One of the random things that pops up in The Sims 3 are Opportunities. These can come from work, an acquaintance or based on your reputation/skills. They give various rewards when completed, sometimes including good old-fashioned moola. As Ferris has continued to cook, his skill has improved to the point where he actually successfully prepared waffles that were not burned black. Hooray!
Waffles, not scorched!
This, in part, led to him getting asked to make a group dinner for some neighbor and deliver it. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. I think I lacked a proper group recipe or ingredients or something. All I know is Ferris never runs out of cereal or waffles but neither is apparently acceptable for a group of party guests at the neighbor’s. Oh well.
Eating and dousing flames
Continuing on the food theme, Ferris’s eventual success with waffles may have made him overconfident, for his next meal ended up with the stove on fire. As you might imagine, this is not a good thing, as expressed by Ferris’s reaction below.
A little too well-done.
Fortunately, Ferris keeps his cell phone in his boxer shorts and called the fire department immediately. He then ate ice cream on the couch for dinner instead.
Today was the first time in awhile that I attempted a run with only a day off in-between.
Fortunately, it was a success!
The temperature was 19ºC but dropped a degree or two over the course — not that I noticed, because despite the sky being overcast, it still felt a bit warm. It began spitting partway through but didn’t turn to light rain until the run was over and I was heading back. The spitting did clear out most of the park by about the 6 km point, though.
The only discomfort I felt was some light cramps on my right side but they didn’t affect my pace.
After another slowish start (5:05) I again finished with a strong back half, though I could clearly feel the effect of only having a day off. The second half of the run left me feeling pretty tired, even as I worked to maintain my pace, but my consistency from 5 km to 10 km was probably the best ever — I only dropped my average pace by 7 seconds in that span (compared to 12 in the first half). I finished with an overall time of 54:03 — a full minute faster than Monday and an average of 5:23, my third best pace to date.
The titular tire (say that three times fast):
The top of the photo is the gravel of the kids play area, the bottom is the path I run on. I continue to be baffled at how things like this end up where they do. What is the story behind someone rolling a tire, complete with rim, into a public park? People are weird.
Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):
Getting Ferris a job was easy. He searched online and chose a medical career that is described as ‘organ donor’ and talks about working with bedpans. I am kind of glad the description doesn’t go into more detail than that. I think he’s supposed to be a candystriper. I wish I could login to a computer, click Choose Career and get started in a shiny new job. Stupid reality.
Once Ferris had a weekly routine imposed on him, things began getting trickier. For example, he was always sleeping until fully rested, which rarely gave him enough time to prepare anything beyond a bowl of cereal for breakfast. He likes to eat cereal, usually in his underwear. And not just for breakfast, almost anytime he’s hungry.
Breakfast of champions
Several times I had him attempt to make waffles. For some reason he puts them in a pan and tries to bake them in the oven. Each attempt has resulted in something blackened that almost set off the smoke detector.
Charcoal waffles, anyone?
Waffles, theoretically
He has had more success with Mac & Cheese and delicious grape pancakes. While Ferris is a mediocre cook, he is an even worse cleaner. The first batch of briquette waffles were left to fester on the counter until the odor was making him nauseous and bringing him down. I then instructed him to clean up and he obediently did. I’m hoping that he’ll eventually get into the habit of doing it on his own. His autonomy slider is all the way to the right, after all.
Wishing
Periodically wishes appear in your, uh, wish bucket, which can hold up to four at a time. They offer lifetime happiness points when fulfilled and enough points lets you buy a perk from a menu like this:
Lifetime rewards
In this case I chose the somewhat sucky Office Hero, which makes everyone at work like Ferris all the more. If Ferris continues to burn more than cook I make get him Discount Diner next — free meals at restaurants forever!
The wishes range from things like Read 3 Books to Visit the Art Gallery or Cook Waffles Without Destroying Them (actually, that last one is not a wish, just a vain hope). Ferris has visited the local graveyard, art gallery and more as part of his wish fulfillment and has taken tentative steps in learning how to better cook and do simple repairs. The latter has seen limited success, as evidenced below.
Sinktastrophe!
This resulted in a call to the plumber, though Ferris did mop up the kitchen floor on his own and without setting anything on fire in the process.
