Right now I find that a lot of the pixels in Tinsel Town have excess buckets of chicken and burgers in their inventory-a byproduct of their visits to the local supermarket-far too many to dispose of by eating them, even with all their friends and relatives eating them.
In order to cure the problem of not using the refrigerator for meals (because they love their burgers and chicken), I've created a "Community Dining Hall" based on real life places where the poor go to have a free meal.
The pixels take all of their excess food, go to the dining hall and 'donate' it to the dining hall. This takes care of the food, and it's a good place to socialize as well.
Their refrigerators now gets used, as well. Sometimes the mods one has makes this game too damn easy!

As to gameplay:
In Tinsel Town, Jennifer Meers (daughter of Judge Noel and Captain Lynn Meers) has been committed to the Tinsel Town Asylum for extreme mental disturbance, following 2 incidents of being shocked by the electric gnome.

Jennifer went into aspiration failure at Brian Sherman's house later, and he called up Noel to let him know what was going on. "Listen, Noel, I thought I'd tell you that your daughter is acting very, very bizarrely, and that I think she needs psychiatric help."

Noel immediately hired Dr. Anna Freud, and financed the purchase of the Asylum for his daughter.
"My daughter is in immediate danger, and I need you to please put her into the Asylum until such time that she is no longer a danger to herself. Here is the commitment order, and the money to take her in with. I hope you can help her.."

Dr. Freud is a highly skilled doctor, but she's having difficulty talking to Jennifer. When she called Noel after the first day, she told him, "It's going to take a while to cure your daughter. She keeps talking to some imaginary thing called "Dr. Ball" and making conversation with it. I have no idea how to treat this except to keep trying to calm her down."

I wish that Playable Nannies had the option to use the original nannies if there's noone in the career, instead of generating new teen ones.

Yesterday, I experienced absolute chaos at the Lam Plaza dorm in Académie le Tour. The "five hours before final" notification popped up for the combined Biggs/First Year dormmates, so I made sure everyone had their needs met and, if possible, I'd fulfill a few wants. Well, Marla Biggs wanted to prepare food, and since the cafeteria meals were all spoken for, I naively decided: all right, let's let her cook.

Girl started a grease fire, and naturally, the one Sim that had a fear of fire was in the room. Phineas leapt up from his mac 'n cheese, ran amok under the sprinklers, then collapsed to the floor in aspiration failure. Chaz, who had just showered, decided to join in the sprinkler hysteria, so he darted in and immediately dropped his hygiene back down. I sent Marla to the shower while the good doctor invisibly coerced Phineas back to sanity (with a cheerleader dubiously looking on the entire time), and Chaz, instead of showering, made sure Phineas's half-eaten meal didn't go to waste. Once Phineas was on the up and up, he ran to the shower, stepping in just as the "one hour to final exam" notice appeared.

Marla went to her exam with needs and aspiration meter low, Chaz went to his exam bordering green-mist-level stench, and Phineas went to his exam feeling low and just in the nick of time. Ellen was the only one who managed to avoid the chaos because she was asleep the entire time.
Dorms are the easiest households for me to play, so this was very novel excitement, haha.

Afterward, I played one of my households - the Limemans, originally designed as a poverty challenge with a single dad, teen daughter, and twin toddlers. I don't know why I thought this would make toddlers more fun for me, since they're my least favorite life stage, but happily, they've aged up into children and can now develop hobbies other than playing in the toilet and rolling around in leaves. :')

Speaking of electric gnomes, there has been a marked increase in fires sparked by people being shocked by them in Tinsel Town.

The fire department's budget has increased 100% as a result.

Playing around in a new rotation where I refresh the families different goals and take some inventory of what's happening in the background (lots of socialising this round) I'm noticing that I'm at an off phase within the age groups of the hood and now I'm thinking: is it time for the Newsons?? The rest of the sim bin families went to the graveyard (a decision I regret), but I've got a soft spot for the Newsons and I just couldn't put them into the adoption pool again.

And I've only got one child with a couple of days left, no toddler and maybe one baby this rotation (or the next, I can't remember). And some teens with days left before they move to uni. So a small refill might be in order! And I kind of owe Ginger a happy life this time around..

But now off to the single soon to be Hall of famer (with the household rules of only living with a relative or a pet, no lovers allowed, aspiring to her ltw career and main decorating color is pink and dark wood). Goals today is to become friends with two of her nephews and that last pesky charisma point.

I tell ya, them Tinsel Town pixels, when they pass into the Great Beyond of Deceased Pixels, they certainly have a great time doing it. (thanks to beer and good food).
Troy Snyder held a house party to 'celebrate' his imminent passing and his children showed up-then a few other people, plus they had some hired help. It was a full house!
After his demise, (during which time everyone who was present grieved it) a fight broke out between the relatives; Troy's wife Christie had a nervous breakdown, threw a want to have a baby (which is lucky because she's pregnant by Troy-from shortly before he died-they were ardent lovers..), quit her job, and committed herself to the Asylum for treatment, leaving her daughters to fend for themselves.
Thankfully the older daughter Faith is a Sophomore in college, and is fairly responsible-she'll keep an eye on her younger sister.

