I was just congratulating myself yesterday on only having three deaths so far in my Pleasantview, all of elders who died naturally of old age (which is unusual for me because I have several mods that make accidental deaths more likely), and then I played at lunch today. Most of the drama occurred in the Pleasant household.

Previously, Angela and Alvin had had twins. Mary-Sue had become CEO and is about to top the Business career, which will accomplish her LTW; then she plans to retire. The house was getting very crowded, though, with three kids crammed in one bedroom. Daniel and Mary-Sue had mended fences, so he was welcome to visit the grandkids when he wanted, and he came over for the twins' birthdays. Mary-Sue brought Dirk (her son-in-law, married to her estranged daughter) home from work, and then proceeded to woohoo with him during the birthday celebration. It's quite a thing to disgust Daniel Pleasant, but Mary-Sue managed it. Alvin had the flu all this time, and Mary-Sue also caught it, but I thought Angela was healthy. This was during my last rotation at this house.

This time, Alvin went off to work before I could stop him. Mary-Sue and Angela both had their hands full all day with toddler twins, and they both had the flu. I was planning to hire a nanny and send all three to the doctor when Alvin got home, but Alvin collapsed in the driveway when he arrived. Mary-Sue did manage to hire the nanny then, but she and Angela had bad needs, and the twins were also in bad shape, which the nanny couldn't keep up with, so I was trying to take care of all of them. Angela went to the bathroom and that's where she died. Kevin also caught the flu, but Mary-Sue called an ambulance for them both, and they were cured. So the kids lost both parents in one day and now have only their elderly grandmother to take care of them. This does take care of the space problem, though, as Kevin can now have his parents' bedroom.

Meanwhile, Daniel was living with Bella but decided he could no longer handle her. Her mental health wasn't good and she was prone to doing whatever she felt like, flirting with any guy she met, and so on, so Daniel asked her to move out. Fortunately, Bella had reestablished a relationship with Cassandra by this time, and Cassandra agreed to take her in and finally get her proper medical care (not with Don, though--she planned to take Bella to a specialty clinic downtown). Daniel then got sick himself and went to the doctor, and Don told him that he needed to retire for the sake of his health, so he did. This was when tragedy struck, and he lost his daughter and son-in-law. He called Mary-Sue and managed to repair their relationship enough so that he could move back in with her and help with the grandchildren--trading one responsibility for another, but you do what you have to when it's your own blood.

So yeah, I lost both Alvin and Angela. Now I have the rather interesting situation of two elders trying to raise a child and twin toddlers, all while Mary-Sue is still climbing to the top of the Business career and maybe, possibly carrying on some sort of weird revenge affair with her son-in-law. Ah, Pleasantview.

Pleasantview had a fun day today as my Jankowskys managed to get to the service center and earned 20000$ playing pinball before having to head back home.They worked on skilling both at the service center and at home.There's none days left before summer arrives and they plan on starting on the service center's building first before their home as it's smaller.They found the service center deserted as expected since they're the first colonial settlers in the area.

I started another round in Orchard Isle in the DeLaPole household, where Fergus and and his sister Abigail were still mourning the loss of Fergus' wife Imelda and wishing to resurrect her. And as if the game had listened to them, there was the matchmaker with the genie lamp for Fergus! So you'd think their Watcher would smile benignly and let them resurrect a sim she herself liked so much, right? Wrong! There is always a chance of zombiefication with the genie lamp and I just couldn't stand the thought of having Imelda brought back as a zombie, or Fergus and Abbie seeing her like that. But my first thought was to give my two remaining DeLaPoles a longer life and Fergus the power to cheat death. Fergus got to wish first, so he will probably be with me for a lot longer, but poor Abbie! She was busy dating Goopy when Fergus had finished his wishing, so I thought I'd just give her that dream date she wanted before she rubbed the lamp and I didn't even think to look at her age bar or the time of day. Pretty much as soon as the dream date state was reached, the reaper came for Abigail and she wasn't even in platinum yet, because she hadn't had time to register the dream date . Fergus still has one wish left and if he rolls the want again, I'll let him resurrect one of the two women in his life.

