Thinking about it, I'm a bit surprised that the food processor or microwave don't have any dirty states.

Microwave pros:
- small, fits on top of a mini-fridge
- cheaper than a stove (I hope?)
- doesn't get dirty

Microwave cons:
- can only make ramen and TV dinner

I think the no-dirty state is a must with this, otherwise it's useless compared to the toaster oven that can cook more than two types of food (I hope?!)

A microwave oven works for reheating contained liquids and not much else. It doesn't get dirty gradually, but suddenly and fully when something goes wrong: you misjudge the initial temperature or volume and the stuff boils over, or you attempt to do a wild experiment. When I still had a m/o, I could go a long time without needing to clean it. It was slow to use for heating anything not watery, requiring me to stop it multiple times to make out the food, stir it or wait for the foam to fall. A tool that mixes food ingredients needs to be washed after every use.

A surprising flaw in the design of a m/o is that it sucks some of the vapor through the machine where the wires and eletronics are. Even if the air is only barely dirty, over time stink accumulates there and can in some cases cause corrosion, which is probably what caused my oven to go out of order. You can find videos where people have done a crazy thing and can't use the oven because the smell is inside it.

In the Sims I find a m/o useless and I rarely buy it, except as a decoration sometimes in a hotel room or a big kitchen that has to have all appliances. In reality they say you can get fat by eating quick meals, but in the Sims world food quality is expressed exclusively in the energy content, and starter meals are not efficient.

Yeah, I have a mod that fixes that. So silly; you can cook heaps in a microwave.

A major pro of the microwave, if you don't have any custom foods, is that I believe it might be one of the few or only ways to make dinner with zero cooking points that is not likely to cause a fire. It's been a while since I had sims with zero cooking points, though, and I also have a ton of zero-skill-required cold custom foods, so I might be misremembering. I think the microwave only catches fire if you actually walk away from it.

I recently asked about names for my shopping district to Strangetown. Here are some I've come up with--which one do you like?

- Boomtown
- Notown
- Funkytown
- Troubletown
- Middletown
- Youngstown

I guess a lot depends on what this district will be like, but I think I may let the name decide that. At any rate, most of the original playables are getting to be elders, and my thought was that the younger generation would let the elders have their big houses and move out to a new area to build something different. The exceptions would be insular families like the Beakers, who would stay back in Strangetown.

The only way i can think of to solve such a dilemma is- music!

Boomtown
Notown (can't think of a song called 'Notown' but there are loads with Motown in the title of course! )
Funkytown
Troubletown
Middletown
Youngstown

Of course you could probably find lots of other examples to be the soundtrack to your new neighbourhood...

And we already have Downtown as well!