I believe it's 6 in-game hours that tiles remain infected. So it's entirely possible he might get re-infected after he gets healthy again. I know I've gone through loops with Grandma's soup curing sims, only to have them re-infect nearly immediately because of a nearby plague tile. As long as he's kept comfortable, though, and well-rested, he should eventually overcome.

Oh no.
Jim Lajoie brought the flu home from work. I figured it would be no biggie, he has plenty of opportunity for rest with only one teenage son who is only with him part-time anyway and a very self-sufficient wife. He did all of the good things, bubble baths and plenty of r+r in bed. But alas after 2 and a half days he succumbed to his cough. Just 3 hours after him and his wife finally successfully conceived their first child together. I feel so bad for Brooke, she's lost her husband and her step-son she's known since he was about 7 is leaving for college shortly as well, and as she's a townie (as was Jim) she's got no family of her own to lean on. I do think Daphne, Jim's ex and mother of his son, is going to be of great help to her, they're already good friends thankfully and Daphne's large family might bring comfort to Brooke during this time.
Now I've got to figure out the inheritance this man in his early 30's who was doing pretty great in his career would be able to leave behind. I have the no inheritance mod, but I feel like *something* form work or some such should go to his family. Any ideas on how you guys deal with inheritances like this?

I have a new generation starting university.

David Ottomas could hardly believe his good fortune as he stepped out of the taxi onto the campus of La Fiesta Tech. All his life, he had only wanted three things: to get away from his huge and chaotic family, to go to college, and to play music. Now, he had achieved the first two of those and had a chance to pursue the third.

When the zombies had all been killed or cured, the werewolf clan that David belonged to lost their purpose. They decided to retreat to the remote desert and hunt big game there so they wouldn’t be tempted to savage any Sims. But David stayed behind by himself, coming out on the streets of Outcaste to forage for food only at night. Then, he ran into an old gypsy woman who offered him a cure for his lycanthropy, which he eagerly accepted. Some time later, the Save Our Homeless Teens committee located him and gave him a full scholarship to La Fiesta Tech. He knew it was going to be hard work because he had never really gone to school, but he was determined. He only hoped he would fit in somehow.

As he walked into his dorm, he noticed three green-skinned teens huddled together. He had never seen aliens up close before. They seemed quite close and as nervous as he was. And over there were two pale kids in weird makeup, hanging against the wall. He didn’t think they were vampires as it was the middle of the afternoon, but they had the look of the recently dead about them. David realized he might actually be the most ordinary Sim here. And then he set off to make some new friends.

Starting a new generation in university with David Ottomas, Amelie and Oliver Curious, Liam Beaker, and the Tricou teens.

I was able to play the Dreamers from Monday through to Sunday.

On Monday, I had Lilith and Dirk move house, and as soon as they were settled, they wanted to woohoo in bed. After fulfilling the want, I heard the lullaby. Darren and Brandi were invited over at the same time as the welcome wagon making an appearance. It consisted of Lola Curious, Ajay Loner, and Bella Bachelor (I'll explain in a future post). Ajay and Bella shared their first kiss through ACR and developed a crush on each other, while Dirk watched... you do you, buddy.
 
According to Bella, Dirk is quite the heart-throb, that much so that she tried to make out with him. Key word 'try,' as he kept rejecting her advances towards him. Lola also finds Dirk hot, but hasn't acted on her feelings.

That was the only eventful day, in my opinion.

Dirk finally got his dream job in the medicine career and has since gotten to Lvl 6. On Thursday, Lilith gave birth to a baby boy called Chris. Due to cleaning, Lilith got promoted to Law Lvl 3. Chris aged to a toddler on Saturday at 18:00, and after his age up, Lilith rolled the want for another baby, and Dirk rolled the want for another baby and to get married. I can't wait!

This is my second time writing all of this up, as I lost the original draft...

Anyway, next time I'll play the Dreamers for one more day and then I'll be onto the Goths; Alexander and Stella.

