There is sports hobby Business career reward (minigolf) what builds charisma. I use it quite often for sports hobby and also for shy sims.
Rubik Orb is logic animation.

I'm pretty sure the rubix cube animation is associated with science enthusiasm. I don't think skills generally have associated idle animations, or at least, I have never seen my sims who have maxed every skill doing any skill-based idle animations.

I just had my first couple ever blow their vacation budget. It's going to cost $5500. They only had $3900. They will get the bill in the mail!

I don't like the enthusiasm system at all, tbh. I like to use mods to diminish it. I eat a pop-tart for breakfast and suddenly I want to be a chef? Come on.

Speaking of pop-tart, I find it funny that toaster pastry is an option for food but there are no toasters in the game.

First time one of my Sims ever got pregnant on a community lot in the photobooth. I wasn't sure it was possible, but now I know.

Well, there are toaster ovens. I think those work in toaster ovens, right?

Yeah. That and TV Dinners are pretty much the only things they can cook.

In the sims, or in real life? In real life toaster ovens can cook plenty of things.

In The Sims 2, of course. My grandma has a toaster oven. I've thought about getting one.

I guess you could cook it in a toaster oven. I'm just bitter about no toasters themselves.

If I recall correctly this might help explain the absence of toasters https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Isaac_Rossum, specifically the 4th secret. While it could be a reference to toaster ovens when I first got the PC version this was the explanation that I felt fit. I thought toaster ovens were just microwaves so it confused me as to why I could only cook certain meals on this microwave and not the one right next to it in the catalog.

I'm gonna go look for a functional toaster now.

True. I usually don't count (or just plain overlook) the Career Rewards simply because not every Sim can lay their hands on them. But the mini-putt-putt is nice for Fun, Charisma build and Social. And oh, that Charisma-building can be nice! Take a Sim with Charisma 0, ask a Sim whose Charisma is 10 how to putt, and see how long it takes before both of them are Charisma 10. I love social items that let one Sim teach a skill to another!


What if it's a really, really good Pop Tart? I bet that Chef Gordon Ramsay can make some stellar Pop Tarts.

(Some time ago in some other thread around here, wasn't I talking about grilled cheese sandwiches, and how the quality of food depends on the Cooking skill of the Sim cooking it? A Sim with Cooking 1? Tosses a slice of Velveeta between two slices of generic white bread, toasts it on one side and calls it done. A Sim with Cooking 10? Breaks out the finely aged Port Wine Jarlsberg and applewood-smoked Gouda, alternates slices of Jarlsberg and Gouda among three slices of Old World pumpernickel, steeps the bread in olive oil before toasting it between heated flat irons over a hickory flame, add shaved carrots and sea-salted capers...basically, that Cooking 10 Sim knows how to make a simple grilled cheese sandwich into something gourmet; it all depends on the skill of the chef, the ingredients used and the techniques and/or equipment used to cook them.

So how would you make a gourmet Pop Tart? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet that clover honey, orange peel marmalade, a semi-sweet pinot noir and burning cherrywood are involved. )

I discovered that age conversions are a lot easier than I thought. At least between adult and teen males, which are the only ones I've done so far. Provided you have a suitable mesh for both ages. (And I have to admit that I'm not yet quite sure what constitutes "suitable".) I had imagined that I would have to resize the textures as adults are bigger than teens. But I discovered that, as long as the meshes are the same, I can just copy the textures across. The first one I tried was using a Maxis nude mesh (for skintight speedos), and the second one was using tiggerypum's loincloths, which come in both adult and teen versions. I'm trying to upload the latter to Plumbbob Keep (because that's where I got ladylarkrune's teen ones), but I'm still waiting to see if they accept them. I'm also very tentatively starting to do Body Shop meshing, so I suppose I'll learn how easy (or otherwise) it is to do age conversions of meshes.

I wonder how easy it is to do age conversions to Child, Toddler, or indeed Elder (using the proper Elder bodyshape).

For me it's not really discovery, because I knew it before, but some might not be aware of the fact, that babies (only) which are adopted, are being generated with facial features from 2 random townies.
(Btw I recommend this channel as there's more interesting sims 2 facts regarding for example firstborn syndrome etc)

I discovered a long time ago when adding an unlocker for career rewards and aspiration rewards in buy mode that it let me place them on community lots and in coomon areas of my apartment lots.I've also more recenlty discovered that sims can avoid the standard jobs and just work crafting stations to learn trades like being a butcher,baker or candlestick maker which is handy for my intended apocaylse challenge when the nornal jobs are locked in the early days of the colonization.

That was the most thorough explanation of First Born syndrome I've ever had!

I quickly opened up my game to check my household with 8 children - no clones! Phew! They all look pretty similar, but I can notice specific differences. I checked their personalities to confirm. 8 kiddos and not a single one shares a star sign.

There's a YouTube channel where they actually do this: 4 Levels of Grilled Cheese.

Yeah, Remy there looks like he's near the "Cooking 10" end of the spectrum. :D

And I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that any level of cooking skill could make blackberries work with a grilled cheese sandwich!

(So why is that video named "Four Levels..." when there are only three chefs with three levels? The food scientist didn't cook anything; all she did was more or less explain why Bianca's sandwich sucked, Daniel's sandwich kinda rocked and Remy's sandwich rocked the hands off a clock.)

Yeah, that's an ongoing debate in the comments. I guess the 4th level is the science? Like, the inner analysis level?

I always thought it funny when sims would go to a fancy downtown restaurant, look at the menu and then start thinking of grilled cheese. I'll just imagine them ordering the croque madame Remy made from now on.

There's this weird Teen-to-Teen "Lecture" interaction the game pushes on Romeo after Tybalt fights Mercutio at the Monty Ranch (if you do everything as scripted). It's kinda weird, Tybalt constantly does that "sorry" kind of animation from the regular lectures all throughout, but Romeo cycles through the recieving and giving animations of the Appreciate.../Admire interaction and this weird disagreement animation that looks like it's from talking but it isn't... it's weird, to say the least...

(And btw apparently when you load the Monty Ranch, you're actually not supposed to have Romeo and Juliette cuddle on the couch, just make out while standing, and that pushes Mercutio to insult Juliette, then Tybalt to attack Mercutio, then Romeo to lecture Tybalt... I always just assumed it wanted you to make them cuddle on the sofa)

I discovered how to flip a terrain so I can edit in SC4 in whatever orientation I prefer, and how to turn the terrain so it can face the sun.

Hmm . . . cheesecake with blackberries would be fine. Crepes with a sweet cheese filling and blackberries would be fine. Given that I bet I could come up with a grilled cheese that worked with blackberries. One of the soft, mild cheeses, like a brie, or cream cheese . . . if anyone wants to send me some blackberry bushes I'll give it a try in a few years! (Yeah, Sunny is too freaking cheap to buy blackberries at the grocery. Go figure. Y'all going to like rhubarb, gooseberries, and cherries right now, and then you're going to like currants, and then apricots and wild plums, and after that we finally get to apples, lots and lots of apples, looks like a bumper crop of apples this year, you better love apples!)

There's a free floor tile in the misc section specifically for making ceilings under roofs. F in the chat for the families who had to spend money on ceiling instead of having this.

I've used that free floor tile as a builder's basic floor with a very cheap tile wall for my builds in starter homes and for cheap rental apartments that won't cost a fortune for my poor and working class households.