Rosemary Sage Succeeds

Rosemary Sage, who had been created to fail, and who had been subjected to an experiment to see just how difficult it is to get expelled from Copperdale High School, graduated from Foxbury Institute with a degree in Psychology.

Rosemary worked hard. Classes took effort. She didn’t always get top grades, but she succeeded in graduating with a “GPA” of A+.

She took four Wednesday to Wednesday semesters to meet the graduation requirement. She took 3 classes, then 4 classes, then 3 classes, and then 2 classes. (I find that that works best for most Sims.)

The free food provided in the dorm bathroom got better. No longer just cakes and cookies, the dorm was given Monte Cristo sandwiches, roast chickens, omelets, and Lobster Thermador.

Whoever was providing this food seemed to enjoy hiding it in unexpected places. Rosemary developed the Squeamish trait during her stay at University.

Rosemary thought she hadn’t developed a close relationship with her housemates back in Evergreen Harbor. Her housemates seemed to think otherwise. Corina Page stopped by the dorm often.

Rosemary’s close friend, Venus Vann Ironforge, was also a frequent guest. I can’t find any screenshots of that.

Rosemary continued to date Etsuko Hashimoto in an exclusive, but non-committed, romantic relationship.

Rosemary and Etsuko hung out together on weekends.

To celebrate Night on the Town, when all food is free, they went on a fancy date to that faux-Latin restaurant, El Banana Azul.

Etsuko spent occasional nights in Rosemary’s dorm room (which, you may recall, used to be Etsuko’s dorm room).

Etsuko Hashimoto was a homeless and unemployed NPC, so their more intimate romantic activities were usually in the dorm showers or other public locations.

Rosemary continued to earn a few simoleons selling stuff she’d collected.

(That Sim in the green swimsuit is Kris Ogawa-Moon, who had been expelled from Copperdale High School for no reason, which prompted Rosemary’s experiment. And there’s Corina Page by the fire.)

Mostly, though, Rosemary Sage made the most of her free time by simply being alone.

Venus Vann Ironforge, on behalf of the entire Goth Robards household, gave Rosemary 20,000 simoleons as a graduation gift.

Corina Page gave Rosemary a graduation gift as well. It was the portrait Rosemary took in the photo booth on The Pier but forgot to pack when she moved out.

(If that seems like a stingy gift, remember: Rosemary took almost all of the household funds with her when she moved out.)

Rosemary spent the 20,000 simoleon gift on a tiny house on an island in Windenburg.

(Phillip and I designed that house together a long time ago.)

She bought the house furnished, and plans to keep it pretty much the way it is.

Although she’d been expelled from Copperdale High, Rosemary’s University degree opened up every career choice.

She used her Psychology degree to jump-start a career in Education. She’s starting as a university professor.

She may get her High School degree online someday.

I Read: Mostly Harmless

Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams, was first published in 1992.

It’s the fifth book in the five-part trilogy.

I borrowed it from the Seattle Public Library.

It’s 218 pages long.

The book opens with:

“Anything that happens, happens.”

“Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.”

“Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.”

“It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.”

Tricia McMillan is a British TV anchor person. She’s come to New York to further her career by becoming an American TV anchor person. Tricia loves New York.

Ever since she’d missed that opportunity to travel into space with a two-headed alien, Tricia has learned that she should never go back to retrieve her bag.

Tricia fails her interview and returns to Britain. She learns that she should always go back to retrieve her bag.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a lot of information about parallel universes, including the fact that they are neither parallel nor universes.

A neutrino stuck an atom on one of the many Earths and created an Earth where four-leaf clovers are common, and finding a three-leaf clover is lucky, and where Tricia McMillan never boarded a spaceship with Zaphod Beeblebrox. This Earth was never destroyed by a Vogon construction fleet in order to build an intergalactic bypass.

Outside of her home in Essex, Tricia McMillan is approached by a group of extraterrestrial aliens. They’ve lost their memories. All they know is that they’re supposed to bring Tricia to their home planet, Rupert, so that she can help recalibrate their horoscopes. Seeing an opportunity for a news story, Tricia agrees to go to Rupert with them.

Meanwhile, Ford Prefect discovers that his employer, the publisher of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has been bought by InfiniDim Enterprises. InfiniDim has been making a fortune, not by selling billions of copies of The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but by selling the same copy to billions of parallel universes. Furthermore, Ford learns that he has been reassigned from field researcher to restaurant critic.