It's a family birthing explosion going on in my hood right now. My first generation of born in game sims are busy trying to populate the entire hood it seems. I have a new crop of teens out of this bunch and there is drama brewing there. More girls than guys and 3 of the girls, who are all friends, all fancy the same boy. It's beginning to look a bit dicey at the teen hangout as they are definitely competing for his attention. The new park is open with an outdoor ice skating rink, a lake you can fish in, swings, outdoor chess, and a picnic area. There have been several family outings as it's currently spring in the hood and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. I have a current favorite sim who is a child right now. She is half-alien and was born into my legacy household. Unfortunately, she was born to the husband of the heir so she isn't in line to inherit but she's just cute as a button and really lively. She's shy and a total slob as well so it'll be interesting what she's like once she's a teen but for now she's a bundle of fun. Since I can't figure out how to post a photo in a post photobucket world I'll leave a link at the bottom if you want to see her.

https://imgur.com/a/YFK5uzk

Right now, in my Chalphy family, my Sim self is romantically involved with Seliph,Sigurd, a red eyed Sigurd(who I named Evil Sigurd), Arvis, Deirdre and Julius from FE thanks to ACR. No jealousy, so that's not an issue, I also set my sim self to a bisexual gender pref via ACR. She's also given birth twice already.

In my Shape Island hood which only has custom bodyshaped Sims, I have 10 different female bodyshapes and I just added a 7th male bodyshape - Corrine's PunkJunky - which is a thinner than Maxis male bodyshape. I was tired of so many of my male Sims being buff.

Of course doing that meant I had to create new skintone pairings of the PunkJunky male with female shapes and then edit some of my existing males' DNA (babies, toddlers, and children since they haven't shown their shapes in the hood yet) so that they will eventually grow up as the added Punk Junky shape. And now I have to create or convert enough new Punk Junky clothing so that they all won't be dressed the same when they do grow up.

But on the bright side, this means I get to play around in BodyShop again! YAY!

ROLLER RINK SCANDAL - PICCOLO RUMORS PROVEN TO BE TRUE
Journalist Winnifred Germain

In the past years, and in the past few weeks especially, word has spread that life at Piccolo Manor isn’t all it appears to be. Henry Piccolo, founder of Luna Canyon and Luna Canyon City Council Member, resides at Piccolo Manor with his wife Catherine, daughter Clarissa, and son Francis, along with the family’s housekeeper, Diane King, and her son, Sebastian. The family is well known for their charisma and lavish parties. Rumors about Henry’s infidelities have existed since the town itself, but have taken years to be exposed.

Reports were made recently of Henry being seen at a bar with an unnamed woman. They were spotted playing poker and kissing, and their fun soon ended when a man walked in angrily, presumably the woman’s partner. There has been no confirmation of this report.

Last night, Catherine and Henry took the night off from politics and children to have a date night at the Slow Your Roller Rink in Cliffrose Heights. The two appeared to be inseparable like love crazed teenagers.They even spent a suspicious amount of time in the photo booth. No one would ever suspect that Henry had eyes for anyone else after seeing these two together. As soon as Henry walked out of the photo booth, he spotted Marisa Bendett and grabbed her for a kiss. Catherine appeared more furious than heartbroken and was heard telling Henry that she couldn’t believe he “couldn’t wait to do it in private” and that this was the last time.

How long has this been going on? And has Catherine known all along? This might just be the end of the Piccolo Dynasty.

I do both life insurance and bequests manually.

Life insurance is money from nowhere. For each $100 of income (or part thereof), I give the spouse or common-law partner $2000, children or dependent siblings $1000, and grandchildren $500. It's paid to all qualifying relatives, regardless of relationship - even if a Sim doesn't know he's fathered a child, the insurance company finds out and pays out. If a Sim wasn't working and had no pension, there is no life insurance policy and thus no payout.

Bequests come from family funds, and are paid to friends, best friends and BFFs not resident in the deceased's household. For every $10,000 or part thereof, I give $250 to BFFs, $100 to best friends, and $50 to friends. This includes family members who have a good relationship with the deceased but live on another lot. Sometimes, though, Sims are too poor to make the bequests, in which case it might be $100 for BFFs and $50 for best friends, with nothing for basic friendship, or even just $50 for BFFs.

