Tuesday 14 February 2017

You say it's your birthday, May 2044

Round 36: May 2044 (Autumn)


Steve Nihill has earned two promotions in fairly quick succession and wife Olivia thinks that's a pretty good reason to celebrate!

They choose a little restaurant not far from home and enjoy a nice quiet dinner together. 

They swing by the park on their way home for a stroll, before the weather gets too chilly to contemplate it!


With two teenage daughters, Ramona and Jacinta, date nights are not too difficult to organise these days. One or both girls are usually willing to stay home and mind Theo

Not that he's particularly difficult to mind. If he's at home, he generally likes to practise his piano or violin.

He is obviously following in his amateur musician dad's footsteps!


Jacinta has, as usual, boys on her mind. This time, it's Thomas Moretti, who has asked her on an actual date.


Steve says she can't go unless he meets Thomas first. Finding nothing objectionable, Jacinta gets her wish. 

They start out with a very healthy lunch - pizza for Jacinta and baked Alaska for Thomas.

The pair then move onto karaoke...





...which Jacinta is just slightly more enthusiastic about than Thomas!

And their first date ends in the best way! It's the first kiss for Thomas but the second for Jacinta, who kissed Everett Benton a while ago. He hasn't shown any interest since, so she's moved on!


Ramona is in her last year of high school and is focused on acing all of her classes and making decisions about college next year. 

She and Ruby were pretty keen on sharing an apartment somewhere on campus but their parents' refusal to pay for that has killed that dream. The girls are trying to get excited about dorm living instead


Ramona is still a bit nervous about her SAS results, as much as Olivia assures her she'll do just fine.


As it turns out, Ramona has done more than just fine. Not only is her score the highest of all the teens in her grade, it's the highest score since the SAS was instituted. 


Ramona's score is an unbelievable 77, which means her tuition at Suffolk will be completely free. Her family is obviously incredibly proud of her. 


Steve is just that little bit extra proud though! Ramona has decided to go into journalism and has spent the last few weeks pressing her dad for details on his profession.

**********


It’s Anthony Moretti’s 27th birthday but he has things other than celebrating on his mind.

After recently deciding that his life’s mission was to own his own bar, he found the perfect place. It’s exactly what he’s imagined and he’s managed to find out the owner will be selling soon.

Problem: it’s about $15,000 out of Anthony’s price range, even considering the largest loan the bank will let him take out.

Perhaps, being that it’s his birthday and all, Anthony’s parents, Caleb and Cara, might be willing to spot him a small loan.

Cara is immediately unimpressed, while Caleb is a little more open-minded about the idea.

When he hears just how small this “small loan” is though, Caleb has no choice but to say no. He and Cara just don’t have that kind of cash. 

Anthony tries a bit more sweet-talking on his parents but it’s fruitless. The money he wants just doesn’t exist.

He says goodbye to his parents with no hard feelings but his brain is going a mile a minute, trying to come up with another way to make that extra money. 

**********


It’s Connor’s 31st birthday and his main gift from wife Lila is his very own dartboard.

He’s really been getting into the game lately and is ecstatic that he now doesn’t even have to leave home to play!






Maybe with so much opportunity to play, Connor will finally cotton on to why Lila always, always seems to win.

Far more exciting than Connor’s birthday is the news that Lila is seven weeks pregnant! They have been trying to conceive since New Year's and will meet their little one in February 2045.

Other birthdays this month:
Elisa Hamilton turns 2
Gemma Ashton turns 3
River Novak turns 7
Joaquin Miguel turns 13
Marcus Lane turns 15
Sylvia Draper turns 18
Matthew and Simon Lane turn 19
Emma Gottlieb turns 24
Tim Lane turns 24
Veronica Moretti turns 27
Jack Benton turns 32
Calvin and Troy Clarke turn 41
Josie Clarke turns 42
Amber Miguel turns 43
Luc and Cordy Lane turn 51
Abigail Carmody turns 61
Emil Collins turns 72

May wedding anniversaries:
Matilda and Miles Jacobson - 10 years
Claudia and Jacob Kirby - 14 years
Jace and Magdalena - 53 years

Notes:
  • So the Nihills were my guinea pigs for my new system for scheduling updates and it really worked for me! I had a lot of fun with them, without the pressure of writing a whole update. I almost think I could have written a whole update, actually, but that won't be the case with all the families. Some family check-ins will be much shorter than this one. The Nihills just happened to have a fair bit going on. Steve's two promotions were unintentional - he got the first and then he won a chance card for the second, after I'd forgotten to put the Job Stopinator in his inventory. I could have just ignored the chance card...but I have a compulsion to always do them, lol!
  • Very excited about Ramona's score! This is like a Joanna Draper/Nick Moretti level score, if anyone remembers when they went off to college. I wasn't doing SAS scores back then (the criteria was number of scholarships - Joanna and Nick both earned at least 8 and got free tuition) but I imagine this is the kind of score they both would have earned. 
  • If Cara and Caleb had had the money to lend Anthony, this would have been a more difficult story decision for me. Would they give him that amount of money, if they could? I don't know. Seeing they're about $10,000 short though, the decision was made for me. Anthony's going to have to find another way. :)
  • That darts interaction is the first time I have ever seen that in my game...or anywhere, I think. I've seen the interaction pop up before when I've clicked on the dartboard but I'd either never selected it or my sims were interrupted and didn't do it. I chose my favourite pics from the scene but there were so many more that I took! Some great reactions that might work well for other scenes too. I'm going to post the whole shebang on Tumblr.
  • And yes, a baby Novak is on the way! I missed Connor and Lila, so I thought I'd check in on them for Connor's birthday and then remembered their mutual baby wants and let them give it a shot. Third time was the charm. :)

16 comments:

  1. I've never seen that dart interaction either! It is amazing that we are still learning new things about this game.

    Congrats to Connor and Lila. I am fond of the Sitko girls. I still remember when Everett and Grace were born. I must be partial to families with a lot of girls because I also love Maisie's Andersen girls and Shana's Sutton sisters.

