I had A Moment playing Sims 4. I’m working on the final item for the Checklist Challenge: “Toilet paper one of the University statues.” I sent Molly Jr. to do this and discovered you can yarn bomb the statues.
Which is wild because, like, I started that. That’s me.
On a whim, back in 2004, I knit a sweater for a sad sidewalk tree outside my office in Seattle. A photographer for the local weekly newspaper noticed it and snapped a picture. They put that picture on the cover of the following week’s edition, which jumped to the internet, and the next thing I knew, I was Internet Famous.
My friends framed me a copy, and I keep it as a reminder that this really happened. It was a wild time!
And here I am, yarn-bombing in The Sims 4. I just… wow, man. Life is weird.
In February 2000, I was working a sysadmin job on the night shift, providing tier 2 Unix server technical support for a web hosting company. Fixing Apache configuration problems, that kind of thing.
I was at max level for the job position but I didn’t have a clear route forward, mainly because I was on the night shift. Night shift paid a 25% shift premium, and working nights helped reduce my stress. (Have you ever gone grocery shopping at 2 am? It’s the best! Not a single other shopper in the whole entire store.)
That being said, it was a boring and lonely time for me. The job wasn’t challenging, and I rarely got to see my friends and family.
Then I heard about an interesting new game called “The Sims.” I was so intrigued that when the game was released on February 4, 2000, I stopped by Circuit City to pick up a copy. I remember sitting in the parking lot after my shift on Friday morning, waiting for the store to open, wondering if this was stupid and I should go home.
I installed The Sims on my giant, clunky, top-of-the-line-for-its-day laptop and spent the entire weekend playing. I was fully hooked by the time my work week started the following Monday night. I brought my laptop to work and kept The Sims running on my desk beside me while I worked. (The night shift was pretty loose, and I was the person in charge of things, anyway.) Other night-shift folks stopped by periodically to check in on the latest Sims drama.
Bob Newbie was the star of my game. He divorced Betty, had an affair with Mortimer Goth, broke up the Goths, married Mortimer, and served as a wonderful stepfather to Cassandra.
And I’ve been playing The Sims ever since.
So here’s to 24 amazing years! The Sims has brought me so much, including joy, grief, real-life friendships, and 15 years of more-or-less continuous blogging.
