The Dayes wanted to let off some steam this Christmas, so as a special festive treat, they’ve decided to let you in on the goings on at their Christmas party…

We wish you a very merry Christmas and we’ll see you soon for Gen 3 spouse hunting!

The results of the heir poll are in!  Boolprop readers voted Evel, Harry and Eddie, and commenters on this blog voted Eddie, Harry and Evel.  When I added it all up, Eddie won the heir poll, with Harry second and Evel third, but it was a close run thing, with a lot of love for all of them.  Unfortunately, when the boys become YAs, the heirdom will pass over to Eddie, meaning another member of Gen 3 will have to make way for him.   Piranha will top the grocery career next play session and achieve her LTW any day soon so she’s only here until we need to make room for babies and partners.  It’ll be a sad day, I know she has a lot of fans.

Still, while she’s hanging around, she can help by doing some more experimenting.  First up, I got Thomas to pour a batch of his grapes/apples/lime nectar.  Piranha’s comment: ‘I can’t believe they called this Nectar!  Ewww’.  Let’s not forget, though, she’s a snob and went for the most expensive stuff when they were in France.

Sindy also got in on the act.  Remember her ‘all nectar tastes the same to me’ comment?  Well, this time she said ‘Nectar comes in three colours: green, purple and brown’.  Thanks for the words of wisdom, Sindy.

Still, they both got a sugar rush moodlet, and though they didn’t get a moodlet from nice nectar, they didn’t get a negative moodlet either.  We’ve put some of the nectar in our cellar to see what happens to it: there’ll eventually be a stocked nectar cellar when someone does the nectar LTW, and there’s no harm in kicking it off.

Aaroc made an interesting comment the other day about the dried food.  He reckons a sim of his gets the foul food moodlet whatever quality of food he’s eating and thinks the same might be true of Piranha, because they both have the snob trait.  So I got her eating the high and medium quality food and, sure enough, she got the moodlet.  Eddie Kidd ate some low quality food and didn’t get it.

However, the moodlet text specifically says it’s from eating the cheap stuff, so I wonder if sims sometimes get it from eating the cheap stuff, even if they’re not snobs?  I find it hilarious Piranha can moan about it when she can lick dirty plates clean.  I also saw a slob the other day (not in the Daye family) grab a fly from thin air and eat it.  If Piranha ever does that and then has the audacity to moan about dried food… well, I won’t do anything other than take a picture and laugh.

BUT, there’s another point to make here, which is that in Egypt she got good modlets from the medium and high quality dried food, so maybe eating it at home and away produces different effects?

The hunt for Gen 3 partners continues.  Now I know Evel won’t be the heir, I’m not sure if I will bother trying to find her a mate, but I’d like both of the boys to continue their romantic pursuits.  The babysitter, Hilda, is now Eddie Kidd’s romantic interest.  She won’t go steady with him, but that’s surely just in the tradition of previous members of this family.

Because Harry has been busy making friends with Chanel the maid, she’s been neglecting her duties.  She came over with another maid because the house was such a mess.

Both boys immediately made a beeline for the new maid.  Hormones in this house are running wild, but it’s nice to know they’re taking their responsibility for getting me some service sim points seriously.

Thomas has some answers to some of your burning questions.  Yes, you can grow all the WA fruits at home, and he’s standing by some of those plants right here.  And yes, it looks like you can stock a pond with everything.  Ours admittedly doesn’t have absolutely every single type of fish in, because Thomas hasn’t caught enough of some of them, but it has most types in now, including saltwater fish, freshwater fish, deathfish and fish from the different countries.  So go ahead and stock those tiny ponds!  We have yet to be able to find a way to stock the swimming pool, though.

As his first duty as heir-in-waiting, Eddie Kidd went on an extended trip to China.  He has the LTR that lets you travel for extra days so he had six days to play with and take lots of photos.  Except one of the things in the travel category is ‘Lovers in China’ and we didn’t find any for the WHOLE SIX DAYS.  China is not romantic.  France, we got that shot no problem.  Huh.

On his first night, I sent him to the graveyard to see what he might find.

I am wondering if the babysitter really is the one, because look at this.  A FIRE GHOST!  A CHINESE FIRE GHOST!

It’s like he’s meeting his destiny, isn’t it?

One really annoying thing about playable ghosts is that everyone around them still reacts to them.  So cowardly sims faint when the boys go past, and I am forever crossing out the family’s ‘A Ghost!’ actions.  Harry and Eddie both get these actions about each other all the blooming time, and here’s Eddie having one towards the fire ghost.  So dumb.

It does make me laugh that he can ‘express fear of graveyards’ though.

Anyway, they got on well but the ghosts didn’t appear again during his stay.  We can’t pick up the gravestone so I’m hoping that if Eddie gets his visa level high enough to get a house we can invite her over or something.  Basically, I have no idea if Eddie can get with the ghost in any meaningful way so he’ll continue to pursure Babysitter and keep Fire Ghost as his Chinese mistress.  It might be easier for a female sim to romance an international ghost.  Obviously we’ll test that out at some point.

Because he’s in China for ages and I want him to get some visa points, I decided to let him take up some adventures.  Because I’d only played with Evel and a test sim and they had similar adventures, I assumed that everyone got the same adventures in the same order, but Eddie got something different.  You can also reject adventure opportunities and take different ones, which I’d never known before.

One of his opportunities was to learn the martial arts skill.

He got a belt for this and proceeded to show it off.  Now I totally want to do martial arts with a non-ghost sim, so I can see the belts for myself.  This is handy information for future destiny planning.

A few of you without WA have expressed a desire for more learnings about the photography skill, so here you go.  There are three cameras you can buy in Egypt (and a disposable you can buy everywhere).  Eddie’s £33,000 collection was built using the disposable but now he mostly uses the expensive one.  I’ve heard it produces more valuable shots but I’m not convinced yet.  It does, however, offer more options, which I’ll come onto.

Here you can see his skill journal.  The photography skill has five challenges, two of which he’s completed, and the others hes working on.  The hardest of these is to have five collections – here’s one collection, ‘The Paranormal’.  As you can see, each collection has quite a lot of photos in it to complete, and there are at least a dozen collections (we probably haven’t discovered them all).  He’s close to completing three of them at the moment, but some of the collections require very hard things (a ghost of my enemy, my grandchild etc).  I’m hoping my next photography sim (there is another LTW involving photography) will try and complete different collections to Eddie.

When you take a photo you get this screen, and you can move around to select different items to focus on.  The green text gives you the name of an object and the collection it belongs to.  Take more than one photo of the same type of thing in a day and it’ll tell you off for being boring, but the next day you can take it again.

The most valuable photos (the ones we have that are over £900) seem to be the first ones you take of anything, and those of somewhat rare subjects.  You can play with the filters (colour, clack and white, sepia and, er, another one) as your skill improves and your camera gets better.  In time you can also play with photo size.  Bigger, fancier photos cost more to take but allegedly can be worth more.  I say allegedly, because most of Eddie Kidd’s expensive shots were small colour portraits on the cheapest camera when his skill was mid-range.

The small photos look like the ones you can get on a camera phone, and you can view them to see the author and value, as with a painting.  I am guessing they might also increase in value over time.  I don’t know what the others look like yet because I daren’t take them off the camera in case it screws up the LTW.  Oh, and on LTWs, Aaroc said you could now hover over the panel and see how close the sim is to completing it.  You can only do this with some LTWs.  Thomas and Piranha have this (as do the wishes to be worth X amount of money) but none of the other members of the family have any indicator.

Eddie got stuck in China and wouldn’t move anywhere at one point, so I had to reset him and he then ended up back at Base Camp.  This isn’t especially an edcucational comment, but it annoyed me.

He came back and the whole family got ‘A Ghost!’ interactions.  Sigh.

It was time for Koi to age up, so we threw her a party.  Seeing as one of the tasks I set myself was to host parties at a trange of venues, we held it at the science facility.

The babysitter has aged up.  Grrr!  The maids were both invited too, and they’re both adults.  Hmmm.  If Harry DOES get to romance one, I’m guessing she’ll elderfy within moments.  Still, that’ll make a maid a prime candidate for ghostification.

Also there is this newly-teened up Bunch friend of Koi’s.  I have no idea if she is Sherry’s daughter, niece or sister.

Sherry is STILL an adult, despite previously being only a day or two younger than Thomas.  The aging on this game is so messed up post-WA (oh yes, sims changing appearance in a mirror also resets their age.  Sigh.)

For some reason, though Papergirl knew Sherry’s traits before Eddie went to China, now she doesn’t know them at all.  But what she DOES know is that Sherry’s partner is indeed Abraham.  Now I REALLY miss the family tree, as I’d love to know if the new Bunch offspring is actually his child.  I guess she might show up as a half-sister in Thomas or Sindy’s panels if she is?  I need to check that out.

Because it was her birthday, I let Koi set to work on her mission and play tag with the guests.  She hasn’t rolled super-popular yet, but I hope it’ll happen soon.

The problem with the science facility is that there’s nowhere to put a cake, so she had to age up naturally.  It was cute that Abe was the first person to celebrate with her though.

Here she is as a teen, channelling a bit of Amaryllis at last.  Abe’s genes are way dominant in this family, and Koi still has plenty of his look about her.

Join us next time for more France to try and get this photography thing out of the way, more mate hunting, more tag, and some other exciting stuff no doubt!

Piranha

and Monster Fish of the Congo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A piranha or piraña (pronounced /pɨˈrɑːnə/, /-njə/ or /pɨˈrænə/, /-njə/; Portuguese: [piˈɾaɲɐ]) is a member of a family of omnivorous^[1] freshwater fish which live in South American rivers. InVenezuelan rivers, they are called caribes. They are known for their sharp teeth and a voracious appetite for meat.

Taxonomy

Piranhas belong to the subfamily Serrasalminae, which also includes closely related herbivorous fish such as pacus.^[2] Traditionally, only the four genera Pristobrycon, Pygocentrus, Pygopristisand Serrasalmus are considered to be true piranhas, due to their specialized teeth. However, a recent analysis showed that, if the piranha group is to be monophyletic, it should be restricted to Serrasalmus, Pygocentrus and part of Pristobrycon, or expanded to include these taxa plus Pygopristis, Catoprion, and Pristobrycon striolatus. Pygopristis was found to be more closely related to Catopricornis than the other three piranha genera.^[2]

The total number of piranha species is unknown and new species continue to be described. In 1988, it was stated that fewer than a half of the approximately 60 nominal species of piranhas at the time were valid. More recently (in 2003), one author recognized a total of 38 or 39 species, although the validity of some taxa remains questionable.^[2]

Distribution

Piranhas are found in the Amazon basin, in the Orinoco, in rivers of the Guyanas, in the Paraguay-Paraná, and the São Francisco River systems. Some species of piranha have broad geographic ranges, occurring in more than one of the major basins mentioned above, whereas others appear to have more limited distributions.^[2]

Aquarium piranhas have been introduced into parts of the United States with specimens occasionally found in the Potomac River and even as far north as Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin, although they typically do not survive cold winters.^[3] Piranhas have also been discovered in the Kaptai Lake in south-east Bangladesh. More recently a dead Piranha was discovered in a river in Devon, England^[4]. Research is being carried out to establish how piranha have moved to such distant corners of the world from their original habitat. It is anticipated that rogue exotic fish traders have released them in the lake to avoid being caught by anti-poaching forces.^[5]

Description

Piranhas are normally about 15 to 25 cm long (6 to 10 inches), although some specimens have been reported to be up to 43 cm (18.0 inches) in length.^[6]

Serrasalmus, Pristobrycon, Pygocentrus and Pygopristis are most easily recognized by their unique dentition. All piranhas have a single row of sharp teeth in both jaws; the teeth are tightly packed and interlocking (via small cusps) and used for rapid puncture and shearing. Individual teeth are typically broadly triangular, pointed and blade-like (flat in profile). There is minor variation in the number of cusps; in most species, the teeth are tricuspid with a larger middle cusp which makes the individual teeth appear markedly triangular. The exception is Pygopristis, which has pentacuspid teeth and a middle cusp usually only slightly larger than the other cusps. In the scale-eating Catoprion, the shape of their teeth is markedly different and thepremaxillary teeth are in two rows, as in most other serrasalmines.^[2]