Meanwhile, Arthur Dent has arrived at the planet of NowWhat. It had been named after the first words the first settlers spoke upon landing there. It’s always cold and wet on NowWhat. It’s a miserable place.

Arthur looks at travel brochure and recognizes the planet’s landmasses. This was Earth. Or, rather, it was not Earth.

“Right planet, wrong universe,” Arthur sadly concludes.

The love of Arthur Dent’s life, Fenchurch, vanished in a hyperspace accident a year earlier. (That’s not a spoiler. It’s in the synopsis.) She vanished so completely that her name was no longer on the passenger list. The seat where she had been sitting before the hyperspace jump wasn’t even warm. Arthur realizes that he’s the only person in the entire galaxy who remembers that Fenchurch ever existed.

Arthur Dent is miserable. He wants to have a life, and wants to find a planet to live his life on. For some unknown reason, his copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy isn’t working properly, and that’s making finding a suitable planet difficult.

This book is darker than the previous four.

Then Arthur is surprised to discover that he has a teenage daughter. Her name is Random Dent. (That’s also in the synopsis. I won’t spoil who Random’s mother is.)

Arthur Dent remembers the Earth being destroyed. Ford Prefect apparently remembers this, too. Random Dent has never been to Earth, but she has heard of it. For Tricia McMillan, the Earth exists, and has always been there. When Arthur finds Trillian, she mentions Zaphod Beeblebrox, so maybe this version of Tricia does remember the Earth being destroyed.

I liked the whole “parallel reality” bit in the previous book better, where it wasn’t clearly explained. In this book, I thought it was explained too much, and it felt heavy-handed.

Towards the end, when Tricia gets mistaken for Trillian, the “parallel reality” bit finally began to grow on me.

There’s a cameo by a famous person who’s never named, but their identity is obvious early on. And yet, the book keeps giving obvious hint after obvious hint. I thought that was especially heavy-handed.

I don’t like the way that Fenchurch was suddenly written out of the story. We don’t even get to experience the shock of her disappearance. We’re merely told that this character who took up most of the previous book, and became a major part of Arthur Dent’s life, is just gone.

This book is lacking a lot of Douglas Adams’ earlier wit and finesse. What happened here?

I was disappointed by this final book in the series.

Moving To Asia

On April 9, 2024, at 10:57 p.m., I gained an Achievement in my Transport Fever 2 game: “The Future is Now, Old Man.” In the game I was playing, it was April 9, 2024, at 10:57 p.m.

I played my successful European map into the 2030s.

The new vehicles stopped arriving in 2018. (That answers that question.)

My transport company was profitable. I was upgrading vehicles as they wore out. I was tweaking roads and rail as I saw a need for improvement. But I wasn’t growing much.

It was time to move on to an Asian theme.

In Transport Fever 2, there are three themes to choose from: Europe, USA, and Asia.

The highly customizable maps come in three biomes: Temperate, Dry, and Tropical.

The difference in the three themes is really the types of vehicles that you have available. The Asia theme, for instance, features vehicles from various Asian countries, including Russia.

The randomly generated towns are given names of cities from whichever theme you’ve chosen. But the towns all have that same look to them. (And since the names can be changed to whatever you want, the only real difference between the three themes is the vehicles. That’s a little disappointing.)

I tried a large Asian temperate map, and I failed. I was deeply in dept, unable to make a profit, and unable to afford to grow.

I tried a different Asian map, and failed. I tried again, and failed. I tried an American map, and failed. I tried another Asian map, and failed.

I learned from my failures: Start with a simple passenger rail line between two close cities. Go easy on the debt. Go easy on the expansions. Expand or pay off the loan only when it seems right to do so.

I started a new medium-sized Asian map. I kept regenerating the map until I found one with two cities close to each other.

I started in 1850.

I built a passenger route between Busan and Suzhou.

I built tolley lines in both cities, to bring people from their homes to jobs, shopping, and the train stations.

Then I resisted the temptation to expand too quickly.

There was a significant elevation change between Busan and Suzhou. The first train could barely handle it. Although it hit its top speed of 40 km/h at times, it also dropped to 12 km/h at times on the uphill climbs. But people still rode the slow train to get from one city to the other.

Eventually, my transport company made a profit. I upgraded the Busan-Suzhou train with more powerful locomotives when I could. I paid off parts of the $5,000,000 loan when I could. I built a cargo line to bring food to the restaurants of Busan.

Then I got the loan fully paid off and the money flowed in.

