Cousin Arnold!

Okay, I don't have a real Cousin Arnold. My Sims do.

Since the objective of my game is essentially to achieve stuff, and Laura likes to stretch the limits of her game (How many neighbors can I trap in my kitchen? Will my grandmother pinch the cheeks of her step-son's half-sister's child's best friend? What if I spend all my money putting playground equipment on the roof?) we have to test the negative stuff (mid-life crisis, pranks, skipping school, copying homework, not doing homework, becoming enemies with everyone in town, traps that will potentially kill my Sim, ugly houses) and we accomplish this with Cousin Arnold.

Cousin Arnold wears an orange-and-grey-blotched undershirt with a simoleon necklace-bling and pants with drooping suspenders. He goes barefoot, befriends everyone, and sports a mullet and a mohawk. Cousin Arnold is Evil, Insane, Friendly, Mean-Spirited, and (sometimes) a Kelptomaniac. He lives in the gym when he has no friends. He doesn't often get the chance to take showers. . . .

Cousin Arnold also tests stuff that Laura and I think are vulgar, like retro-car rooms and ugly clothes. He's flunked everything there is to flunk and would probably be Best Friends with a similar character, Grandma Moush.

It's nice to know that the Cousin Arnolds of the world are safely contained in my computer.

A Battle in Buy Mode

Before I turned on the computer......

Me: Hey, Peter and Laura, do you want to be on a blog post about your Sims?
Laura: Sure!
Peter: Okay, but you have to spell ten dinosaur names. This is a spelling test. Starting now. Spell 'Tyrannosaurus Rex.'
Me: *exasperated* Do YOU know how to spell that?
Peter: SPELL IT!!!
Me: T-y-r-a-n-n.......

---

Laura: You're obviously going to make this funnier than it is.
Me: *types*
Laura: Emma!
Me: *typing*
Laura: And you're probably going to make up lines.
Me: *sigh* No. Okay. So. Um, Peter.... tell me about the Pop Stove family.
Peter: First of all, their middle name is not "Pop" all the time.
Me: So their permanent last name is "Stove"?
Peter: Yes. Second of all, the mom and the dad are aliens.
Me: But their son is not.
Peter: He is not because, well, he landed on a car out of the spaceship.
Me: But he's Caucasian.
Peter: What does Caucasian mean?
Me: Fair-skinned. Wait...how does landing on a car mean that he doesn't have green skin?
Peter: Well, if an alien falls out of a spaceship and they don't really want to, they become a person. They keep their alien traits, though.
Me: And his parents let this happen?
Peter: No! They never knew they had a son!
Me: Oh-kay..... So they adopted a son when they bought their house. Do they like children? Even though theirs is human?
Peter: Yes, because he has a lot of fishing skill, and they like fish. And, they really like that they can finally have somebody that's a Couch Potato in their family.
Me: And that's a good thing?
Peter: Yo, like totally!
Me: Okay. Let's talk about where their son got adopted to in a few minutes. I want to ask Laura about her families. Which is your favorite?
Laura: The artist one I just made with the lady and the guy I made to be her husband.
Me: Yes.... and they are nocturnal?
Laura: Yes. The guy is a Ghosthunter, so he has to get up at all times of night, and the mom is an artist (that's her job) and she works at home. So she can sleep whenever she wants, and stay up as late as she wants. They're going to have kids soon.
Me: Twins? Triplets?
Laura: Singlets!
Me: Oh. What about your other families?
Laura: Oh, well, which one? Do you want to talk about the celebrity one?
Me: There's a celebrity one?
Laura: Yes. She's a five-star celebrity and lives in a cool house--
Me: The one with a dance floor, pool, hot tub, and lots of windows?
Laura: That's the one. She loves to paint and she loves music and she has a butler.
Me: *gasps* Bertram Plunkett?
Laura: No. But, maybe, actually. Um, she is not married (yet) and if there were pets on Sims 3 she would have pets.
Me: Any other families?
Laura: Uh, yes. Well, there's a family with a mom and a dad and the dad is a Police and the mom is an Investigator. Their kids include a child boy and a toddler girl. I think the boy's name is Walter.
Me: And they live in a very small apartment.
Laura: No, I moved them.
Me: Really?
Laura: Yes. Now their apartment is the whole floor.
Me: Ooh.
Laura: Their whole family is good at Logic.
Me: Cool. So, Peter, tell us about the family your guy was adopted into.
Peter: Huh?
Me: The 'naughty boys' household.
Peter: Oh, yeah! Well, the Naughty Boys were pretty naughty!
Laura: Tell them about the nice mom.
Peter: Later. And the baby was a fighter in crime.
Me: Didn't he sleep outside?
Peter: For just one night!
Me: I think that's illegal.
Peter: Let me tell you about a different family.
Me: *sighs* You may talk about the Ninjas later.
Peter: *sigh* Not the Ninjas!
Me: So, what?
Peter: The family that, you know, created the Smasher!
Laura: You mean the Chinese family? Then I get to talk about it too, because I made a character. I made the girl.
Me: Please. Let's move on either to elaboration on the Naughty Boys or your architecture techniques.
Peter: Well, the Naughty Boys *sigh* I don't really know where they live.
Me: *sigh* Let's move on to architecture. I know that both of you like excessive lighting!
Laura: I like lighting!
Peter: Well, I make graveyards a lot! I accidentally made one when I tried to make an outdoor sleeping place.
Laura: He had the graveyard statue.
Peter: Hey! I put Stonehenge in too! I think. But now I'm sure I made beds, too.
Laura: Yes, you did.
Peter: I also put in an outdoor grill.
Me: Do you like basements?
Laura and Peter: Yes!
Me: Do you ever make nine-story-tall houses?
Laura: Five and three, yes.
Peter: No. I can do only three stories.
Me: Do you 'Edit Town'?
Peter: I delete the school. And the Criminal career. I turned it into a nice park, aka accidentally a graveyard.
Me: I thought you did that to the school, too.
Peter: No.
Me: On the Ninjas.
Peter: No, both of them were parks.
Laura: *leaves*
Me: Go get her!
Peter: No. I'm leaving, too.
Me: *dejected*