After Abigail's death, I kept Fergus happy by having him see old friends and make new ones. He's been talking to his step-grand daughter Suzy a lot, and he invited her over to give her her personal keepsake from Imelda, a rearing horse statue that used to stand on the dresser in Imelda's room back when she still lived in the O'Rourke house. Suzy now wants to give someone a gift as well, so maybe she can make a nutritious meal with her six cooking points and gift it to the constantly hungry Fergus who only has one. If fresh food points didn't exist he'd soon use up his cheat death wish!

Apart from that, there was a promotion in the show biz career and a gardening skill badge achieved. His own business had to wait while he took care of his needs after his big loss. Next on Orchard Isle will be Michael O'Rourke's household, where he will finally get to age to elder.

I've been having so much fun with my semi-integrated Pleasantview that I spent some of the weekend making a semi-integrated Strangetown. Strangetown is supposed to be the opposite of Pleasantview: small, isolated, few community lots, and limited career prospects focusing on military and science research. (Pleasantview doesn't even have the military career because there is no military base there.) In Strangetown, many Sims (especially those without college degrees) will have to find ways other than jobs to make money. I did move in all the townies, but there are only two in Strangetown to begin with. I thought that by having both neighborhoods going, it would give me some variety, since they will have somewhat different gameplay rules.

So Strangetown needed a convenience store, and I thought Ajay Loner would be the perfect guy to run it. On his second day there, I made a discovery due to my inexperience with playing businesses: owned businesses need a phone and a sprinkler/smoke detector! Of course, enforcing regulations off-base would be lax in Strangetown, but poor Ajay paid the price when he went to microwave a cup o' ramen for his lunch and set the tiny breakroom on fire. Fortunately, the door was locked so no other Sims could get in there, but Ajay was trapped, poor thing. This was when I made my second discovery: when a business owner dies with no family, the business passes to their closest friend. Which is how Lola Curious came to own the general store on my second day playing this new Strangetown.

Dipped my toes back in after an accidental break. When I thought of my sims, Batty Neighbour was the one who came to mind, and according to my rotation-list I still hadn't played his household this round, so I went to visit him and his son Froggy. Froggy made friends with Tyra Tinker, brought her sister Rosmarie home after school and also got called by the youngest Tinker, Irma. Batty won an SSX-contest at the library he owns.

Cappuchino Neighbour's home-owned salon that he took over from Brahe Neighbour reached level 9. He also found the time to ask anybody and everybody to play catch inbetween makeovers. One of the makeovers of a townie that's been his trusted client since forever failed, but the guy still gave him a tip. Then again lipstick smudged over half his face isn't that far off from how he usually looks.

I've gone into my Pleasantview game just a short while ago today and made a few small changes to the service center like marking out the start of the building going up on the lot soon.I also checked in on my only family already living on their homestead in Pleasant Valley.The Jankowskys will need to pack away the pinball machines to avoid overuse as they are only supposed to use in dire need.

There have been some career changes in Pleasantview.

Bobbi Broke, recently graduated from college, had trouble finding a job, so her brother Dustin--she has built a good relationship with him over the years even though she was only a baby when he left for college himself--gave her a secretarial job in his law firm. Apparently, one of her duties is to act as go-between for Dustin and Gordon King. She frequently calls Gordon's husband/protege, Jim, and after he talks to her for a while, he sends Dustin a little cash.

Beau Broke also had trouble finding a job in his field, and in fact has been searching for quite a while. He finally found an opening, but just as a lab assistant, and on his first day, he got demoted to test subject. Perhaps science isn't the right profession for him. Beau was recently married to Holly Copur, and now they are expecting their first child.