For life insurance, I use either familyfunds or Cyjon's loan jar, because the loan jar wipes out the debt when you delete it. To send money to Sims in other households, I use Christianlove's wallet controller - the 'executor of the will' doesn't have to know the recipients to be able to send them the money.

Okay, this didn't happen in my game, but my sister's game. Since I found it very funny, and she doesn't have an account on here to my knowledge, I thought I'd just put it here.

Currently, she is playing a legacy family in Pleasantview, descended from the Broke Family. I believe that she has gotten up to generation three.

Literally fifteen minutes ago, she had one of her sims die from old age. The Grim Reaper came, did his thing, and then proceeded to watch the TV. This isn't an abnormal occurrence, since it is well known that the Grim Reaper may raid the fridge, go to the toilet, etc. before leaving the lot.

The thing is, he didn't leave. An entire sim week had passed and he was still watching the TV. My sister was getting notifications about friends and family not being contacted in a while, friends being lost, pension checks getting received, and notices about the bills not being paid, all the while Grim Reaper was watching the TV.

The Repo-Man even came and took her fridge.

Eventually, she asked if I could sort it out. The only thing that popped into my head was to turn moveobjects on and sell the TV. I did that and got the usual notification you get when the Grim Reaper is about to leave, but he didn't leave, he just floated towards another TV to watch that. I sold that one, too. He went to another TV, instead.

Laughing hysterically at this point, I sold that one and he left. Before I quit the lot for her (she had to wake her son up from his nap), I turned moveobjects off, and replaced the TVs and the fridge.

I didn't know I couldn't share screens on here, so here are two screens of the funeral.


Even the deceased dog's ghost decided to show up!

I wanted to make my game more realistic, so I made all my aliens gray. Actually, they look quite nice. I found the skin on here.

It was an eventful two years at university. Liam Beaker and Gvaudoin Tricou were attracted to each other from the beginning, and their romantic relationship slowly developed over time. David Ottomas and Amelie Curious have a casual thing going on, and Oliver Curious has been focusing on his studies. Fricorith Tricou (sp?) has been a hit with several of the ladies in the drama department. (His grandfather keeps wanting a relative to get joined but Fricorith is not gay? No one in the family seems to be. Maybe he just thinks Fricorith is gay because he takes drama and wears black lipstick?)

Then Liam ate some spoiled food, was sick for a while, and died while studying in Gvaudoin's dorm room with her. Naturally, she was traumatized. She had to see the therapist and ended up dropping out of school and moving back home.

Liam's best friend, Oliver, wanted to resurrect Liam, so he went to see Olive Specter. He had to scrape together most of their scholarship money, but he managed to pay her price (he also had to supply her with something else, which he would rather not talk about or remember). Unfortunately, there were two side effects to Liam's resurrection: his personality was reversed and he is very grouchy now (but maybe not as prone to eat spoiled food), and he and Oliver lost their relationship to each other. Also, Liam went on academic probation. I guess being dead is not a good excuse for missing your final.

Liam did remember Gvaudoin, so he called her up. She was, understandably, very excited to find out he was alive again. (They have something in common now.) She invited him over, and maybe she got carried away, because they had their first woohoo and she got pregnant. (A note about the Tricous: when they were resurrected, all the married couples lost their relationships to one another as a side effect. Kiernan kept getting into fights with his former sister-in-law, couldn't get anywhere when he tried to romance his former wife, and so he finally had enough and moved out on his own.) When Gvaudoin told Liam about the pregnancy, he did the right thing and proposed. He even stuck around for a few days to help her through the birth and take care of the babies--yes, there were twins, so that darn house is full again! One is Sim-skinned and one is alien.

STOP PRESS

Well done @AndrewGloria , you obviously took great care of him!

I started playing strangetown. It’s not nearly as dramatic as pleasantview but it’s catching my attention.