I need more brownies, stat!

AGAIN I have forgotten the anniversary of this blog. The six-month one, I think.

Sob, sob, etc.

Let's have some points of interest.

1. You all know (hopefully) how I love love love the etiquette/food/English language/fashion area at the library. You also know (probably much more so) that I am a bad conversationalist. This has led me to read two conversation books, which were interesting but told me that at least 80% of what I say isn't worth a thing. Joy.
2. This book also informed me that people do not like hearing cat stories 24/7. I already knew this, but with a lot of people all we have in common is that they think my cats are cute. . .
   
3. . . . so I think that there should be a designated day of the week for me to monologue about the week's adventures involving Daisy and Perry. See Poll.
   
4. I think the only reason "Je t'aime, l'ete" is the most viewed page is because I can never remember what it is about. I assume that this happens to you all as well.
5. I made Ghirardelli brownies. Nom.
   
6. MY SIMS GAME IS BROKEN!!! (More on this later.)

The Great Telly et al

As you all may have heard, I have a new television. I find this very exciting (free cable for a month!). I have not watched television at my home in three whole years.

Us watching television on the first day:
Me, Laura, and Peter: *watch television*
Laura: Ah! This is different!!!
Me: (calmly) No, Laura, it's not.
Laura: But it's all weird!
Me: Laura, when was the last time you saw this show?
Laura: Uhhh....
Me: Precisely.
Laura: Hmph.
Me: Just watch it, Laura.
Laura: *watches silently*
Laura: Ha! Aha! Look! It's different!
Me: Psh! No it's . . . *looks closely* not...no! I mean, yes! It is different! Aw, it's all 3-Dy.
Laura: *nods smugly*

The story of how this came to be is rather funny. Laura and I were banished to the dining room to play Sims. Laura likes to make dysfunctional families. She started off with a mother, a father, and a baby named Virgina. Then they had another baby, a boy, named Maine for the state--but she forgot the e, so his name is Main. Bored with the game, Laura divorced the parents but then made them remain friends. The mother then married a ready-made character: Christopher. The mother's name is Christina. No confusion there, of course. The dad, a misspelled Ghram, continued to sleep in the master bedroom with his ex-wife and her new husband, who soon had a baby girl named "Saraphina". Laura then put the toddler Main and the infant Sophronia in the same room as the teenage Virgina so that she could wake up every hour or two to change diapers/feed/snuggle/play with them. Laura also wanted Virginia to have a boyfriend, but the highest person with whom she was very close was her old babysitter, the kleptomanic non-aging gold digger Davie. However, right after Ghram's marriage to Jamie (now all the adults sleep in the same room), a vain snobby doctor who required us to add another bathroom for her, I made Virginia break up with Davie. Directly afterward Laura aged up Saraphina and Main, so that they were now, respectably, toddler and child. Unfortunately, since one of Christopher's dreams had been to "ask the newspaper boy to hang out", he came to our party, too, which was at 9am, and stayed, playing with our dollhouse, until 12am. Such as it is.

Anyway, Laura and I were disposed of while Peter played on the computer. Which is. . . ? Right by the television. So, while my parents loudly removed our old television, received the new one, unpacked it, and hooked up the new one, Peter played games. He even once looked at my mom as asked her what she was doing. "Working on the television." "Oh." He then commenced to resume playing on the computer and did not look up again until Laura and I were dancing around gleefully. His only comment was, "Where's our old television?" Such is the magic of technology.

