Sim Life

2003-07-21 - 1:59 a.m.

So, this week I'm going to go to my first indymedia meeting. I'm kind of excited about that. But that's not what I'm writing about today.

For my birthday, Pookie got me The Sims, which has been on my wish-list for a few months anyway, but that I first got to try out when I went home to Halifax in early June.

I don't think I'll become a giant Sims addict - once I get the characters out of poverty, I tend to lose interest - but I do play it. My goal is to have a neighbourhood akin to a gay-themed soap opera, replete with mansions, intrigue, and wink-wink-nudge-nudge smut. I expect Andrew and Robert to move in together any day now. Both are men in uniform.

Anyway, since getting the Sims, my life has become disturbingly Sim-like.

For those who haven't played, the Sims involves guiding "average" folks through life - it's a capitalist extravaganza. You build a career along one of the career paths so that you can earn enough money to buy new stoves, televisions, and fancy toilets, all so that you can better keep your Sim(s) fed, clean, comfortable and happy. To do this, you decide when you want your Sim to fix breakfast, when to shower, when to relax with a good book, when to go to work, etc. Sometimes the phone rings, or other Sims come to visit, or you get a promotion, all with the same eerie randomness.

Simming has started to bleed into my life in a few ways, Time Management being one of them. I'll now be sitting, watching television and suddenly think "Gee, I should be doing dishes now," in much the same way as I (while playing) would think "Gee, Andrew should be doing dishes now." It's kind of creepy.

Creepy, too, is how I've started looking at my life in terms of a Sim's "needs". I'll sit and think "Well, my comfort bar is probably okay, and I'm not hungry, nor do I have to go to the bathroom. I'll have a shower before work, so maybe I have some time to have fun, or to work on my 'body' stat..."

I can't complain, though, because it's not just me that's turning into a Sim...it's the whole world. Pookie's latest job feels a lot like one of those nearly-random promotions that you get in the game, and his paycheque is definitely in that realm, too (Sims, for some reason, make hundreds of bucks a day, yet only pay out a couple hundred in bills every week or something). It's nice to have that sort of thing, I guess.

This entry had no point, but I wanted to put something out there about my Simsperience. This entry also has no conclusion. Hm.

Cheers,

The Magus

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