Artistically, Ferris is working on a painting (after getting an easel) and a novel, The Loneliest Yeti. I expect great things from these, especially after getting a lamp to put next to the easel so he could actually see what he was painting.
Socially, he has chatted with a few people and they are now listed as acquaintances, including Stiles. I had Ferris call Stiles up and invite him over, but bumbled the whole ‘going to the door and letting the guest in’ part because I thought Ferris would do that on his own. By the time I figured it out, Stiles had left for work. Oh well, he can always hit on him later.
Er, I mean, invite him over for a nice drink. I should probably get Ferris a stereo so he can play soft music, but he’s getting a bit low on funds. Cleaning bedpans doesn’t pay well.
Finally, the shower. I discovered that you don’t need to follow the normal morning shower ritual, just shower when the ol’ hygiene bar gets low and the reports of stinky start coming in. And yes, I applied the nude patch. Not because I have a prurient need to see naked video game guys, more because I wanted to see if Sims were virtual Ken dolls. Turns out they are. I think I was better off not knowing.
After a week off to rest my tender left shin, I opted for a morning run under overcast skies, with the temperature ranging from 15-17ºC. There was almost no wind at all, which is unusual. The sun poked out briefly a few times and made me feel like I was wearing a warm, damp blanket when it did, but was otherwise not a factor.
Given that it had been a week, I expected my time to be slower and it was. The shin was not a problem though by about the 8 km mark I could feel it. It didn’t hurt enough to affect me, I was just aware of it. I was both tentative and sluggish, starting out right at the five minute mark but dropping off noticeably each km in the first half. My average pace was saved by a stronger second half again and that much is reassuring.
I didn’t experience any particular problems during the run. The trail was damp but only had one easily avoided puddle. The lack of any breeze made me feel warmer than I would have otherwise but it was still manageable. Overall, a rather dull affair. Total time was 55:03, about a minute and a half slower than my previous zippy pace.
I iced my left shin for 45 minutes afterward and am going to try to run again in two days. We’ll see how that goes!
Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):
I bought The Sims 3 when it came out over a year ago and like most games let it promptly gather dust. It seems I’m more a collector than a player.
That said, I recently re-installed and patched the game and decided to give it another go. I like sandbox games as a rule, so being able to create and manipulate some poor slob’s world has an undeniable appeal to me.
I created a young adult Sim named Ferris Wheele. I’m a sucker for bad names, so I make no apologies here. Ferris was given five traits, ranging from Good Sense of Humor to Artistic. His favorite color is blue. His favorite food is sushi. He loves computers and longs to become a world famous author. He seems very easily excited.
Ferris wants a PC
After being given $16,000 in starter funds, I bought Ferris a dumpy little house in Sunset Valley for about 12 grand and moved him in. The tutorial advised that Ferris wanted a couch. As the house was unfurnished, I bought him a couch and had him sit on it. This made him happy. Ferris is a simple man.
He then wanted to go grocery shopping because there was a 20% off special that day at the store. Apparently Ferris is psychic, too. So I went and bought him food fit for a king:
Mmm, tuna and apple
An impoverished king banished from his kingdom, that is. Hey, I needed to save money for the rest of his house’s furniture. Ferris has no job!
After buying the groceries Ferris bumped into Stiles, another young man. Ferris told him amusing stories and made funny faces. Stiles was entertained and I think they may be friends now. Aw.
Once home, I bought a desk, chair and computer so Ferris could begin his writing career. Instead he sat down and began playing a computer game.
All work and no play make Ferris something something
With barely enough food for a single meal, a nearly unfurnished house, no job and no prospects, Ferris was very happy. Ferris is a strange man. I fear his bubble is going to burst soon.
Next time: Ferris and his wishes, trying to get a job and having a shower.
Taxi drivers have a fairly bad reputation as drivers.
This post is going to add to that reputation.
This taxi is parked at the Esso station at the corner of Burrard and Davie, across the street from where I was waiting to catch the bus. A few minutes prior to taking this picture, I watched as the taxi driver attempted to defy physics by having his cab occupy the same space as an articulated bus (he was trying to cut ahead of the bus to get into the gas station). This led to the honking of horns and crunching of bumpers as the two vehicles verified the laws of physics still do in fact apply.
Seeing drivers do foolish things is pretty typical. You know the old joke that yellow means drive faster? Now it seems yellow is the new green and red is the new yellow. The mentality appears to be ‘if you don’t actually cause an accident, it’s okay!’
