More Awesome Than You!

I bought my first bubble blower today.  Yeah, kinda late considering I've had Uni for months, but bongs really aren't my thing.  One of my Pleasure sims wanted one, though, so I bought one for him.

It was kind of amusing at first.  After a while your Sims start floating, because they're "high,"  I guess.  I set 4 Sims playing with it who all needed some Fun, and then ignored it for a while.  Then I noticed one of those Sims was in the yellow, so I went to check on them.  All of them had full Fun meters, but they all refused to leave on their own, even though they were full up.

So I guess the Bubble Blower is "addicting" as well, but it's really annoying.  Bubble blowers are almost as bad as musical instruments.  At least with the instruments, they're gaining creativity while they're stuck to it.  On the other hand, they don't have that hideously long "check for tips" animation when you drag them away, and they don't draw every Sim on the lot the way instruments do.

The best entertainment objects seem to be pinball games and the really expensive TVs.  With those the Fun recovers fairly quickly, and Sims gain social and relationship while using them with other Sims.  Unlike, say, the video game console.  The main drawback of both is that you can't queue any actions for when they're done, any other action at all cancels them.

 - Gus

Very true.  I had a bubble blower at one of my college lots before NL.  One of the NPC dormies started playing it, say 5 or so pm, and when my sim woke the next morning, the dormie was still playing on the bubble blower - never slept, ate or used the toilet all night long.

I love putting the bubble blower in the dorm for this exact reason. It seems to me to be so realistic. (I'm a college professor, and I know I have students who only drag themselves away from the bubble blower to come to class.) I wish they would get relationship points from it, though. They do improve social, so it would seem reasonable to improve relationships, too.
The blower is excellent for pregnant women, I find, because it puts up fun and comfort quite quickly. My pregnant sims are often low on fun because their other needs are more pressing.

H'm, if I'm not mistaken J. M. holds the kickable flamingo to be the fastest, and cheapest, way to flll your sim's fun bar. I tend to agree.

Yeah, if you check them out with the mind control mirror, you'll see almost everything in the orange to red zone.  I sometimes use this to unstick dormies and NPCs who play the blower or instruments all night or get stuck in group research.

The flamingo builds fun quickly, but without a macro to keep kicking it and standing it back up when it falls, it's a micromanagement pain in the tush.  And every time it falls it causes the environment score to go down.  I keep one around now for emergencies, but I prefer using red hands to get fun up as I find it more useful.

I wonder if Maxis has a hidden message in the bubble blower:  If you have one, you won't want to do anything else, even tend to vital needs.  Just Say No, kids! :D

Hook

I agree. I also prefer the punching bag to the obstacle course because it builds body constantly rather than running around to build it again.

Yeah but it's a pain in the ass without macrotastics. I find viewing a painting, any painting even a cheap crayon drawing, 3 or 4 times in a row works wonders. Actually, since the flamingo is a scuplture you could probably view that too. Viewing paintings and sculptures or kicking the flamingo or gnome (a sim with 10 playful can actually play with the gnome ;) ) works so fast to get fun up though it's kind of a borderline cheat imo and I try not to overdo it but to use the games and TV and stuff instead. Besides, the yummy channel gets cooking up too as well as social and fun.

That covers basically everything, doesn't it?

LOL I suppose it does. ;) But I still find queuing up look at a painting 3 times less bothersome than kicking a flamingo, waiting until they are done, standing it back up, kicking it again etc.  :(

Hmm .. I have a modified bubble blower that I downloaded from MTS2 that blows smoke instead of bubbles  ;D

My elder sims often come home and stand viewing the flamingo for ages, it takes ages to cancel the action too. I even saw an adult doing it the other night. I didn't pay attention to the funbar though, I'll have to check it.

Kicking the crap out of something is every bit as entertaining in real life as it is in The Sims. I mean, what do you think people did before all these electronic games and gew-gaws were invented? That's right, they beat each other with sticks and kicked stuff.

I still do that!

Red Hands is great for the kids who come home from school with the fun bar in the red.  Gets them up far enough to put on the easel or chessboard or whatever in one short game.

Bubble blowers are a pain.  But I just found out that the Electro-Dance Sphere (new in NL), which I put in a dorm just to see what it would do, is just as bad.  A cheerleader strolled in, went up to it, and monopolized it all day and half the night, then came back the next day and did the same thing - that is, until I had one of my sims tell her goodbye to get her off the damn thing!  The nice thing about it is that sims will use it autonomously for body skill points, so I don't always have to tell them to get in it.

