Before Joe wakes on day two I scour the pond near his house, the previous day while Joe was taking a break from his hard day of fishing I noticed some plants bursting with vegetables ready for harvest. I search the area for some more, finding a few different types of plant I resolve to send Joe over to pick what he can as soon as he is up. He lives close to the pond, which is one reason why i chose the lot. Near enough to a pond to make fishing easy while close enough to town to make trips to the shop less of a chore (still takes an age though!). It is also HUGE and so there is lots of space for a big productive garden, if i ever get round to it. The final bonus, it apparently is a beautiful plot and so gives him a mood boost, I'm guessing the assessors made that declaration before Joe threw up his shack in the middle of it.
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| This is Sims at its most exciting! |
When Joe finally woke I get him tidying the place up, he left it in a terrible state the previous night, i soon found out why. It turns out i have made another simple mistake. I haven’t bought Joe a sink. Apparently you need a sink to wash pots… who knew! This is frustrating. The previous day I had managed to catch four fish worth something like 54s in total. It was only because a lucky opportunity had come along that I had managed to make some money. Which I had then spent! The problem was I had suddenly made a realisation when I was waiting for Joe to wake. He doesn’t know how to cook. This might sound like a small problem because sims learn as they go. Which is true, but, I am not allowed to buy food from the fridge or use the free food options. I am limited to the recipes Joe already knows, i don't know how to learn more other than improving Joe's cooking expertise but I'm scared if i make him cook as practice he will start a bloody fire and ruin the cooker, or burn the house down. I can't afford a cooking class so the only option is books, which means i need a bookcase. Which costs money, money I don’t have and any money I do make now has to go on a bloody sink so i can get rid of the mucky pots and keep his mood high enough to keep clocking up the happiness points. I wish I had never bought that crappy fridge, I felt so smart spending all my money on a fridge, note to self, don’t think too hard in future.
Okay, back to day two. What I need is a to-do list. Today me and Joe need to:
- Make some money
- Buy a sink
- Buy a bookcase
- Learn to cook
- Learn how to garden
I think that's do-able in a day, how hard can gardening be? Plant seeds, water, harvest... no? really...?!
Despairing, i decide there is only one thing you can do when you have so much to do that there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Go fishing. So that’s what Joe does, he goes for a nice long session by the pond.
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| Joe's favourite fishing spot, when life sends Joe troubles, I send him fishing |
I know my Sims knowledge has so far been totally sub par but I have a plan. Joe won't starve as i bought some food yesterday, so on Maslow's hierarchy of needs I'm at least off the bottom tier. Fishing is my only income at the moment, so fishing is what i will do. Maybe i will get another lucky break and another opportunity will appear at the other end of Joe's phone. Otherwise i will continue to fish until i can buy a sink and a bookcase and force Joe to read cook books until he can make gravel taste like chocolate souffle. Then i will finally start my garden.
While Joe starts his day of fishing I make another discovery, apparently if cast your line where the fish actually are (you can see them frolicking in the water), not as I have been doing, as far away as you can possibly get (one of them looked like a shark!), you can catch bigger better fish. However you do need bait for that. And I’ve no idea where you buy bait from or even what kind of bait you need. So ill add that to the list too. Find bait… somewhere. You know, i really need to learn how to play this game!
So the day passes buy and I wait… and wait… and wait… and Joe fishes, and fishes and fishes. At about mid afternoon Joe has caught three minnows and a goldfish and I am starting to worry. I am never going to make enough money like this and soon a bill will fall through my letter box. Money makes the world go round apparently, and I have never felt that as much as I do now. Maybe sims is a better life simulator than I gave it credit for. However it seems the Sims does not wish me to fail...
Joe suddenly receives another mysterious phone call. That same gravely voice tells Joe that City Hall is desperate. They need a plumber and fast. All the qualified plumbers in town are busy so they have taken the only option left to them. Randomly call the new guy in the neighbourhood who has done nothing but fish since he arrived in the hope he might know a thing or two about unblocking toilets. Sceptical as I am by the offer I notice that they are offering money as a reward and I quickly accept the work (I was careful not to use the word job there). Joe tells the sinister man that he is on his way, slightly concerned as to whether he had just inadvertently gained some sort of odd job pimp, and sets off at a run into town.
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| If this bloke asks me to me send him a picture I'm moving to a new valley |
When Joe arrives he immediately heads to the problem, ignoring the attractive lady jogging by (this is actually the first time Joe has ever seen Selena whose happy lifestyle he is aiming to better). When he enters City Hall i can't see what he is doing so I imagine, after scratching his head at the blocked toilet be fore him, he does the only thing he knows how to. He takes his rod from his pocket… fishing rod (is there no way to say that innocently?), al la Guybush Threepwood, and casts the hook down the pan. After a few hours lavatory fishing he strangely makes a catch which turns out to be… an extremely large Salmon! I am suddenly slightly troubled by what other things might be lurking in the sewers. However with the blockage cleared City hall are so pleased with Joe they paid him 500s for his efforts and as a bonus he gets to keep the fish. He called him Jerry. I quickly make him sell it.
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| A fridge and a bookcase, what more could you want! |
Wow… so much money! What to buy? While Joe was running home I check the to-do list and flesh out his hovel with a sink, a bookshelf and a new bike as a treat. I was wasting a lot of time waiting for Joe travelling in and out of town and need a quick but cheap mode of transport. I was annoyed that I had to buy a bike rack too though. Apparently Sunset Valley are very strict on ensuring a bike has a proper place on each lot, unlike my own bike which, when I was younger, lived whether it landed and as i lived in Manchester this was often miles away in the shed of the buggers who nicked it.
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| I have known the bike rack stolen too in Manchester. |
Unfortunately the hours of toilet-fishing had left Joe strained, significantly lowering his mood which severely impacted on his accumulation of Happiness. That after all was the main aim. I started to think that after the money panic of the last two days I had probably not made Joe as happy as could be, I definitely was ignoring his wishes and so wasn't getting the constant stream of bonus points my control character over the first few days in Sunset Valley, are me and Joe doing enough, I really need a graph! So to remedy this and because we have some money (just over 100s) and a bit of food, I decide Joe can take a few days off the scavenging lifestyle so I can focus on making him happy. I need Joe to be really happy. For that i need a really big boost of points. I need him to achieve his lifetime goal. I need to become an excellent gardener. So I make another resolution (how long will this one last), tomorrow, nothing will get in the way of my learning how to garden. As soon as he gets up me and Joe are starting on a vegetable patch.
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