Sim Pathetic

I’m having a very lazy Sunday. I spent most of the afternoon playing The Sims 2, a highly addictive computer game. Actually it’s the kind of game you can play really intensely for a week and half or so, but then you get really bored of it and never want to play it again. I’m not quite at that point yet though. The point of the game is to create a family, build them a house, get them jobs and so on. It’s like real life but quicker. It sounds boring but I can’t get enough of it. You’re supposed to guide your people to make either wise or stupid life decisions but if you don’t, they just do what they want. I forgot to exit the game when I was playing it yesterday and left the two bachelor roommates I’d just created unattended. I came back a half hour later to find that they had not showered and had burned down half their kitchen, but they had also fallen madly in love and were in the process of adopting a baby. It’s kind of creepy when a game plays itself.

My father is keeping busy outside Frankensteining his apple trees. With the unusually warm winter, his other two favorite hobbies, making maple syrup and checking the status of his wood pile have been suspended. So all of his agricultural attention has been focused on the orchard. I was made to take a tour today and hear about what each tree started out as, what different varieties of apple branches he’s grafted onto it, and what the new apples will taste like. We also have cherry, pear and peach trees and he’s thinking of "branching out". (I’m practicing to be a Live at 5 anchor.) While he’s an amateur fruit mutationist, he’s confident this new venture will yield a mighty fine crop. I’m pretty sure it won’t, but still, I’d be wary of ordering up fruit salad at my place this summer. You might end up with a heaping bowlful of cherpples and pearches.