Cooke Week 5: Midlife Crisis

Last week, the Cooke family got a dog and were very successful in business. 

The Cooke family currently includes:

Julien, Popularity/Fortune adult and owner of Cooke's Grocery

Jan, Romance/Pleasure adult and owner of Lonely Hearts Club

Juliette, Romance/Fortune teen and owner of Juliette's Flowers

Jerome, child

Beau the bulldog

On Monday night, Jerome grows up into a very serious-looking teen. He becomes a Family/Pleasure Sim with the lifetime want of reaching his Golden Anniversary. He wants a woman who wears cologne and has custom hair...definitely not a stinky woman.

Random picture: Jan somehow ends up playing with two wolves in her pajamas.

Apparently nothing else of note happens until Friday, when Lonely Hearts Club reaches Rank 10!

Jerome uses his parents' money to buy a restaurant (cleverly named Cooke Family Restaurant), and his parents and sister get it up to Rank 1.

Jerome stays home so he can maximize his Logic skill.

Juliette has been working at her flower shop off and on all week, and on Sunday it reaches Rank 3!

Later that day, Juliette follows in her little brother's footsteps and maximizes Logic.

Julien is supposed to become an elder Sunday night, and his aspiration is a bit low, so I fulfill his want to invite over Katy McGaw. Then he wants to flirt and make out with her! (In fact, they both want to woohoo, but I cut them off.) I make her a playable and move her out to her own place to see what will happen.

A few hours later, Julien has a birthday party with his family as if nothing has happened.

Progress toward challenge:

New community lots: 1

New Sims: 1

Careers opened: 1/3 Business, 2/8 Science

Taxes collected: $4200/$30,920

Tam Week 5: Brotherly Love

Last week, the Tam family moved to a new house, flirted a little, and played chess a lot.

The Tam family currently includes:

Scott: Knowledge/Family elder with a job in the gamer track and an arcade

Megan: Family/Knowledge elder with several bestselling novels and a library

Simon: Family/Pleasure teen

River: Family/Knowledge teen

Malcolm: Pleasure/Popularity teen

Derrial: Pleasure/Family teen

Hoban: Popularity/Romance teen

Jayne: Child

I mostly keep the Tam children skilling when they're not at school--it keeps them busy so I don't have to keep track of them all. This is River maxing charisma.

And Jayne becomes the last Tam child to max logic.

Shortly thereafter, he grows up in Platinum. He is Family/Knowledge like his sister River and wants to reach his Golden Anniversary. He's turned on by fatness and gray hair but turned off by underwear. I guess he doesn't mind if his future wife gets old and flabby as long as she isn't immodest.

I take the opportunity to snap a family portrait in front of the fireplace in the living room. Scott and Megan are 57, Simon and River are 24, Malcolm and Derrial are 21, Hoban is 16, and Jayne is 12.

That night, Jayne engages in some very shy flirting with Ivy Copur the Younger. (They have two bolts.)

On Friday morning, the arcade reaches Rank 10! Another slot in business is opened.

His last afternoon as a teen, Simon gets himself into plat by going on a date with three-bolter Meadow Thayer. His brother Derrial found her first, but who can argue with three bolts? Meadow doesn't seem to be arguing, anyhow.

After Simon, River, and Orlando age up, I make Orlando selectable and we have an engagement out by the pond. River's parents are very pleased.

Meadow is going to grow up with the younger twins, so while he waits Simon keeps himself occupied with a job as a Field Sales Rep. We need some business districts to boost our Sim Multiplier!

And it's back to the skill grindstone for the younger kids--here's Malcolm maximizing Charisma.

I don't make them work all the time, though. Sometimes they have midnight snacks of spaghetti and wonder if there will be enough rain for their new garden.

While her kids run around in six different directions, Megan has been sitting quietly upstairs hammering out novels. She sells her eighth on Sunday morning, netting $3054. Hoban the Popularity Sim gets to the phone before she does.

On Sunday afternoon, Megan's neglected library finally reaches Rank 3, thanks to a "projector" in the meeting room.

And a few hours later, Simon is promoted to Junior Executive. And we all breathe a sigh of relief that he and River will be moving out Monday morning. Eight Sims in one house is just too many.

Progress toward challenge:

Jobs opened: 1/2 Business, 3 Entertainment, 3/6 Science

Taxes collected: $2750/$26,720

End of Week 4 Stats

Now that some interesting things have actually happened, I am going to start doing very boring end-of-week summaries just to keep the status quo around here.