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    1. I know, this game is so damn old and I still haven't seen everything! No wonder so many are still playing. :)

      I love the Sitko girls too and the Andersens and the Suttons are definitely two of my favourite families belonging to other simmers. I'm desperate for one of my couples to one day have four girls or four boys! It's a weird little dream of mine and I'm very jealous of Maisie and Shana, lol.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  2. Very nice, love the new format. I couldn't help but giggle at Lila and Conner playing darts.

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    1. Glad you're enjoying the new birthdays format! It was very hard to pick photos of the darts thing, so watch out on Tumblr, because I have a whole bunch more that I didn't use that are also very funny. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  3. Those were cute dates, both for Steve and Olivia, and Thomas and Jacinta.

    Whoa, congrats to Ramona on that SAS score! Impressive!

    I hope Anthony finds a way to get his bar. He's quite young though, I don't think most people could manage to purchase property for a business at just 27 years old. Do you have any ideas for how he'll get the money? Just save, maybe?

    Sneaky, Lila! lol! That was cute, and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole shebang on Tumblr. I can't remember if I ever saw that animation when I was playing TS2. And yay, a baby!!! :D

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    1. I'm just happy to have teenage couples again! My older teens are super-imbalanced in terms of gender - there was literally no one for poor Ruby to date, for instance.

      I don't have a real plan for Anthony yet and I don't think he would either. He flies by the seat of his pants a little bit. I'm trying to imagine if there's any sort of moneymaking scheme someone like Anthony might come up with!

      I'm still to get around to posting the rest of that interaction but the photos are ready to go! I almost wish I'd got a video, because some of it is just so much better in motion. :)

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  4. Congrats to Ramona on her SAS score!! Aw man, I know Anthony is disappointed. But like Laura said he's still young. Maybe he could get someone to go into a partnership with him.

    And yay for Lila and Connor! I haven't ever seen that dartboard interaction either!

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    1. Anthony is disappointed but he's also very determined. As far as he's concerned, this will definitely happen for him. He just has to figure out how. As for a partner, I so wish there was a way to set that up in TS2! I think doing it myself would involve too much maths, which is something I try to avoid as much as possible. ;)

      So excited about Lila and Connor! I was actually almost as excited about the darts as I was about the baby, lol! Finding an interaction almost 13 years after I first started playing this game is pretty unexpected.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  5. Wow, how *is* Lila so much better at darts? It didn't look like she could get away with cheating with him right there, so she must just have higher skill. The darts pictures were great and I'm looking forward to checking the ones on Tumblr. This was a fun update, and I am excited about Lila and Connor's baby too.

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    1. To my knowledge, there is no hidden darts skill in TS2. Your comment made me wonder whether there is a possibility for a sim to catch the other sim cheating. I may play around with debugsocial and see if I can force it! The rest of the darts pictures will go up on Tumblr either tonight or tomorrow night. :)

      I would also like to point out that Connor works for Sullivan's intelligence agency, yet somehow can't spot his wife's very obvious darts cheating, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  6. Love the new format as well, and I'm glad it seems to work for you. It's pretty much what I have planned for Barchester, too, down the road. Progress for the win! :)

    And yay, baby!

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    1. So far, so good with the new system! I know I'm taking ages to get to the next update but my reasons are nothing this new format could have fixed, unfortunately. I'm just finding it hard to get back into the swing of working and playing! Once I get this Kirby update done, I hope to get back on track. :)

      Apologies for taking so long to respond, by the way!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  7. Great to see what your sims got up to on their birthday's and congrats to Lila & Connors baby news! :)

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    1. I'm super-excited about Connor and Lila's baby - I've already named it and everything, lol!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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  8. Yay for Connor and Lila! I'm excited to see their genetics at play and how they manage as parents. I love that interaction on the dart board! I don't recall ever seeing it in my game, I'll have to use it more often! I just met someone who was an avid dart player, with darts that cost a fortune, and he competed. I didn't really know it was a thing, maybe its something that Connor can work toward. :D

    The mini update for the Nihills was nice! I forgot that you were moving toward that, so I was a little confused on whose birthday it was in the beginning. It was a very nice quick update, and that Jacinta! I think Thomas is a pretty good kid, so I can see why he got Dad approval. I'd be more worried about Thomas dating Jacinta!

    So good to read your sims again. :)

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    1. I'm pretty keen to see Connor and Lila as parents too. I don't think either of them are the most stereotypical type of parent, so it should be interesting.

      Ha, you know I can see Connor going either way on competitive darts. I can see him thinking it was a total waste of time but with his interest in sports and his tendency to hyperfocus, I can see him wanting to take it very seriously as well.

      Next round, I'm going to try and make my schedule so that every family in birthdays actually has someone celebrating a birthday. Not positive I can do it but I'm going to try. So hopefully, it won't be as confusing in the future. :) But yes, Jacinta is way more of a worry than Thomas!

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

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