3 was not. He wasn’t even in the family tree. Tamara was still alive, except her last name was Hart now, and she was also pregnant. And, like Blair, she had “0 days to Elder”.

Everywhere I went through town, this same pattern was emerging. Iliana Langerak (now Iliana Austin) was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder. Morgana Wolff was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder. Holly Alto (now Holly Bachelor) was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder. Bella Bachelor (now Bella Hamlin-Bachelor) was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder. Monika Morris (now Monika Langerak) was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder. Imelda Alto was alive, pregnant, and almost an elder.

In fact, everywhere I looked there were single pregnant women. At a few odd houses (none of the ones above), there’d be an old man married to the pregnant wife who was one day from becoming an elder. There was one odd case were the husband was at the end of his life, but he never died. So he and his wife lived happily ever after, forever and after.

The most chilling thing, however, is that nowhere in the entire neighborhood were there any children, nor babies, nor even teenagers. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode, where all the women suck up the youth from their unborn babies and remain young forever while the men become dried-out husks and die until the entire town consists entirely of pregnant women. Actually, that’s not a bad premise, but it’s just creepy here. This is seriously not supposed to happen; either the women just shouldn’t get pregnant when they’re so close to elderhood, or they should just give birth to their children and then move on.

I suspect this is a bug with either the Indie Stone Mod or the Awesome Mod, but the two developers are working closely with each other, so I can just tell one of them about it and wait until one of them updates their version. Although the Awesome Mod developer updates it every day, so I probably won’t have to wait long.

Wolfrun, Second Try – Week 5

Revisiting the Wolfrun home, I decided the first thing to do was replace Go’s broken TV with the best TV so that it wouldn’t break down. I sold off the TV, and began selling off everything I needed to get the $8000 needed.

Which was basically everything. All he had was his sofa and his shiny new TV. So I sat him in front of the sofa, turned on his TV, and sat back for a few glorious moments as the game ran on ultra, and Go Wolfrun contentedly watched his TV for days on end.

Then, suddenly, the game went to normal speed when some guy with a laser gun and a baseball cap showed up, complaining about how the bills weren’t being paid, and he stole poor Wolfrun’s sofa.

At first, I just ignored him and went back to ultra speed while Wolfrun stood up and watched his TV (he still had his Comfy moodlet, so I don’t think he really minded), but the Repo Man kept coming back, even though he didn’t take anything, not even the expensive hi-definition TV. But every time he showed up, the game kept resetting to normal speed, and after this happened a few times, I realized, “What a minute, he’s coming because the TV is using up electricity.” The reason I was sitting him in front of a TV in the first place was because that was exactly what the developer of the Indie Stone Mod suggested doing on a wolfrun, but I decided to bugger all and just take everything away. No TV, no door, no windows, no sofas. Just an empty room to stand in.

When week 5, day 2 came around, I paused the game again and took a look around town, to see how the Sims had changed.

Just to remind everyone, this is 29 days since I started; in-universe, it’s been 29 years. The original Sims game takes place 25 years after the start of Sims 3, so this is about the same time period as that.

First, I revisited the Roomies. Tamara was expecting her first child with Xander, who was already an elder. Cycl0n3 and Blair had moved out and married (Blair becoming Blair Sw0rd), and were also expecting. That left the other two, Silas and Emma, alone to hook up with each other.

I looked around, and saw many other romances blooming. Holly Alto, was now going out with Michael Bachelor. Mortimer Goth was going out with Bella Bachelor, sounds suspiciously pre-programmed to me. Contrary to canon, however, Mortimer was in a criminal as opposed to a scientist. Jared Frio and Claire Ursine were now married, and his brother Connor was married to Monika Morris, who was also pregnant.

There were also some less happy stories. The Wolffs, for example, have had another child named Brandon, and when I caught up with them, Morgana was in a very depressed state. Checking their relationships, it seems Thorton Wolff barely had any relationship with his two children at all. Their daughter from 2 weeks ago was now a child, and had gained the kleptomaniac trait. This was clearly an interesting development, and I wondered how they would turn out in the future.