Ecology

Piranhas are important ecological components of their native environments. Although largely restricted to lowland drainages, these fish are widespread and inhabit diverse habitats within both lotic and lentic environments. Some piranha species are abundant locally, and multiple species often occur together.^[2] As both predators and scavengers, piranhas influence the local distribution and composition of fish assemblages.^[2] Certain piranha species consume large quantities of seeds, but unlike the related Colossoma and Piaractus, herbivorous piranhas thoroughly masticate and entirely devour all seeds eaten and consequently do not function as dispersers.^[2]

Piranha have a reputation as a fearless fish who hunt their prey in ferocious packs. However, recent research, which “started off with the premise that they school as a means of cooperative hunting”, discovered that they were in fact rather fearful fish, like other fish, who schooled for protection from their predators, such as cormorants, caimans and dolphins. Piranhas are “basically like regular fish with large teeth”.^[7]

Research on the species Serrasalmus aff. brandtii and Pygocentrus nattereri in Viana Lake, which is formed during the wet season when theRio Pindare (a tributary of the Rio Mearim) floods, has shown that these species eat vegetable matter at some stages in their life; they are not strictly carnivorous fish.^[8]

Myths

There are various myths about piranhas like they can dilacerate a human body or a cattle in seconds. Those myths refers specifically onPygocentrus nattereri, the red piranha. ^[9] A very recurrent myth is they can be attracted by blood and are exclusive carnivores. ^[10] In Brazil was created a myth called “piranha cattle” saying that they sweep the rivers at high speed and attack the first cattle as he enters the water allowing a group of cattles trepassing the river. ^[11] Those myths were dismissed on research by Helder Queiroz and Anne Magurran and published on Biology Letters. ^[12]

Relationship with humans

Piranha teeth are often used to make tools and weapons by the indigeneous population. Piranha are also popular as food, although if an individual piranha is caught on a hook or line, it may be attacked by other (free) piranhas.

Piranha are commonly consumed by subsistence fishermen and often sold for food in local markets.^[2] In recent decades, dried specimens have been marketed as tourist souvenirs.^[2] Piranhas occasionally bite and sometimes injure bathers and swimmers.^[13] A piranha bite is sometimes considered more an act of carelessness than that of misfortune, but piranhas are a considerable nuisance to commercial and sport fishers because they steal bait, mutilate catch, damage nets and other gear and may bite when handled.^[2]

Several piranha species appear in the aquarium trade.^[2] Piranhas can be bought as pets in some areas, but they are illegal in many parts of the United States including Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.^[14]

The most common aquarium piranha is Pygocentrus nattereri, the red-bellied piranha. Piranhas can be bought fully grown or as babies, often no larger than a thumbnail. It is important to keep Pygocentruspiranhas alone or in groups of four or more, not in pairs, since aggression among them is common and is distributed more widely when kept in larger groups, not allowing the weaker fish to survive. It is not rare to find individuals with one eye missing due to a previous attack. If underfed, piranhas are likely to become cannibalistic on others in their group.

Animal Planet Videos: River Monsters: Piranhas Devour a Duck

when piranhas attack

DONT WATCH – Piranhas Attacking Live Mouse

Large Piranha – Video

Explorer | Monster Fish of the Congo | National Geographic Channel

Because I can’t play or update as much as usual in the week for the next fortnight, I’ve got a bumper update for you today.  Feel free to read it in bitesize chunks until there’s a new one.

We’ll kick off with the story you all want the gossip on… only there isn’t much gossip.  Abe is still engaged to Sherry.  Papergirl, ironically, is the only member of the family who knows Sherry Bunch’s traits now, and she isn’t showing up as engaged, but there are no other sims we know of called Sherry.  No wedding as of yet.  Hmmm.  And even with his second lease of life, Abe must be ancient now.  Sindy and Papergirl both passed 80 during this update, so he must be over 100.

Eddie Kidd rolled green thumb as a teen so he’s helping Thomas in the garden a lot… the garden which now has all kinds of exciting fruit growing in it from our adventures overseas.

A few readers commented that when they’d had ghost teens, they had to make them enrol in school.  When the boys aged up, they got the normal ’school starts in…’ dialogue but the next day that had gone and they did indeed have to enrol.  I enrolled Harry because I want to ambrosia him up and I also want him to get artistic on his YA birthday.  Eddie, on the other hand, doesn’t need to develop anything specific, so if he ages up badly it’s no biggie.  He isn’t enrolled at school and instead is free to take photos and garden during the day.

Koi aged up to child, but this picture is really here because it’s the only one I took of Papergirl in the past couple of sessions.  I discovered the reason she couldn’t review was because she was a weather woman.  Now she’s the next stage up in her career she can review again.  Makes sense, I guess.  Honestly, you’d think I was a noob the way I handled this, but I’ve already done this LTW once (albeit back in the distant days of Gen 2 Kyotis).

Koi couldn’t get childish as a child, so she has party animal.  She sure looks like one.

She isn’t glum all the time, honest (though she does like black) but I don’t want her to do too much socialising until she rolls ’super-popular’, so instead of sending her out to tag the town, she only does social at school, on the computer or on the phone.  I want to test how long it takes to do s-p with tag and compare it to with guitar and it’s not a fair comparison if she makes loads of friends before rolling it.  In the meantime she’s working on handiness in case she doesn’t roll super-popular – science is our back-up plan.

Piranha is mostly on free will these days, other than working at the supermarket (still called Abe’n'Ama’s even though we sold it until EAxis fixes it so you make money from businesses again).  By the way, those part-time careers seem to take forever and a day to progress up.  Here, she and Koi are playing a mean trick… I mean experimenting with sleep.  They had a conversation in the boys’ room.  As you can see, Eddie Kidd slept right through, and Harry Houdini was rudely awakened.  I have now given Thomas the trance sleepy LTR so more sleep experimenting is due (I may give it to Harry too and see if that stops light sleeping but only when he’s had the painting and writing ones).  Anyway, so far whilst I can see merit in heavy sleeper, light sleeper seems incredibly pointless as a trait.  More experiments will follow next time I play.

Evel is at level 9 of cookery skill, though is only at level 3 in her career.  Here she’s cooking grilled salmon for Paergirl (at last!).  The younger Dayes all like key lime pie or mac and cheese, and this meal means for the first time, everyone in the family has now eaten their favourite meal.  I’m not looking forward to future generations wanting complicated things.

Someone asked yesterday if they could eat frogs’ legs in France.  I didn’t see any on the menu and you can’t buy the recipe, but I was getting opportunities to take frogs to people so they could make them.  Anyway, Evel was watching Cookin’ Cable and learned the recipe, so here she is making it.

Um.  It looks.  Well.

Sindy works in cookery still and she spends the rest of the time painting.  I decided not to bother with her doing guitar challenges, my future rock star can tackle those.  I was very excited when she painted the picture above: it’s the spoon and plate thingy the DeCasims were always painting.  In both the Kyoti and Lazarus families I’ve had a whole heap of painters and never once has that painting come up.  So well done, Sindy.  Only – perfectionist?  It looks rubbish.

Thomas was rather befuddled to find that, on his elder birthday, he’d been transported to Egypt.  Fishing, fruit and fotos (sorry) here we come!

Mopeds are so much better than slowly floating around.  Though there was plenty of that as well.

Although I don’t like micromanaging several sims on travels, Thomas is fairly easy.  I got him to buy some pomegranates and then I sent him fishing.  There are only crocodiles and mummy fish new in Egypt (though you can catch various types of Koi there too) and only two fishing holes he needed to visit, so I set him up and left him to it whilst I followed Eddie around.

Eddie’s LTW says he has to have a current collection of photos worth £25,000 and have taken 10 photos in each location.  I was sure he’d taken enough in China, France and Sunset Valley to count, and I put his photos on the wall in the basement the other day and they were worth well over £30,000, so I figured he might complete the LTW this trip.

Now, these trips are supposed to be about fishing, photography, bugs etc and definitely NOT exploring much, right?

Wrong.  Eddie Kidd is going to be attempting the photography skill challenges, and the hardest one of these involves having five full collections of pictures.  One category for these collections is travel, and some of the objects listed are the special stones and items in tombs.  So I sent him down there under duress.

Speaking of duress, has anyone noticed their sims who are doing normal base game LTWs keep getting opportunities to go to other countries to help their school/promotion chances?  Wow, that is a LOT of effort for little reward.  I get annoyed when the game sends me them for the Lazaruses, like, doesn’t the game KNOW it’s an apocalypse and they can’t even leave Riverview, never mind the country?  Sorry, back on topic…

Eddie went for a swim, which made me laugh.

He also explored a bit more, and I like the pretty colours.  It’d work even better if Harry was in this shot, given his favourite colour is yellow.

The game wouldn’t let him walk through this fire trap – or even walls.  He’s a ghost!  I thought they were meant to walk through walls!!

I wanted to know what’d happen if he walked through fire, what with him being a water ghost and all.  Then we wer ecaught by surprise by a hidden fire trap.

Turns out water ghosts can catch fire!  When I get a fire ghost, TOTALLY going to try and set them on fire.  Hmm, maybe I should try and drown one of the boys at some point?

I was very tempted here for a moment to let him burn, just to see what would happen – would he just become a fire ghost instead?  But with his LTW to complete, I decided against it.  Don’t think I’ve ruled it out for when I’ve wrung him dry for points, though.

He was minding his own business looking through chests when a bad thing happened.

I did NOT want to encounter mummies yet.  I mean, in time, yes, I want to see sims be cursed by mummies and die, and see sims become mummies, and see mummy ghosts and all the rest of it.  Just not yet.

Then I thought, ‘oooh, Eddie, great photo op’ (except he couldn’t take a photo of it, or else I wasn’t quick enough).

We meant the mummy no harm but it decided to fight Eddie anyway.

Then things went very odd.

Eddie got cursed, and at the same time, Thomas got a new bad moodlet, ‘hurt hand’, from being bitten by a snake.  I thought he was fishing?

The mummy curse apparently lasts 14 days and the sim dies if it isn’t removed.  I wondered if Eddie could fulfil his LTW in 14 days, because if so, I’d be very tempted to let him die and see what happens.  But he might not complete it and then I’d be REALLY frustrated.  So I decided to look for ways to sort it out.

I read somewhere that if you go to the Sphinx and do the missions there you can get it taken off.  Only we sucked at figuring out how to get through the Sphinx (and I don’t want to learn too much about missions until I have an explorer sim).

He did weirdly keep turning into his alive self for a few seconds, though.

He then got an opportunity to take a relic to someone in return for having the curse lifted, which we were about to do… when I thought about using the moodlet manager.  A couple of cures on that and all was well.  Ha, mummy, beat that!  Make sure you take one with you on your travels.  (BTW apparently if you have a mummy snack in your inventory they take that instead… but our mummy snack was in Thomas’s inventory at the time.  Oops).

Having sorted Eddie out, I went back to see Thomas autonomously doing this.  We bought a snake charming kit to play with and it seemed he’d taken it upon himself to investigate.

Thomas, if you’re going to keep doing this, then no wonder you’re getting bitten.

He seemed to suck as I never saw a snake.

Eddie completed his mission anyway, even though he wasn’t cursed, as I figured it couldn’t hurt.  He then topped out the photography skill by taking a photo of the person he’d delivered the relic to and her husband asleep, which was rather creepy.  It’d have been even more creepy if that shot had been the one to complete his LTW.

