Neko Powergames The Sims 3: Trivializing Everything Else

Starting with relationships:

People seem to love to rave about the Social Networking skill. So I decided to give it a whirl, leveling it in roughly the same fashion as Science.

The good news is, once I finally max it, I'll have enough LTR points to buy Fast Learner, since maxing Social Networking came up as a wish. Plus, the relationship transmogrifier is, indeed, quite powerful.

The bad news is - well, actually there isn't much for bad news there.

I clone plasma bugs periodically now - I hardly need $200k, though that's my goal.

And, unlike in the Apocalypse Challenge, I don't need to get rid of any of it. Susan's going to be living in a mansion by the time she gets out of college.

Any time Susan meets someone new, I just throw the transmogrifier on, and they're best friends now. She could also choose anyone to be her romantic interest, and with the Sim Finder app, she's guaranteed the best possible mate.

By the end of her third semester, she has $242,089. Which, incidentally, nets me two legacy points all on its own, since the points for money are calculated at 1 for every $100k.

I've also been leveling alchemy, because when I originally created Susan, I meant to make her a witch. I could cheat that on, but it's quite possible to 'catch' witchitude from a potion.

I use the remaining time to level various skills, including Charisma (as though making friends weren't easy enough), Inventing (for the fun of it), and Gardening (for the grades).

I also grab a couple of points in athletics and handiness, because why not.

Total stats by the end of college:

10 Inventing
10 Charisma
10 Science
10 Social Networking
10 Alchemy
10 Logic
8 Gardening
6 Athletic
4 Handiness
1 Writing
1 Cooking

1 Legacy Point for the Founder generation
1 Legacy Point for 100k Total Lifetime Happiness
2 Legacy Points for cresting $200k net worth
1 Legacy Point for LTW fulfilled: Perfect Student

Traits:

Evil (Family Trait, Social Trait)
Brave (College Trait)
Insane
Over-Emotional
Lucky
Bookworm
Friendly

Neko Powergames The Sims 3: Trivializing the Money Problem

So someone asked about the Legacy Challenge - or any other challenge for that matter - and it inspired me to start up one of my own. I don't know how long I'll stick with it - as I mentioned, they tend to bore me - but it sounds like an amusing diversion for at least a couple of days.

This is Susan Beckett. She's a Leo. She likes Mac'n'Cheese, Electronica, and the color gray.

I did the absolute minimum to ensure she had clothing on and looks reasonably cute.

This is a power-gaming entry, not a story or 'spend three hours on clothes' entry.

The traits, therefore, are the most important thing.

I went with:

Bookworm
Friendly
Insane
Lucky
Over-Emotional

With plans to get Evil and something else later on. Maybe Irresistable.

I gave her the wish to become a Perfect Student, and away we go.

From the Legacy Challenge, you're supposed to select a lot valued at $14,700, but most newer neighborhoods just don't -have- that kind of a lot. So I'm starting on a 64x64 lot in Lunar Lakes (the one stolen by the equestrian center, thanks Mr. Bulldozer!). 

A quick trip to TestingCheatsEnabled True, and a FamilyFunds Beckett 1300, and we're totally legit and ready to go.

Now, the legacy challenge rules as they stand don't incorporate University Life - or at least, I couldn't find a version that restricts it in any way.

So I'm going to set some personal restrictions.

One: I'm only going to allow myself to apply for extra funds once a semester, on Thursday, after the activity but before finals.

Two: I find it entirely reasonable to limit myself to only three skills on the Brain Enhancement Machine, and five points each, so as to maintain some challenge. It's not going to be much of one, as we'll see.

Three: I'm only taking four semesters, total. I could finish college in one with the right traits - but that's exhausting and gives me no time to get money!

Susan spends the first hour or so waiting for the Uni Mascot and chatting herself up, which improves both her social and her fun. She's having the time of her life by the time the university goods show up, which, combined with her over-emotional trait, means she's quite happy indeed - and racking up those LTR points.

I don't really expect to get a scholarship off the traits I picked, and in fact she gets a disappointing 683/2400 on the aptitude test. I set her up for a single semester at twelve credits, which empties out most of her starting budget. $1,150 is most of $1,300, though she recoups $100 of that for the opportunity, and I'll be selling the cheap camera she got for fast cash - since there's no reason not to; no restrictions prohibit things you got because the game says so.