Hmm forgive me for my bottomless stupidity(TM, 1945) but what exactly is the function of the bubble blower in RL? (Yes, I know it's an object in Sims 2...)

Does it have to have one? This is a game. Not all objects/concepts translate well to RL situations/behaviors.

A hookah is an eastern pipe for smoking hash through, usually the smoke passes through water to cool it and make it easier to smoke. Westerners use lots of other things instead of water, like ice, alcohol and so on.
Pic here:
http://richardmcguire.com/travel/asia/indiabw/hookah.htm

Actually it may have started with opium not hash, I don't know.

Water pipes are also known as "bongs" here in the US and used to smoke marijuana.  Particularly in college.  I saw several in use when I attended Boston University.  This is so clearly the derivation of the "bubble blower" that I halfway expected it to lower the Hunger meter.

 - Gus

Well, it should to a certain extent unless rohina is a giant conspiracy to cause mass confusion.

Thanks for the explanations. I'm aware of hookah pipes but thought they were only used with water + tobacco, hence the confusion. Plus, uhh... I'm not supposed to know about such things.  ::)

Ahh yes ..like instruments except for the occassional piano this is one of those things that can rarely be on my lots b/c my sims abuse the damned thing. 

and goes against the rules of the "Behaviour of Maximum Efficiency."

Yes....I had the live-in gardener from DMA, and the stupid twit spent all day on the piano rather than actually doing any gardening. Well, no, that's not true. She spent six hours on the piano, then deigned to spend a couple of hours gardening before going back to the piano. Sigh.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the Bubble Blower was a "cleverly" disguised giant multi-user bong.  I mean they float around and giggle uncontrolably, what else could it be?

I'm sure we all know what the fruit punch barrel is "supposed" to be as well.

It is an "homage" to a certain 1971 movie:

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=FIZZY%20LIFTING%20DRINKS

I wonder how many kids will go to college and REALLY think those things are for blowing bubbles.  :D   I didn't think anyone would be fooled by that!

Of course, I grew up in the 60's, so I've seen a lot of bongs in my life. *sigh* Days gone by.

As far as I know, I'm not a conspiracy, but I have been known to cause confusion. Especially amongst the bubble-blowing fraternity. (Sorry - I thought the hookah reference was entirely obvious.)

LMAO!!!  I always think that too!!!  It would be funny if they got up with their hunger almost depleted and started having wants very much like a sim with a "grilled cheese" aspiration, ie--"serve grilled cheese", "talk about grilled cheese", "draw a picture of grilled cheese", etc. 

When I installed Uni recently, I used Merola's mirror to check out the bubble blowees...assuming it would lower the hunger meter, just to watch.  :P

Meanwhile, aside from being funny, it's pretty useless for my kind of play....and I cringe when my kids use it in their game.

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OT, what else is new:

Elvira! I just noticed/read your avatar for the first time.  I'm in stitches!  It does look like Michael Jackson!!   ;D  That hysterical.  MJ, the next and final step.

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Oh, that's too funny!  If Sims use the bubble blower too much, it should change them to Grilled Cheese aspiraton!

When I first showed my son the bubble blower, he exclaimed, "It's a goddamn hookah!"  And I remember seeing real hookahs in antique shops before recreational drugs became really popular.

Hook

PS.  My name isn't derived from hookah, it's part of my real last name. :)

Better yet, a bubble blower aspiration would be realistic. They'd let bubbles and pixie sticks consume their lives, and their LTW would be "live to Elder".

When mine want time wasting items like bubble blowers and mp3 players I set them on fire.  :D

Well, I considered the bubble-blower a bong from the beginning. Nice try, maxis. ;)
But from my personal experience what I've heard my friends say, bongs do not play "pop goes the weasel" all the live long day. Now, that's annoying!

Maybe you your friends didn't buy the right bong.

 - Gus

I had a little table attached to the wall in sims 1, with a bowl of weed & pipes & stuff lying on it. Simslice maybe? Anyway, smoking a joint sure made their hunger go down. :)

I thought the bubble pipe would make them hungry too.

or smoke the right *ahem* tobacco

Oh, it was the right stuff, I assure you they have assured me.  ;D
I had that same attached to the wall thing in Sims 1. I think that was back when simslice was free.

With the Jefferson Airplane reference in the name of the thing,  do they expect an old hippy not to know what it really is.

Don't remember where I downloaded it from -- but there is a hack of this object that does blow smoke instead of bubbles.

This one?

http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=49744&highlight=big+bang+da+bong

 :D Hahahaha!  Never noticed what the name of it was, and they're letting the sims kids use this thing - wow!

Yes, it wasn't exactly subtle...

That's the one Brynne