Sim Gnome

Spotlight On – Carlton July 13, 2010

Sofia Carlton

Twinbrook is the new Neighborhood which came with the Ambitions Expansion for Sims 3. I spotlight some of the familes in the EA neighborhoods in case you might have missed out on them or just wanted to learn more about the neighbors.

Sofia Carlton is a hip young adult with a 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath mansion of her own but what will she do with it?  Sofia is a great kisser, dislikes children, a schmoozer, snob and lucky.  Her lifetime wish is to live in the lap of luxury and she has a good start on that if she can keep it. Her only skills are 2 points of charisma.  That’s not much to work with as she has that big house and the pink convertible to support.  Oddly, there is a pink playground in her front lawn that doesn’t make much sense since she doesn’t like children and isn’t childish.  Perhaps to allude that she grew up in the house is the reason?  There is a bookcase, office and bar on the third floor if you miss it on the first look through as I did.  No shortage of mirrors for this lass and she does get lots of use out of them! The kitchen is missing some wallcoverings and flooring so you will want to fix that up straight away and could give architects working in Twinbrook some headaches if working on a renovation at this house. 

Sofia is a friend of Amy Bull’s…no real surprise there as they have similar fashion sense and she has met her neighbor DeAndre Wolf but briefly. Enemies are Dilly and Milly Pidgin.  Sofia’s main problem is she has over 2000 simoleans in bills coming soon and no job.  She does start with a small nest egg though and hopefully that will see her through till she has an income coming in.  Thus first thing to do is get her skilled up and working.  I went the stylist route to try out that profession and see what it was like.  I learned that even though the job doesn’t start till the next day, you can go to the salon and offer makeovers that will make some simoleans and count towards that first promotion, so no need to wait or sit home on days off.  The easiest way might be to find her an ambitious husband to help share the bills or a room-mate as there is a second bedroom as well.  In my neighborhood, she eventually married and lost the dislikes children trait which is one of my least favorites of the sim traits.  Believe it or not..her sense of style improved too!  See what happens for you!  You can see the shock she gets when the first bills come in the mail (Below).

Toned Down Her Style

Spotlight On – Simolean Savers: Peddler – Pincher July 12, 2010

Simolean Savers

Twinbrook is the new Neighborhood which came with the Ambitions Expansion for Sims 3.  I spotlight some of the familes in the EA neighborhoods in case you might have missed out on them or just wanted to learn more about the neighbors. 

Note:  Ghosthunters in Twinbrook will want to eliminate that car on the platform before you start work in that town otherwise you stand a very good chance of getting trapped on that platform while doing a job at that household.

But now where were we?  Yes…Yes…Clark Peddler and Penny Pincher are best friends.  They are living together in a white two bedroom house, trimmed in a garnish lime green which is Clark’s favorite color.   Clark’s ex-wife Kat Hunter lives down the street with her much younger boyfriend Buck Green. 

Neither Clark nor Penny have any skills at all and are both working part-time jobs.  She at the Bookstore and he at the Grocery.  I would think by this time in their lives they would have learned something…anything but neither seems very motivated, perhaps that is why?  Clark is an adult and Penny a young adult. Clark Peddler is inappropriate, easily impressed, frugal, kleptomaniac, and evil.  That means he can rummage through trash cans,  steal and might be a good recruit for the crime career?  His Lifetime Want is Possession is 9/10ths of the Law. So expect to do some creeping around at night to fulfill that.  Clark is quite the snappy dresser, don’t you think?  (See Picture Below) Sort of dresses like a used car salesman on a bad day. 

Clark Peddler

Penny Pincher has hitched her wagon to Clark but that might have been a mistake especially if she thought she could sponge off him which seems like it just might be the case.  She is flirty, charismatic, a party animal, schmoozer and a heavy sleeper.  Penny seems to want to spend most of her time dancing to the small stereo that she seems to keep in her purse.  Her wish is to be super popular and she has a long way to go at it, as she is best friends with Clark but has only met DeAndre Wolf in Twinbrook.

When I stayed with them, as soon as Clark’s ex wife Kat broke up with her boyfriend  Kat moved back in with Clark thus leaving the couch to Penny.  Penny then moved in with Buck Green…Kat’s ex boyfriend.  Such complicated lives these sims lead…tsk…tsk. 

Anyway simoleans are tight in this household so some things you can do to fix that.  Their home is directly across the street from the Community Gardens so they can harvest goodies for sale or to eat or some of both.  Clark could ditch his part-time job and go full-time criminal.  His trashcan rummaging, coupon clipping and klepto skills can help make simoleans too.  You could sell the 2 cars or just one or two which will lower their bills and give a cushion of cash. 