I’ve noticed more cyclists on the sidewalks lately. Given the typical Vancouver driver, I can’t entirely blame them for avoiding the roads. It’s unfortunate that many cyclists also kind of suck. Oh well. At least pedestrians can’t run each other over. Yet.
The new adult store down the way apparently no longer needs a ‘chemist’ as the CHEMIST NEEDED sign is now sitting upside down at the bottom of the window it’s in. Or maybe that’s part of the testing the potential chemist needs to go through, to be able to read upside down text.
On one of the store’s side windows, a new sign has appeared (click to see the full-size version):
Now, I have no problem with some people being size-enabled. As Morrissey once wrote, some girls are bigger than others, some girls’ mothers are bigger than other girls’ mothers but here the shop owner is not only offering large lingerie but extra large. It reminds me of that story about It’s a Small World at Disneyland being closed for months so they could make the canals deeper. This was needed because the weight of passengers over the years had increased enough that the boats would occasionally scrape bottom and get stuck. One can only imagine the madness that would ensue as the boatload of people was forced to endure that song for an extended period of time while waiting for help to arrive. (If you follow the link, you can see Disney denied the changes were made due to passengers getting bigger, to which I offer ‘fat chance’.)
The other sign in the window shows how out of touch I am with the latest in adult toys and things of that nature. The Stallion spray is labeled a ‘male genital desensitizer’. I am unsure why a guy would want to desensitize that particular area of his anatomy. ‘I can’t stand the pleasure anymore! Make it stop!’ As always, I fallback on my standard:
In a taste of things to come, today’s run was in light rain, with the temperature a cool-for-the-season 12ºC. Despite the inclement weather and it being a stat holiday a fair number of people were at the park, either jogging or walking their accursed dogs.
My body definitely seems to prefer cooler days when it comes to running. I had another good start (4:56) but slumped surprisingly in the 2nd km (5:03 — still a decent time). I had an excellent and very consistent second half, however, and finished with my second best time ever — 5:21, only one second off my fastest run back on February 26th.
Unlike many recent runs, there were no cramps or other bits of discomfort to slow me down. My left leg seems to be holding up fine. I think I got a bit of a mental boost from the other runners, as they were all jogging at a much more casual pace than me. I lapped several of them and you can’t help but feel a little fast when you do that, even if they’re not exactly tearing up the place themselves.
Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):
Recently I decided to create a new episode of Angry Carrot, the mad vegetable who wants to take over the world for some reason. I posted a couple of teaser panels to the Martian Cartel forum and reproduce them here.
Last September I began using the Nike+ and my iPod nano to track my runs. Since then it’s recorded 634 km. Not bad. It would be more if I hadn’t sat out nine weeks with injuries to both of my legs (at different times). Still, it’s a decent amount of running considering the last I did was back in high school 28 years ago.
Today I opted for a morning run as a change of pace. Under a sunny sky with little wind I started out with the temperature at 12ºC. It climbed to 16ºC by the time I finished, though I don’t think it played a big factor in my effort.
I had a very good start — the first two km both came in under five minutes but the second half was marred by some cramps and gas (sorry to those running behind me! :P) bringing my overall time down lower than I would have liked. Still, I finished with a pace of 5:27/km and an overall time of 54:38, which is an improvement from the last run. My left leg is still feeling a bit tender but holding up okay for now.
I was a bit surprised both before and after my last run and I want to note both surprises here for future reference. I will be making reference to the past three runs, with the most recent being #3, etc. After #1, I felt fine. A few days later my left leg felt a bit sore. Now, if I hurt myself when running it never surfaces later — I feel it during the run and very much so immediately after. That this didn’t happen made me wonder if there was another cause. I realized I had developed a bad habit of using the sub-woofer under my computer desk as a makeshift foot stool. The problem is it is quite small and my legs were very stretched out. I probably hyper-extended the left leg a bit in the process. I’ve seen conditioned myself to not use the sub-woofer for anything but playing bass! Run #2 came a week later, as I wanted to give the left leg a bit of a rest. The surprise here came the next day when my thighs were actually sore (in that “hey, these muscles haven’t been used in awhile” kind of way). That seemed odd, but it’s a good reason to get off my butt and get back to running more often.
Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):