As always, I start on the central dorm.

Now, if I really wanted, I could sell everything in the dorm but the essentials - or even those - and be obscenely rich. But that seems - against the spirit of the thing. I won't need to, either, as you'll see.

Instead, I buy a Book Corral bookshelf - one of the ones with all the skill books in it - and a dragon egg.

I won't hold it against you if you didn't buy Dragon Valley - and the Renaissance Faire. It's real money, after all, not everybody wants to spend real money.

But I did, so I'm exploiting it, hardcore.

Now, I get the bug where sometimes the job board just doesn't have jobs. Frustrating, but I can deal, and that's not going to be my main mode of money anyway.

I have Susan pose nude at the art center, donate saliva, plasma, and giggles - enough to get her that writing class she really wants to do. My plans involve getting her as many LTR points as possible so that she can net some of the better LTR's early. Since her Lifetime Wish is - not exactly impressive - I'll need to make up the difference somehow.

This little guy is the key to my success here. He means that she won't have to eat or sleep at all for her entire college career - freeing up boatloads of time to do everything else. I'm going to have her only real interactions with him be to talk to him about logic - it's free skill points. I also loot the bookshelf of all the Science books - which is key to my strategy.

Then it's off to the library for some quality study time!

Being a bookworm, she skills up by reading really quickly, and the library boost helps dramatically.

By two AM (roughly six or seven hours after I had her start on it), she's got level 3 in Science - absolutely fantastic for a first night's work. Her first class starts at 8 AM, giving me roughly four hours. Considering my options, I decide to have her study from her course materials, which fulfills a wish she's had since getting to college.

Then I set her to studying Science a little longer, and she's ready for class.

I have her work hard throughout her first class, then queue up flying charcoal for the half an hour or so that she has between classes to raise her fun enough to work hard for most of her next class. Then I have her suck up to her professor - whoever that is - before sending her back to the library.

Yes, she's smelly, but as any veteran of the apocalypse can tell you, smelly is hardly worth noting.

She wants to read three total books, so I set her to reading her course material, which makes her happy. I don't let her finish though - once she's not stressed anymore, I set her right back to studying Science. Since she's a Science/Medicine student, this even improves her grades!

I needn't have bothered with making her happy; she freaked out due to the full moon and became tranquil immediately. Oh well.

A lecture comes between Susan and her studies - fair enough, that brings me to the only place on campus with a free science machine (of doom).

So by now you've probably guessed my plans.

Yep, just like I did in my apocalypse, I'm going to clone these little guys until I'm richer than God. They're worth at least $3400 a pop, probably more. 

Now, I initially planned to get Fast Learner, but that desire seems rather silly - at least right off the bat. I'm instead going to buy my way up the Nerd social ladder - since, that's a thing I can do. Dropping 6k LTR points into the social group nets me rank six, not bad at all.

Susan gets singed on her first attempt to clone, but manages a successful cloning on her second shot, netting her an easy $5072 (total). I use it to buy a brain enhancing machine and a (home based) science lab. She won't stay singed long, this way.

She has to go to class before I can clone too many more bugs, but that's fine, since I have to go to the academic center anyway for my free ~$5000.

After nine bugs, total, have been sold, I'm sitting pretty on a nice $51912. Certainly nothing to scoff at, but let's see if I can do even better!

So the second round of plasma bugs - selling off six of the seven - brings me up to $87618. Not bad.

I spend another 2000 LTR points on getting my next trait - Evil, so that she can feed off the suffering of others. Yay, suffering! In total, that means I spent 10k on a new trait, with basically no time investment. I find it to be an equitable trade; YMMV.

So that's how you trivialize the money problem within the first week of classes.

Paranoid Freewrite

And a Friday Freewrite!

I'm actually considering, with the sheer volume of writing I'm doing right now, to change it back to at least M-F, every day.

Ah well, who knows anyway. ON WITH THE POST!

Paranoid
Freewrite!                      See you.                            Rar tentacles!

I have something on my mind, is it obvious?

You know, I really don't think the whole Slenderman thing is/is not real. Skepticism is extant but still causes paranoia. Go figure. Very suggestible with an already-present tendency toward obsessive thought. lolol.