And: the party rated as a wicked great time (roof-raiser) for all. As someone in the gathering said, "Troy would have enjoyed it a lot if he had lived a little longer..."

Troy Snyder was 68 and will be missed by his family-although not by all of them..his son Terrence and ex-wife Mindy weren't that upset by his death.

Update:
The very first 4th generation baby is going to arrive in Tinsel Town!

The parents are Beth Sherman and Richard Walton, (3rd generation) who are not yet decided to get married (or even engaged...). Because once she found that she was pregnant (accidentally), Beth felt that a boarding house is not the right environment for raising a child, and she asked her grandparents if they could put her and the baby up while she figures out what to do. They happily agreed to do so.

Finally was turn to play the chaotic family where I control only mother and:
-the father, Danny is still sick.
-He nearly died but him wife, Minja saved him succesfully (First time in this hood!) and this made Danny so happy he could get a job (I rolled a dice to get a random job.)
-I sent them (read: Danny) to Twikkii Island to get some rest. It was kinda cute holiday and Danny is feeling better now.
-Twins grew up to child and ones (girl, Olga) aspiration meter is okay while the others (boy, Uolevi) is really low. For some reason Minja is besties with Olga nut not friend at alla with Uolevi. Maybe this is going to be some kind favourite child situation desbite Minja still has oldest daughter in university.

Lots of birthdays among the late Melody Tinker's grandkids. Solstice Neighbour became an adult, and her younger siblings Halley and Satellite became teens, popularity and family respectively. Someone in the household invited a townie that everyone tried to hug. Then they came over to their cousins and celebrated Turing Neighbour becoming an adult.
One of Melody's brothers, Andreas, also lives in that house along with his wife-to-be Rosalina Curious, and their two toddlers. Everyone in the household have been very helpful with taking care of the toddlers of their own accord. Socrates Neighbour who just recently became an adult took a day to himself going into main Strangetown to visit the gym and the tattoo shop.

Gravity Ulakroy has been calling Tundra Neighbour a lot. They're good friends and attracted to each other, they've gone on a date in the past but it turned out mediocre. Tundra invited him over, and when I briefly took control of Gravity I saw he had a want to flirt with Tundra, so I had him do it and they got a crush on each other.

There was a fire in the Downtown communal living house, which caused a big aspiration loss for Antoni Tinker. The next morning, he burnt his breakfast because he was too busy talking to the ball professor, and he had a fear of burning food so that tipped him over into aspiration failure. Meanwhile the breakfast was still in the oven and yet another fire started. Antoni once again had the fear of a fire, but luckily he was too deep in therapist-land at that point to even notice it.

Cappuchino Neighbour got himself trapped with a teddy bear which is pretty ironic, or maybe poetic, for a guy who's been all about teddy bears his entire life. He also inherited Café Petite as well as the Neighour heirloom beret from Monsoon Neighbour who passed away.
Copernicus Smith who's a surgeon got a chance card that said he was starting to feel unwell during a surgery, and he let his assistant finish up. It said something to the effect of that he left with the feeling of having handed something over in more ways than one, which turned out to be true in more ways than one - when he came home he had been promoted to medical researcher, and in the evening, he passed away of old age.

Since I have a teen and an elder preggo mod, I decided to see how many babies my sims could actually plop out. I made a couple - Alan and Elena, and so far we are up to... 14 children; Alexandria, Adrianna, Abigail, Allan, Atticus, Abraham, Alden*, Aurora*, Alice*, Abram*, Adam*, Ambrose*, Andrew* and Audrey*. Which included back-to-back quads(*) and the couple are only just part way through their adult years. They're also grandparents to Betsy, Beaumont, Benjamin, Bernard and Beatrice.

I just had such a heartbreaking play session. (TW pregnancy loss)

I have a sim, Kat Chum, who has a really hard time holding on to pregnancies. She seems to miscarry so easily and she is a police officer so has a physically demanding job. She has a long-term boyfriend, Gerard, who moved in with her during one of the last ones. He also recently just had a love child with his other lover Iva Leek. My son insisted on naming their baby Isak after his best friend :D

Anyway, so last play session I was trying to figure out what to do with Gerard. Should I make him move in with Iva and Isak? He isn't married to Kat, and they don't have any children together, but she seems happy with him. I settled for inviting him over a lot and then I decided I'd invite Iva and Isak over to meet Kat during my play session with them. I did this and both Kat and Iva did some minor romantic socials in front of each other with no jealousy, so I thought fine, she obviously doesn't mind, but also feel like Iva is fairly independent, doesn't particularly want a man to live with her and seemed happy with the idea of 50/50 shared custody, so I decided to make Gerard just "Ask to be friends". I planned that I would move Isak in for 2-3 game days at a time hopefully coinciding with their work schedules. While I was playing through all of this, Kat began to have morning sickness again. I was so happy for her and immediately put her on bed rest and didn't let her go to work. Gerard asked to be friends with Iva but then he kissed her goodbye which made them instantly fall in love again. Oh well.