He didn’t complete his LTW, which means one of two things.  Either I didn’t take enough photos in the other destinations, or ‘current collection’ means photos still loaded onto a camera, which would invalidate all £30,000 plus in our basement.  Either way, I’m not impressed, but I suppose the skill challenges will still take me time so it’s not as much of a hardship to keep going as it might otherwise be.

Photography is kind of fun, but I think it (and I suspect the same will be true of exploring) is best if you are only managing one sim.  Eight-person households thrive on things like athletic, jobs and fishing where you can just leave them to it.  Photographers need constant looking after.

The second they returned home, Thomas elderfied.

I need a better shot because facially he actually still looks like himself rather than generic Sim elder (I got Eddie to take a photo of some generic sim elders in THOSE dungarees btw, but no photos are going on our wall until his LTW is completed for the reasons listed above).  He is now at level 10 gardening and suddenly has slipped down the list for spare removal.

Harry Houdini is making good progress on his writing.  His art is hindered by Papergirl keeping doing sneaky paintings when I’m not looking.  When he left school tonight, he didn’t come home, but started chatting to this girl.  I realised I really ought to start spouse hunting for Gen 3.  This girl doesn’t have a job, though, so cute as she is, she’s no spouse.  With a whole bunch of service sims, ghost types and interational sims to work into the family, townies are not getting a look in.

When I sent Eddie to the beach to take photos and he was very keen on chatting to this lady who is a lot older than him, I realised the boys’ hormones were directing what I should do with them next.

So I got Eddie to hire a babysitter.  Of course we have no little ones, but a teen service sim is too good to ignore.  Hilda here was getting on great guns with our boy and fnding him very alluring until he confessed his attraction for her.  I sense another Sindy/Magician scenario on our hands.

The maid was at the house, so I got Harry to talk to her.  OK, she’s probably going to be an elder by the time he ages up but it’s worth a shot.  This maid is called Chanel as well, which is rather exciting.

Evel was at work while all this was going on, but rest assured, she’ll be sent out spouse hunting as soon as possible.  Not that all three of them will be married off but I may as well set the wheels in motion because as soon as the heir poll is decided, I want to get Gen 4 underway.

Oh, and before that, just one weird little bit of news for you.  We got this pop up telling us Frederick Parsons was about to die.  Frederick Parsons, aka Magician, who already died, and was sent back to the Netherworld.  Whose gravestone sits with Ama’s outside the library.  Who, weirdly, is still showing as Sindy’s boyfriend.  Is this what’s going to happen with ghosts in my legacy?  Am I going to be plagued by pop-ups from now on?  Because if so, those graves are getting deleted!

Anyway, onto the heir poll.  Post who you want in the comments or on the Boolprop thread.  Voting closes on Friday.

Evel Knievel Daye

Traits: Vegetarian, Natural Cook, Excitable, Easily Impressed, Workaholic

LTW: Five Star Chef

Faves: Orange, Fruit Parfait

Child naming trait: Vegetarian

Harry Houdini Daye

Traits: Light Sleeper, Hates the Outdoors, Great Kisser, Bookworm

LTW: Illustrious Author

Faves: Yellow, Key Lime Pie

Child naming trait: Bookworm

Note: Harry will be eating ambrosia as soon as we can fix it up for him.

Eddie Kidd Daye

Traits: Photographer’s eye, Heavy sleeper, Green Thumb, Genius

LTW: Photo Collection

Faves: Aqua, Mac and Cheese

Child naming trait: Photographer’s Eye

Someone was as naughty as his big sister when he was in France.  Tut tut, Eddie Kidd Daye.

He and Sindy went exploring the gallery where he took plenty of photos.  I thought it might help Sindy’s artistry but there didn’t seem to be any easels, and she’s already level 10, so not really.  She had fun looking at the pretty stuff, though.

We noticed some new gnomes: a Napoleon one…

…and a kind of martial arts-cum-beret-wearing one.  WANT THESE.

Having not explored Egypt much yet, I’m interested to know whether the Egyptian tombs and artefacts on display here are also there.  Eddie Kidd photographed some of them and they were noted on his checklist, so I wonder if you can get those things in France AND Egypt or France alone.

I like the gallery/museum thing though. When I went to Paris I spent most of my time in museums and galleries so it seems right to have one in the game.

Piranha and Sindy got on with some nectar tasting while Eddie Kidd took more photos of the nectary.  They did this completely autonomously, and I noticed that Piranha went for the most expensive kind, whilst Sindy went for the reasonably priced stuff, which was kind of fitting given their characters.

Sindy’s batch gave her a +5 mood boost for five hours (she tried another bottle too, also low-medium priced but with different fruit, and she had a dialogue popping up saying “all nectar tastes the same to me”.  So funny).

Piranha’s luxury blend, however, gave her a whopping +30 boost, albeit only for 8 hours.

I sent Eddie to the mausoleum to see if ghosts can get electrocuted by a bear.

…turns out they can!

He also took more photos and is at level 8 already in the skill.

They came home and Piranha deposited the final bugs for her collection.  All she has to do now is max out the grocery store career and she can win her freedom.

Because Eddie Kidd has the photographer’s eye trait, he gets the options to ‘talk about cameras’, ‘moan about dark rooms’, ‘discuss SLR’ and, my favourite, ‘reminisce about film’.  It adds to his friendship with Harry but I imagine it’d bore some sims.  By the way: I still haven’t noticed any difference in their sleeping.  I must conduct a proper experiment soon.

Kimberley/Papergirl still hasn’t been able to review anything, though I don’t know if this is because you can only do so many at each stage of your career or if it’s a bug.  When she gets to level 8 we should know.  I hate seeing her as an elder, she was so pretty.  Sindy kind of suits being old, however, she looks distinguished.  Thomas will be old next time I play, but all sim elder men look the same to me.

Oh, and some obligatory cute picspam of the child/toddler interactions.  The boys can feed Koi now, and they can cuddle her…

…and play peekaboo.  The first time I tried this was with members of Gen 4 in The Lazarus Dispatches and I have the cutest pic ever to put in update 3.6 next week.

I also got Piranha to talk through Dannii Minogue at her.  I’ve never used that option before but it didn’t give a noticeable moodlet boost, though I think fun and social increased.  Cute, though.

Since coming back from France, I haven’t been able to click on the family tree, so I went into their relationships to see if Abe was still alive and kicking.  I skimmed over his panel and stopped, aghast.

Abe has a new partner!  And he’s engaged to this one, unlike just being a romantic interest.  But look at the name!!!  It can’t be, can it?  Sherry Bunch is only showing as a stranger to Thomas now, weirdly, so nothing shows in her panel.  But I am determined to find out.  I suspect we won’t be invited to any wedding, and we can no longer use the family tree, so the paper will be scanned thoroughly.  She’s younger than your youngest son, though, Abe.  You old dog.

Here’s a final shot of my ghost twins as little boys, because it’s birthday time!

Harry Houdini went first and before I could change his apperance, WHILE his brother was aging up, he decided to plonk himself in front of the telly and scoff.  I didn’t choose his teen trait because I hadn’t checked his schooling (same for Eddie).  No big deal as their LTWs are locked in anyway.  He rolled ‘great kisser’.  Oh, that will be fun.

I changed his appearance but haven’t got a shot of him.  Here’s his CAS though, and he’ll hopefully be eating ambrosia when Evel learns to make it, so this is what he’ll look like eventually.

Both boys wound up having identical hair for the first time, until I changed Harry’s.  Eddie’s can stay that way.  I forget what he rolled, but I’ll look it up for next time.

Join us next time for Koi and Thomas aging up, more gardening, more journalism, more photography, more Egypt and the Gen 3 heir poll… and hopefully we’ll find out what Abe is up to!

Send us one to Italy, please!!!!!!

And when you start making them in metric sizes, send us 20.

Possibly not only the most useful thing on production right now, but the coolest looking.  Just for its sheer utility.  It just goes to show that the best looking products were never made to look good, they’re made to function.  I think ill attach some other products that meet such criteria.

The PIRANHA is a single-piece, multi-purpose pocket tool that is constructed from heat-treated and corrosion-resistant S30V Stainless Steel with a built-in neoprene double-ended driver bit holder.

Keep this slim tool in your pocket and you'll always be able to tighten screws, loosen bolts, pry things open and pop the tops on your favorite beverages.

via PocketToolX :: PIRANHA POCKET TOOL.

Other stuff that needs mentioning for being good looking for its sheer utility.

Land Rover Defender

Tratto Pen

to be added to later…..

When I discovered Harry Houdini doing this, I decided it was time for the boys to age up.

Harry very quickly rolled his LTW: Illustrious Author.  I decided he’d do this, rather than science, because he hates the outdoors, and I wasn’t sure about all that gardening.  He was given bookworm as his childhood present.

Eddie Kidd also rolled his LTW early.  He was given photographer’s eye for childhood and he wants a nice photo collection.  This LTW requires him to have a photo collection worth 25,000 simoleans and to have taken at least 10 photos in each location.  He will also be doing the photography skill challenges – which are actually quite hard, as one of them requires filling five full albums, and the albums each have categories of photo in them.  One category has ‘my grandchild’ as an option.  So yeah, not sure we’ll be aiming for that particular collection.

Harry Houdini is cracking on nicely with his painting and writing.  I put a computer in his room to save him sitting outside.  I am starting to put LTW-achieving tools in the bedrooms to see if having the nice colours in there helps.  In time there will be TVs, stereos and loads of artwork in there too.  Each bedroom (Sindy’s, Papergirl and Thomas’s, Piranha and Evel’s, Harry and Eddie’s) has its own bathroom though that doesn’t stop them using whichever they feel like.

On the subject of bathrooms, I do like the new ability to lock doors, though.  Reminder to self: upload housey pics.

I’d heard a rumour that ghost children don’t go to school, but my boys have been going, so that was clearly not true.  Not sure if I’m pleased or saddened by that fact.

Koi is now a toddler and she also has Amaryllis’s hair.  Gen three, you are made of so much win.

This picture is entirely for DB’s benefit.  Adorable, isn’t it?  She hasn’t been to the library to TSAL yet, but she can walk, talk and use the xylophone.

Another gratuitous cute pic, but also a reminder that I had to remove the nomosaic mod when I installed WA as it conflicts – so it might be worth removing if you have it, too – and if it’s been updated, can someone let me know?

Even more people in this family are getting older.  I aged Sindy up despite the game trying to pretend she was younger than Thomas.  I was very pleased the game allowed her to keep the same hairstyle, and I like the dark grey, it’s quite distinguished.

She completed all the painting challenges and painted both Evel Knievel and Piranha’s portraits.  I might make her try for the guitar challenges, but I’ll probably leave them for my future rock star.  For now she can cook and help with Koi.

Papergirl also aged up and hasn’t been able to review or interview yet, but she has only just gone back to work after maternity in the game, so we’ll see.  The businesses remain glitched, so we don’t own any shares right now.  As you can see from her bowl, the fridge glitch is still in operation.  Evel is at level 8 cooking now and has learned and prepared most of the recipes at her level.  She will be promoted to level three next shift.

Piranha is at level two in the grocery store career (her adult trait was friendly, by the way).  She’s going to top out the job, finish collecting bugs and go.  It’ll be a sad day, but there’s little else I can do with her, and I can’t face doing gems, metals and rocks again just yet.  I might leave that until I have a logic sim who can search for BDRs.

She is very much in my good books, though, because looky what we have here!  Now I know why one of Catherine’s DeCasim legacy entries was called ‘Behold the Trilobite Beetle’.  That little sucker has been taunting us for ages.  She eventually found it on one of the beaches in a spot we’d visited dozens of time before.

All my base bugs are here now, and soon we’ll have the WA bug tanks full as well.  This pleases me.

I wasted no time in sending Piranha away to complete the collection.  She, Thomas and Eddie Kidd went to China.  We discovered she could buy Tri-Tip Steak in the food store at the market, so she got to eat her favourite meal.