Specter - I started with this family. Which was kind of a dud. Olivia went off to college and Olive died. I’m thinking of turning that lot into the cemetery and the house into a mausoleum. The only interesting thing was that Olive got scared by three ghosts in a row and almost got killed the day before she died. That house is too dangerous with the ghosts and annoying with the puddle ghost. Also, the layout is a nightmare.

Curious: I named the alien babies Moon Unit and Dweezil (even though she’s a girl) I had Vicund quit his job since he kept rolling wants for the robot station. He never got abducted, but he has his robot “babies.” I’ve never played much with the bots and so far the cleaning bot is a godsend. It cleaned up all the diapers and bottles, all Lazlo’s slob puddles and I think it even emptied the potty. Can’t wait until Vicund makes his servo.

Loner: I thought he’d be boring as heck, but he fell madly in love with Lola Singles and they got married. She moved in and wanted a baby. So far, no baby.

Smith: I think I “broke” the Smiths by moving Johnny to college before the party. For a long time they had no wants except to play/entertain/joke/tickle each other . I play on their wants so this was REALLY boring.

I saw they both had the have 3 kids graduate from college LTW but were too old for one more baby (?? Had no try for baby option in my game) so they adopted a random kid named Alec. Then Jill rolled a want for a kitten named Bonkers. Then gameplay got better. Jill just turned teen/popularity. And Jennie is an elder but still working.

Maybe this is mean but I gave pollination tech9 the grilled cheese secondary aspiration. I picture him deliberately picking something “normal” and boring as possible to fit in as a human. Also, in my game he is the most boring acting sim ever, so it fits. All he does in the house is clean/garden, soak in the tub and ACR woohoo Jennie.

And just like real life, the kids roll no wants and have no interest in taking care of Bonkers the cat. Jennie is the only person who feeds, cleans the litter box and gives love to the cat.

Edited to add: I’m currently playing the singles in a house with a terrible layout. They spend half the time blocking each other, route failing and walking in, out and around the house — up and down stairs.

Florence Delarosa and Chester Gieke, traveling the Highway together for company, have reached Sedona and are resting in the Welcome Cabin. They had intended to separate once they got back to civilization, but Florence is on the point of aging up and Chester has little money, so they decided it would be better to take a two-bedroom bungalow and continue as they are. Both have signed up to work as brick-layers, although Florence will probably only get one shift in before she retires.

Checo Ramirez has retired, and Jason Larson has taken his place as Foreman. Since he and Jodie had to vacate the Cabin in a hurry when Flo and Chester arrived, Jason's considering having the crew finish off a room of the home they're building for themselves, so that they can at least have somewhere to sleep out of the weather. One can hardly have a homeless Foreman, after all, especially when he's also a kind of head man for the village!

Sharla Ottomas graduated from high school. Her parents can only afford to send one child to university, and Sharla's desire to become a celebrity chef really didn't justify it being her, so she's taken a job on the building crew, too. For some reason, although she's an independent teen, she only has an after-school job; I'm guessing MogHughson's Job Board doesn't recognize the independent teen stage, and that Sharla will be made full time once she finishes her first shift (I hope so, anyway, because the family could use that extra $100 a day).

Everybody except the Lari/Spurlock household has now made it at least as far as Lost Springs, although they seem to be moving very slowly along the second half of the Highway - I think some Sims are wondering if they shouldn't just set down roots near the resort, but there are no jobs to be had, so they really need to keep moving. Seeing the Atkins/Collensworth kids rushing around the apartment complex made me realize that they're pretty much feral, having been born by the side of the road and known nothing but temporary campsites and cold food for their entire lives. Phil made a gourmet salmon dinner, which went down well; the kids are all taking bubble baths any chance they get, and Emerald in particular is fascinated by the television.

Tinsel Town Talk:

in a shocking development, Andy Stewart and his wife, Silvia have divorced due to 'irreconcilable differences' and Ms.Stewart married Mr. Asger Castro (who is said to be her butler!) shortly thereafter. We also heard on the grapevine that the newlyweds are now also expecting!