Police Chief Marisa Bendett was caught taking bribes and fired. As senior officer, Kaylynn Langarak got the promotion. I'm not sure the police will be any more effective under her watch. As it is, the burglars are pretty much waltzing out with their stolen loot under the responding officer's nose. Kaylynn has been dating Fire Chief Jimmy Phoenix, but neither of them seems in a rush to take their relationship to the next level.

Abhijeet Depiesse became an elder, so he retired and sold his flower shop. He and Benjamin have moved into the retirement home to live the good life on Abhijeet's money.

John Burb also became an elder and wanted to retire, but first he needed to find someone to replace him at the newspaper. Mackenzie Tellerman (wife of Orlando) was working for Abhijeet but got laid off, so she thought she'd take a chance and apply for the job. She and John got on like a house on fire, so she is Pleasantview's new reporter. (It's a pretty small newspaper.) I hope this is the life change she's been looking for, as raising three children has really taken its toll.

Lilith Dreamer decided to take her father's old job as coach at the school, although principal Andrea Hogan started her at a much lower pay level than Daniel got. There are two other positions open at the school: Alvin Futa's job as science teacher has not been filled, and Ricky Sims recently got fired from his position as music and arts teacher (he probably tried to flirt with Andrea and got on her bad side). Andrea is getting up there in years, but with Alvin gone, there isn't anyone senior enough to challenge her for her position.

The Animal Services position also still hasn't been filled since Angela's death. Strays are running wild in Pleasantview, digging holes and getting into fights on the lawn. I wonder if crime and wild animals will be big issues in the next mayoral election.

I want to play a neighborhood with a desert appearance. I was wondering if anyone has any tips on terms of how to decorate it. I don't want to put 'too green' stuff on there.

Deserts in the long view are minimalist landscapes; only up close and personal does the vibrant life there become evident.

Digging through the plants in neighborhood view doesn't reveal much in the way of desert vegetation, but that's all right, because desert vegetation is sparse and spiny. it will spring up anywhere water is available, so if there's any low spots that will collect runoff or any visible water features in the map, concentrate the green stuff there. Joshua trees and yuccas or agaves appear as neighborhood deco in the game, and those are suitable. Like more readily recognizable and spiny forms of cactus, these can store a lot of moisture in their stems and leaves. If you want palm trees, which don't store water as well, they should be clustered around the more obvious water concentration points. You could make a decent oasis out of the pond and some palm trees, but oases attract everything and should look readily accessible to the concentrations of sim habitation. If you have smaller ponds in your CC, consider using them to stand in for stock tanks - artificial ponds created by drilling down to the aquifer so ranging livestock will have reliable water.

Water towers are necessities in dry climates; in addition to the big one that generates the pig balloon, look out for small ones that might be used by individual households or businesses in the middle of nowhere. The clear atmosphere of most deserts attracts astronomers and communication lines, so observatory domes and radio towers (which can double as oil derricks!) may be used in moderation. Agriculture in arid areas takes the form of ranching, so the highways will tend to be fenced. Mineral production is common in deserts, not just oil wells and metal mines but quarrying limestone, gypsum, and gravel, so consider how you might simulate those.

In certain seasons and after rains, you'd be astonished how many wildflowers spring up; but they tend to be visible for short times only so use the various wildflower decos sparingly.

A large wind farm would also not look out of place in the desert.

@CatMuto The EA desert plants really tie the desert to being in North America, but I kinda like them anyway. And there are undoubtedly custom plants to download. What I'm looking for are some decent red rocks or maybe a default, so that the Maxis grey rocks don't look out of place. I have mesas in my desert hood, it's a bit sparse at the moment- and still mostly vanilla- but I've attached some pictures. I really like the 'Crop Circles' decor by TheNinthWave- I think it's more like a desert geoglyph and it looks great from lot view as well as hood view. It's cloned from the water tower so the pig shows up occasionally, and the red flashing light too (but that's aliens over the glyph, right? ). Criquette also has a lot of great hood deco like vehicles and buildings that would look good in a desert.