I was looking after Kat so carefully and had moved Isak in for his first Daddy time. They were doing fairly well for money and could do with more space for their growing family, so I sold their house and moved them into a lovely spacious two-bed with room to remodel/expand. Isak is 10 Active and Outgoing so I got Gerard to teach him to walk and talk immediately. Kat got her third bump and I thought yay - we're out of the woods! I continued to look after her and didn't let her motives drop too much. But because they'd moved house, they had no leftovers, she was hungry and I wanted her to have a meal without expending too much effort so I got her to make a TV dinner. Well despite having about 4 cooking points, it instantly started a fire! And because I have the more dangerous fires mod, even though they have a smoke alarm, the fire brigade just didn't seem to be arriving quickly at all. I thought it was best to get her away from the flames so I sent her upstairs to take Isak safely outside.

Gerard arrives home from work at this point bearing pizza I should have known that he also wouldn't have let her go hungry. Anyway he seemed to take ages putting the pizza carefully down RIGHT next to the fire and taking a slice before putting it down slowly in order to start panicking The fire brigade were STILL not there so I started to make him extinguish the fire. Kat came downstairs twice without Isak and I kept having to send her back. The firefighter did turn up and started extinguishing the fire but they lost their stove and kitchen sink. She was able to eat some pizza, use the toilet and shower before collapsing into bed exhausted. I hoped that would be enough - when she stood up an hour or so later, I wondered if she was in labour but no - she lost the baby I was SO sad I considered quitting without saving but I would have lost so much playtime - and I did install those mods for a reason but I just felt so awful for her. She basically stayed in a catatonic state for the next day. Refused to go to work. Kept persistently rolling the want to meet someone new and marry someone rich, so I actually sent her out to the local singles bar - but there aren't a lot of pickings in this hood and I don't think there is anyone rich to marry at all. Everyone who turned up to the singles bar was actually attached (just not married) and none of them were rich when she asked them and she seemed too grumpy to have any positive interactions with anyone anyway, so I took her to a park instead and there was nobody of use there either. It did seem like that walk cleared her head, though, because by the time she got home she had replaced the marry a rich sim want with a want to get a promotion instead. I ended up sending Isak home early for that time and will probably do a shorter swap between the parents for now. I just hope that family can catch a break! They got burgled just before moving as well!

I wanted to link up Pleasantview and Strangetown in my gameplay, so when Alexander Goth grew up as a Knowledge sim with the LTW of becoming a Cult Leader, I decided he would go to Strangetown to investigate his mother's appearance and that is how the two hoods become linked (via Downtown). Beau Broke was also abducted by aliens as a teen, and he and Alex discussed this frequently, giving Alex more clues as to what may have happened to his mother. In university, Lilith Pleasant switched to Knowledge aspiration and also got the LTW to be a Cult Leader, so she decided to go to Strangetown to help with the investigation--after all, there is nothing much for her in Pleasantview. Alex was able to afford a nice house there, but Lilith had to take a cheap rental. They went out together to community lots and neighbors' houses to ask about Bella. And then Bella just walked by Alex's house! Well, he greeted her of course, but it turns out she wasn't his actual mother. She was a clone, a result of the aliens' pollination experiments involving his abducted mother, and she was living in the basement of a house with the Curious twins, who were also experimentation results--they had all escaped together and were hiding out in Strangetown. Bella was still with the aliens and would probably never be found. Alex adopted this Bella as his "aunt" and introduced her to Lilith and his sister. Not the outcome he was hoping for, but there was some closure there, at least.

Over the course of the investigation, Alex and Lilith had grown closer, and yes, they fell in love, so Alex proposed. (It's not entirely sweet--Alex is fascinated by Lola Curious and will not behave himself when she's around.) They got married in Strangetown. Meanwhile, back in Pleasantview, Cassandra got left at the altar for a second time, this time by Toby Bruenig, who is a rat in my opinion who plays with women's hearts. She had the fear of growing old having never been married and growing old childless, and I'm afraid both will be true. She keeps mainly to the attic of the Goth manor and paints painting after painting or plays with the cat that was originally adopted for Alex. Dina also didn't want children with Mortimer and after Mortimer's death, she shocked everyone by marrying Don Lothario. The two of them took Dina's portion of the Goth money and moved into their own very nice mansion, leaving Cassandra alone. Of course, it was incumbent upon Alex to produce a Goth heir and preserve the ancestral home, even though he didn't really want to leave Strangetown. Lilith didn't seem to want children either, but he eventually talked her into it, and after she got pregnant, they moved back in with Cassandra. Perhaps someday they will invite the Bella clone to live there as well. But now the Strangetown residents can mix freely with the Pleasantview citizens, as they are all aware of each other.

The Beakers' first round was unusually action-packed. Nervous got abducted by aliens on the same night that Loki was turned into a werewolf. I have a feeling that werewolf Loki is going to terrorize Strangetown, and unless Nervous can get out of there, his alien baby may become a second test subject for the Beakers.