When asked about these rumors, Mr. Stewart's attorney said that "My client declines to make a comment on the recent developments. He wishes his ex-wife all the best."

When Mrs. Castro's publicist was questioned, she merely stated, " My client's private affairs are none of anyone's business. There will be no further comment."

I think the little pep talk I gave him helped.

Tragedy in Strangetown last night. A wildfire started by a lightning strike swept through the yard of Ajay and Lola's house. The yard was completely burned, and Ajay, Lola, and their young daughter Ava all perished.

This game is an escape, but sometimes it hits a little too close to reality.

Dirk and Lilith threw a wedding party, which was a massive success. Chris' surname was changed to 'Dreamer' (it was 'Pleasant' previously), and he was taught to walk. As both parents want another baby, they'll have one when Chris is a child. That's when I'll plan it anyway, but it might be sooner if ACR has anything to say about it.

Speaking of ACR, it kicked in straight a way when I loaded the Goth household. No pregnancy chimes, though. Stella got her dream job in the medical field, whilst Alexander is still waiting on his science dream job to come through in the paper. They had a wedding party, which was a success despite Dina and Cassandra constantly duking it out. Alexander actually attacked Dina while drunk, causing them to lose their love flags. Not wanting Alex to lose his step mother, I had him apologise. He then ACR woohooed with Stella (I'm sure I set the cool down to 4, but I might have to check that). She got pregnant.

The next day, while Stella went to work, Dina dropped by. Her and Alex fell in love again!

On Saturday night, Stella gave birth to a baby boy called Arthur, who has alien skin and brown eyes. I think Alex has brown eyes, so I shouldn't be concerned.

I played the Curious family for a day. Pascal gave birth to a girl called Venus, who again, had alien skin and brown eyes... Pascal's eyes are dark blue, while the Pollination Technician's eyes are black. I have creature fixes, so I don't know what's going on. Anyway, Vidcund was invited Downtown by Lola, and he brought his brothers. Nervous was at the Night Club, where he kept gossiping with Pascal making them best friends.

That's all I had played last night. Next time, I'll continue with the Curious family through to Monday, and then if I have time, the Specter family.

I’ve been embracing the fantasy and weirdness of TS2 for the first time. Maybe it’s because I’m playing Strangetown for the first time ever even though I’ve had TS2 since day 1.

I was struggling with the Singles. I moved them into the house with the basement and it has to be the worst house ever. I had so many routing errors and Chloe ended up getting Vicund furious at her because she stood him up for a date. She stood him up because she couldn’t walk out of the door because she was trapped in the basement by her room mate trying to get into the basement. Any money they earned went to fixing the floor plan and painting the walls. All the girls were failing their Aspirations. Nothing terrible happened, but they were just struggling to get around the house too much to get anything done.

Anyway, I was having no fun at all. Then the matchmaker came by and dropped a genie lamp. I usually just ignore it. I’ll sell it and then delete the money. But Chloe got a want to wish on it. I think the lamp is too cheaty, but I was ready to throw the Single family in the fire, so why not have fun?

I made Chloe wish for money, remembering there was a chance she could get killed by the bag falling. She wasn’t killed. She only took one “handful” of money and got 10k! I haven’t had anyone touch it since then. Most of the money went to fixing the basic layout and finally getting some household basics.

Chloe bought herself the cheap car and drove to the pool. She could finally act like a proper romance sim and get some woohoo! It was 1AM and almost nobody was there except the teens running the cash registers. The adults who showed up all gagged and pretended to vomit when they saw her. Except...

The atrociously evil witch! She’s got 3 bolts with her! I usually ignore or ban witches, but what the heck, why not? Chloe had a dream date with the evil witch! Maybe they admire each other’s green skin? No idea if I’ll actually turn anyone into a witch, but at this point, I won’t rule it out. If Chloe discovers any of the neutral or evil magic can get her lovers... she just might become witchy.

I ended up having to fix my game and got to fix a duplex townhouse complex as well.I've finally got ways of blocking acess to common area stoves for unskilled cooks living in apartments.

