Last we left the Shanleys, Marie Mazza the pizza girl and potential mankiller had moved into the manor, while Stefaan, the youngest Shanley, had been accepted into private school — the first of the 5G kids to do so! I managed to get Marie engaged to Patrick, but the hardest part was yet to come — they needed to get married without sending Marie into severe aspiration failure.
Since Marie wanted to be best friends with a few of the new people she had met, I concentrated on fulfilling those wants so I could put her in platinum. I figured the quickest way for two Sims to become best friends is to have them fall in love — if I’m not mistaken, interactions like “Make Out” will raise the Lifetime relationship score more quickly than your usual “Chat” and “Joke” interactions. So Marie went on a seducing spree.
Her first victim was Lenny Squire, from a group of bachelors I created when I first got the game. Lenny quickly fell prey to Marie’s friendly banter and lavish praise. A little kissing didn’t hurt, either. Within a day, they were best friends.
“Has anyone told you that you look like Brad Pitt? No, really, you do!”
Next, she lured poor, unsuspecting mailman Pao Mellon into her clutches.
“Oh my gosh, has anyone told you that you look like Harrison Ford?”
After a few days of that, Marie was finally in full platinum. Time for a wedding! I used the family chapel but didn’t bother with throwing an actual party since I didn’t want to waste any time. No cake, no champage, no limousine, just a few guests and an exchange of vows. It all happened so quickly that I didn’t even get a decent picture of them under the wedding arch — I only got one afterwards, as Marie was walking away.
“OK, where’s that champagne? Do we have anything stronger?”
The funny thing is that she didn’t appear to lose any aspiration points, even though she had a fear of marrying Patrick right up until the moment they exchanged vows. Weird. I don’t know if she was just high enough in platinum that it didn’t make any difference (she was still in platinum after the wedding), or something glitched. Probably the latter. All that work for nothing! Oh well. Since there was no reception, Marie just walked off and sat down. Stefaan watched her intently.
“Deep breath…relaaaax…count to 10…”
Then for some reason she stood up and felt compelled to tease poor Stefaan. I don’t remember what she teased him about, but he didn’t like it one bit.
“You think you’re the coolest Shanley ever, honey, but you’re not.”
Marie seemed happier later on when I sent her up to cuddle with her new husband. They tried for a baby twice before I heard the lullaby jingle. Hooray, generation 6 is on the way! Of course, she has a fear of having a baby now, so I’ll have to keep her in platinum as much as possible. It shouldn’t be TOO hard, I hope, with Lenny and Pao around to help fulfill those “woohoo with 3 Sims” wants and such. We shall see.
Meanwhile, little Stefaan was due to become a teenager, but I wanted him to grow up as well as possible, so I had him fulfill “Do Homework” want. I love watching kids do homework; it cracks me up.
“Maybe it’ll help if I slowly drive this pen into my skull…”
(Continued on Page 2)
Lol, great update! Stefaan looks really good. I’m sorry he’s a Romance Sim though. Oh well…like you said, it’s not like you have to marry him off or anything. I can’t wait to see the new baby!
Hey Jen. I love this update. I’m not gonna be able to play sims 2 during the week while I’m at boarding school, so your blog is gonna keep me sane! Keep up the great work! Sincerely, Dustyn.
Nice update. To bad he isn’t more like the original, deffinatly a family one (with a small touch of, extremely controlled, romance and a small amount of knowledge. No popularity or wealth involved tough…)
Good luck on the romance sims!!
Stefaan truend out as a pretty good looking Teen, good thin too since he’s a romance sim. I wouldn’t want a romance sim so soon but like u said it’s a challenge so I’ll be waiting to see what he gets up to^^
btw you must have a really good graphics card/Operating system since you can invite so many people for a party and the sims features are all very well defined. did u set texture detail to high?
Janice – I can actually only “invite” a maximum of 2 Sims to a party, but I call others up the usual way and invite them over, so it at least looks like a real party. :-) My graphics card was actually not so good (very blurry textures on clothing and furniture), but I just bought a new one and installed it Saturday night, so that fixed the blurry textures problem. With my old card, I had my textures on medium, otherwise things got REALLY blurry!
Jen – you have the party bug in your game. Are you allowed to have the fix for that? There is one on Mod the Sims 2 to fix that. Click here to get it, if you want. That shouldn’t go against the rules, will it? I don’t think I have it in my game because I’ve never thrown a party yet.
oh, i have a caption for the sandwich pic: “I could’ve whipped up lobster thermidor in 10 minues flat!” (i have yet to make lobster thermidor.)
Hi Jen. Great update. I especially liked the teen Stefaan, he’s cute. It’s it ironic that you get a romance sims NPC for you G6 and then get your spare heir as a romance sim too. Man how likely was that? lol.
Hey I have a caption for that pic you have: “I’m a little over dressed for grilled cheese sandwich dinner.”
opps little typ-o : for (your) G6. …… lol
here’s a caption…”pain du fromage anyone?”
Lobster thermidor. I remember, my sim used to make that, then LEAVE IT IN THE OVEN TO START A FIRE. In fact, he did this while the wife sim was holding a baby. I thought it was cute that the first thing the wife did was “get the baby” so she put her out on the sidewalk.
*random babbling*
Hooo sometimes artificial intelligence is cruel.
Hi Jen! I juat wanted to ask you…..what graphics card do you have? ‘Cuz I’m going to get a new one within the next couple of weeks and I’m going through options right now….
LOL This update has some of my favorite captions. Stefaan’s was the best. I’m always threatening to put a pencil in my throat at work when people get on my nerves. Too funny!
I cannot WAIT for the sixth generation! It’s so great you’re updating everyday! I just love reading these stories! I absolutely love the captions! They’re so hilarious!
Stefaan is cute! Too bad he’s a romance Sim, though. That’s okay, believe me, you can get through it easily!
Awww! A new baby in the house. What are you going to name the baby, Jen? Did you need anymore suggestions? *begins to think real hard* I’m afraid I don’t have any ideas for that durn caption! That ish a toughy and I don’t blame you for blanking out *would have done the same*! Can’t wait for the 6G!
*reads other posts* Actually, there is a cheat for inviting more than two sims. My friend told me it…but I’m not sure how to write it…just like Motherlode (I thought you spelled it motherload). Very confusing, those cheats!
Ah…I see that everyone is taking after my ** so they say *sings* or something like that. *ish a trend-setter*
Hey, good captions, everyone. Maybe we can have a caption contest one of these days…
Kathy – Thanks for the link to that mod. I’ll have to give it a try. I always thought it was because of my system not being able to handle so many Sims on a lot (I think it even says that in the Prima Guide). I don’t mind inviting extra Sims over the usual way, so it’s not a biggie.
Jessica – The card I just bought and installed is an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Everything looks better with it, but my game seems to have slowed down considerably. I probably just need to futz with the graphics settings some more, but whenever I do, it takes forever to apply the changes, and sometimes it just plain crashes. :-( The card I used to have was an Nvidia GeForce MX 440, I believe. Supposedly they aren’t the greatest for gaming — a lot of other people with that card were experiencing the same texture degradation that I was. Good luck on purchasing a new card!