Scars on an eye                     eyePhone                               water                     Out of
may not cause                    How is                                      damage                  warranty
blindness, just                       time found                            to be                       _
(less complete)                 to blargh and                              killing                    |  \ ET
vision loss.                                 POAST?                            phone                 |_/ AH
                                        smrtfone.                                                                  OMG(s?)
People             How is money supplied by presumably jobless people
Pinatas 4 more  for food and sufficient gas to continue running?  MY WHOLE MEAL COST
personable                                                  $20!                               FIFTEEEN CENTS
portrayals                Snow is very wet                                      If Slendy
                              and also snowy and in addition cold.     turned up it would        FAIL
Blarghing                                                                              be INSTANT hypothermia
in tha                                                                                  death. So cold.
rainz,                SO IF YOU GET OBSESSED
'm blargh     WITH (SLENDERMAN) AND THEN YOU
ing                   LOSE                   SLEEP AND                          Achoo!
in tha              THEN                  YOU HAVE A
rain             DIMINISHED IMMUNE SYSTEM                              COUGH
                     IS IT PARANOIA, SLENDY-SICKNESS,                      OF
                    OR ABJECT STUPIDITY WHEN YOU                        DEATH
                    CATCH A COLD?

Ramen Noodles: The official
foodstuff of runners.

Buy a bike: Ramen is cheaper than gas.
L( X )L 
     ___
|---|_|_
_|_|---|        <---- ((That's a symbol I like. It basically reads HI four times.))

Apples and Trees

So, I live in a fairly rural midwestern area of the United States. This is important, because AT&T does not really offer excellent coverage in the midwest, in my personal opinion, and there is no 3G AT&T network at all in my area - yet, anyway.

There is apparently, however, a Verizon 3G network here.

Now, personally, I have always been a little bit too unemployed (read: poor) to afford either Verizon or AT&T's prices. I personally use a nice little LG phone from Virgin Mobile, which gives me reasonably good coverage at $25/month for unlimited texting and data, as well as 300 voice minutes. No rollover, but given that I never speak on my phone, who cares?

But I have a job now.

Which means disposable income.

Which makes this little announcement pretty sexy.

Verizon is getting the iPhone 4 in February. The prices are relatively similar to AT&T's, only I've always personally disagreed with capping data usage, especially for phones like the iPhone, which is less accurately described as a "phone" and more accurately described as a small computer that also has phone capabilities.

Who knows.

I might just have to eat the four-times-as-expensive monthly bill, not to mention the cost of the phone itself.

You know - once I have a few paychecks to eat it with.

The Little Things

It's just a job, I am reminding myself.

I have signed more forms today than I care to count, having gone from thoroughly reading my confidentiality agreement to just sort of skimming the code of conduct - I think I can figure out the bullet points, most of which being "we are an outsourcer, and I do not represent us or our clientele." Incidentally, I do only speak for myself, not for any company I happen to be affiliated with.

Forgive my vagueness, I'd rather not speak directly on this topic.

It's a call center job, with all that is implied. But I feel good about it, already finding myself little reasons to be motivated to come back to work, no matter how difficult it is to rotate my sleep cycle so completely. Less than two weeks ago, I was going to sleep at 8AM after cooking breakfast for Mom. This morning, I woke up, grumbling, at 7:23 AM and cooked breakfast for us both (oatmeal with peanut butter for her, oatmeal studded with raisins, dates, walnuts, and chocolate chips for me).

I am, frankly, exhausted.

Hello, Mountain Dew. I have missed your flavor, but more importantly, the sensation of blood flowing through my caffeine stream was becoming uncomfortably tiresome.

It is just a job, I am reminding myself, but a job of any sort means I can afford to live as a person. I am seeing a single-serving pizza in the vending machine and I find myself almost giddy to think I could buy that for lunch. We may, as I understand it, be paid for a single day's work. That amuses me somehow, given the pay schedule, as seems common, is bi-weekly. It doesn't seem like much, but if I were to be paid my single day's wage on Monday, it would make the next two weeks so much more bearable. I may have misheard or misunderstood, unfortunately, I found myself struggling not to doze off.

The workplace seems oriented towards quiet, professional fun. My last job did little to retain employees. This place is filled with little morale-boosts, so much so that I don't have to seek them out on my own. The people are also friendly and professional, which makes them easier to tolerate. I am told and reassured that I will not have to worry about back-to-back calls. I am not afraid that I will be overwhelmed.

The XKCD Tech Support flow chart was posted to the wall, and made me smile.

I feel like I may fit in.