There were also some Sims whose loved ones had just died recently. Yumi Sekemoto, who I didn’t really pay attention to last time, had just died, and his son Leighton was very depressed. Cornelia Goth had died recently, and Gunther Goth was still in a bad mood over it. Actually, his life bar was pretty full already, so he probably wouldn’t be sad for very long. Incidentally, now that he was no longer married, Agnes Crumplebottom had a crush on him. Too bad she was going to be disappointed soon.

Jarrod, the evil genius baby, now had the loser trait, and his artsy outdoorsy brother Weston now had the snob trait. Sort of the total opposite of what I expected from their infant traits. The Altos above were doing pretty well for themselves, though Gobias Koffi was now an elder and still hadn’t any romances, male or female.

So, finally, I went back to Go Wolfrun, changed to ultra speed, and left the game overnight, hoping that without any more TV, there would be no more interruptions to the game speed, and I’d get a lot farther than ever before…

Leaving Sims 3 On Overnight

In its preview of the Sims 3 back on March 10th, IGN touted that the game’s free will system was quite intelligent, and that “[y]ou could leave the game running overnight and wake up to an entirely different situation”. Naturally, when I got it, I wanted to test that statement and see what would happen if I left the game for an extended period of time.

Now, I’ve read comments from fans saying, “Why would you do this? Wouldn’t it be more fun to play the game yourself than to let the computer play it for you?” I say, ludicrous. You can have more than one save slot on the Sims 3, and why not spend it on something that’s just as pointless as raising completely fictitious and unrealistic people?

So, bold and fearless, I started a new game in Sunset Valley. I decided upon the Roomies household to be the active household, because I figured five diversely different adults would be interesting subjects for the experiment.

I just loaded them up, pressed 3 for “ultra speed”, and went to bed. I was dimly aware that pressing 3 would be pointless, as the game would automatically reset to normal speed whenever the carpool came, but I decided, meh, I just want to see what happens.

What happened was: I woke up 8 hours later and came back to find that Tamara had received an opportunity on work, and the game had been waiting patiently for a response. In-game, it was week 1, day 2, the day right after I left it.

Disappointment was an understatement. I began looking up for info on turning off opportunities, but EA had the daftness to not include an option to turn them off. The only way to not get opportunities is to install a mod called the Indie Stone Story Progression Mod and do a “wolfing run” with it. Of course, in order for the ISSPM to work with the latest patched version of Sims 3, you also had to install the Awesomemod from another website and delete the ISSPM core mod package, etc etc. I studiously followed the instructions, made a single man with the last name “Wolfrun”, put him in his own house, added a TV, told him to watch TV, set the game at “ultra speed”, and went off to class.

I came back 4 and a half hours later to find it was now week 3, day 2. That was better, but I was expecting a lot more. Inspecting the house, I found that his television had broken down, and that Go Wolfrun had spent most of his time either reading from the bookcase or sleeping. The game resets its speed to 1 whenever somebody wakes up from sleeping, but since Go’s needs never dropped, I can only imagine he went to bed as a way of mocking me.

Still, I decided to check out the neighborhood and see how things had changed. At the Roomies household, Tamara was gone from the group; she had gone off to marry Xander Clavell. Hard to imagine why, seeing as how he had commitment issues. His bio itself explicitly states he wasn’t planning on getting married, but I guess Tamara was just a manipulative bitch.

I also looked around to see what else happened. Holly Alto got her own place, and the two adult Altos had two children, Imelda and Iris. The Landgraabs also had two children, Jarred and Weston. I’m especially interested in Jarred because his two traits were “evil” and “genius”, and you know putting those two words together is always a good thing. Thorton and Morgana Wolff, even though their bios say that children is the last thing they’d plan on doing with their marriage, had a baby girl named Krissy.

There was also Claire Ursine, who was both raising her daughter Terra and going out with Connor Frio. Jared Frio, meanwhile, was going out with Monika Morris, who I assume is one of the Working Friends Household.

