07.30.04 - 6:38 a.m.

We had a Sim near-tragedy on Wednesday night. It was a landmark Sim moment in some respects, but After a few tiny kitchen fires, we had previously sat all eight members of the Alias household down and forced them to read cookbooks for a few hours. This, we thought, would get their points up sufficiently that we could buy them the grill. You see where this is going, right? Poor Jack decided to make burgers, created a raging inferno that enveloped the grill, the tiki bar, the tiki trash can and half the patio, and Evil Sexy Sark and Francie ran right into it. Aw. The Grim Reaper scythed both down, in the primes of their little pointless lives.

Awesomely enough, Sark got a tiny ghetto tombstone while Francie got a big monument. Maybe it was her job as a convenience store clerk that made her more worthy, whereas Sark, feeling too self-important in his villainy, would not allow himself to be placed on any career track other than Criminal. Which he never got around to doing.

But alas, I missed not having Sark around the house, so we closed it without saving and brought them back from the dead. Not saving, however, meant that we missed a lot of other fun things that happened over the course of that game - namely Sloane drinking a red potion and Nicky Hilton falling in love with him. These are the cruel, cruel decisions you make when you are forced to save someone's life.Sark would have made a damn fine ghost addition to the house, but I need him there to keep using the voodoo doll on others.

Now I must do what I woke up at 6am to do and revise this press release. Being a media flack is HARD, y'all. At least I'm not trying to flog stupid product shit and I can just attempt to entice people to cover and review the most pointless exhibitions ever. I'm talking puppets and performance spray painting here.