Vickiepedia

As a soon-to-be wannabe health professional, I’d like to remind you that even the most elegant of people — yes, even women — need to do this thing with euphemisms or dysphemisms such as dropping the kids off at the pool, checking yesterday’s dinner, testing the plumbing, laying cables, baking brownies, etc. (Thank you, Google and Wikipedia.) But to us soon-to-be wannabe health professionals, we refer to it exclusively as defaecation. You may or may not know that defaecation can be a dangerous event as your blood pressure drops, which can result in hypotension and explains why some people literally die on the toilet. But really, it’s only natural.

… Which also completely explains why I’m now sitting here my face all screwed up because a neighbour may or may not be standing somewhat near my toilet window and if I can hear what they’re doing outside they can hear what’s happening inside, yeah?

Shittttt. (Oh Vickie, a pun. I’m so proud of you.)

Why hello there you
Did you know that haiku
Three syll’bles, not two?

In Pleasantview, Brandi Broke’s husband died drowning in a “suspicious pool ladder accident” in the family backyard. Dina Caliente is dating Mortimer Goth for his money. Womaniser Don Lothario is going to marry Cassandra Goth for hers, all the while being in multiple simultaneous romantic relationships. Daniel Pleasant is having an extramarital affair with the maid, Kaylynn Langerak, who is in turn one of Don Lothario’s lovers.

And that’s only part of the default story. I know.

Over in Strangetown, the Beaker couple allegedly performs strange experiments on a Sim handily named Nervous Subject. Pollination Technician 9, the Smith family father, is an extraterrestrial alien with green skin who has fathered more children than he cared to remember. Pascal Curious, a man, is in his third trimester with an alien baby. Olive Specter has an alarming number of dead ex-husbands and tombstones in her backyard, and an even more alarming memory of having sex with the Grim Reaper.

Oh yeah, the Grim Reaper. I know.

There’s also the easily accessible Criminal career; many, many ways to deliberately kill a Sim should we so feel like it; PlantSims, ghosts, vampires, robots, werewolves, witches, zombies… most of which exist by default whether we like or believe in them or not.

And that’s what makes this game extra fun. I know.

Now let me conveniently overlook the fact that Sims are either asexual or heterosexual by default; but they’d better not call gay marriage “marriage” and make it as fulfilling as straight marriages in The Sims 3, because oh no, that would be so wrong and unnatural, you know!

(Note: Entry originally written in March 2009, 3 months before The Sims 3 was released, when someone replied in the official forum saying that teh gheyz that is us should be satisfied with our getting “joined” / civil union option that rewards less aspiration points than male-female marriages in The Sims 2. I’m sure most of us applaud EA for at least giving us that possibility; but it’s simply not good enough!

The Sims 3 has now been out for 3 months. It acknowledges all marriages as “marriages”, and AI-controlled Sims would become partners with another AI-controlled Sim of the same sex if the players let them experience it.

Unrelated, but I’m disappointed that they took out the tickling interaction between adults, though.)

Legend has it that if you rub the snout of this wild boar statue named Il Porcellino outside the Sydney Hospital, toss a coin in and make a wish, your wish would come true. Legend also has it that it would still bring you good luck if you rub its snout, regardless of whether you’re donating money to the hospital.

We walked past it the other day.

So, uh… You people do know what a “snout” is, right?

Something shiny caught my attention as I walked past the working space of one office lady during lunch — a new 17-inch LCD computer monitor. (This was a few years ago.) I leaned in with an ooooooh to check out this hottie (the screen), and quickly noticed that the office lady was still using the old screen resolution from her last setting.

“This is a five-by-four screen,” I said. “You’re still using a four-by-three resolution on it.”

She blinked.

“You know? The ratio? Five… to… four,” I explained, accompanied with body motions that somewhat resembled the chicken dance.

Turns out when someone doesn’t speak your “language”, speaking slowly or doing the chicken dance doesn’t really help.

I grabbed her mouse as she continued to look at me in confusion. Minimise all, right click, click, click, click, click: 1280×1024; there, a correct screen resolution for a shiny new screen. I smiled, satisfied, and turned to walk away (casually noting the lingering confusion on the colleague’s face), giving myself a mental pat on the shoulder for an unpaid job well done.

“OH MY GOD!” A scream of terror.

I paused, thinking if I’d forgotten to apply the new screen resolution setting properly so the screen had automatically reverted back to 1024×768 while she’s admiring the sharper images. It didn’t.

“Why is everything so tiny? Why do I look so fat in the picture?!” She cried.

And then I cried too.

(She insisted on switching back to 1024×768. I undid my mental pat on the shoulder and complied.)