Here are four snapshots from my playsession: two from my vacations testhood and two from Orchard Isle.

The testhood is where my most prolific bathtub pirate , Trial Tester, lives with her huge family. I can't really say no to some of my sims, so she ended up with six kids and two bigfoot family members and married the tourist guy she always hooked up with. The pictures are from her oldest son Fox' honeymoon, where he and his wife Aditi (captured ducking a snowball) succeeded in meeting a bigfoot and bringing him home - which concludes my bigfoot experimenting for now and lets me move on to the next vacation locale. Aiken Bigfoot here is the gentlest Bigfoot I've played, I really like him!





On Orchard Isle I played the second O'Rourke household, with Michael O'Rourke, his young fiancée Yara Fossum, and their twins Alva and Axel. Michael (who has been life elixired a couple of times) finally got to age up to elder. He wanted to join the gardening club and two of the nice young ladies there (the ones who dress the same - all by accident, though it looks like a fitting uniform!) kept swooning over him. They gave him a membership without problem since they definitely thought he had a green thumb...

... while Michael himself definitely thinks he should be thumbing the green. He did some hard work at O'Rourke's Orchard, but in between that hard work he squeezed in a few dream dates with the evil witch, Saskia Selbu, who now wants to get engaged to him. If I were Michael I'd be a bit more careful! Yara and Michael got two days each to do what they needed and wanted to do, and Yara spent hers painting first masterpiece, making friends with the good warlock and carrying on her affair with her college boyfriend. Apart from all this, Michael and Yara were good parents and taught the twins all the toddler skills minus a nursery rhyme for Alva. The twins age up next round and I want Michael to bond a bit with his older set of twins before that - there was simply no time to have them over this round.

It was time for twins Brahe Neighbour and Copernicus Smith to grow up to elders, so they each held a gathering in quick succession. Brahe started at her house, inviting over Copernicus, their dad and aunts, and her former roommate and best bud Cappuchino for crisps and champagne.




Next, it was time for Copernicus. I thought he and Cappuchino hit it off at Brahe's because they had the same formal wear, but it turned out they were also besties so he invited him too, as well as Brahe, their dad, his oldest sons who live with their mother, and his old friends (and his wife Jill's cousins) Chap and Rosalina Curious for cake.
Copernicus' and Brahe's father, Piel-Divina Neighbour, passed away shortly after, but I did manage to get one last photo of Copernicus and him together as elders.


Modesty Neighbour (Cappuchino's mum) and her husband (former townie Gary Walton) also passed away from old age. The grim reaper tried to take Modesty's cousin Broadway too, but he pleaded for his life and won.


Jason Larson became Jason Blikkasho as he married his lover and former roommate Cricket.

Well, in Real Life, today is Black Friday, which quite a few UK shops have latched onto. Which I think is a bit odd, seeing we don't have Thanksgiving in the UK, and I thought Black Friday was what American retail businesses called the day after Thanksgiving, because business was always so bad that day. So some of them started to sell stuff cheap that day to try to drum up business, and since then it's really caught on . . . even in places like the UK, where they don't do Thanksgiving . . .

However, in Veronaville we do do Thanksgiving. But we don't do it until the 30th, because that's the day I started to play Veronaville. So, because today is "sort of" Black Friday (even if it's really the Sunday before Thanksgiving), Malcolm Landgraab IV and his protégé Marion Hutchins have gone down and opened up the Electronics SuperCenter. (For some reason they've taken Gilbert Jacquet with them.) And they're planning to set some of the prices "ridiculously cheap", and see if it works for them too. And I say, "Good Luck to them!" . . .


