The Freakish Death of Gabe O'Mackey

They'd just cleaned up the wedding party when Samantha went into labor. The guests had all left and Jules was asleep. Up until that point, it had been the most romantic day of Gabe's life. If it weren't for those last few horrific moments, Gabe would have died the happiest he'd been in years.

Samantha had two babies, a boy and girl. The labor was fast, so she had them at home. The whole was over faster than Gabe could load a dishwasher. He wondered if Jules had been born that quickly, but couldn't remember. Samantha had given birth before, so after a few cries of pain, she calmly left the babies in the kitchen and went to the bedroom to plan a new outfit.

Gabe looked at the twins. What was wrong with their faces?!

"What do think of this dress?" Samantha skipped back into the kitchen, watching the skirt swish back and forth. "It's kind of retro, but I think it's really cute."

"You're... you're babies." The twins were on the floor, wrapped in blankets. They weren't crying. Just staring. Samantha was acting like they weren't even there, but all Gabe could do was stare right back at them.

The boy, Ethan, had a face twice as long as Emma's, his twin sister. His mouth looked like it was about to drop off his chin. Emma's cheeks were sunken in so far they were almost touching on the inside. Both of them had brown eyes that bugged out too far and blinked too often. Gabe struggled to understand just what he was looking at. Hadn't he heard of a rumor of a woman, out in some desert town, that had a baby with Death himself? No, that's ridiculous, he told himself. He'd met Samantha's ex-husband. These babies were human.

He took of his glasses and massaged his temples. Everything flooded Gabe's mind at the same time. Alexandra gone one morning, a cryptic note on her pillow: "I'm a pirate now. Arr." Jason's wild plant-wife, Rose. With leaves for hair and near constant thirst for water. And Daisy, Gabe's niece, at least sort of. A giggling human flower Rose claimed she spawned. And now these twins babies, barely human looking. It was all too much to handle.

He looked into Samantha's blue eyes. She was smiling, waiting for a compliment on her dress. He remembered the day they met like it was yesterday. Actually, it was yesterday. She had waddled into his office at the school, her first day teaching second grade. Pregnant, poor, and heartbroken from her recent divorce. She was trying to talk between sobs, something about "Peter's trampy whores" and "poor little Tommy," but Gabe was lost in her blue eyes. Blue like Alexandra's, but darker and sadder. They were living together by the end of the day, married the next.

Gabe wanted to tell her the dress was beautiful, that it brought out the blue in her eyes. But when he opened his mouth to say something,  one of the babies started to cry. And then Gabe was eaten alive by a swarm of flies.

Release Notes

Anybody else read the release notes for The Sims 3 patches? I wrote about these a bit on my creative writing blog. Some of the bug fixes are pretty funny out of context, and could make for some interesting creative writing prompts.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Pillow Fight wishes will appear much less frequently. 
• "Honey, we need to talk." Mom said somberly. The entire family was in the living room, even Grandpa Bill. This couldn't be good. "Brad," Mom shifted uncomfortably, "we think, we all think, that you are pillow fighting far too frequently. It's become a problem, and we want to help."
• The Heckle interaction is no longer available in Sims swimming in the ocean. 
• "Loose seal!" The bystanders shouted, but Buster gleefully ignored their taunts. "I'm not afraid of her anymore!" He yelled triumphantly. His mother, Lucille, wasn't going to keep him from swimming in the ocean.
• Hot Dog and Pie Eating contests can no longer ironically cause a Sim to starve to death. 
• Fixed an issue where fires created by Unicorns reignite repeatedly after being extinguished.  
• Cats that play in the Hydrocombo Spa will no longer teleport . 
• The Imaginary Friend doll can no longer be buried in Sandboxes to prevent the Sim from losing it forever. 
• "From now on, you must take good care of your toys, because if you don't, we'll find out, Sid!"
• Sims who are on fire will no longer be forced to attend graduation before they can put themselves out. 
• Groundskeeper Willy continued burning while Mr. Van Houten droned on and on about spaghetti dinner. He politely waited his turn, but the rage and the flames consumed him.
• Sims will no longer receive a wish to “Skinny Dip” with Mummies. 
• She leaned in flirtatiously and whispered, "What do you say you slip out of those bandages and go for a swim?"
• Sims can no longer hang out with Celebrity Sims on swing sets before properly impressing them. 
• There are now stricter relationship requirements for Woohooing with Sims in the Sarcophagus. 
• The Jog interaction no longer mocks poor, atrophied, player-controlled Mummies. 
• Glen struggled towards the finish line, his bandages unraveling. He ignored the jeering spectators, his overwhelming fatigue, and the fact that his dead left foot had completely crumbled away at the last mile marker. He was going to finish this race.
• Mummies can no longer learn songs. Their vocal chords have deteriorated leaving them mute. 
• Playable ghosts can no longer get stuck wandering into a gender specific bathroom. 
• Sims can no longer "Try for Baby" with the Grim Reaper. 
• Olive Spector was always a rule-breaker. She didn't care what the programmers in the sky had to say about it. She was bringing Nervous Subject into this world.
• Neighbors will no longer gather to watch a burglar that hasn't yet stolen anything.
• "I don't want any trouble," Mrs. Costas said nervously, standing on her front porch. "I don't want any trouble either," the masked man replied, slightly confused. He wondered why the neighbors had started to gather around.

I'm not dead, just my Sims

I still want to update this blog, I just got super lazy. And will get super lazy in the future. So get used to it.