Off to buy gifts! (I haven't bought any yet. :-o)

Why I Haven't Been Posting; Also, Peter's Talisman

As you know, my posts have been far and few these last few weeks. Why, you may ask?

Because our stupid computers got amnesia.

1. My mom's laptop. Her story, her Sims games, gone. Very sad for all parties involved. Now it is fixed, though, and she has new Sims families.
   
2. Upstairs computer. We did get it fixed, but I have no bookmarks or favorites or ANYTHING. It. Was. Appalling. Also, Sims 3 only works for half an hour. Since Laura and I made a family with a musical teenager, three British-schoolgirl-esque triplet daughters, and crazy Cousin Arnold, who owns two cars and a motorcycle and has a huge mohawk, this SIMPLY DOES NOT SUFFICE. I mean, one can spend half an hour making Cousin Arnold live underground in a garage, and it WILL NOT SAVE.
3. This computer--downstairs. Last night, after lots of restarting, we clicked on my mom's name only to find that Everything was Lost. It is VERY maddening.

When I woke up this morning, figuring that I should explain this, I walked into the hallway to see Peter holding his "talisman"--a plastic squirt bottle to shoot Perry. In his other hand, he clutched a Playmobil Roman soldier-prince. The talisman in question was to protect him and make him feel safe from Jason, a hockey-mask-wearing, chainsaw-carrying character on a Halloween special for Roblox.

I have a coupon for Sims 3 Late Night--but we need to fix the computer first.

Periwinkle is an adult! On October the 19th, he finally switched to adult cat food.

3!

Ah, the number three. I recall a PE class in which, after surviving torture, you had to write something that fit into a subject--the subject being "multiples of 3". I was very pleased. While the other team stubbornly put "3, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc.", I put "0.03, 0.003, 0.0003, etc." It was almost as fun as the logical hula-hoop game.

Or 3 as in: "3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993. . . ", that is to say, pi. March 14, 2015, 9:26:53!

3 as in the amount of murders in my most recent novel--the passengers being, respectively, a jewel thief, an alcoholic, an illegal weapons smuggler, and the murderers and murderees.

3 as in "The Sims 3", which I got the newest addition of and appalled the dude at the counter by knowing which day the next add-on comes out. (October 26!)

3 as in the number of muffins Perry has stalked, perhaps because he finds them "easy prey". He will pick one up in his teeth and carry it to the living room to devour and play with.

3 as in the amount of tall onions that Daisy has munched the leaves/stems/whatevers of. She has SO much better breath than Perry.

3 as in the amount of Trident Fruit Stripe Gum pieces that I have given to my siblings. It is 6 months old. (Ssh!)

Most importantly, though, it is the number of months I have posted on my blog! Yay! *throws confetti into air*

L'heure de le chatton impoli!!!

A post of updates.

This morning, Periwinkle. . . :

a)Chewed on my basket.
b)Climbed up my curtains, and. . .
c). . . thus fell from the curtains onto my bin of sentimental stuff. . .
d). . . which promptly toppled over and sent Perry under my bed.
e)He then clawed up my bed-skirt.
f)Knocked down a ribbon from my tall bookshelf.
g)Knocked down a hairclip.
h)Messed up my scrapbooking shelf.
i)Was yelled at, by me.

Hair status: Duck-y.

Just finished The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd and actually got the murderer correct. Joy. I can get a job now. Hooray.

The Sims 3 Fast Lane comes out September seventh and the new Poptropica island is set to come out September ninth. I'm so excited!

***I also need to update my links bar in the sidebar. I know y'all have access to lots of interesting sites, so if you could comment below or email me them, I shall put them up!!!***

Earning Mah Keep (Being Good For A Better Cause): Morning Version

So, as you know, my sister and I (and my mom, which does help) love love LOVE the Sims 3. We have all the expansions. But there's a new one coming out this autumn (eep) and so Laura and are being SUPER GOOD. Thus, our activities include:

--Making our beds (Both): I think we're supposed to do this all the time. However, to kill dust mites, I leave it messy while I eat breakfast. Then I make it. But sometimes I forget. . . . :-/ Laura hasn't forgotten since she found a big black spider in her bed. }:)
--Limiting our computer usage (me): Oh well, my mom awards computer time if we're good. . . the blog helps.
--Folding the laundry (me): And shooing mah kittums away from the hair-free laundry.
--Putting away the laundry (me) Ditto.
--Putting away clean dishes (me): While I wait for my mom to make me breakfast (fried eggs and bacon, yummay) I get bored of staring at dinosaurs.
--Putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher (me): I get bored waiting for my mom to make me breakfast. . . still. . . people are SUPPOSED to eat breakfast at SEVEN, not EIGHT FORTY-FIVE.
--Making breakfast for everyone(me): I think we all know who's earning this.
--Setting the table (me): I should be getting this game early, yes?

It's 9:51 am. . . off to be good again. . . .