Around 1885, here’s how the factories in Chongqing got their fuel:

A train picked up crude oil from oil wells outside of Beijing.

The train delivered the crude oil to a refinery between Ho Chi Minh City and Hyderabad. It also picked up refined oil from the refinery.

The train shipped the refined oil across the countryside.

The train delivered the refined oil to a fuel refinery in Hyderabad. The fuel the refinery produced was loaded onto a dock.

A ship picked up the fuel.

The ship transported the fuel up the river.

The ship delivered the fuel to another dock.

A second train picked up the fuel.

The train carried the fuel across the countryside.

Finally, the train delivered the fuel to the factories of Chongqing.

It’s 1915 now.

Trolleys which had been drawn by horses, and had been replaced with steam-powered trolleys, are now switching to electric-powered.

Trains are still being powered by steam, but I’ve been electrifying tracks. Electric trains are coming soon, it seems.

Life Changes

Rosemary Sage did alright in her first term at Foxbury. She took three classes. She was constantly in some combination of sleepy, hungry, or stinky, but she managed to keep up with her coursework.

She even found time to attend school events, as long as her Loner trait didn’t make her too uncomfortable.

Rosemary shared a dorm room with a Sim named Angel Gamez.

Rosemary and Angel got along well enough, but rarely socialized with each other.

Etsuko Hashimoto lived in the dorm room across the hall from Rosemary. Etsuko often invited Rosemary to hang out, play ping pong, go for walks, or just talk.

Etsuko was a Communications major. Rosemary found it easy to talk with her.

Rosemary and Etsuko were together so often that other Sims mistook them for a couple.

Rosemary had read social media posts about the fabulous food the University provides for its students living on campus. She’d read about roast chicken, omelets, and Lobster Thermador.

Apparently, Rosemary’s dorm wasn’t one of those. All they got was cakes and cookies, served in the bathroom.

(That’s not a hamburger. It’s a hamburger cake.)

Rosemary often went to the Foxbury Commons for free meals, or bought cheap food from the vending machines.

One evening, after classes, Rosemary invited Etsuko Hashimoto out to dinner in Newcrest, for some real food. It was the first time that Rosemary had initiated a get-together with Etsuko.

They had some fancy drinks. Etsuko had clam chowder. Rosemary had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

Dinner went well.

Dinner went very well.

Despite her Unflirty trait, Rosemary Sage made the first move.

The rumors ended. Although neither one had asked the other to be their girlfriend, they were definitely a couple, physically and romantically.

Rosemary and Etsuko both had a final exam at the same time. When the exams were over, they congratulated each other.

And then Rosemary’s first term was over. She earned a “GPA” of A+. She signed up for four classes for a second term. Her schedule will be perfect: Two classes are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, in the same building, right after each other, and two are on Tuesday and Thursday, in the same building, right after each other.

At the start of her second term, Rosemary moved across the hall, into Etsuko’s room.

But where was Etsuko? No one was in the second bed, but it was still assigned to Etsuko Hashimoto. Rosemary called Etsuko, but she was sleeping.

“Oh dear. Didn’t I tell you that last term was my final term? I’ve graduated, Rosemary.”

The Sims 4 Is A Weird Game, Part 9

What did I learn from the experiment I subjected Rosemary Sage to?

I learned that it takes a lot of deliberate effort to get expelled from High School.

Which means that Kris Ogawa-Moon getting expelled for no reason, in less than a week, must have been a bug.

I maintain that it still doesn’t feel like a bug, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Rosemary Sage, as a Teen High School failure, never got a job.

She earned some money selling stuff she’d dug up around the worlds.

Rosemary has the Loner trait, so selling to the public made her tense, but she hung in there and earned a few simoleons from her street sales.

She took a three-day vacation to Selvadorada and dug up a few artifacts.

Everything she excavated from the Selvadoradian ruins was stolen, and about half of it was counterfeit.

She sold most of it at night on the streets of San Myshuno.

She sold the rest of it in broad daylight on the beaches of Tartosa.

Rosemary Sage’s plan was to age up to a Young Adult, earn her High School diploma online, and then attend University.

With less than a week left in her Teen lifespan, Rosemary got impatient and applied to University. Consider that another experiment: What does a University rejection letter look like?

Rosemary had few friends, aside from the Goth-Robards household (where she’d been a stayover guest) and the Sims she’d given sales pitches to. She barely connected to the members of her household.

Rosemary Sage baked herself a birthday cake and aged up to a Young Adult alone. She made only slight changes to the overall look she’d had as a Teen.

