The Splines

Hi everyone! I’m really sorry to have to do this, but I’m going to put the Splines on hiatus for a while. Each blog post represents 3-4 hours of work, and I just don’t have the time to spare.

I’m not quite ready to shutter the blog permanently. After all, there have been long gaps in the past, as between November 16, 2009 and January 14, 2010.

I will also continue with weekly Sims Sunday posts over at my main blog.

Be sure to plug the feed URL into your RSS reader if you have one. You never know when a post might pop up there in a month, three months, or who knows when!

Thank you all, you have all made this a really amazing experience for me!

I was getting pretty tired of Chin-Han as a toddler. People kept leaving him in his high chair. And then he would cry, and everyone would complain about the crying, but no one would GO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

After he aged up with the birthday cake, his eyes did this weird thing. I was worried they would be stuck that way! (Also: mom in the background: totally stoked.)

Luckily they settled to gray after a few minutes. Doesn’t he look a bit like a young David Duchovny?

One of his first wishes was to become best friends with his mother. But every time I sent him to talk to her, she got up and left. Sad.

In trying to talk to her, and failing, he missed the bus for school and had to bike there. This is where I noticed his pink flip flops.

Chin-Han is the first Sim I’ve had who had a wish to set their Lifetime Wish in childhood. Usually that doesn’t happen until they are teenagers. Some of them never have a wish, and I have to choose.

He chose “Become a Creature-Robot Cross-Breeder.” All you have to do for that one is get to level 9 of the Science career. Easy peasy!

I started him out with some fishing lessons.

The pink flip flops and the short pants just weren’t working for me. I gave him a more somber outfit. Now he looks like an old man!

I bet he’s griping about the way movie ticket prices have skyrocketed since he was a kid. The way old people do. “And don’t even get me started on the price of popcorn! It’s highway robbery!”

Hi all, sorry for the late notice! I just looked at my schedule for the rest of the week and realized that I’m not going to have time to PLAY Sims 3, much less write about it.

Posts will return next week – but I will have to fall back to a Tues/Thurs schedule for a while to get by. Sorry to disappoint, but the paying jobs have to come first!

The next day, Gino decided to go to the park after school. He stayed there until it was time for curfew. Just as I clicked over to tell him to go home, he had a birthday!

A sad, lonely birthday in the dark, with only a passing ghost for company.

I decided it was time, so I bought Eliseo a cake and made him grow up, too.

He grew into a young adult with… cornrows and a panda shirt. Okey dokey.

Meanwhile, baby Chin-Han cried and cried. I guess I would, too, if I had such a gross high chair next to my crib! Someone wipe that thing down!

Now that Eliseo was a Young Adult, I kicked him out along with his younger brother Gino. Typically when you kick a Sim out, they walk calmly to the front curb and take a taxi. In this case, both of the kids RAN away. On foot. And Gino was making this terrible face!

It actually made me feel pretty bad about the whole thing. Oh well – too late! Onward!

As he approached his 500th birthday (!!) Tyler had a 1,500-point Wish to hire an executive butler. I was getting pretty tired of the messes, so I did it.

Kayce Naylor showed up thinking about… someone.

First she cleaned the kitchen counter.

Then she made spaghetti.

I GOTTA GET ME ONE OF THOSE.

I pretty much finished the SuperBunker – finished enough that I uploaded it to the Exchange. It’s a little rough around the edges, like all of my uploaded lots.

For example, I regret my decision to put a mirrored wall in the living room. It makes me a little dizzy!

The upstairs (one level below ground) is dedicated to living space. (I kind of wish I had basemented out the whole space, because there’s a weird effect where the gaps between floors become transparent, so you can see what’s happening below. It’s hard to explain.)

The second basement level is mostly sleeping quarters, plus a library where the kids can study, and a stage for budding musicians.

And on the ground level: tons of Money Trees! There are even a bunch of seeds lying on the ground, because I hadn’t gotten around to planting them. I think your Sims can go over and collect them? Not sure how that works. (Let me know!)

Anyway. Little Chin-Han is a dickens, just like all toddlers.

Eliseo’s eyebrows really do give him an expression which is constantly maniacal.

He’s a good kid, though! He studies all on his own, even when he’s really tired.

(And he used the library to do it, just the way I hoped they would, which pleased me greatly.)

I decided to tempt fate and try to hold the wedding in the central park in downtown Sunset Valley. My success rate for off-lot weddings is about 20%.

As you can see, #5 is TOTALLY STOKED TO BE GETTING MARRIED, WOOOOOOO!!!!

(The “Excitable” trait will do that to a guy!)