Thomas caught all the Chinese fish – I think – and has some plums, pomelos and cherries to take home to plant in the garden (he’s now level 9, which might cause me omni-related dilemmas in the future when it comes to kicking him out.  Also: I must remember to get some of Gen 3 gardening).

Eddie Kidd started to go out and take photos.  I discovered taking ghosts overseas is annoying.  They don’t run, they float, which takes a LOT longer than running.  Kids also have to obey curfew on holiday (though teens don’t), which is rubbish!

Fortunately, he can ride a bike.

Photography is an interesting skill.  You don’t see the sim with the camera, you see through the camera in a similar way to the camera phone, though.  We only have the cheapest camera right now, and I suck at using it, so our photos are not very attractive.  I do like the way the game tells you what the subject of your photo is, and what category it will go in, though.  His LTW seems easier than I first thought.  His collection is already worth 34,000 simoleans and he’s at level 7 already and we’ve only been messing about.

Here’s Piranha posing.  Once you ask a sim to pose you can then tell them which pose to adopt.  This could be a handy storytelling thing although we haven’t yet got good photos of sims posing.  The annoying thing about photography is it gtakes you straight into the camera mode as soon as you click to take photo,  so you have to make sure your sim is in the right area.

For some reason I don’t have many photos of China.  One sleep at home later, and it was time for another trip.  Piranha, Sindy and Eddie Kidd are currently in France and have only just arrived, so more on that next time, but…

…with this glowy butterfly, Piranha managed to complete collecting bugs in WA as well!

Join us next time for more France, more photography and more… other stuff.

Marjorie Levine

Last month, a red-bellied piranha was caught by a 15-year-old boy.  The next day, fish and wildlife officials caught two more in the same lake.  No, this didn’t take place in the Amazon; it happened in West Palm Beach, Florida, The Piranha is not a Florida native, but, like the New York Snowbirds, these animals like the heat!  From south of Florida’s borders, these non-native animals have invaded Florida due primarily to negligent pet owners. When pets becomes too large, people simply release them into the wild without thinking of any consequences. The pets survive and flourish in Florida because the conditions are so similar to that of their natural ecosystem.

Although Florida has laws about importing non-native species, pet stores are still able to obtain licenses to sell exotic animals cheaply, which in turn attracts people to buy these exotic pets without researching the specifics of their care.  Some released pets, such as the green iguana, are able to move on land, migrating to different parts of Florida where Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission finds them almost impossible to control.  However, these piranhas were confined to one lake in West Palm Beach.  They could not infest other areas of Florida, as land animals can.  Why, then, was the choice made by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) to poison the entire lake to remove this one species?

The FFWCC claimed that if it did not poison the entire lake, the piranha would ruin the habitat.  The FWCC intends to remove the dead fish and then restock the lake with freshwater fish.  The fish that resided in the lake will be wiped out to rectify a situation created by negligent humans.  Animal cruelty laws create regulations for euthanasia of cats, dogs and animals in pet stores, but none for animals abandoned in nearby lakes.

The FFWCC is going to kill the entire fish population because this is a “reasonable remedy” for the problem, which is allowed in the statute.  Should the actions taken by the FFWCC be legal? Should they be the first option for wildlife officials, rather than some more humane alternative? Are they not still causing pain and suffering, as prohibited by the animal cruelty statue, not only to the fish they are targeting, but also the “innocent” native species?

Although the FFWCC is using their best efforts to stop furthering harm to an entire ecosystem, the piranha cannot cause more harm than it will do in this small lake, and I cannot understand why they have elected to take such extreme actions instead of a more thought out, humane solution.  After capturing three piranha, fish and wildlife experts could have closely monitored the situation at the lake, and hopefully there would be no further drop in fish numbers as a result of more piranha.  This ecosystem appears to be a lake created by developers, and is isolated from other bodies of water, and therefore, the worst that could happen, so long as the fish remained isolated to this one lake, is that fish numbers would drop as FFWCC officials poached the piranhas still living.  But rather than waste time and taxpayer money on fish, they instead dumped chemicals and eradicated every fish in this pond.  A quick solution, but is it ethically sound?  I think not.

She was crushed to death on Black Friday.
First in line at the local Wal-Mart
she arrived at 2 am.
The crowd filled in behind her
got more antsy as the hours passed,
the temperature started to dip,
on a day approaching winter
more than Indian Summer.

Though the store was scheduled to open early at 5:30 am
packed like sardines
people started to push around 4:30.
At first just irritating -
then disconcerting -
finally the jostling morphed into joustling,
became a real concern.

Disoriented she tried to hold her ground
the back of her thighs ached, tightened
from being pushed to the tips of her toes
like a ballerina, which she wasn’t.
A rope divider in front of her
like the red carpet at the Oscars
cordoning off the line
to leave enough space so the store
could actually open the doors when the hour came.

About 4:55
pushed up a few inches at a time
she tried to yell for people to ease off
no one could hear -
except for the few in the same predicament, directly behind her -
the deafness of impending catastrophe.

The crowd acting as if in Times Square at New Years,
started a countdown to the opening hour.

By 5:25 no more than a few inches from the glass
she started to rap, with her purse.

She had no idea that her own death was imminent
it was not in the sales flyer -
although not prone,
fear spread through her veins
as if she lay flat over the pit with the pendulum’s blade
moving closer and closer to her chest.

When the blue coated attendants appeared
on the other side of the plate glass
the crowd surged.
Slapped against the pane
the way she had once slapped a rude patron in a bar,
crushed against the door
as if in a giant human vice,
she attempted one last futile call
just before she lost all breath.
Diaphragm and lungs flatted like a pancake.

Few of her Wal-Mart “shopping colleagues”
ever noticed her predicament
too busy reading the sales signs
or the coupons they held in their hands like prayer cards.

When they straightened out the hysteria,
- a story in and of itself -
her lifeless body slumped to the sidewalk.

Sobbing, crying, screaming hysterically
a 17 year old high school senior
working part time
saw the whole thing from the lobby of the store
inches away, separated from death by plate glass
watching Black Death’s work
as one would watch Piranha in an aquarium
eat the others.
Observed life’s form, as it left the shopper,
fog the outside of the door pane glass.

Later she would be haunted by the likeness
left in last breath’s steam on the panel
like’s Christ’s face on Veronica’s veil
this poor soul, human sacrifice to a strange god
which required attendance at the Churches of Commerce
on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

What was bred from us
that this crowd could continue on its way
walk right over the body
as they would walk past a homeless man
curled in a sleeping blanket on the street
on the sidewalk in New York?

To be only 17
stand helpless
in the face of another’s death.

Who can comprehend
why this should be -
why it came to pass -
crushed to death by her own people
on a day aptly named – Black Friday.

Ray Brown

I’ve been a bit concerned about the state of Thomas and Papergirl’s marriage of late.  They’ve not been wanting to try for a baby, he’s been rolling wishes to speak to Sherry Bunch, and she’s been rolling wishes to befriend her male acquaintances.  So I sent them for a romantic break in France.

Of course, I got them doing some skilling, learning and exploring, too.  There are new grape varieties in France.  We discovered three and Thomas harvested some for us to plant at home.  They also act as bait for the French fish, and ingredients for nectar.

Thomas had a go at making nectar with grapes, lime and apples.  The game told us it was disgusting, which might be a fair point.  You can purchase a billion different varieties of nectar at the store onsite, which makes me think the nectar skill and LTW might be very difficult indeed.

Papergirl was sent rummaging to see if she could build up her journalistic skills writing some stories on her French buddies.  She could rummage, but never enough to dig up any dirt (or indeed find anything exciting).

She spent a lot of time buttering up the locals to improve her charisma.  She can talk about her adventures and discuss the local gossip with them.  She can’t interview them, sadly.  On the phone, you can talk to friends in France, or long-distance friends (back home) and when you get home you can also call your long-distance holiday friends, and I’ve heard you can invite them over.  It’s now my ambition to gain spouses from these destinations for future Dayes.

Here, Papergirl is learning songs.  She learned two songs from the shopkeeper.  When she sang one, ‘Je T’aime’ back to him, they got a negative moodlet because he was in a relationship.  Ha.  I didn’t notice her gaining any music skill from the songs though.

In the bedroom she taught the songs to Thomas and he sang the love song back to her.  I spammed their romantic interactions but they had no try for baby option come up, and I thought maybe it just couldn’t happen in France, so I sent them to sleep.

The next day I sent Papergirl off to visit the sights and talk to more locals, while I got Thomas to read his fishing books then carry out his main mission here, to catch the unique fish.

He didn’t seem too impressed with frogs.

Snails were perhaps a little more impressive, given their size.  You can also catch crawfish in France (and some more normal fish).  Fishing here can all  be done in the same place and seems fairly straightforward, but in China I think it’ll be more of a challenge given the number of fishing books and fishing spots for that place.

Papergirl enjoyed whizzing around on the motorbike.  I also sent the two of them for a romantic meal at the cafe in France but she couldn’t eat grilled salmon, so she still hasn’t eaten her favourite meal (Thomas has had key lime pie now, hurrah).

Fortunately, this is not Thomas displaying his sexytime moves.  We bought a camera and Papergirl can ask people to pose.  She didn’t take a picture, but I’m considering letting Eddie Kidd do one of the photography based LTWs so he’ll inherit it on his child birthday (assuming children can use cameras).

After a lot of faffing about (and some obligatory bathroom flirting), they finally succumbed.

Another baby is on the way – and only a few hours before they had to come home.

Evel has started cooking up some of the fancy new WA recipes.  Here she’s seen cooking felafel.  She’s so skillful, she doesn’t even need to look at what she’s doing.  A very cute thing (that will probably become annoying) was that she sang the song she learned in China while she was cooking.  Aw.

Now here’s something exciting.  Look at the bottom option Thomas has here.  It says ‘fertilise garden with best fertiliser’.  Now that seems a very useful new interaction indeed and a much less timewastey one than having to do all the fertilizing manually.  Oh, and we learned more about that darn omni at the science facility.  You can only feed or harvest it at certain times of the day.  Iiiinteresting.

I’m not entirely sure I approve of pregnant women driving around Sunset Valley on mopeds without helmets on.

I sent Papergirl out to do some interviews and reviews to make the best use of her pregnancy… only… nowhere was available to review?  Whaaat??  I hope this is merely the Sim nanny state enforcing new restrictions on pregnant sims and not some patch/WA glitch that has stopped journos doing journalistic things, or I will NOT BE IMPRESSED.

Cos, yeah, she can’t interview, either.  She went to the library to read Totally Preggers and build charisma.  I got her to give a flirty introduction to some townie because I thought it might be better for charisma (I wasn’t going to have her take the flirting anywhere other than that).  Only Abe chose that moment to enter the library and he wasn’t best impressed with his daughter-in-law’s behaviour.  He wasn’t even impressed when she told him a fifth grandchild was on the way, and last time I saw him, he had a wish to have five grandchildren, so you think he’d be over the moon.  Maybe being the living dead has given him a bit of a sense of humour bypass.

His oldest granchildren both aged up.  I was all ready to get Piranha out looking for a spouse to turn into a purple ghost (I like the idea of favourite colour ghosties)… when I realised I had chosen her traits so far and would have to roll her YA trait.  She rolled… whatever and she did NOT roll Gold-digger.  No biggie, I had enough LTH to buy her a change, but reroll as much as I liked, Gold-digger would not come up.

So now she’s just after swimming in cash, which will be a doddle, and is back out looking for the mythical trilobite beetle.  She can have a few more bug hunts overseas, top out a part-time career and (pleeeeease) find that darn bug, and then I’ll let her live her life and make room for Gen 4.

Evel is much better behaved than her cousin.  I chose workaholic for her and she’s (of course) going to be a Five Star Chef.  Next time I play I’ll get a better picture of her – she aged up just as I was about to go out and I didn’t have time to get a good shot.

And finally…. I let Papergirl read Totally Preggers but nothing else and she didn’t go to the spa or have a back massage.  She was mostly happy throughout.  I chose one of this baby’s traits.  Koi Daye likes black and key-lime pie, so should be easy to please.  She rolled clumsy and I chose friendly.  I’m hoping she will test out super-popular via the medium of tag.