Rosemary immediately began working toward her online High School degree.

Before she’d gotten very far, the results of her University application arrived in the mail.

Rosemary Sage had been accepted to University!

Did they realize that she’d been expelled from High School?

She made a sudden decision to sign up for courses at Foxbury Institute. Every degree was grayed-out as unavailable (I’m guessing) to a Sim lacking a High School degree – except Psychology.

The Sims 4 is a weird game.

Rosemary Sage took 20,000 of the 25,000 simoleons in the household funds, signed up for a Psychology degree at Foxbury, and moved out of the household and into a dorm.

Rosemary is studying for her degree.

After her classes, she’s continuing her street sales on campus.

The New Chicken Place

I’ve been having lunch at the Columbia Center food court every day this week.

The selection in the employee self-serve cafeteria has been looking grim.

On Monday, a coworker, after hearing that I was going to the food court, told me that a new chicken place had opened in the Columbia Center food court.

Guessing that the place was going to be crowded on its opening day, I went to the buffet at Market Fresh instead.

Behind me, in line at the buffet, I overheard someone tell someone else that a new chicken place had opened.

On Tuesday, I decided to try the new chicken place. It’s called Henjoy.

The place was crowded. I was a little confused by the menu. I saw chicken adobo, so when the guy called me to the register, I ordered that. The guy at the register asked me if I wanted some chai. I said not today, thank you.

As I waited for my order, a man introduced himself as the owner. He told me that he also owned another restaurant nearby. He asked me if I’d tried the chai. When I said I hadn’t, he told one of the guys behind the counter to give me a free sample.

The one drawback to this new place is that it’s clearly meant to be eaten in the food court. My adobo was served in an open paper basket, instead of the takeout boxes other places use. It was a little awkward carrying it, and a cup of hot chai, back to my desk.

The chicken adobo was delicious.

I went back on Thursday and ordered the chicken adobo again, plus a can of Coke. (I’m going to have to stop by when they’re closed so I can study the menu closer.)

The owner walked up to me and said, “You came back!”

We chatted about something. I don’t remember what. We didn’t talk long.

I went to Asian Express today. It’s next door to Henjoy. As I walked past, the owner asked me how the food was. I told him it was delicious. He told me he’s adding fried chicken to the menu soon.

I forgot to ask him about offering takeout boxes.

I Read: Welcome To The Hyunam-dong Bookshop

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, by Hwang Bo-reum, was published in Korean in 2022. It was translated into English by Shanna Tan, and published in 2024.

I downloaded it from the King County Library System.

It was 425 ePages on my phone.

Yeongju has left her education, her career, and her husband to open a little bookshop in a quiet residential neighborhood in Seoul. She isn’t looking to make a profit. She just wants to run a bookshop that feels like a bookshop.

She’s trained herself to be a barista, so she can run the shop all by herself.

Then, after a year, she places an ad for a barista.

Minjun sees an ad for a barista, and decides to apply. He walks into the shop and is shocked at how empty the place is.

The owner interviews Minjun. He’s leery of how casual she seems about her business. She offers him 12,000 won an hour to work five days a week. That’s more than such jobs typically pay. Does she really know how to run a business?

The bookshop owner cautions Minjun that she can afford to keep the business open only for the next two years. Minjun thinks to himself: Who would stay in a barista job for two years? He accepts the job offer.

Yeongju and Minjun keep the shop running. They work well together, but remain emotionally distant.

Minjun calls Yeongju “boss.” (Is this customary in Korean culture? I don’t know.)

Despite her casual business attitude, Yeongju wants her bookshop to succeed. She gives book recommendations. She maintains an active blog and an Instagram account. She hosts events in the shop: author reading, book clubs, live bands, and a crochet giveaway.

The story follows the lives of a bookshop owner and a barista, employer and employee. It includes an interesting cast of friends, family, and customers.

This book has an episodic feel to it.

There’s a fascinating side story about Minjun and Jimi, the owner of Goat Beans, which supplies the bookshop’s café. Jimi teaches Minjun all she knows about coffee. Jimi is constantly complaining about her husband, to Minjun and the employees of Goat Coffee. Minjun enjoys being around Jimi, despite, or because of, her complaining, and he can’t figure out why.

There’s a thought-provoking chapter in which the book club discusses David Frayne’s The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work. The group is led by Yeongju. Minjun decides to sit in. The group discusses career paths, and unhappiness in one’s job. Yeongju and Minjun are two people who’ve forsaken a typical career to pursue happiness.

