Gameplay: December 10th 2009

Today I headed to Veronaville's Academie Le Tour to play Marla Biggs for a few simdays. No pictures for Marla this time either - she didn't do anything pictureworthy today.

On Tuesday morning, Marla settled down to study and gained a badly needed mechanical point. She was pretty shaken up about being put on academic probation. She desperately wanted to do better this time around. She went off to class straight after her study session.
On Wednesday, Marla continued with her new studious streak. In the morning she fired up the computer and wrote her entire term paper in one sitting. After she'd finished, the computer immediately blew up, but at least she finished. She called the repairman to come and fix it immediately and then headed off to the day's class. When she got home, she made herself a tv dinner (aww, poor Marla - dinner for one, always!) As she was putting the tray in the trash compactor, she also managed to break the trash compactor. She's kind of a clutz, huh? She called the repairman to come out again the next morning. She then headed outside to hunt bugs and caught a gentleman beetle for her collection before going to bed.
First thing Thursday morning, Marla enjoyed a long hot bath and - you guessed it! - broke the bathtub. It was a good thing the repairman was already scheduled to come that morning. She once again wished to study and gained a much needed cleaning point before class. After class, she harvested some rather bland apples from the apple tree. She had time for a little nap before it was time for her final exam. Her sensible study habits and fear of being expelled paid off, and Marla earned herself a grade of A+ and a spot on the coveted Dean's list. Let's hope she can continue those study habits next semester!

Later, I headed to Pleasantview to play my long neglected Burb family (well, I actually stopped playing them because Lucy grew up and I didn't want her to get too old before Dustin was ready to marry her.) John works in the business career as an Executive and Jennifer works in the medical career as an Intern. The Burbs had a second daughter in my game, Kynda - a teenage fortune sim. Kynda has a part time job in the dance career as an Aerobics Instructor. The family also has a dog named Tiny, who works in the showbiz career as an Understudy. And they have a bird, unimaginatively named Cocky. Some days I just can't think of pet names. He's a cockatoo and I named him as such. Deal with it.

Saturday was John's day off work. Kynda started her day by playing with Cocky. John, who is a nature enthusiast, hunted for bugs in the yard and got chased by bees. Jennifer drove to work while the bee carnage was going on. John gained membership to Peerless Park for all his recent nature enthusiasm. Tiny got in to a fight with one of the local wolves and lost. Little dogs like Tiny should definitely not mess with wolves. To be fair, the wolf started it. Kynda settled down on the couch with some cookbooks and gained a cooking point. (She started a fire the last time I played the family, and I guess her lack of cooking prowess was still weighing on her mind.) She received a phone call offering a subscription to the cuisine magazine, which she accepted. She then headed outside to the family's chess table to practice her skills. After he was over his bee ordeal, John headed straight back outside for more bug hunting. He was more successful this time - he caught an empress butterfly for his collection. Kynda carpooled to work and Jennifer brought home a work colleague, townie Shea Johnson. Kynda was promoted to Backup Dancer and John grew up well in to an elder. He immediately called work to retire from his job. Kynda spent the evening working out on the exercise bike and gained a much needed body point, as well as gaining muscle tone. Jennifer spent some time getting to know Shea and they quickly became friends.
John stayed up late in to the early hours of Sunday morning poring over some self help books until he felt he'd mastered the art of anger management. Jennifer served up a delicious pancake breakfast and Kynda hogged the bathroom, completely unaware that John was desperately in need of the toilet. Poor little Tiny tried to cheer John up, but he just snapped at her. 
 
Unfortunately for John, Kynda didn't finish up in the bathroom quickly enough and John wet his pants. He was fairly humiliated, even if the only person to see it happen was the dog, who wasn't about to tell anyone. Jennifer called townie teen Alvin Futa for a chat before work. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, Kynda spent some time playing with Cocky. After a soak in the bathtub to remove any lingering scent of urine, John decided that now he was retired he'd like to see something of the world. He immediately booked a vacation to Three Lakes and being so involved in nature, he decided to stay at the Axe Wood Campgrounds and rough it a little. He left immediately.
During his vacation, John went on the nature trail tour and found a map to a secret location. However, he had no intention of ever following that map - the entire time he was on vacation he feared meeting bigfoot. He sampled all of the local cuisine choices, slept in a tent every night and discovered he was a natural at axe throwing. He indulged in some bug hunting, and though he was chased by bees at one point, he caught a margarina butterfly and a peanut butterfly for his collection. The weather was freezing the entire time, complete with heavy snow. John became very cold the first night in his tent and despite hot showers he never warmed up once for the entire vacation.

It wasn't all fun and games, however. John did his part in keeping the men's section of the campgrounds' bathroom clean and gained a cleaning point (thanks to comm skilling!) He became firm friends with fellow tourist, Jonathan Turner as well. He returned from his vacation feeling refreshed and as though no time had passed at all (darn time discrepancy on vacation!)
Upon arrival home, John indulged in a long hot bath and finally thawed out. He then went on a leisurely hike before falling in to bed exhausted and jet lagged at 2pm. Kynda once again hit the cookbooks and gained another cooking point before work. She was promoted again, to SimJazzer Instructor - the top of the teen dance career track. With her straight A+ report cards, that makes her an overachiever, and one that makes it look effortless at that. She's always chipper and non-whiny. She decided that what with her perfect grades and career success, she'd give private school a shot. She called the headmaster and invited him to dinner for the following evening. She then decided to make dinner for the family - pork chops. However, everything went horribly wrong and she started another kitchen fire. Thankfully, the family had bought a fire alarm after her last fire. so nobody was hurt. Except the pork chops. They were burnt to a crisp. 
 
Jennifer gave Tiny a bath in an attempt to avoid eating burnt pork chops. The fire alarm had woken John, and he made a valiant attempt to eat pork chops and compliment Kynda on her efforts. After his dinner, he and Jennifer retired to bed for a woohoo.
John started Monday morning with some birdwatching. He later decided to make some purchases - a lemon tree, a ladybug house and a juicer (in anticipation of lemon juice.... *cough* yeah, yummy....) Jennifer and Kynda headed off to work and school. John spent his alone time studying couples counselling. He later called his new vacation buddy, Jonathan to invite him to come stay with the family. He agreed and promised to arrive the next day. John spent a great deal of time chatting to Jonathan on the phone after that. It was Kynda's day off work and after school she immediately tackled her homework assignment. Afterwards, she cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and gained a cleaning point for her efforts. John was in bed exhausted by 6pm. Jennifer invited townie teen Cleve Tang over in the hopes that he and Kynda might hit it off (however, ACR made Kynda a lesbian, so that's never gonna happen!) Jennifer spent some time playing catch with townie Tori Fairchild before going to bed exhausted. Kynda gave the headmaster a tour of the house, but he was unimpressed with every room apart from the bathroom, which he loved. He was indeed so unimpressed with the family that he rejected Kynda before she'd even finished cooking his dinner. Judgemental bathroom obsessed freak!