Join us next week when we should hopefully have a house full of old people and ghost children, we should discover what colour Koi’s hair will be and we’ll find out if Papergirl can ever conduct an interview or review again!

Title: The 5th Single – Piranha

Artist: Tenjochiki

Conductor: AVEX Trax

Release date: 2007.08.01

Language: Japanese

Total Size: 52 MB

Tracklist:

.:Download:.

1. Piranha
2. My Everything
3. Just For One Day (feat. Jaejoong from Tohoshinki)
4. The Club – STY Gin n’ Tonic Remix [feat. SEAMO]
5. Piranha [less vocal]
6. My Everything [less vocal]
7. Just For One Day [less vocal with Jaejoong]
8. Just For One Day [less vocal with Tenjochiki]

My Rating: 9/10

~*: Piranha – first time I heard it, I would mind that it’s messy, hahaha. But it grew fast and well I’m addicted. Their super power voice ability is really cool. The beat is quite repetitive, whereas it’s still nice to hear. I bet it’s one of the best released single that they have. Though it’s up-beat dance, they still show their spectacular voice. Ommo. The girls really made me going jealous. Ckckc.. Now I don’t doubt to paste them as my favourite girls group.

~*: My Everything – Compared with the korean version, this is the worst. I can’t hear Stephanie’s smooth vibration, they didn’t fix it in a good way. Only Lina who sound the best.

~*:Just For One Day [feat. Jaejoong] – I have reviewed it in their post about Graceful 4. It’s quite different. This version is nice ballad, not a jazz like the album version. It’s shorter, they turned into the chorus after the bridge, not like the album version that it turned into a tune after that. Vocally, The girls harmonized it well alongside JaeJoong, but Jaejoong has a lot of parts compared with 4 girls.

~*: The Club – STY Gin n’ Tonic Remix [feat. SEAMO] – the beat is very match to the song, while the girls didn’t sound different rather than the original version. Seamo rapped very cool, but I still love the original version more.

Det er beskæmmende, men noget tyder på, at der er begået alvorlige fejl mht. danske soldaters sikkerhed i Afghanistan. Først var der sagen om den manglende bundpansring i mandskabsvognene (kaldet PMV). Så var der historien om de indkøbte gitre, der skal beskytte PMV’erne og Piranha’erne mod raketdrevne granater. Og for at det ikke skal være løgn, viser det sig nu også, at de danske hjelme måske er betydeligt ringere, end dem fx amerikanerne bruger, og de danske fragmentationsveste ikke yder den nødvendige beskyttelse i forhold til fragmenter og ammunition.

Alt i alt en trist historie. Og det er tilsyneladende ikke, fordi der har manglet opfordringer fra soldaterne eller fra Hærens Operative Kommando til at få gjort noget ved forholdene, tværtimod.

Men hvorfor sker det så ikke noget? Jeg nægter at tro på, at det er manglende vilje! Snarere er det endnu et eksempel på den katastrofale mangel på økonomisk styring, der har været i Forsvaret de seneste mange år. Forsvarets top har troet på, at der var penge nok, mens de operative led har kæmpet med budgetrestriktioner og sparetiltag i hobetal. Hvis det er sandt, er der noget helt galt i systemet!

Unge mænd og kvinder, der har valgt at gøre en indsats i Afghanistan, fortjener vores respekt; men de fortjener så sandelig også, at vi afsætter penge til det nødvendige sikkerhedsudstyr – alt andet vil være det rene galimatias.

Men ikke nok med at sikkerheden tilsyneladende halter; der mangler også noget så banalt som uddannelsesmateriel, så soldaterne kan træne med det materiel, de skal bruge i Afghanistan. Det kan der være mange gode årsager til; fx at det bedste materiel vi har, skal bruges i Afghanistan – men det må være lige så vigtig, at de soldater, der skal af sted, har haft lejlighed til at blive undervist i og træne med dette materiel.

Der er afsat penge i det nye forsvarsforlig til både sikkerhedsudstyr og uddannelsesmateriel, men hvis det viser sig, at et dundrende underskud i forsvaret betyder, at der alligevel ikke kan indkøbes det nødvendige udstyr, så er der altså nogen, der får ørerne gevaldigt i maskinen!

John Dyrby Paulsen, MF(S)
Forsvarsordfører

In this latest update we have lots of picspam of Piranha in Egypt.  Because she’s so pretty and it’s so pretty and she looks so at home there.  We also have some ghost toddler action and a very exciting learning that those of you who don’t have WA may not have found out about yet.  So, on with the action!

World Adventures would be a great place to play out Doctor Who sims stories, because there is a LOT of running involved.  Characters do occasionally get to use transport, but most of the time, presumably because of the hills and so on, they run places.  It’s a bit time consuming, but if you stick it on 3x speed it’s OK.

We bought ourselves a moped, though your sims get to drive around on these in Egypt anyway (in China it’s bicycles).  Piranha won’t be bothering with catacombs or challenges or anything while she’s here; she’s all about collecting (and buying the relevant fishing books and recipes we need).

Here she is collecting outside some pyramids.  This screenshot is merely so we can all sigh at the prettiness.

Unlike her cousin, whenever she had a second on freewill she chose to play guitar, which is an improvement on homework I suppose.

When you are at base camp on your travels (and in some ‘community’ locations) there are places to eat properly.  However, your sims can buy morsels of dried food to eat in caves and on missions to save having to find somewhere to eat (they can also buy fruit and veg from the shops and there are places where you can harvest plants, too).  There are three types of morsel, and of course, we’ve tried them all out.

The small morsel gives a negative moodlet from eating nasty food; the medium one gives a ‘good meal’ moodlet, and the big one gives whatever it the moodlet’s called that comes between ‘good’ and ‘divine’ meal: the one you get when you have really nice food at home or in the Bistro (but not when you eat the Bistro’s divine meal).  Note to self: make more notes on these things so you can inform people properly.  These latter two are the same length and size of effect as in the base game when you eat food that gives a similar response; I haven’t seen the negative moodlet before (though I think it was similar in size of effect to the cheap fridge moodlet).  Basically, the medium food is probably the one to go for if you can afford it.  Medium food also tends to be what they find if they discover food when they’re exploring.

There are unique collectables in each location, so Piranha will also be visiting China and France at some stage to get bugs and butterflies.

She found two unique types of butterfly here and a scarab beetle.  I hope there aren’t any more but I haven’t found any guide to WA collectibles out there yet.  I guess that’s the disadvantage of playing a game so new; by now there are guides a-plenty for the base game but everyone’s still learning the ropes with the EP.

She went looking for interesting stuff in the mausoleum catacombs but came out with nothing but a bad moodlet and some bear electrocution.

We couldn’t find a triolbite beetle here, either.  But look how pretty it is.  We also discovered that there is a delay between when sims come back from one holiday and try to go to the next, as I wanted Piranha to go on the France expedition and it wouldn’t let her as it was too soon after this one.  Will let you know how big the gap is when I do.

Piranha brought some souvenirs home, including the moped, books, incense (which we haven’t played with yet) and our new Mummified Teddy, Sharon Osbourne (I renamed the others after Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue after pinkfiend1’s comment yesterday).

Here’s our current collection of butterflies and beetles.  I like them a lot better than fish as you don’t have to feed them (and they’re prettier).

Piranha is demonstrating something else I learned: she’s a slob (a slob AND a snob: go figure), and when she licks a used plate clean, her hunger bar fills up.  She can also, of course, eat spoiled food, which is fine as the fridge glitch hasn’t been fixed yet.  In other news, Sindy can now make key lime pie so Thomas will finally get to eat his favourite food.

As promised, some ghost toddler skilling.  The library books trick works just as well as for living babies.  We got Harry through his books in one sim afternoon and we’ll do the same for Eddie as soon as we can.

Here’s the obligatory cute picture of the boys skilling on the toys.  Now they are toddlers, their graves have the ‘return to Netherworld’ option on. Not that that’ll be happening, of course.

Some of you wanted to see their CAS pictures, so here they are:

Eddie Kidd Daye

Harry Houdini Daye

Other than their hairstyles and clothes they essentially look the same as each other now, but that’s sim toddlers for you.  When they get to teen I’ll hopefully be able to ambrosia one of them up and then hold an heir poll (Evel is about to turn YA in game, and so I don’t want to wait until the boys turn YA or she’ll be ancient!).

Harry hates the outdoors so his LTW probably won’t be anything funky from the new EP but Eddie will totally get to do one of those new LTWS.  I’ve discovered five so far (based on exploring, martial arts, photography, relic collecting and nectar) though there may be more.  As soon Eddie turns child, he’ll be travelling along with Piranha and Thomas (children can’t travel alone) and then I’ll decide what his destiny is.

Not sure what Harry will do.  I’m leaning towards science so we can do experiments and make all our stuff give off nice moodlets.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this tidbit, which pretty much makes WA getting all by itself (as if those pretty pyramids weren’t reason enough!).  There are several new LTRs.  We’ll be play testing all of them as we go.  However, the best one is ‘No bills ever’.  Yes, that’s right.  The only time that little flag will go up is when we have a certificate, book, fish or gem delivered (and when I need a repo man so hold off on that LTR for a nanosecond in a later generation).  It only costs 15K LTH which is a ridiculously small price to pay for something so amazing (it’s one that applies to a sim so you’ll have to repurchase it if that sim dies/moves).  Considering we’re going to have to have a monster-sized house, this is very good news indeed!

While I remember, just a warning about money and the patch: when I patched up my base game, the businesses couldn’t be collected from any more.  I sold them because there was no point in having them and making nothing.  Since installing WA I have bought the cheapest share (the diner) to see if the glitch has been fixed.  We’ll keep you posted.

Join us later in the week for France, fishing, gardening, journalism, singing, cooking and the girls aging up!

We begin our new update with another gnome pose.  Here’s Len Goodman – he’s actually pointing at Simon Cowell (who’s still standing on the other table).  There will be more gnomage later.

However… I now have World Adventures!  Hooray!  I haven’t spent much time playing with it yet, but fear not, the family will get around to it.  Because there are traits and LTWs associated with WA I don’t want to waste all the good stuff on the current members of the family who have other destinies (except the boys, whose haven’t been decided), so it’ll take time before we play through it all, but nonetheless, you’ll be seeing a bit of travelling this week as I’m anxioous to get out there and there are things our gang can do there right now that won’t spoil all the exploration and skilling stuff I have planned for future Dayes.

Evel Knievel was the first member of the family to take a trip, and she went to China.  I was very excited to learn that teens can travel alone.  Excellent!  For those that don’t have WA, the first trip takes 3 days and as they progress through challenges, missions and exploration, they can gain visa stamps (up to three per location) and spend longer and longer there.  In time, apparently, they can buy homes there.

There is a sort of neighbourhood layout with houses and lots similar to community lots (at least in China, I haven’t been anywhere else yet) which have various stuff on them, and it’s very pretty.  You can take travel opportunities (though they’re called something else): mini challenges and explorations to help you gain your visa.  For the most part, these particular Dayes will be ignoring those and letting future ones do them, but Evel did a few of them so I could get a feel for the game.

She also did some shopping for me.  You can buy ‘relics’ and also some metals and gems (which is nice if you don’t want the hassle of full-on collecting), food, tents, cameras, fireworks and suchlike.  However, the big thing for us are the books: there are new recipe books, new fishing books and some new fiction type books.  We purchased the recipes and fishing books posthaste.

Seeing as it’s a try everything legacy, I figure we need to cook every new recipe and catch every new fish too.  But I’m totally giving myself bonus points for doing extra stuff in WA.

After sending Evel shopping, I was getting ready to send her to investigate a temple when she got her homework out.  This was to be a recurring theme throughout her holiday.  What teenager, free from family and all adults for three days, exploring one of the most beautiful places in the world, would take their homework?