There were other Sims who’d moved in from nowhere; a couple, German and Faye Rhinehart; the Lain family, consisting of two musically-inclined parents, their equally gifted daughter, their more brutish son and daughter; and the Gutierrez family, who I didn’t really bother looking at. There were also some Sims who weren’t living anywhere, like Zelda Mae and Parker Langerak, and Ethan and Lisa Bunch. I tried calling Zelda Mae over and then saying goodbye to her so I could see where she was staying, but she went over to Jamie Jolina’s house and disappeared, even though Jamie lived alone.

So, having inspected Sunset Valley, I went back to Go Wolfrun’s home, and continued the speed run…

Mal And Belle: Mundane Monday

Around mid-day, Mal finally woke up from his sleep.

Mal has the lifetime wish of being the emperor of evil. Therefore, it only makes sense that he wants to get a job in the criminal department.

There wasn’t a job available yesterday, but today, there’s an opening. The classifieds are weird like that.

So while Mal sets down the paper and celebrates by watching TV, work ends for Belle.

After receiving her paycheck, Belle, being good, wants to donate to charity (like Alice famously does). But Belle is tired; getting up early last night didn’t help her much. But I insist that she makes a donation so I can have her do something interesting.

Meanwhile, Mal is watching TV for ideas on potential world domination.

After a while, though, he gets hungry, and gets up to eat something, when he spots…

… the leftover salad from last night.

Having the slob trait, Mal has no qualms about eating the rotting, maggot-infested salad.

After his less-than-nutritious meal, Mal decides to get a head-start on his criminal career with some aerobic exercises…

… followed by some air guitar and gorilla poses.

Mal cools down in the shower, and then plops back onto the couch to watch something… er, non-criminal-related.

Pet Tamers, Episode 9

Well, this episode goes without saying. Except that you’re going to need to start reading from the first episode before this will make sense.

PET TAMERS

Episode 9: Cross Sections

JASON’S HOUSE. AFTERNOON.

CHRIS: You know, it’s been how many days since Maggie, Shana and Pete got kidnapped, and no one’s been talking about it at all.

JASON: The police have probably been keeping this under wraps.

CHRIS: You can’t keep a kidnapping under wraps. What about their parents? What about their friends?

A serendipitous knock on the door.

JASON: Who could that be?

Jason opens the door. Standing there is CHELSEA, who was last seen in Episode 3.

CHELSEA: What did you two do to her?

JASON: To who?

Chris suddenly looks up.

CHELSEA: Maggie. She wasn’t at school today, and no one said anything. You two did something to her, didn’t you?

JASON: See, Chris, someone noticed.

CHRIS: You didn’t say it.

JASON: Say what?

CHRIS: Whom. You said “to who”, not “to whom”. You made a mistake! You just made a grammatical mistake! Ha! This is awesome.

The words WHO and WHOM appear onscreen.

CHRIS: Wait, no! No! I take that back!

JASON: “Who” and “whom” are two commonly confused words. They both ask about which person you’re talking about, but how do you know which to use?

While Jason was talking, the background has changed from Jason’s living room to a white, featureless room, with Chris being the only other person with Jason.

CHRIS: No! I don’t want this to be educational! Turn it back!

JASON: The answer is the prepositions. If there aren’t any prepositions like “to” or “from” at the beginning or the end, then you use “who”. Otherwise, use “whom”. Just look at these two sentences.

Two sentences appear with blanks: ____ ARE YOU? and ____ ARE YOU TALKING TO?

CHRIS: Oh, why? Why do you do this?

JASON: Chris, can you tell me which word to use in each sentence?

CHRIS: What are you, Jason? And who are you talking to?

JASON: Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong. The first is WHO are you, but the second one is WHOM are you talking to, because of the “to” at the end.

CHRIS: Knock it off with the education thing! Hey kids! You use “he” for guys, and “she” for girls, but what if you don’t know if the person is a guy or girl? You could say “it”, but that would be impersonal and rude, so you combine all three pronouns together and say “shi-

JASON: YOU IMBECILE!!!

The white background is replaced with a black background. Chris is suddenly suspended over a pit of spikes, while a long sharp spike is pointed directly at his throat. Jason stares and floats ominously overhead.