There’s Seungwoo, the blogger who gained some notoriety for criticizing a major publishing house. Now he’s published his first book. Yeongju invites him first to an author reading and then later to a seminar. Seungwoo finds himself drawn to this cozy bookshop, hidden in a neighborhood far from the nearest train station. He feels nervous around Yeongju, but not in a bad way.

Yeongju gets a call from a man asking her to put a book aside for him, so he can pick it up on his way home from work. Shortly after that, someone else asks about that same book. Yeongju is surprised. In the two years since she’d bought that title, she hadn’t sold a single copy – and now she’s had two inquiries in the same day. She learns about the importance of a book being mentioned by a celebrity.

Later, Yeongju makes a fascinating decision to not emphasize bestsellers. The bookshop will stock bestsellers, but no more than lesser known books. The idea is to add diversity to the customers’ reading habits.

I was occasionally frustrated by the undefined jumps in time. It was tough to get a sense of how much time has passed. Yeongju bought that title two years ago, but how long had she owned the bookshop when she bought it? Positive events happen, but how close is the shop to that predicted two-year lifespan? That’s my only nitpick, however.

This is a book about the importance of books, of reading, of focusing on coffee when you’re making coffee, of bookshops, and of community spaces.

It’s a book about the difficulties of running an independent bookshop.

There are struggles, but no major conflicts. (There’s the owner of a real estate office who comes in every day to read the same book, but he never buys anything. Eventually, Yeongju asks him not to do that, explains that it damages the book until she can’t sell it, and he understands.)

This is a cozy book about everyday life.

It’s philosophical and spiritual without being too heavy.

I liked this book.

A Benefit Of Physical Books

I was walking up the hill to Capitol Hill Station this morning when I saw a squirrel on the ground. Squirrel saw me and ran up a tree, stopping on the lowest branch. Squirrel and I were at eye level, looking at each other. I was pretty sure that Squirrel and I understood each other. I opened my bag. Squirrel leaned forward in a clear gesture of anticipation. Yep, we understood each other. I retrieved three peanuts from the plastic bag and tossed them on the ground at the base of the tree.

I turned to continue my walk up the hill. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Squirrel hopping out of the tree. I continued walking, but looked behind me.

Squirrel was following me.

“Sorry Babe,” I said, “But that’s all the peanuts you get today.”

Squirrel stopped and stared at me. Squirrel stopped following me. Yep, we understood each other.

A library book I had on hold came in today. I planned to pick it up on my way home from work.

I hadn’t planned on taking the bus home, but a construction detour brought me closer to the bus stop than to Pioneer Square Station.

I rode a 70 bus up to 4th & Pike. I checked OneBusAway for the next 49.

OneBusAway is now displaying an ad, right on top of the map. Dammit. I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. (“Learn More” leads to a page with a back arrow that leads back to the ad on top of the map.)

That’s not a very good way to get me to contribute, OneBusAway.

Phillip had asked to pick up some sodas on my way, so after I picked up my book at the Capitol Hill Library, I made my way to Tashkent Park, to cut through on my way to the Corner Store.

As I approached the park, a rabbit dashed out of the bushes and ran off behind me.

If I’d downloaded the library book instead of picking it up at the library, I wouldn’t have seen Rabbit this evening.

April Downsizing

Phillip and I spent the weekend cleaning out boxes we had in storage.

A lot of stuff we must have thought was important at the time got sent to either the dumpster or the free stuff shelf in the apartment building lobby.

(There were books on knitting and bread making. Were we once trying to be craft people? Oh yeah – we once had a bread making machine, so I guess the answer is yes.)

We found this zine from one of our trips – or one of my trips – to Portland:

(That zine stays with us.)

We found a box filled with CDs marked “PHOTOS” and “SHAKTI COVE.” I started playing one of them. There were so many memories of our trips to the ocean. The CD I started looking through had photos of Sonar, the sugar glider, exploring our cabin on the beach.

(Those CDs stay with us.)

So many memories…

So many photos…

Wednesday Morning In The Office

Someone left a box of Handi-Snacks Oreos in the office breakroom.

What is this?

It appears to be a kit for making an overly complicated Oreo cookie.

There were no instructions. I grabbed a knife from my desk drawer and spread some cream between two cookies – you know, like an Oreo cookie.

Then I saw the word “dip” on the label.

Somewhere in the world, someone saw the need for an Oreo cookie dip.