Here she is doing her homework in the mouth of a great big dragon cave.

And I finally get her exploring, and she’s STILL thinking about school.

I’m not going to post pictures of her exploring up here because a) it might be a bit spoilery for people who want to try it themselves, and b) I’m sure some future sim will get photos taken of the same activities.  We explored a little, found some treasure and had some fun.

Here’s the Great Wall of China… and something less great… more collecting.  Fortunately collecting in WA seems easier than in the base game.  Evel doesn’t have our collection helper in her backpack and the ores showed up on the map when she had a collecting challenge.  I don’t know if they’d show if the family didn’t own a collection helper but maybe some of you do know?  Of course, you can buy some metals and gems at the store but I doubt it’ll be all of them.  Oh, and to add a new dimension, there are relics to collect.  I’m not thinking about relics until I have a sim that will explore properly, and I’m not thinking about gems until many generations from now.  I may try for metals again soon, but it’s all to reminiscent of the Amaryllis situation right now.

Piranha, on the other hand, will soon be seen globetrotting to add to her beetle and butterfly collection.  Who knows, she may even find a trilobite somewhere, cos there sure ain’t one in the Valley.

Here is a very good thing we’ve learned.  In the China Base Camp there is a kitchen, so Evel was still able to cook meals and continue skill building (btw, she cooked sushi the other day and vomited, so they still haven’t fixed that bug.  She hasn’t vomited up carbonara yet, despite carbonara usually containing ham.  Stupid EAxis).  There are also exercise machines, telescopes and other famliar skill building equipment, though I have no logic or athletic sims right now to play with those.

Here she is learning a song from the special merchant that roams around.  They sing it.  I assume it builds music skill; must check her journal to see if that’s the case, and if it adds to the song list in the music skill.

She also wrote a fortune and ate a fortune cookie.  Her fortune had lucky numbers on it.  I don’t remember what they were.  I like to think they are the code numbers from Lost because that would be funny – but I don’t watch Lost so can’t confirm.

Piranha also did a bit of sight seeing and a heckuva lot of tedious running.  We must invest in some transport on our next holiday.

While you are playing your holiday sim, BTW, you can’t access the rest of the family.  Fortunately for them, time stood still.

Here’s Thomas reading a present of one of the new fishing books in anticipation of his own forthcoming adventures where he will be doing a lot of fishing, as usual, but in a different location.  Yeah, it’ll essentially be a Busman’s holiday for him, but it’s better than nothing, eh?

Despite the apparent loved-up-ness of this shot, he and Papergirl won’t try for a baby at the moment.  I will try a bit longer but then give up.  I don’t know how many members of Gen 3 I want roaming around given we’ll need to be marrying Piranha off soon and then we’ll need space for Gen 3 partners and Gen 4 babies.

I took the CC out when I installed the game, so here are Sindy and Piranha in their makeshift hair.  They’ll be back to normal next time you see them.

In another gnome pose, we stood Louis Walsh back up and he seems rather pleased with himself.  I’d like to insert a joke here about last night’s X Factor but fear it’d be too Brit-centric for an international readership.  I mean, I have called characters and gnomes very Brit-centric things as it is and I don’t want the blog to feel too much like one of those episodes of Friends where you scratch your heads at the American jokes.

And now onto the boys, which is what you’ve all been waiting for, I’m sure.  Ghost babies have a tombstone in their inventory though you can’t do anything with it.  Typing that has made me remember that they need teddies putting in there, too.  Poor boys, they’ve had to survive babyhood without one.  When they cry, they make the ghost noise which is a nice change at the moment but will probably become grating.  Other than that they’re like normal babies.  I haven’t noticed any major impact from one being a heavy sleeper and one being a light sleeper yet.

Above we can see Eddie Kidd as a toddler…

…and here’s Harry Houdini.  Note how they grew up looking different.

Here is Harry demonstrating something very, very exciting.  Ghosts can change their appearance (and we changed his hair though apparently I don’t have a shot of the new hair)… and when they look in the mirror you don’t see the ghost, you see what they’d look like if they were alive.  Both boys are cute as buttons… and they both have Amaryllis’s hair.  Oh yes, one of these boys will be eating some ambrosia at some point in the future.  Can’t let those hair genetics be wasted!  Of course this poses dilemmas for the heir poll when it comes up: Evel is a dedicated sim and very funky, but she’ll be competing with a ghost brother and a brother with Ama’s hair.  Not to mention that it’d be nice to spawn a child from Piranha to see if Abe’s hair carries down.  Such a shame there won’t be room for all of them to have sprogs

Anyway, join us next time for ghost toddler skilling and another trip to foreign climes!

When I had my last leagacy, I left all the tombs on the lot, though I walled them in after the first member of Gen 3 died.  This stopped anyone else haunting me, though those that died pre-boxing in still came out.  However, I heard that having ghosts on a lot slows the game down and I really don’t want the level of lag I had with that family here.  So I bured Amaryllis at the park across the road.

And yet she still felt she had carte blanche to haunt us.  I think not.  She’s now buried outside the library in honour of her ASAL learnings.

But let’s face it, there’s another ghost we’re all interested in, and here’s Thomas taking THE call.  No, not the omni call, the resurrection call.  Hell to the yeah, ghost babies here we come!

Magician was “72″ when he came back and he had a book called something like ‘Stirring the Soup’ in his inventory which I’m assuming is an EAxis funny about the primordial soup?

This all means that our very own Lazarus, Abraham, got to retire to Shady Acres and live his life out in peace so there is room for multiple Gen 3 babies.  Bye, Abe!  You were great.

I was amused that Frederick/Magician had the option to propose to Sindy when he’d refused her so many times when he was alive.  She refused him, which was even funnier.

Anywway, these two FINALLY got their passion going, and soon afterwards I clicked Magician’s grave’s ‘return to netherworld’ option (which you will have when you resurrect a ghost) and he went back to the afterlife.

We don’t need him any more, do we?!  Sindy had fertility, watched kid’s TV, listened to kids’ music and ate apples in the hope of triplet boys.

While Sindy was busy with continuing the legacy, the rest of the family were getting on with the usual.  Evel’s still cooking though I don’t have a picture of her.  She’s already at level 6, which makes me happy.  Piranha has been out collecting, and I never saw this cute little animation before but it made me laugh.  We have all the butterflies, and we have all the beetles except Catherine’s nemesis, the dreaded Trilobite.  Where is that thing?  We’ve run around the Valley three times already.

Papergirl’s at level 7 in journalism now and she made me smile when I saw her riding a bike at night.  Nice to know sims are more safety conscious than some of the idiots in my city.

I was bored of Louis Walsh doing a handstand so I got her to kick him again.

Um.  Doesn’t look comfortable.

And this is Len Goodman, our third gnome, basking in the garden (Thomas is now finally showing as having gardening skills, phew!)  (Len Goodman is a judge on Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing With the Stars, BTW).

And to celebrate Thomas completing all the fishing challenges, here’s the perfect aquarium…

I also got one of each fish mounted.  The mounted fish are wigging me out somewhat so they may end up in the cellar.  Thomas will carry on fishing for fertilizer and to see if we can stock the pond with every type of fish, as DB requested.  I’d heard a rumour you couldn’t put salt and fresh fish together but that appears to be false.  We currently haver 14 types of fish from both waters swimming merrily together.

Thomas got fired from the police for never really going to work, so now he’s working at the Day Spa which will fit in much better with his gardening and fishing.

Speaking of the day spa, for this pregnancy experiment I sent Sindy there once for the medium priced massage, and she was having the cheap facial when she went into labour.  She was in a good mood throughout and she didn’t read any pregnancy books, though she did watch kids’ TV and listen to kids’ music.  I chose the baby traits this time around.

Thankfully we have a basket.  Sadly we do not have triplets, so I might let Thomas and Papergirl have another kid.  I’m not going through that ghost romancing palaver again until it’s with a different coloured ghost.

But say hello to Eddie Kidd Daye, who is a genius and a heavy sleeper (Papergirl is a light sleeper and it doesn’t seem to do anything so the twins have been given light sleeper and heavy sleeper for comparison).  He likes yellow.  Or aqua.  And key lime pie.  Or something else I can’t remember.  His brother likes whichever of those Eddie doesn’t and I can’t remember his second trait… but anyway, say hello to…

Harry Houdini Daye!

Join us next week to find out more about ghost babies, see if Thomas and Papergirl do have another fishy sprog, and hopefully the family will be going on an adventure somewhere too!

Unexpected and unfair founder death can’t keep the Daye family down for long, and to counteract their grief, the family got very busy with the learnings and experiments, so settle down with a cuppa and enjoy today’s jam-packed bumper bag of goodness…

We’re starting with Abraham, who’s doing another signing session (at the theatre again, I really must remember to send him elsewhere) and he’s denying someone an autograph…

No surprises who…

The girls are eager to embrace the ethos of this family and so I got them to conduct a little fishing experiment for me.  I sent Piranha to the pool and Evel to the park to see how quickly they built skill.  Piranha fell over at the pool which was the first time I’d ever seen one of my sims do that.

I love how she’s giving me a look of disdain about pool fishing.  She knows full well she won’t catch anything, but I persuade her to roll with it.

Evel was much happier, but then she had a great place to fish.  Anyway, she reached level 1 about 20 Sim minutes faster than Piranha, which isn’t a bad showing for the pool.

Speaking of fishing, Thomas finally caught all varieties.  Guess which one he was missing?  Yup, Piranha.  I LOLed.  He’s now close to completing his fishing challenges so expect a perfect aquarium and some “tasteful” mounted fish soon.

Evel got in some hardcore preparation for her cooking career by using the toy oven.  She and I noticed a new thing…

After a certain amount of skill building with muffins, sim children can also bake pies!  I’m going to chain a future sim child to that thing and see if anything else can be baked if they cook hard enough.

Evel, Piranha, Papergirl and Sindy then engaged in a little experiment comparing tag and playing ball for fun and social.  Both activities maxed the kids’ fun very quickly – but Evel’s social actually went DOWN playing ball (whilst Piranha’s maxed out).  Neither got to being more than ‘acquaintance’ with their aunt, which was a little odd as Ama was always someone’s best friend the day after a tag game.  I don’t know if that was because she was childish and/or friendly as well, or whether she’d just played tag longer.

We had to cut the fun and games short, because I heard a familiar sound… So Piranha was abandoned as Sindy ran off to do her duty…

O hai, Mr Sexy Blue Ghost Magician!

Sindy was very excited to see him again and we spammed the romantic interactions like nobody’s business.

He wouldn’t go steady with her or try for baby, though I suspect being romanced by the site of your untimely death might be a passion killer.  PS – notice our new gnome, Simon Cowell, by the pool.

The next night he came back, and, weirdly, he floats everywhere, including through walls, but walks up the stairs. What’sallthatabout?

Sindy managed to get him into the bedroom but still no dice. This man’s flirty and charismatic, WHY won’t he give in?

The next day I sent Sindy off to be productive.  We now own the supermarket (and shares in something else), so she renamed it ‘Ama and Abe’s’ and promptly fired VJ Alvi.  Because she can.

Thomas has been on gardening duty since his mother’s untimely death, but something is weird.  He has tended, weeded, harvested and planted.  He has talked to plants.  Yet he still apparently has no garden skill.  Is this a glitch?

Papergirl continues to be both a productive and destructive member of the household.  Things regularly break on her unlucky days, but she’s now level 6 at painting so should be able to paint Sindy before they get elderfied.

She’s also at level six in journalism and is currently writing a negative article about Sherry Bunch, who is STILL her husband’s BFF.  She threw a pool party for work so I’m getting in those venue parties like I’m supposed to.

Having thrown a pool party I had no energy for a birthday party for the girls, so they just aged up in their room again, with only each other for company, not even the maid could be bothered this time.

Piranha is very pretty and I like the outfit, but the hair’s the same style as Papergirl’s so we’ll change that.  Papergirl has good genetics.

