4 Things I can tell you about the Sims 4.

1. The first thing I did was make a Sim version of myself, because I am either a narcissist or extremely uncreative when asked to play God, and I'm very pleased that there are finally some options for long hair that don't appear to have been sponsored by Super Glue. You know what I mean, the kind where your Sim looks down and their hair pops up at a 90 degree angle away from their neck behind them? I ain't about that life. I am satisfied with this hair. 

Pale, big hair, vaguely terrified expression, thinking about food? Yep, that's me. 

  2. The click and drag customization makes things a lot easier. I can finally give my Sim thunder thighs like mine. I know that sounds like I'm being self-deprecating but I'm not, "thunder thighs" sounds awesome to me. I took that term and ran with it; named mine Thor and Odin. They dole out punishment to foolish mortals through swift thundering kicks. 

3. The money cheats still work. I'm trying not to cheat though (you'll notice Sim-me up there has just over 4,000 simoleans to her name), so Sim Jacki is dirt poor, just like real Jacki. Yaaay realism?

4. It's also still really easy to set your  house on fire. I know because I did it twice in the first ten minutes I had the game. How did I do it twice, you may ask? Well, good friend, that would be because I did it once, then my game crashed and when I re-did everything I did it again. #skillz. 

     That's my only problem with the game so far, actually: it crashes. A lot. I don't know if it's something that needs to be patched on their end or if my computer is just not having it, but it's really annoying. I mean, I've gotten into the habit of saving my games with neurotic frequency over the years, so I don't ever lose that much progress, but I can only restart the game so many times before I have to walk away making weird angry sounds and doing arm flails to burn off the frustration. 

New Low

Ever since I updated the Sims 3 to the latest version, it's been really glitchy. As in, it crashes. It crashes a lot. This leads to some really obnoxious losses of progress, since I'm in the middle of forcing my Sim-self to read cookbooks 24 hours a day in order to become a master chef (as one does). Like last night.  I'd just sent sim-Jacki to the bookstore to get more cookbooks, when lo and behold, outside the store stands a handsome-ish sim! If you don't play the Sims, note that finding a decent-looking one can be somewhat...challenging. Finding one is definitely cause for putting militant book-reading on hold. 

So we got to chatting, and it turns out he's in journalism, and some of his traits include "bookworm" (at a bookstore? You don't say!) and "good" (so I know he's not a sociopath. Would that dating was so straight-forward in real life) and is single. Oh, yay! I thought. A hursband for mah see-im! We "enthused about books" and "asked about career" for a while before saying our goodbyes.

Then my game crashed, losing everything I'd accomplished and effectively un-meeting my boo.

So I did everything again. Re-read all the cookbooks I owned. Went back to the bookstore. Re-met Sim-Boo. 

And it crashed again. At this point I decided I'd be fanatical about saving from then on. 

So, for a third time, I re-read all my books. And went back to the bookstore. But, what's this? Sim-Boo wasn't there! So I waited.....

Who's that lurking 'round the corner? Oh, it's me.

....and waited.....

Gettin' dark out here.

....and waited....

Ow, there's something in my eye...I think it's a bit of despair.

...and lurked in the bushes and waited some more....

Hi!

FOR FIVE DAYS. FIVE DAYS OUTSIDE THE BOOKSTORE. Reading my books quietly in the shadows to pass the time, shooing away anyone who tried to talk to me, I lurked. But he never came back. Finally I gave up and went home, cleared the pile of moldy newspapers off my driveway, and went to bed. (I'd been using a cheat to just pull my energy and hunger and whatever else meters back up when they got too low, but I was starting to feel guilty about suppressing my Sim's hunger and sleepiness instincts like an amphetamine addict.)

And if you think the "new low" referred to in the post title was stalking my Sim-boyfriend that I hadn't even technically met yet at his favorite hangouts, you're wrong.

Because the new low is actually the part right after that, where I went around the entire city looking for his house (they're labeled by last name, see, and I did know his name...) and then straight up WENT TO HIS HOUSE at like, midnight to introduce myself, then use that same meter-dragging cheat to immediately drag our relationship-meter to the top, making us super-close so that we can fall in love and get married. That's basically the Sim equivalent of hiding in the shrubberies by his front door with a choloroform-soaked rag.

And then I saved, so that I will never have to sink to that low again.