It seems that Sim Sample's influence is starting to spread beyond Lacuna Delta; I think I've spotted one or two Sims around the place starting to wear black PVC. In fact I think I overheard Malcolm saying to Marion that they'll stop off on the way home at one of the big fashion shops, and he'll buy her a black PVC dress. Which at the very least should mean that she won't have to wear her Bunny Girl outfit all the time.

All this gets me to thinking, "How would Malcolm himself look in black PVC?" I think he might actually look rather good!! It might be just what's needed to revive the fading image of Club Dante. Any thoughts?

( @simsample ? )

I've had to do a huge cleaning up in my game after fiding a few things broken like Scriptorium and reinstalled it before checking my build walls in the game.I went into Pleasantview where a work team got started in the service center construction to get the building started.It looks like a constriction team is getting busy working on the building as the ship that brought the Jankowskys over got deayled in departure by story weather out at sea.

Well, I asked Sim Sample, and of course he said it's a great idea and that everyone should wear PVC- he uses the couture of Knightskykyte himself. However, in a recent survey*, the preference seemed to be for glitter over PVC, so perhaps that would be something to consider too. Although, glittery outfits seem something of a rarity! I personally think Malcolm would look great in PVC, as it might draw attention away from his eyebrows.

*Okay it was 13 years ago, but really have fashion tastes changed that much since then? Sim Sample's certainly haven't.

I ended up loading my Pleasantview town earlier today and couldn't get live play in though I got started on a second homestead for the next couple though that's all for now.I also saw more progress on service center construction while I was there at that lot.I tested out a utility collection downloaded from here.I also got another section of wall up at the service center's contstruction site.

My bacc New Port (yes, so creative I know) is about to explode in population and building growth. Current total population is 724 with SM of 4, actual sims is 181. After they reach a TP of 1,000 they will receive a radio tower (hood decoration) from the national government. This will bring in a few media jobs and Cell Phones! Oh happy day. Try sharing a landline with a house full of teens! The grandchildren of the founders are all about to become adults and for most households, only one child gets the family house. All others will get what simoleons and furniture that can be spared and move on to their own dwellings. More CAS points, and even more growth.

All my original founders have died of old age and left quite a legacy, and quite a mess. The town is split geographically thanks to a canal and in the last town census the people voted that the western sliver of land west of the canal will technically be in the New Port but named the Eastern portion after the future shopping district. They did this because some sims do not like Aliens in their midst and that part of town gets abducted and even pregnant thanks to sims there using large telescopes. There is a potential for bullying in the coming years when more alien children start attending the one school currently available. There may be a new bacc in the future using the alien-mix sims in a new hood (i.e. shopping district hood). Or the military could be welcomed in and put a stop to all abductions (no more large telescopes used). Or the next generation might even not care about alien genetics mixing with sims. Time will tell.

Anne (nee Whitsett) who married Orlando Centowski keeps having twins after twins thanks to their love of cheesecake, and each other. They are quite the easy going couple with a free-range brood of Eight in their tiny house, and more are expected. The Whitsett's wanted their children to be "high society" and Anne was very talented in school but she chose the horrifying job of stay-at-home mom of so many. Meanwhile their only son George was expected to produce an heir to keep the name going..... SIX granDaughters later and grandmother Christy Whitsett has finally passed and is buried next to her husband Ambrose. Christy went nuts after her husband died and insisted her son George keep trying for a son, and she kept forcing cheesecake down her daughter in law. Anne used to be the laughing stock of the family, but who's laughing now? Sadly, all six daughters know they weren't really wanted, especially the one named Ambrosia. The town is full of gossip..... the daughter in law Andrea(nee Hogan) is pregnant again!

I have never had so much fun playing the game as I am with this bacc! I usually build the various buildings, design the town and then either start over or explore a little with a sim and then start over with a new hood. I have never played out the sims' lives like this as in the past I would get bored. I take long breaks from gaming in general as I can't always sit at the computer, but I think I finally found my groove in playing with the little Simmies themselves. Sims 2 is so much fun.