Evel aged up to look just like Sindy as a teen, only with very inappropriate attire.

One quick makeover later…

Piranha was assigned snob and Evel was given natural cook.   Piranha checked herself out, admired herself and gussied up and got a +25 boost to mood from that little combo.  Sweet.  As a future Gold Digger, I decided she was worthy of Peggy hair (though I actually quite like this particular one on her).

Evel brought a friend home from school, but she has important work to do watching Cookin’ Cable, so I sent the friend to Piranha for snob trait testing.  Snobs get to boast about lots of things, such as their home, their possessions and themselves.  Piranha boasted about everything she could, including  ‘boast about bicycle’ which is what she’s doing here. The friend thought she was boring and each time they got a negative friendship mark.

Whenever the friend reacted badly, Piranha rolled her eyes at me with this pained expression, which was just too funny.

Their relationship got so low that Piranha was able to slap her…

…and then fight her.  Evel, bless her heart, sat attentively watching Cookin’ Cable the whole time.

Immediately after kicking the girl’s butt (said girl is also Piranha’s nemesis now. I love this family having nemeses), Piranha rolled the want to be Super-Popular, which was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.  Kiddie sims rolling wishes to be doctors when someone dies, or rolling wishes to join their parent’s career when parent gets promoted are cute, but this was BEST EVARZ.

Seeing as Piranha’s main mission is to be a Gold Digger and that’s quite easy, I’ve assigned her to collect creepy crawlies.  I can’t face trying gems, metals or rocks so soon after Ama, but the bugs don’t seem to be as bad.  I love this action shot: I can’t wait to get her all Lara Crofty in the catacombs in WA.  On the other hand, I am dreading sending her unlucky mother anywhere near them.

After two days of collecting, Piranha has 80% of the butterflies and 70% of the beetles, which isn’t bad going.  We don’t have Catherine’s nemesis, the Triolbite beetle, yet, though.

Evel is cooking tofu dogs here to remind me to mention something about vegetarians.  She and I haven’t yet played with her trait, but I had always assumed veggie sims would cook veggie food.  This is not the case.  Dino Kyoti in the Kyoti Legacy was vegetarian and he was the family cook for a while.  He made sushi, ate it and got sick from eating meat.  Now, I had assumed that he would just be making vegetarian sushi.  I’m a veggie myself and I love the stuff – substituting the fish for pepper or egg wouldn’t have been hard, would it, EAxis?  So I’ll be watching Evel’s output carefully.

She’s also a slob, which means she’s the only one not getting sick at the moment since the new patch made food go off almost straight away.  Sigh.

Abe was at the science facility when he randomly changed into his trunks.  This was a bit weird, but I let him do it and clicked back on another sim.  Five minutes later, he was doing the death float.  He was 96 and it was sad, but I was expecting it, and I need some more room for Sindy to have babies, preferably triplets seeing as Evel’s now a teen and an heir poll before she becomes an elder would be nice (please, Sindy?).

Then I noticed he had a different death animation to any I’d seen before.  He started spinning in the air.  I also noticed no-one had any grief moodlets yet.

Grimmy appeared, took a death flower from him and let him live.  This is odd.  Abe inherited Ama’s inventory, and she had the death flower in that, but Grim hadn’t taken it from her.  I assumed previously that the death flower was only used on accidental death sims, but apparently not.  I wonder if it’s at random whether you will be spared or not then?  We’ll have to plant some more and find out.

Abe’s age has now been rewound to 72 days.  I very much doubt you’ll see him die other than in the floating shots above.  He’ll be on his way to a well-deserved rest at Shady Acres when I can get Sindy pregnant and trying for triplets.  Also: notice how stressed dying and being resurrected made him.  He was perfectly fine before all that!

Speaking of which, after two nights’ absence, Magician’s ghost returned and Sindy’s shown here leaping into his arms.  Much romantic spamming ensued and he is now her boyfriend.  He still won’t sleep with her, though.

And here’s SimonCowell, in the first of his gnome poses!  Louis is still doing a handstand so I might get Papergirl to give him another kicking soon.

Join us tomorrow to see if I get any further with the ghost romancing, find out some more about the girls’ traits and hopefully see some fishing glory!

“Chemical death on a grand scale…” update from the Palm Beach Post

Florida Piranha

When I was a kid, we found one of these dead on the grass next to the canal under 64th street and 65th Avenue… Now FWC is poisoning an entire pond to eradicate a few fish in West Palm Beach. Full story here

So I was expecting this entry to be all about blue ghosts and collecting.  Just remember that.

First things first.  Magician made the maid (heh) his eighth conquest…

And some random townie was number nine…

And he broke the heart of his tenth victim, Allison something, to claim me a point.  Good job, too, as he’s elderly now and not so attractive.  Oh, and Sindy also scored a point for completing her LTW whilst she was doing the painting in the background.

The pics are actually out of sequence here, as just before being dumped, the maid witnessed the girls growing up, unlike the adult members of the Daye family.

Evel aged up and was assigned vegetarian.  I figure cooking every meal in the game should mean every meat meal and every veggie meal, so she’ll either be a Culinary Librarian or a Five-Star Chef.  Probably the latter.

Here’s a better shot of Piranha than the one in the last update.  Look at her Piranha teeth!

Oh and lookee!  The HAIR!  I’m tempted to let her have a child just to see if it can carry on.  She was assigned ‘lucky’.  I can’t decide whether she will do food challenges or become a gold digger.  I’m leaning towards the latter.  However, she got given lucky as Papergirl has unlucky and I want to see the comparison between the two and if the effects of one counter the other.

The Kyoti family had lucky as a family trait and in the whole legacy they only had two burglaries, two fires and one partial electrocution.

I’ve noticed that on Papergirl’s “unlucky” days, more appliances break than usual (although we do have some shoddy appliances anyway).  She doesn’t have a negative hot-headed associated moodlet with this as the game suggests she might, but I have noticed that when she gets the red wavy line stress bar (e.g. at work) it goes bright red much more quickly than yer average sim’s, which I presume is a hot-headed thing.

I don’t know why I don’t have any pics of her today but she’s been reviewing restaurants and got a divine food +7 day moodlet for eating something she didn’t order at the Bistro.  People have suggested this might be ambrosia, though her life wasn’t extended from it.  She’s plugging away at journalism and painting so we can get a Sindy portrait soon.

Anyway, back to the main action.  I was disappointed the Heartbreaker LTW didn’t fulfil until the morning after the girls aged up, because you all know the destiny of Mr Magician Frederick Parsons Daye…

…the blue box is suitably shaped for a coffin, no?

Don’t be misled by the drowning dialogue (and the weird glitch that makes him look double) – this was a pain.  You see, I made the pool too small, so when I tried to fence round it directly, it wouldn’t because he was in the way.  Then I had to let him out, extend it a bit and let him back in, but it was still too small, so I couldn’t fence the whole edge and there was still a patch of grass he kept getting out and standing on.

Readers of the Kyoti legacy will know I wasn’t so crash hot at drowning: I haven’t got much better with this lot.

Still, eventually my old friend turned up for his first victim of this legacy.

And we have a blue ghost!  He has been dead about three game nights now but he hasn’t shown up yet.  This is not good for my plans for him and Sindy to have more babies.

Their daughter, is of course, grieving.  I sent some of the sims to comfort her and Piranha but didn’t notice if the amount of their grieving moodlet decreased, because I was busy with something else, which we’ll come onto in a moment.

Thomas autonomously decided to cheer his niece up with a ball game.  That was all very sweet but I sent them away to do useful things like skilling because I’m still couched in my old efficient ways – then I realised I should have been monitoring the ball game for fun and social to see how effective it was.  D’oh.  That’s a task for next time I boot the game up, then.

Thomas still hasn’t done all his fishing challenges.  He seems to be one fish missing to do the challenge to get every type but I can’t figure out which (he’s got all the vampire, death, robot ones).  I’m going to have to take a pen and paper and count I think.  Sigh.  He’s making good progress on the 350 fish challenge and he’s probably got a perfect aquarium in his backpack but I won’t check until the other tasks are done.  We’ll also be testing pond stocking out more thoroughly after he’s completed his challenges.

The girls are mostly playing with the blocks and toy oven and grieving.  I’ve had to leave the family to their own devices a lot though, because I’ve been concentrating on getting Amaryllis collecting rocks, metals and gems (Piranha is currently being trained to look for bugs and butterflies).

She has been going out every day, and I retired her so she could spend all her time other than sleeping and showering looking for things.  She hit 89 and had all the metals except plutonium (which was odd, as the Kyotis were always finding that stuff, even when I didn’t particularly look for gems and rocks with them), all the gems except the pink diamond and rainbow gem, and 70-something percent of the space rocks.  She had multiples of most of these things which is meant to make others spawn more but we visited every single spawning site more than once.

We also took a trip to the catacombs.  For future reference, she chose the options to pull the lever and to walk down the stairs when given chance cards.  She found grape seeds and one of the more unusual or rare seeds, but no gems or metals.  And she got (altogether now)… electrocuted by a bear.  Oh, and we also found that elusive omni gave us another harvest after it was playing up, so we’ll refeed it soon.

On the day she turned 89, she started eating a daily dose of life fruit.  With five doses and the chances of her living way past 90 as most sims do, I figured there was a good chance she’d max out at least one of the rock types.

This was not what I was expecting.  She was 91 and had eaten two pieces of life fruit in the preceding days (one at 89, one at 90) and had just woken up, ready to take the next one.  She was so close to collecting nirvana, though she never did get the omni call.  The girls were 2 hours away from losing their grief moodlet over the Magician.

Maybe I just wore her out by all she had to do.

Amaryllis Daye, 91, was the founder of the Daye legacy.  She was a medic, scientist, businesswoman and cook; she was a keen gardener and collector; if an inattentive parent.  She raised two children – but her outstanding contribution to simming will always be her revelations about the childish trait and the invention of the ASAL.

So that’s screwed up a lot of my plans.  I might keep Abe around longer.  He’s 90 now so I don’t know how long he has, but I don’t need to send him to shady Acres just yet.  And bless – he and Ama may have never been “officially” a couple, but they did love each other really, and he’s going to miss her loads.

I was too shocked to carry on playing after this, so join us next time to see if we can get Frederick to turn up and get some more gen 3 members on the go, watch us experiment with playing ball, find out what happens when the lucky trait meets the unlucky one, and probably some more trait and journalism experimenting…

Well, it’s been a couple of days since we were last with you and we have a bumper update for you.  Well, bumper in terms of photos.  The learnings are a little thinner on the ground, but you can’t have everything.

We begin with our gen three girls.  They may not be the same age but I want to try out their toddler skilling at the same time, so they’re getting aged up together.

Magician/Frederick is taking every opportunity he can to play guitar and make himself some friends that he can break the hearts of.  I hope he gets to make friends with Sherry Bunch.

Here’s Evel Knievel.  She’s actually rather adorable.  Her favourite food is fruit parfait, like her granddad, who has now also eaten his favourite meal.  Now, I heard that if you mix up nice food for a baby they get the tasty food moodlet.  So I had Amaryllis whip up some fruit parfait, but I don’t know if they actually gave this to Evel (or even how you do that) but she didn’t get a funky moodlet from it, so humph.  If anyone’s actually experienced with high chairs (I prefer the bottle on the floor method usually) and has any intel, please spill it.

Piranha looks a little less cute, but I suspect when she gets more hair she’ll be adorable.  Abe is our main childcare giver now, as he’s the only one who doesn’t have to do much else.  I mean, he still goes to work and plays for tips and stuff but everyone else has a pile of things to be doing, and he’s kind of on easy street.

He and Magician took the girls to the library, with our TSAL books.  The girls read them all in a sim afternoon/evening.  Seriously, they took five seconds or thereabouts to read each one, which seems even more than the 4X speed people are meant to learn at in the library.  Result!  I didn’t notice a difference in skilling speed between the girls, despite their very different traits.