JASON: Don’t you EVER try to ruin THIS SHOW! Don’t you EVER say such naughty words, or MOCK MY WHOLESOME LESSONS!

CHRIS: Where am I? What (gags and chokes, as Jason’s stare intensifies)

JASON: If you EVER cross me AGAIN, you will be GONE from this show. FOREVER. DO YOU HEAR ME?

The spike edges closer and closer to Chris’s throat.

CHRIS (turning blue): Y-y-gah-uh-yehhsssggg…

JASON: Good. (the background becomes lighter again, Jason faces the audience) Nothing happened, kids. You didn’t see anything scary happening. I mean, look at me. Don’t I look like a nice guy? You can trust me, right, kids? Oh, by the way, you’d say, “he or she”, and never “they”.

CHELSEA: They what?

The background is once again Jason’s living room. Chris lies in the floor, gasping for breath, Jason stands as before, and Chelsea looks curiously at the two.

JASON: Nothing, Chelsea. We were just about to go looking for her ourselves. Right, Chris?

CHRIS: R-right. (gasps)

CHELSEA: Did Chris pass out all of a sudden? He was fine a second ago.

JASON: Oh, Chris is just like that. He’s always doing silly stuff. Don’t you, Chris?

CHRIS: (stands) No, no I don’t. He—(suddenly slips and falls)

JASON: See? That’s our Chris.

CHELSEA: Look, I don’t care much about what you two are doing. But if you have any idea where Maggie is, then I’m coming along.

JASON: But Chelsea, it could be dangerous. They’re being held hostage by an evil gang of criminals.

CHELSEA: Er… I’m not going to ask why and how, but Maggie’s my friend, and I have to make sure she’s safe. Plus, I have something I have to tell her.

JASON: What’s that?

CHELSEA: (pulls out Maggie’s cat Lucy) That I finally found her cat.

Jason looks at Lucy, and then smiles.

JASON: Come on, Chris. I’ve got an idea.

CHRIS: Good, good. It’s good that you come up with good ideas. All good.

CHELSEA: I hope he isn’t always going to be like this.

JASON: Oh, you’ll get used to it.

MUSIC PLAYS, FADE IN FADE OUT to the AIRPORT.

MILES: Well, here we are at the airport. What now?

RUSS: Mr. X told us to go to the airport and dress properly.

MILES: What do you think he meant by “dress properly”?

MAN (offscreen): Blast!

Miles and Russ turn towards the sound. Two familiar-looking men are here, standing over a broken suitcase.

IMPORTANT-LOOKING MAN: Darn you, Benkley! I told you to handle those suitcases carefully!

BENKLEY: Sorry, sir. But a disassembled jetpack is very heavy.

MAN: Well, then just leave it! We’re going to miss our flight, and I have plenty of money for another jetpack. Too bad I don’t have enough money for a new valet!

BENKLEY (as the two rush off): Frankly, sir, did I ever mention how much I love this job?

Miles and Russ watch the two men walk off. They turn towards the suitcase and head towards it.

RUSS: Disassembled jetpack, heh? And look, a carrying capacity of two.

MILES: Talk about a lucky break.

RUSS: But wait. There’s no fuel in it. We need to get some jet fuel.

MILES: Well, this is an airport...

CUT to a MAINTENANCE ROOM. MILES and RUSS are wearing maintenance uniforms, looking around while a thick hose pumps jet fuel into the fuel tank of the jetpack.

MILES: This was actually pretty easy.

RUSS: Just so long as those maintenance guys don’t wake up.

GUARD (walking onscreen): Hey! You two! Do you work here?

RUSS: Why, of course we do.

GUARD: Could I see some ID?

Russ digs into his pocket and quickly hands him the ID. The guard studies it carefully.

GUARD: Wait, you look nothing like this guy!

The guard looks up, but Russ and Miles and the jetpack are gone, leaving only the hose leaking jet fuel.

GUARD: Gah!