Don't just limit thinking to southwestern U.S. There are lots of great ideas from Africa, Middle East, and parts of Asia. I like the architecture of Yemen.

Eli and Ami Jankowsky were both up just at daybreak and getting ready for the day as the sun was rising in the morning.They got the garden tended and managed to sneak off to play on the reward pinball machines wheil my back was turned and their cash supply was up to 120000$ before I even noticed what they were doing.They got a few wall sections up for their house build before they day was out just as darkness was about to fall in the early evening.They ate dinner after and got ready for bed.

I was playing Unnamed Area and doing my best to just ignore all the Far East and Island vacation wants - dang it, Unnamed Area-ites! You have a mountain vacation hood, can't you roll wants for that and not stress me, please!

A former townie, Minx Moorhen, moved into the new apartment complex in the shopping district. She is a knowledge sim who doesn't seem to roll wants to skill up or be saved from death, rather she rolls wants for pillow fights and meeting someone new. Are you sure you're not trans-aspirational, Minx? In any case, she had some pillow fights and smustled with the landlord, almost asked one of the students out on a date but I cancelled it out of her queue because I got the notification that her car pool was due in an hour. I didn't think she had a job when I made her playable, but it's entertaining to me that she was in show biz (low level), so she gets to keep it. Her main task in the hood is to run a small store, though. Unnamed Area wants plants every spring and they need snapdragons, so she is going to work towards that gold badge and in the meantime she will be selling other plants and even Christmas decorations since it's around winterfest in Unnamed Area. Her first day at Little Shop of Holly was good enough, she is a great salesperson and lousy at working the till (trans-aspirational, I tell you).

The Bubblers got promotions and made enough money to expand their little cottage - just in time for the birth of their second son, Becker. I forgot to roll the pacifier, but I think calling Ty's work for the first time may have fixed it. They have different skin tones, anyway. Ty had a locked want of giving Sam a gift and rolled another, general gift giving want, so I decided to let them have a party again, a combined Winterfest and new birth party. Jesper Picaso came, but not his pregnant wife (probably too tired). The Starchilds came, as well as the Swains. It could have been a student reunion, if it hadn't been for Gordon TM Irani and some annoying grouchy work friends of Sam and Ty's. One of the work friends hogged the bathroom the whole evening by taking TWO bubble baths! Then Father Winter showed up to everyone's delight and left a stereo but at the cost of him hogging the other bathroom for the rest of the party... Gifts were given, though. Ty went to Little Shop of Holly before the party started and bought plants for everyone, then he went to Mattea Picaso's fashion house and bought a set of the famous cute shapewear for Sam. No sooner had the guests and Father Winter left after the Winterfest party, than it was time for the next big event, which I had completely forgotten about. McEnroe, the oldest Bubbler chilld, aged to school child. He has ten neat points, one outgoing and one active points, and eight each of playful and nice points. He'll be the Stede Bonnet of bathtub pirates . Finally everyone was in bed and had some hours of rest, then off to work and school. Sam came home as education minister, first time I'vve had one of those in ages, so go Sam!

I think I finally... FINALLY... settled on a lighting mod setup that I actually like, that looks better than the Maxis lighting to me *all* the time instead of looking better than default under some situations but much worse in others, which would inevitably annoy me with all the others I tried... and yes I had to manually frankenstein together two different lighting mods and also use a separate mod that changes how the "auto lights" setting works, and redecorate a couple houses with new arrangements of lamps, but! everything looks NICE to me now