Another option would be if Clark starts sharing a bedroom with either Penny or Kat, they could take in a border for the other bedroom.  How that works is you can merge a single sim to their household for a bit while they all work skills then move the single sim back out once they are more skilled and along further in their career.  I’m sure the extra income would be useful.  I also did some painting while Clark and Penny slept to remove some lime green and cleaned up the yard a bit. (Removed the balloons, tires and the silly platform that traps ghosthunters)  You might be in favor of that option too.  See what you can do with these two!

Spotlight – Bayless Family July 6, 2010

The Bayless Family

Twinbrook is the new Neighborhood which came with the Ambitions Expansion for Sims 3.  I spotlight some of the familes in the EA neighborhoods in case you might have missed out on them or just wanted to learn more about the neighbors.

One of the founding families of Twinbrook is the Bayless Family, Skeet’s father Fly owned the largest junkyard in Twinton at one time. They are quite the interesting family especially around the ears if you know what I mean.  *winks*

Skeet is Absent-Minded, Slob, Loves the Outdoors, Family-Oriented and an Angler.  He’s sort of a stay at home Dad with a part -time job at the Graveyard as an Epitaph Writer.  Yet he loves the graveyard for the afterwork fishing for deathfish which is more profitable for him then the actual job and rummaging or bear wrestling in the the catacomb. Mostly bear wrestling it seems.  He’s known to dabble in gardening and inventing as well.  (15 days from Elder) He’s a wiz at collecting salvage from the junkyard and turning it into extra cash.  (See an earlier “Did You Know?” post on just how that works.)

Gwayne is Brave, Loves the Outdoors, Daredevil, Family-Oriented and an Angler.  You can see what she and Skeet have in common.  She works in the Journalist career as a Free-lance writer (3) and has a laptop in her inventory which is pretty swanky and might have cost more than their house. Hehehehee!  Gwayne is known as a minor writer of novels in Twinbrook as well.  Dudley Racket might be the only one that has read her published works but heck she tries really hard.  I think she got into that profession mainly to rummage through the towns folks’ garbage but who knows?  (14 days from Elder)

The Bayless Swamp Shack

Chase is surprise surprise a teen-aged girl although a wee bit of a tom-boy.  She’s a Loner, Loves the Outdoors, Family-Oriented and an Angler much like her parents.  She has an on again off again romantic interest in Jeffrey Castor although she would rather go fishing than spend much time with him.

Chase’s little brother Tay Loves the Outdoors is Family-Oriented and an Angler too and often seen tagging along after his sister on fishing trips.  The poor lad had ears big enough he might be able to fly if he had a mind to.  Reminds me of a picture I caught once at the Sunset Valley Theater…a movie called Dumbo? Alas, ears tend to run in this family.  (The first night while the family slept I did a little bit of gnomish magic and docked some ears and fixed the “frog mouths” of Gwayne and Chase so they aren’t so bad now…still not beauty queens but quite good looking now by Twinton standards.  I used Twallan’s Super Computer ->Advanced->Edit in CAS to fix them up just a wee bit.)

The shack needs some improvements, well lots of improvements actually.  I sold the garage door in the kitchen for 600 simoleans and replaced it with a window.  Skeet salvaged a dryer from the junkyard and used it to replace the laundry line on the porch that was always leaving puddles behind.  As Skeet said he and Gwanye have plans to raise themselves up at least 5 youngins, you might need to make the upstairs loft into a full second story eventually for the extra space.  There are great fishing spots to the NE and SW of the shack and the kids often bring back jellyfish which although aren’t the best eating, except for maybe Peanut Butter and Jellyfish sandwiches. The jellyfish do make great fertilizer and you can plant a few items in the spot between the front and back porches pretty easily. Skeet added an inventors workbench after moving the wood stove over a bit on the main floor and I magically recovered the camo cushions in the livingroom rather quickly.  If you do also let him have an inventor’s workbench, I would recommend replacing the downstairs tub with a shower as inventors are known for catching themselves on fire on occasion and that way Skeet can put himself out with the shower if need be.  It could save his life!

The Ghost of Fly Bayless

In the master bedroom on the dresser is an urn from a man named Fly Bayless who I assume is Skeet’s father…there is a certain family ears present there.  He materializes at night on occasion and makes himself at home.  If you don’t like a good haunt, you can eliminate that urn first thing or keep it for shack flavor.  The ghost does seem pretty harmless thus far. The Bayless family does get along quite well and seem to have much in common so there isn’t much strife in this family, which is a good thing considering they live out in the middle of nowhere and only have the family Vorn truck for transportation.  If something went wrong out there in the swamp..it might turn out like “The Shining”….”Here’s Skeet!”  Keep the axes put away and all is well.  If the youngins are getting underfoot or Skeet and Gwanye are getting a bit stir crazy you can always send them fishing. I learned you can grow a pretty good apple even out in the swamp so give the Bayless Family a try!