I finally got around to making a test hood as I have several mods I want to try out. I thought I would give Veronaville a try since I've never so much as opened it before. I used a clean template and took out everything but the most essential mods and I left in my default folder. I thought it would be quick and easy and boy was I wrong. I know several people on here play this hood so I'm curious what you do about the houses? Do you just move everyone out bulldoze the lot of them and rebuild? I tried the Summerdream house first and it's just everything I hate in a lot. Too large, tons of mostly inaccessible wasted space, poorly lit with dark interior decorating, and tons of crap just set about both inside and out. How would I even know if something wasn't working in that mess?

I get what they were going for in that it kind of looks like an old Elizabethan theatre but all those arches make it exposed to the seasons. Just completely unplayable. So I spent several hours trying to make it playable including messing with the terrain just so it didn't take longer than an hour to get to the front. I still didn't test out the mods.

If you just want to test mods in Veronaville, I suggest you ignore the placed families and use bin sims in small houses.

I've been making a 60s Strangetown and last night I did the last rebuild - Olive and Ophelia. One of them, probably Ophelia as she's the one who rolled wants to buy a pet dish and befriend - had bought a border collie when I sent Chloe and Erin to playtest my remake of the shopping center. Once I had the house arranged to my liking and Olive had retired, she tried to invite General Buzz over to feed him to the cowplant, but he wisely refused the invitation. Since she had a great deal of money left over after renovations I decided instead of buying her clothes via Gussy Up I would send her to Lola's store. Lola has a small clothing store and Ajay has a small appliance/electronics store in the median now. But it was getting late in real life so I saved and quit before making the trip.

Pascal's baby Tycho has been born, Vidcund and Lazlo are both pregnant; Johnny managed a pretty good party despite losing his fight with Tank; Ajay and the Singles live next door to each other in a new duplex that replaced the horrible bunker house, which I find completely unplayable; Tank has a military job; Circe got her promotion; and Loki meets my criteria for letting him simvac Nervous but kept losing his chance due to logistics. Everyone now lives in a place I can stand to deal with - no basement at the Beaker castle (I simply can't play them as the necessary angle of view upsets my balance), two bathrooms and a proper dining area at the Curious Bunker, a weatherproof Smith house with far fewer plants and a more practical layout, a spartan but efficient, barracklike setup for the Grunts. LFT has also been completely rearranged and remodeled, with a couple of brand new dorms now that the campus has gone co-ed (but the dorms have not), a really nice sorority house, and an actual campus-like layout, including a couple of classroom buildings, one for the arts and one for the sciences. it's a shame so much of the sixties fashion I have been able to find isn't really suitable for the desert, but nothing's perfect.

IMO the best way to make a testing hood is to create an empty hood (maybe use the one you use for building), and move in one (1) couple to test everything on. I do that and honestly, the Gay family consisting of Murciélago and Ratón is absolutely thriving, they've been aged down three times before just to get married again later, and as long as they don't have to pay rent, they're completely fine living in what's basically a construction site.

As for my actual game, I started to merge some households in Veronaville. The recession hit everyone hard, and there's no reason for Kent Capp to live alone in a two-bedroom apartment without a boyfriend in sight when he and recently widowed Trista Shaw and orphaned Tara Shaw can move in together in one house. I also merged Tybalt and Robin's households with India, Hal and their kid Jacob. The money they got from finishing uni was perfect for buying them one of those "two houses but it's technically one bc it's one lot but it's two because it's one. two <3" lots. I don't really know why I decided to give the larger house to the two bachelors and not the engaged couple with a child, but Tybalt never lived in poverty a day for his life and he was not about to start now.

Also, Juliette and Romeo got married, and Consort decided to attempt to kill Patrizio after the ceremony. He lost and died. I guess this would be the ideal scene for my blog to use the song from the musical that goes "My dear Juliet, your honeymoon might become a wake", but, like, she and Consort had a falling out after the whole dating a Monty thing, and never really recovered from that, so all it really took was a date with Romeo to get her in a better mood.