Anyways, in the Sims' lives rather than their lighting situation.... The Beakers' lot crashed every time I tried to load it, and then crashed again even when I tried to move them to someone else's redecoration of their house. I got worried and thought my Strangetown was in a bad way, but then it was OK if they moved to a totally different house, just not another lot in the same place. No clue what's up with that one, but I decided that it means they had to run away from home and go on the run from the sim government, after some agents discovered their mad scientist lab where they were once keeping a man in their basement and all that. So now they're hiding out in this horrible little tower house having lost all their fancy stuff! and also Skadi (Loki & Circe's daughter, now an adult in her late twenties bc I have been playing this neighborhood for quite a while) got accidentally pregnant from risky woohoo so I guess they're raising the baby on the run. Before I get back to the next round, I want to come up with some rule or way to play out them "getting away" from the "government investigators", I'm having fun working out a story around the weird lot glitch

Jimmy Phoenix and his wife, Coraline are going to downsize and move to a retirement community in Pandora, where it's warm weather year round! Instead of just moving them out though I decided to grab all their belongings they weren't planning to take and open a temp business in order to do a two-day event yard sale! They sold everything, even Coraline's early fashion photography (custom paintings)! Had a level 3 business, and netted about 36K in extra money, especially as the business level grew, those LeTourneau perk awards came in handy for adding extra simoleons to their retirement fund! It was also satisfying to watch all the items disappear and will be fun to check my playable sims' inventories and see some of Jimmy and Coraline's things being reused!

What a great idea, Charmful!

Children.
Crescendo Neighbour picked up his (biological) daughter Demeter from the adoption pool. Just then the mother of his first child Houdini, Erin Beaker, walked by so he invited her in as well as called over his mum Godspeed, and Demeter's biological mother, Opal Ståhl. When Houdini came home from school Crescendo also invited his twin brother Hurricane and Hurricane's daughter Tundra. Demeter had spent until six in Opal's household and one day in the adoption pool, so at six it was time for her to grow up into a toddler. Turns out she had blonde eyebrows, which she has no business having, as well as Opal's purple hair. Whoops. So I decided to give her black hair (and eyebrows), Opal's natural hair colour.





Link Larsen and Tessa Ramirez wohooed for the first time, and Tessa became pregnant. Link Larsen is part of the Neighbour-clan, and this child will be the last one born in his generation, which means that according to tradition, he was to have a name with "love" in it, and with a father called Link, I thought it was only fitting to name the child Nayru's Love (after the name of a spell in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) Ramirez. My plan is to teleport the kid around so that he spends every other round with Tessa and Link respectively. Tessa moved into the old Landgraab house in Bluewater Village along with some friends and friends of friends.

Macchiato Neighbour kept rolling wants and fears related to dating and flirting, so it seemed it was time to randomize a gender preference for him. He ended up being solely into men, including Hector Nigmos who his sister used to date as a teen. Then he went to the gym, had a eureka-moment and rose his physical skill several levels, resulting in a platinum mood.
He also went to the library, decided he wanted to hug the apparently very attractive owner, Batty Neighbour, who he doesn't know at all (and is related to in... some way or another) and only avoided a likely very awkward moment because Batty headed off to his locked hideout with a magazine. Vidcund, who Macchiato has a bad relationship with due to telescope-related shoving, arrived as did Batty's mother Violin Neighbour and a townie. One thing lead to another and eventually Macchiato, Violin and the townie were taking turns poking, shoving and slapping poor Vidcund. When Macchiato headed home, the game switched to the loading screen just as it looked as though the townie was about to attack Vidcund.

I was thinking with Macchiato that I wouldn't be opposed to him having alien kids, but that I didn't want to force the matter myself but rather see if maybe he'd roll a want to meet aliens at some point. At home I considered trying to ask Hector out, but Macchiato went stargazing with the telescope and I thought I should let him. Just in case. And poof. He was abducted. Only other time a sim has gotten abducted just like that was a while ago with the aforementioned Batty, and that time I had a feeling it would happen too, and he was someone I was actively planning to get alien pregnant. I don't know if it's me or the game, but one of us definitely has a sixth sense when it comes to this thing. And as Macchiato came back, he did roll a want to meet aliens (again). The next day, Socrates Neighbour was born.