While laziness is 99% at fault, I'm also having issues with my internet on my home PC. This is the PC where all my Sim games are installed. For a normal person, this would not be a huge obstacle, but I am an expert slacker. I know I said no pictures on these posts, but I really do like pictures. I wanted a picture of my overflowing Riverblossom Hills cemetery in the last post, but without internet on my main computer, I'd have to like, get a USB stick, save the picture there, bring home my work laptop... and I'm exhausted already.

I stopped playing Riverblossom Hills lately, which hasn't motivated me to update this blog. I've been spending a lot of time in The Sims 3, but it's missing the whole neighborhood soap opera drama that I love from Sims 2. So far, I've been playing around with my own created characters in Sims 3, but I know no one cares about them. I do still plan on playing the existing households through an entire lifetime (the Wan-Goddard family will be up first), but it's definitely a different experience than the Sims 2.

I've also been reacquainting myself with Strangetown. It's not as far along as Riverblossom Hills, but I've done a good job of population control so far. I've only added two bin families: the Picasos and the Larsons, and no one has married any NPCs. General Buzz Grunt (that's the dad, right?) married Erin Singles, Lola Singles married Nervous Subject, Ripp Grunt knocked up Jodie Larsen, but she is kidding herself if she thinks he'll ever marry her. Chloe Curious did end up marrying Lazlo, but that's not stopping her from hooking up with just about any guy that whistles at her.

In conclusion, keep reading imaginary readers. I promise to love you enough so that one day, you'll become real. (Assuming I can get my hands on some Imaginary Friend Metamorphium potion, of course.)

I believe in you.

Everyone is Dead

Riverblossom Hills just may be my favorite neighborhood, and the one I've played for the longest consecutive time. (I've spent more game time in Pleasantview, I'm sure, but that's with resetting it a bunch.) Most of the original sims have aged up and hula'd on over to the afterlife, so they've got quite the stories to tell. More than a few mysteriously died from random lightning strikes, fly attacks, and mysterious "disease." It's not like I enjoy killing sims (unless they are ugly, I'm looking at you Ottomas family). I just need to keep the population under control. Besides, if they are already elders, I don't consider cheating them to die of old age "murder." Whose to say Leod McGreggor didn't have high cholesterol? Sure his meals were all sparkly, but he always ate the entire plate. Why should he live longer than Sanjay Ramaswami, whose wife could barely cook? Burnt hot dogs aren't very filling, so he stayed pretty slim. What was he supposed to do, cook his own meals?

That was three servings worth of food, Leod.

Of all the original sims, only Xander Roth and Jacob Martin are still alive, both now elders. Of the binned sims that I placed into Riverblossom Hills, Gallagher Newson is still alive. So is Gabriella Newson Martin. Garrett Newson O'Mackey and Georgia Newson Roth are both alive and still adults, but getting really close to aging up. Tommy Ottomas is still alive, and Emma Ottomas (one of the freak-of-nature twins) just graduated from college. (She's in the showbiz career so I can get Dr Vu's Automated Cosmetic Surgeon and fix her face. Though, even with it, she's still got the guys lining up. But with those genes, she's not allowed to reproduce. She's a Romance sim, so it's not like she'd want to.) And yes, I did break my own rules and create a few custom sim families, and a couple of them are still around, but they don't count since no one cares.

Sims 2 Rules for Population Control

It doesn't take long for my Sims 2 neighborhoods to get a little out of control. I start out with six households, then everyone gets married and has affairs and woohoos like crazy. Kids grow up and move out. I download some new funky eye color and end up adding a bunch of new CAS sims. And then if I place the Newson orphans in the town, all those second generation kids are cousins. (This was a big problem with Riverblossom Hills, as you'll see. Everybody wants to marry a Newson.)

We are teh sexy. (Once we grow up. Let's not get creepy.)

It only takes about one generation for the population to grow out of control and I'm struggling to manage twelve or more overflowing households and eventually the neighborhood gets boring and I lose interest.

So I made some rules:

1. No Trying for Baby unless both sims have the "have a baby" want. (Unless it's Winter. Then only one sim has to want a baby. It is the "family" season, after all. And you gotta keep warm. No one wants to get back out of bed to get the birth control.)
2. No moving out until season 1, unless there's an abandoned house in the current season. This helps out with the next rule:
3. Keep all households in the same season. Everyone ages about the same and no one marries their sibling's grandkids. 
4. No creating new sims. Play only sims that already live in the neighborhood, or are in the bin. 
5. Sims can not marry NPCs. Obviously, this rule needs to be broken in neighborhoods like Veronaville or everyone will end up related.

Pretty simple. Of course, I often break these rules, but they do help keep the population in check. That, and Rodney's Death Creator. Population control is an important duty for any responsible SimGod. The power is yours! (This episode, by the way, was the one that caused my dad to ban my siblings and I from ever watching Captain Planet.)

How can you read this? There's no pictures!

I do not post pictures. I tried saving story pictures once. I was more overwhelmed than my unmarried legacy founder sim after having baby girl triplets.

Lucky for them, my computer can't handle Seasons.

She had to sell her walls for cribs. The dead-beat father only showed up to pass out on the lawn. She peed herself while dressed in her fancy opera clothes. Let me tell you, she was really regretting some of her life choices. (Especially the decision to eat a bunch of watermelons in a row while pregnant.) I'm not going to be like that. I'm going to say "no" to the watermelons. So if you are one of those hairy brutes that needs pictures to enjoy a story, you might want to find a different blog.

Let me guess, you use antlers in all of your decorating. 

And yes, I realize this post about not posting pictures has pictures. I'm tricksy like that.

Plumbob Blog

One day, I started a blog. I named it Plumbob Blog. (I know, quite a mouthful.) Stay tuned.

This is a plumbob.
If you didn't already know that, you probably won't like this blog.