Here’s Sindy, trying her best to prove herself worthy as an heir and actually engaging in some child-rearing.  Kimberley/Papergirl is generally much better at this stuff than Sindy is, though.  In fact, so is Magician.  These two do more childcare autonomously than the others (Thomas isn’t bad but he’s rarely at home because I’m always sending him off fishing).

Somebody’s attitude to childcare hasn’t changed much.  Amaryllis: ‘my daughter is a llama’.

Here’s a gratuitous shot of Abe outside the spa.  I feel very soft towards him, even though he’s not likely to get me many more points or  anything.

He even got electrocuted by the TV and instead of going for my unique death point, I didn’t let him fix it again.  I’ve never experienced sim electrocution before (Abel Kyoti got electrocuted but I didn’t see it) and it is NASTY.  That noise is HORRIBLE.  I’m not looking forward to having to kill someone this way.  I may turn the sound down when I do.

No, Abe will get to die as an old man, I hope.  Although it may be in Shady Acres rather than the legacy house so I can get some more babies in there.

Here is Sindy demonstrating something weird.  When Abe plays for tips at the theatre, he gets a +40 moodlet.  When Sindy plays at the diner, hers is +35.  I haven’t had time to test if the increase in moodlet was because of the theatre itself or because Abe was level 10 and Sindy was level 9 (she’s level 10 now though).  More testing is required…

Sindy’s coming close to her LTW now.  She’s maxed out guitar and is very close to maxing out painting.  Her family portraits are interesting.  She has the perfectionist trait, but Abe is still a melty swirl.  I think it might have been dark when Amaryllis posed.

Here’s magician…

…and Thomas and Papergirl.  Thomas’s portrait is far and away the best one.  He and Papergirl have a bit of art skill so I must get one or both of them up to speed so we can get a Sindy portrait too.

Papergirl is still busy being a journalist and writing her novels (the latest: Bad Frederick and Blue Magician are in anticipation of what’s to come).  Thomas is still fishing all the time and he helps in the garden a bit as well.  He’s maxed his skill and quite possibly has enough perfect fish for his LTW, though I haven’t checked, but I’m not going to fill the aquarium up until he’s finished all the fishing skill challenges, which is taking longer than I anticipated.  Abel Kyoti managed them much quicker than this and he didn’t even get a point for them.  Mind you, Thomas does have a job in the police as well.  I haven’t had any job-affecting chance cards for him, Sindy or Magician yet.  Boo.

Because there’s not much Thomas in this update (sorry DB, but there are only so many fishing shots I can be bothered with) I thought I’d point something out, which is that despite me not letting him see her since he was at school (the girls’ party aside), he still has a stronger relationship with Sherry Bunch than he does with his wife.  I think he’s sneaking little phone calls in when he’s supposed to be fishing.

Here we see Sindy serenading Magician, and though I’m sure it gave them some nice social and fun boosts (and Sindy got some LTH), I didn’t notice any good moodlet action.  Papergirl is in the background as she always seems to be when these two get romantic.

As soon as they’d done this, though, I sent them outside.

Poor Sindy.  I’m so glad we have a moodlet manager now.

I set Magic boy to work straight away.  After all, he will now be sleeping in one of the two single beds we currently own and we have two little girls who’ll be needing them soon (obviously we can buy another bed, but he’s also about to become an elder and lose his looks so I’d rather he hurried up).

He made quick work of a townie who wore the same work outfit as him and could have been his slightly portlier doppelganger.

He then romanced VJ Alvi.  Those Alvi genes rival the Bunch genes, don’t they?

He then mocked VJ’s snobbery which was a rather funny little interaction.  BTW, VJ had to be asked to break up with his partner, which I assumed would involve him being sent home and having to be invited back, but instead he had some dialogue going ‘yeah, me and Lisa we’re over’ or similar, which was all rather easy.

Another random townie (who I think is related to a standard SV family but blowed if I can remember which) fell victim to our heartbreaker…

As did Morgana Wolff…

…and Bebe Hart.

Emma Hatch was over when we got the notice she was about to die, so Magic boy spammed those romantic actions like never before.  Despite them being good friends and having lots of pluses to social, she wouldn’t respond to ‘confess attraction’.  Turns out she’s unflirty.  Great.  All night, and a moodlet manager session each, plus a ludicrous amount of spamming on the flirty and romantic interactions and she finally became our victim.

She died the next day, presumably of a broken heart.  I hope this doesn’t mean she won’t count against the total (currently seven).

As for our beloved founder, she’s a level 10 gardener now and hoping for THAT call.

The science facility’s omni gave us a couple more fishing book harvests, but now it’s saying it’s in harvest but has no books or option to harvest, and it won’t let us re-feed it either.  I think it’s wise to our scheme.

And finally…. I am doing a major style happy dance here because I have finally had a sim complete Jack-of-All-Trades!  GO AMARYLLIS!  As she’s 85 now, I think I’ll probably retire her and have her garden, cook and collect for the rest of her life, which may be short.  And then she’ll probably live to 120 or something (or else die whilst picking up a pink diamond).

Join us next time to see the girls age up and find out how I’m getting on with those blue ghost plans…

PIRANHA PATHFINDER 3.5 İNÇ GPS NAVİGASYON SİSTEMİ +81 İL DESTEKLİ 2009 HARİTA

Genel Özellikler i-GO™ MyWay 8.0 3D (Üç boyutlu) Navigasyon yazılımı Dual CORE teknolojisi ile yüksek hızlı işlem gücü 3.5 İnç Dokunmatik TFT LCD ekran 81 ili kapsayan detaylı BAŞARSOFT™ 2009 harita

 Türkçe konuşan robot ile sesli yol tarifi Taşınabilir Mp3 ve Mp4 oynatıcı 4 GB’ ye kadar destekli dahili SD/MMC kart okuyucu 400MHz Centrality Atlas III işlemci

Yeni nesil Atlas III dâhili GPS anteni ile daha hızlı uydu bağlantısı Vidalama veya yapıştırma sorunu olmayan kolay monte vakumlu ayak 3D (üç boyutlu) harita görüntüsü alabilme

GPS koordinat konumlama Kayıt gerektirmeyen doğrudan uydu bağlantısı (tak, kullan) Gece sürüş modu, Yaya modu

Windows CE 5.0 tabanlı işletim sistemi 2 Farklı dil desteği (Türkçe, İngilizce) Araç hızını gösterebilme

 Binlerce önemli nokta bilgisi (Otopark, benzin istasyonu, AVM, sinema, eczane, hastane, ATM banka, restoran, postane, vs.)

 Desteklediği Video formatları: ASF/AVI/MP4/3GP/WMV Desteklediği Audio formatları: MP3/WMA/WAV E-BOOK (text)

Yüksek kaliteli dahili hoparlör Kulaklık çıkışı ve harici anten girişi 3.7V/1300mah Şarj edilebilir pil

The results of the heir poll are in, and it’s no real surprise that Sindy is our new winner.  Her reign will officially begin in the next entry, as I played this entry out before I knew who’d be heir, so the house is still red.

Before going on maternity leave, Sindy took a job in catering.

Amaryllis is encouraging her daughter in their new career by enthusing about cooking.  I like the mixing action combined with the overhead dialogue.  It’s cute.

And here are our boys in violet.  Thomas is reading a fish book while Magician mocks him about not winning the heir poll.  Thomas isn’t bothered though, he knows my plans for Magic boy, and they still currently involve that little blue pool in the garden.

Magic boy is chomping down on his life fruit so he doesn’t turn elder too quickly.  I have rationed it to five pieces per sim so he’ll inevitably have to flirt with people when he’s wrinkly, but never mind.  I have decided to let him go for heartbreaker, so he’s spending a lot of time playing guitar in preparation.  I’ve also got him a job in business for the time being but I might make him quit or get fired.

Remember the omni plant woes we were having?  Well, I decided to see if giving it food other than the fishing book would help.  We planted one of the work books – and lo and behold, it bore fruit.  So we’ve refed it the fishing book again to see if it will take it.  Clearly this thing needs a change in diet every so often.

I sent Abraham out to do another autograph session.  Last time he did it autonomously and signed two autographs.  This time i controlled him and he signed six (he had three more queued up but didn’t have time to get to them).    Hmm.  I’m not convinced by this – anything where I have to keep click-click-clicking isn’t much fun in a large household.

Last time, I was moaning about the favourite music thing and my readers implored me to try it again, so I did.  Here Thomas is demonstrating that you were right and I was wrong.  Music gives them a +20 moodlet, favourite music gives a +30.  Thanks everyone.  This has given me some ideas for the house design when we’re rich enough to do some proper building as well…

By the way, I bought the kiddie cooker in the background for Amaryllis,  but she can’t use it.  Boo!

But I know what you’re all really waiting for, and that’s the babies, right?

Papergirl gave birth on the lawn with the maid watching.  I am doing a bit of pregnancy experimenting to see what does and doesn’t ensure a good pregnancy.  Amaryllis and Abe both read Totally Preggers when Sindy was gestating, and I chose both of her traits.  Ama read Baby Incoming with Thomas but went into labour in the library and I didn’t send her away (she autonomously went to the hospital though).  She probably wasn’t in a great mood, either, though I don’t remember.  I chose one of Thomas’s traits.

Papergirl got to have the £1,000 package at the day spa, read Totally Preggers and Baby Incoming and I got to choose both of her baby’s traits.

Piranha Daye is a couch potato and a slob who likes purple and tri-tip steak (sigh).  I thought I would make her a Five-Star Chef but couldn’t choose Natural Cook so thought Couch Potato would be handy for the hours of watching Cookin’ Cable, and slob would be OK for being surrounded by dirty plates.  However, I am wondering whether I might change her to a Gold Digger.

Papergirl’s next novel, by the way, was titled Cuddling Piranha, and the one after was called Baby Daredevil…

…which leads us nicely to our next pregnancy.  Sindy gave birth with her mother just standing there.  I like the way she is giving Amaryllis a bit of an accusatory  look.

I didn’t get Sindy or Magician to read any pregnancy books and she didn’t get to the spa.  She had family portraits to do, after all.  She was happy throughout, but her social had just dropped to give her a negative moodlet when she went into labour.

I didn’t choose either of this baby’s traits.

Evel Knievel Daye is excitable and easily impressed.  She might be a Five Star Chef instead.  Or she might not.  Her favourite colour is orange but I can’t remember her favourite food.  Something annoying, probably.  So far the only person who’s got to eat their favourite food is Amaryllis, but she’s building up her cookery skill so hopefully the others will get theirs soon.

I know Evel Knievel is a boy’s name, but I only know two daredevils, and they’re both men.  I did do a mini search for female daredevils but the only one I could find was called Anne or Annie or something dull.  Besides, Sindy might not have a boy and you can’t NOT have a daredevil named baby called Evel Knievel.  Evel sounds OK for a girl, though, doesn’t it?

Amaryllis is overjoyed by her grandchildren.

And now here’s a little something I want to point out for all those of you who voted for Sindy in the heir poll.  Here is Thomas dutifully attending to his daughter.

Here is Sindy attending to hers.  She’s not at home (I can’t remember why) and she has just decided to put the baby on the floor and go home without her.

Like mother, like daughter.

I can hear DB tutting at you all about your heir choice from here.

And so the sun sets on generation one.

Join us on Sunday when we’ll have redecorated the house and we’ll be testing out whether our girls’ traits make a difference to toddler skilling, and seeing whether Amaryllis can get that blasted LTW out of the way!

This year in University we have been asked to design a magazine based on things that we like and/or are inspired by, most of the inspiration that I have found will be put on my blog. This video is one of the main ideas for the title and concept of my magazine. “Ultimate Killer” will be the title of my Fashion magazine as I have looked into the way that Piranha’s swarm their prey and I compared it to the way that women would swarm around a sale in a high street store. I am going to use Ultimate Killer as the main research for my magazine.