2nd of November, part 2: Oh dear God, we have maple syrup!

That's pretty much what I said as I went through the cupboard looking for breakfast.  There's a reason for this.

I'm allergic to honey.  Or I'm allergic to something that's in honey, and honey-like substances.  As soon as it hits my mouth, I'm reaching for the nearest sharp object to scratch the inside of my throat with.  It makes it so itchy, and it feels like my skin is crawling with bugs.  However, maple syrup doesn't do this to me.  Actually, when I had a mouthful of straight maple syrup, I wanted to claw my throat out, but in small doses, its fine.

So of course, I guard the maple syrup jealously.  My sister is allergic to cow's milk, so she has soy milk.  No one touches that other than her, so I should be able to have my fuckin' maple syrup.  Especially since we have honey and golden syrup and all this other crap I can't have.  But no, maple syrup has to be the hot commodity in my house.

So that's why I was surprised to see that we had it.  Awesome, we have maple syrup, now I'll find some pancakes and have breakfast.  Guess what?  No fucking pancakes.

Nevermind, I'll make some.  So I'm cooking, and its not working.  I've discovered that our non-stick pan is no longer non-stick.  Every pancake I try to make ends up looking like a scrambled egg, so I give up.  The dog had a pretty good breakfast this morning, and I settle for a glass of milk (and a whole lot of crap to clean up).

So that's been the last hour or so of my life.  Now, I'll continue on from where I left part 1 of today's post.

Now, I was talking about the Sims.  When the first one came out, all my friends played ti all the time, and I didn't really care.  After everyone was over it, and it was in the clearance bin. I got it, and played it. And loved it, I think.

Same deal for the second one.  I couldn't afford it until it was on sale, which was like 2 years after everyone else got it.

The third one, however.  By this point, I was working at a toy store (I won't name it, just in case. Bad things happen when you say where you work). So I got to pre-order it, getting a staff discount on it.  It was supposed to come out in like February 09 or something, and it got delayed about 3 times.  But when it eventually DID come out, I got my copy.  Since I pre-ordered, I got a special edition, that came with a plumbob USB.  The plumbob is the little green diamond thing over the sim's head, in case you don't play the game.

That's the whole package.  It came with the game, USB, and other free shit that I pretty much ignored.

And that's the USB.  The crystal part is like the lid of the USB, and the actual bit you stick in the computer is the pointy bottom part.  It's so cool, that people are amazed by it, even before I show them it's a USB.  The bf was talking with Dani-Q about a movie once, and I put it on this USB to put on her computer.  When she saw it, I thought she was happy that I was giving her the movie... No, she was amazed by the USB itself.  She didn't even know it was from the Sims 3, she was just amazed at how cool it was.  I get that reaction a lot with this USB.

Anyway, the post today wasn't about the USB, it was about the Sims in general.

For those of you who don't know, the Sims is basically a life simulation.  You make a family of Sims (people) and build them a house.  They get jobs, fall in love, have kids, die. All the usual things people do in real life.  They gain skills, which make them better at their jobs, they get more friends, and all sorts of stuff happens.

The games have made a huge jump in quality from the first game to the third. The third one has added in personality traits, such as kleptomania (where your sim steal stuff from other sims), charismatic (where all their social interactions are better recieved by other sims), and all this other crap I can't think of.  But it's always fun to put really strange combinations of sims together in a house.  You can get evil kleptomaniacs, who walk around talking to themselves, stealing, and scaring people.  You can make fitness freaks, who constantly work out.  Any combination of traits, you can make it. 

I can understand why people don't like the games.  They probably think that rather than sitting at home, making little virtual people exercise, why not go out and exercise, and socialise, and live yourself?

It's all about CONTROL.  I play because I can't go out and do this myself.  I can't build the perfect house, force my perfectly crafted family to do everything according to my plan, I can't even just go out and get a job like they do.

I like the fact that I have complete control over these virtual people.  They do whatever I want.  They only live as long as I want.  When I'm sick of them, I just put them in a room with no door, and they starve to death... Ok, I haven't done that yet, but I've been tempted.

Honestly, the actual game isn't the best part for me. The reason why I keep coming back to the game is the house-creating aspect.  You build the house.  You choose the floor coverings, the wallpaper, where the lights go, where the doors and windows are. You put in all the furniture, you decorate it with paintings, ornaments, or even art that your sims did themselves. You can put in pools, gardens, playgrounds, balconies, all sorts of stuff.  You can even put in stairs and build multiple levels.  I love it.  I build houses, then save and quit the game even before my sims live in it.

I was the same with Rollercoaster Tycoon, another game I was addicted to.  I didn't like the actual playing part,of getting my guests to ride on the rides I built.  I just liked designing the park itself, and doing the pathways, and creating perfectly symmetrical garden mazes and making food courts and stuff.  Then, I would just demolish it and start building again.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist like that.  I don't know why, since I don't have any interest in designing houses or theme parks or anything like that in real life.  I just do it in computer games.  That's why I should never get my hands on Sim City.  I'd spend the rest of my life trying to create the symmetrical, most efficient city possible. I saw a video about a guy who did that.  He called his attempts at the perfect city by different Latin names, and his video has  weird chanting music.  It's pretty creepy.  I think if I was given the chance to do something like that, I totally would, and no one would ever see me again. I'd barricade myself in my room, and my parents would have to create a flap door they could slide a food tray through, otherwise I'd die and my room would smell bad.  I don't think that would be good.

I just did a word count of today's posts.  I'm currently at about 2700, counting both part 1 and 2.  And it's only 11am.  Sweet.   I'll go for 3000 for today, then give it a rest.

I was just made aware of the fact that it's Tuesday.  I don't know about anywhere else in the world, but in Townsville, Tuesday = Cheap Tuesday.  Or for some people, it's Cheuesday.  Che-Uesday, in case you couldn't work that out.  Cheap Tuesday means that all the young ones go into town and get smashed on $9 jugs of Fruit Tingle (Blue Curacao liqueur, vodka, lemonade, raspberry cordial and ice cubes, according to google), then they party on down to the places with $2.50 cocktails.  Considering the fact that drinks are normally $5 or more, this is a pretty good deal.  It's also the reason why Uni lectures are mostly empty on Wednesdays.

So, yeah.  I just realised it was Tuesday/Cheuesday.  I'd love to go out, but I think my friends are pretty intent on pretending to study.  They don't actually study, they just say they do, and end up watching Glee and coming with my friend and I on Maccas runs (yeah, you know I'm talking about you).

Well, I'm approaching 3000 words right about now.  So far, November has been easier than I thought.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm in competition with one of the most competitive people I know, Dani-Q.  Especially since I'm challenging her in a domain that up until now has been exclusively hers; blogging.

This brings my November total so far to 5130.