The guard races over to the pipe control valve, desperately trying to shut off the hose. He fumbles with the various hoses, trying figure out which of the several dozen hoses leads to the working hose. He starts handling the valves, testing each one in succession until one of them turns easily, shutting the hose off. Satisfied, he then pulls up his radio.

GUARD: Security! Two unknown individuals running up Runway 6!

The guards rush into the maintenance room and out onto the runway, but Miles and Russ have already started their takeoff. The guards pull out their guns and start shooting, but the two gangsters have just barely managed to get away.

MILES: Good thing that guard spent all that time trying to shut off the valve, instead of trying to stop us.

RUSS: Yes. If he had just called in, there’s no way we could have outrun the mass of security guards running after us.

MILES: In fact, if they hadn’t been so prompt, and waited until you were struggling with the jetpack to show up, it would have been a really sad statement about the security of our airports.

RUSS: Speaking of jetpacks, do you know how to drive this thing?

MILES: Me? How should I know how a jetpack works? Besides, you’re doing a pretty good job right now.

RUSS: I’m just pushing whichever buttons get us out of here.

MILES: Well, don’t stop. We’ve got a long way to go to get out of here.

Miles and Russ ride off. Don’t worry, the payoff to this arc will come eventually.

Unbirthday Presents

I love getting packages that I buy for myself. Because they’re just like… well, read the title. Course, real unbirthday presents would arrive on every one of my unbirthdays, and most of the unbirthday presents that do arrive are for my parents. Not to say that I’m jealous, as they’re typically either pathetic coupons, bills, or invitations to a private retreat. Actually, that last one doesn’t sound too bad.

Well, four days ago, on Tuesday, I ordered a graphics tablet on eBay. They sent it on Wednesday, and I expected it to arrive in three days’ time. Sure enough, it arrived today. The postal system has never failed me. I don’t know why everyone makes such a deal about lost packages. Maybe that’s just TV Land.

So, I got my graphics tablet, and the first thing I had to do with it was to try it out. I put pen to plastic, and within an hour, I had created something that was actually… pretty bad. I had basically just started doing a face, starting with the eye, but no sooner did I zoom out that I realized that it was going to suck. Just look at it…

I started out with the basic anime-style eye, because I’d never done one before, and I saw someone else drawing it and thought, “I could do that”. And then I started shading it. Ugh. Important lesson in art styles: NEVER mix the two, except for deliberate effect. There was NOT meant to be an effect here, and so it fails. If you look at a real eye…

… you can see that there’s no difference between the “anime cornea” and the “real-life cornea” as I imagined it. Again, the lesson here is “do your research before you do something different”.

Also, I didn’t draw an eyelid either. And the eyebrow is too low. At least I put the bridge of the nose in the right spot; that counts for something, right?

And in case you’re wondering, here’s the full picture as I discarded it:

Updates

Major lack of optimism this week. I just haven’t been as productive as I should, I get anxiety over that, less productivity, more anxiety, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum. Then one day, some awesome piece of news comes out, some online game gets release, or someone finally releases an anticipated sequel. Then I get energized, and back on track.

So, while no one was watching this blog, I updated my Windows Live Writer version. It’s spiffier, although a bit too shiny. I wonder how shinier future software will appear. Maybe they’ll produce metallic monitors, so we can actually see the shine.

Also, I started another project. I’ve always had a love for the classic songs; the songs from the 50’s, 60’s, 80’s, and 90’s (the 70’s, not so much). So I started taking all the songs that have been number one on the Billboard Top 100 list, and arranging them into consecutively into a medley, 2 seconds for every week on top. Right now I’ve gone from August 1958, the start of the list, to April 1962; the medley is over 6 minutes long. It’s a fun listen; I shall upload it sometime to either the crazy “Windows SkyDrive” that replaced my private sharing folders, or to YouTube, where it will surely surprise all my anime-loving subscribers. If anyone asks about copyright, I will claim fair use. After all, the longest (so far) a song has been in the #1 spot is 9 weeks; I hear a song in 2005 lasted 16 weeks. I don’t know if I’ll get that far, but YouTube does a pretty good job of putting up all the #1 songs, so I’ll just keep going till I get tired.