Playable Sims: 23
Households: 5
- Tam: $55k
- Cooke: $84k
- Ramaswami: $61k
- Stratton/Roseland: $16k
- Long: $18k
Unused CAS slots: 6

Community lots: 11 (+1)
- Serenity Library (library, Megan Tam): Rank 1
- Tam Arcade (video arcade, Scott Tam): Rank 9
- Cooke Grocery (grocery store, Julien Cooke): Rank 10
- Lonely Hearts Club (nightclub, Jan Cooke): Rank 9
- Juliette's Flowers (flower shop, Juliette Cooke): Rank 0
- Three-Quarter Time (music venue, Sanjay Ramaswami): Rank 4
- White Lotus Boutique (clothing shop, Priya Ramaswami): Rank 4
- Domesticated Beasts Inc. (pet store, Cyd Roseland): Rank 3
- Christy's Cosmetics (salon, Christy Stratton): Rank 1
- Serenity Park (park, Ivy Long): Rank 1
- Ben's Box o' Fun (toy store, Benjamin Long): Rank 1
- Serenity Station (military base, NPC)

Fires: 2
Burglaries: 2 [I know the Ramaswamis were burgled at one point but I apparently have no record of it; I will double-check their memories next time I play them]
Electrocutions: 0
Graves: 0

Careers:
Architecture: 1 (Cyd Roseland)
Business: 1 (Christy Stratton)
Gamer: special (Scott Tam)
Military: unlocked (vacant)
Music: unlocked (Sanjay Ramaswami, vacant)
Science: 3 (Ivy Long, vacant)
Slacker: 1 (vacant)

Business Districts: 0

Downtowns: 0

University Taxes collected: $23,970/$1,000,000
Universities: 0

Sim Multiplier: 4
Population: 92

Copur/Long Week 4: The Science of Fun

Ivy Copur and Benjamin Long fell in love autonomously at Tam Arcade. Fortunately they were friends with Jan Cooke, so she invited them to become playable, and here they are.

Ivy is a Knowledge Sim, with a LTW to become a Mad Scientist. Happily for her, there are lots of open positions in this town full of nerdy children.

Ben is also a Knowledge Sim, with the LTW to become a Space Pirate. That will have to wait until we have enough households for another NPC community lot, since nobody in this town can afford the required museum.

The third member of the family is Sheba the dog, who is stupid but friendly.

Two Knowledge Sims alone are boring, even with a dog, so Ivy "accidentally" gets pregnant.

Then they have a quickie shotgun wedding. (I think they rolled the want to get married once the baby was on the way.)

Heather Long is born early Friday morning.

Ivy and Ben are both nature Sims, so I have them buy Serenity Park. It reaches Rank 1 on Saturday.

Ivy is promoted to Science Teacher shortly thereafter.

Saturday night, Heather grows up into a black-haired, female version of her father. Her personality: 7-5-5-8-10 (Aquarius).

The money from Ivy's promotion is used to found Ben's Box o' Fun, a toy store. For now it just sells premade stuff, but eventually it will offer custom toys.

Progress toward challenge:
New community lots: 2
New Sims: 1
Taxes collected: $3570/$23,970

Roseland Week 4: Domestication

Our fourth household is new this week and includes Cyd Roseland (Knowledge/Romance, Become Criminal Mastermind) and his dog Porthos.

Cyd starts a pet store named Domesticated Beasts, Incorporated. (My husband named it.)

He also takes a job in the architecture career and is quickly promoted.

He has two bolts with Christy Stratton, so he asks her out to Tam Arcade.

Later, he almost sets her rose on fire while attempting to cook dinner.

Things progress quickly and Christy moves in, with $2000 and a LTW to graduate 3 children from college, which won't happen unless she comes into a million dollars somehow. She has a job as a Projectionist in the Slacker career, which she is allowed to keep thanks to the club owned by Jan Cooke, and a gold cosmetology badge, which gives me an idea for a business.

Christy's Cosmetics quickly reaches Rank 1 despite its humble beginnings.

On Friday, Cyd is promoted to Foreman and Christy to home video editor. They congratulate each other enthusiastically.

And the next day discover that their are consequences to that sort of celebration...

On Monday morning, DBI reaches Rank 3 and the cash bonus enables Cyd to renovate the store.

Meanwhile, Christy takes a business job because she thinks it will be more stable for the baby (read: The SimGodess wants a business district) and wonders if Cyd will ever get around to asking her to marry him.

Progress toward challenge:
Fires: 1/2
New community lots: 2
New Sims: 1
Taxes collected: $1000/$20,400