Apocalypse III: Finding a Job

So Jericho moved into his "little" five by five lot. And the insanity began. What I learned overall from last night: it is really, really hard to remember all the restrictions before breaking them.

I started by building a 6x6 basement (8x8 once the foundation is put around it). Since everything has to have a roof over it, and funds are limited, I basically put a tiny corridor of house above the staircase, and roofed it. Looks pretty silly; hopefully I'll remember to bring pictures Monday.

So Jericho has a tiny basement, and I'm down to something like a thousand dollars. I go in, place the allowed fridge, grill, sink, the fun toy I brought, and the treadmill (NB next time, leave objects with no purpose IN the inventory, so don't have to pay protection on them). And realize I'm flat broke. I have no money for the nice bed that I'm allowed to use as a 10 body point sim. If I do it over, this is something I'll change. Screw the treadmill; buy a bed. So I sold the treadmill, and bought a bed, toilet, and bookcase with the proceeds. Completely forgetting that I'm not allowed to sell anything back until after the business restriction is lifted. Actually, I forgot this rule multiple times during play last night. I forgot it when I went to upgrade my sink to one with better hygiene (now I have two sinks: a useless one and a nice one that I pay huge amounts of protection for). I also forgot this rule when I tired to create a "porch" for Jericho so he would stop walking aaaaalll the way back into the house to check the newspaper for a job. In fact, I initially tried to place the chair and roofing right next to the mailbox for convenience, forgetting the 8x8 rule and causing lost money when I went back to fix it. And I forgot the selling rule again later when I went to upgrade Jericho's bookcase to meet a want.

My inventory is getting full with stupid mistakes. I've tried to fix the errors as best I could, but to be honest the treadmill gave me a nice advantage, especially because I didn't realize I'd broken the rule for quite a while. I had time and money to get a little established. I suppose I can technically squeeze it in under the exceptions for the first sim day of play, but it goes against the heart of the challenge so I feel bad about it.

Not bad enough to start over, though (I really don't like playing thru Uni). Just bad enough to buy a treadmill again (damn, those things are expensive!) and put it back into my inventory where it should have stayed to begin with.

Other adventures in gaming: the journalism restriction really sucks. The first day he looked for a job was Law Enforcement. Not what I wanted for first career, but definitely good pay to start with. And then I watched as a series of jobs passed me by. Law, Adventure, Science (tried this one, but missed my carpool so had to quit), Music, and Military all became available, and are important restrictions to lift. But not important enough to be the first restriction to lift. And I just know that a few careers from now, none of these will be available. All the job searching did teach me a thing or two though: if possible, job hunt at least an hour before your carpool is scheduled to arrive, and if you see a job you want to switch to, verify that you can still make the carpool that day. If you can't, set the paper down and go to work at your current job, then just switch after work. You get one more day of pay out of it, which is always nice. Disadvantages if your new carpool is too soon after you get off work, because your needs will be low, but I still wish I'd done it this way.

Jericho ended up on the Medical career. I actually wanted either the Natural Science or Culinary, and I'm still worried about this one. Culinary's restriction will be much worse once I have a pregnant female in the house, and I wanted Natural Science so I could push for plant sims (except I need to do a little playtesting first: are orchard trees still dormant in the winter if they are in a green house?? This is important). Imagine how much easier this challenge would be with those little buggers.... *sigh*. If the trees are still dormant, then I'll need to unlock the music career in addition to the Natural Science. Even if the trees are not dormant inside a greenhouse, then I'll have to scramble to find a way to put the greenhouse on the 8x8 square... *wince*. I'm not sure I've thought that one thru enough. But I'm discovering new things every time I play, so maybe this will just be one of those things.

Also, in other news, Jericho has started a fire EVERY time he uses the grill, despite having full cooking skill points (a function of it being inside, I wonder?). And he's been burgled. In the FIRST WEEK. I've been burgled maybe five times since I've started playing Sims 2 (you know, years ago?). Makes me wish, at least a little, that I'd stuck with Law Enforcement.