I requested formal dress. So… I guess those are Krissy Roman’s formal short-shorts.

The wedding went well, except that none of the guests paid any attention. They all just sort of stood around by the bathrooms while #5 and Krissy tied the knot.

Afterward, #5 grilled hot dogs for the guests.

….Badly.

But Krissy ate one of the scorched dogs anyway. That’s love!

When I merged their households after the wedding, I found that Krissy actually had THREE children. We have baby Chin-Han, who shows #5 as his father.

Then two kids who, according to the game, have NO father. I guess she adopted?

Eliseo, her curly-haired child with the menacing eyebrows.

And Gino, the buzz-cut child in a panda t-shirt.

Unfortunately these three kids filled up the last of the house’s eight “slots.” This means that Riley will not be able to marry, even if he HAD managed to get that far with his Napoleon-ish vampire chick. (Which he totally hasn’t.)

Riley was finally able to successfully invite over Sheena Kurtz (the Napoleon-looking vampire). But it didn’t go very well.

She responded poorly to his Romantic interactions.

But then he apologized, and she accepted his apology. We switched to the Friendly interactions, and things improved a little.

He even got a smile out of her! (Eesh, those teeth!)

Meanwhile, #5 had invited Krissy Roman to spend the night.

The next morning she was up and standing in the yard right at dawn. I woke him up and sent him after her.

“Beat it, kid.”

I sensed that she was getting ready to leave so I decided, no time like the present!

And she accepted!

I have to admit, I had kind of lost track of #5′s situation with Krissy Roman, what with the death of Hera and all. So I was startled, when I switched over to him, to see the “Had Baby” positive moodlet from the birth of his son.

Naturally, I invited Krissy over to see how she was doing. They started making out (autonomously!) right inside the front door.

Those crazy kids! They can’t keep their hands off each other!

Also I learned that Krissy named their son Chin-Han. Chin-Han Roman: the first Spline to be born out of wedlock AND on another lot.

As long as Krissy was over, I decided to try and fulfill #5′s wish to “Woo Hoo in Hot Tub.” (You know – the one right in the middle of their front yard.)

First they were interrupted by Tyler, who wandered upstairs to play in the sprinkler.

Then Riley wanted to chat with Krissy.

Then #5 had to pee.

Whoops! He didn’t make it to the toilet.

And with all these romantic hijinks going on, I had completely forgotten about Hera’s remains. So she returned to visit as a ghost, with a super-creepy smile.

There was a lot of support for that Napoleon-looking vampire that #5 talked to last week. #5 is already kind of in a relationship, but I thought it might be nice to kick her to Riley.

(Incidentally, Riley is Disciplined, Good, Genius, Light Sleeper, and Athletic, with a Lifetime Wish to become the best martial artist.)

She ignored my repeated attempts to invite her over. Luckily, she soon invited #5 to a party. I had Riley go in his place. Why not! Who will notice! All these Splines look pretty much the same!

Vampires spend a lot of time looking directly at the camera. It’s quite… unsettling.

Sheena Kurtz is a two-star celebrity, so Riley had to impress her before she would talk to him. He was finally able to impress her, but as you can see, he was at the limits of exhaustion. After that, he had to run home.

The next night, I sent him over to her house. As you can see, she lives in the swankiest place in town! (I feel like I own this place, with all the time I have spent staring dully at its back patio during the loading scene.)

She was pretty annoyed that he had just turned up out of nowhere. But she let him in!

I love her expression! He’s asking if she is single, and she’s like, “Seriously?”

Anyway, the answer is no. No, she is not single. She has a significant other named Brandy. And immediately after she explained this to Riley, she went straight to bed.

(I’ll be cagy with the pronouns because I assumed that Brandy was female, but then I thought that was a male hairstyle. So who knows.)

After we hit §1 million, I took all the Death Flowers away from Hera. She had worked hard, and when it was her time to go, I felt she deserved the rest.

Her time came tonight, in her sleep.

Instead of pleading for her life, she shook the Grim Reaper’s hand, as if to say “Fair’s fair.”

Her remaining family was devastated. I remodeled half of the living room into a dance floor to try and cheer them up. #5 seemed to like the strobe light, although he still looks pretty sad.

He was having so much trouble coping with the loss, I decided to hold a funeral party. It didn’t help. While everyone danced, #5 just cried and cried.

Even after I turned out the lights and turned on all the cool effects, he remained inconsolable.

But hey, look who showed up! That kinda-Napoleon-looking vampire chick everyone noticed last time. (Tyler was impressed, but she clearly wasn’t.)

And look who else! It’s Riley! Poor, deleted Riley!

I took this as a sign.

And merged him into the Spline household!