Competition & Recognition

It's a big day today. Nathan will meet with Odin Crosby and find out how stiff the competition for Heather's love is. He wakes up at 6 a.m. and starts the day by doing some karate moves in his underwear. Then he puts on some sunglasses and a fake beard, because what if Heather already told Odin all about the crazy guy who tried to seduce her? If he's recognized right away, he might just get his ass beat. A disguise is definitely the way to go.

Nathan drives over to the address Odin gave him. Yes! Now he knows where Heather lives! And they live in a crappy little trailer.

At least they don't live in a big mansion or something. Nathan's underground cave would hardly measure up to that.

Odin is waiting outside when Nathan arrives.

JESUS H. MCGILLICUDDY CHRIST WOULD YOU LOOK AT THOSE ARM MUSCLES.

After Nathan finds out what Odin wants for the case, Heather walks through the front yard on her way to work, and Nathan almost loses his shit.

Thank goodness he put on that disguise. She barely even glanced at him.

Sensing an opportunity to find out more about Heather, Nathan starts buttering up Odin. He compliments him on all sorts of things, and then he asks to come inside. Odin is quite friendly, actually. They end up watching TV together.

Odin has to leave for work, so he politely suggests that Nathan take leave of his home. Nathan watches Odin leave, then instead of going home, he takes a nap in their bed.

It probably smells just like Heather.

After his nap, he raids their fridge. He's having some toast and jam when someone comes in the door.

Ack! It's Heather! And he's still in his PJs/tuxedo, with no sunglasses! He quickly changes back into his disguise and introduces himself as a friend of Odin.

"Oh, sure, Odin said it was totally cool for me to hang out here while he's at work..."

Heather totally falls for it, and he starts chatting her up. He's telling her jokes, making her laugh... she even likes the ghost story he tells her! Usually people look at him like he's crazy when he does that.

He is very tired though, so he goes home and goes to bed at about 6 p.m. Kind of early, but for some reason he's exhausted, even with that nap. The next morning he again wears the disguise and goes out to dig up some dirt on Buzz Rhodes, by Odin's request.

Buzz Rhodes has a beautiful home. Nathan wonders if this is blackmail for monetary gain. He starts by looking through Buzz's mail for anything suspicious.

Then he digs in the garbage for clues.

Finally, he peeps in Buzz's windows.

But there's no evidence of anything illegal or embarrassing going on at the Rhodes house. Buzz is squeaky clean! Nathan returns to Odin to report his findings, and I get this message:

"Odin Crosby looked at me like a cornered animal with just a hint of rabid fascination. I'm not sure I was working for the right individual. I'll just take my money and consider this case closed!"

Uh-oh. Maybe Odin knows more than he lets on. Or maybe he's just a crazy dude. It could be all the testosterone, or steroids. Seriously, did you SEE those biceps?

I guess word's getting around that Nathan is pretty good at solving cases, because the mayor wants to give him some kind of investigator's award bullshit. So he goes and gets that, and as he's exiting city hall, he gets a phone call about another case.

This time Ginny McDermott's toes are getting bruised every night, and she doesn't know why. Sounds more like a case for a doctor, but whatever.

Ginny thinks her neighbor Rhoda Bagley has something to do with it. Nathan thinks Ginny is a paranoid, uneducated country girl, but he promises to question Rhoda.

When he meets Rhoda, he starts thinking maybe Ginny isn't so paranoid after all. Rhoda looks like a person who would break into people's homes and smash their toes while they're sleeping.

But when Nathan questions her about Ginny, she laughs and tells him that every night, Ginny sleepwalks outside and kicks garden gnomes. The doctors at the hospital confirm that Ginny has been treated for sleepwalking in the past. Nathan approaches Ginny later that night to tell her what's up, and he catches her daydreaming about Walker, Texas Ranger.

Ginny laughs and admits that she does have problems with somnambulism. The gnome will be padded to prevent the bruising of Ginny's poor widdle toes when she kicks it. Case solved!

Romantic Entanglements and the Return of Roxie

As a detective, Nathan needs to improve his Logic skill, so he heads over to the library. There, he sees the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. He tosses the Logic skillbook over his shoulder and strolls over to introduce himself.

Surprisingly, Nathan doesn't do anything like spout conspiracy theories or show her how he can lick his elbow. They're getting along fine, and he learns that she is employed in politics and ambitious -- perfect qualities for an evil mistress. She's also married. This doesn't really deter Nathan, who has no respect for the sanctity of marriage, but her husband's name is Odin. ODIN. Nathan is going to have to size this guy up before he makes any moves on Heather. That's her name, by the way. Heather Crosby.

Things are going so swimmingly that Nathan spontaneously starts singing a song called "Je T'aime" to Heather. She doesn't take too kindly to it, maybe because it's clearly a romantic song.

Just then, Nathan's phone rings. It's another case! But the guy is yelling too loud for Nathan to understand him; clearly this client is super pissed. They'll have to meet in person. Nathan sets up an appointment for tomorrow.

Nathan Newby is on the case!

Meanwhile, Heather has gone back to reading her book. Nathan is just about to give up on her when he feels a peculiar tingling sensation in his brain, and suddenly it occurs to him: Heather is hungry! Now is the perfect time to offer to buy her dinner!

So maybe Nathan can read minds now.

Heather agrees to go get a bite to eat with Nathan. I question her judgment on this, but whatever. She probably thought he was a crazy retarded guy, and was just trying to be nice.

As she follows him out of the library, he makes this face:

Gosh, Nathan is handsome when he's evil.

I can't tell if he has dastardly things in mind for Heather or if that's just how he shows excitement.

At the restaurant, they eat outside. Nathan has one tiny burrito and Heather enjoys a garden salad. Their conversation is pleasant. 

It is so pleasant that after the meal is over, Nathan is overwhelmed with this stuff called "feelings" and tells Heather how nice she is.

It might have been the weird face he made, or it might have been the fact that she's married and once again he's making romantic gestures toward her. Damn this woman's virtue! Odin must be a hell of a guy. Oh well. Nathan is not discouraged. After all, tons of romantic comedies have started out this way: Weird guy falling in love with a pretty girl who's already involved, but he doggedly pursues (read: stalks and harasses) her until she realizes she truly loves him in return, or until she is beaten into submission. Yes! I think Nathan and Heather can have a happy ending after all.

The next day, Nathan meets with his client, George Dean. George wants him to hack into someone else's computer -- man, what's with all the hacking? Anyway, it's an easy peasy case and I didn't take any screenshots because quite frankly it was boring and uneventful. Though after returning to George to tell him the case was completed, Nathan again performed some tunes on his guitar in George's yard. George was all, "Uh, I'm going to work now, so you should leave," and Nathan was all, "Yeah sure," and then just kept on playing for about two hours.

It's the afternoon and Nathan is hungry, so he goes back to the bistro for some lunch. He's just about to bite into his grilled cheese when a familiar face walks by.

In case you don't recognize her, it's Roxie, the man-voiced woman (possible transsexual?) he seduced for a place to stay when he was first transported to this town. And she wants HUGS.

He chats with her for a few minutes, then abruptly changes his clothes and walks away.

I think his expression sums up his feelings about Roxie more elegantly than written words ever could:

Apparently someone stole his lunch while he was talking to Roxie, because it's not on the table anymore. He goes inside to get a new one, and he stays in there for almost two hours, hoping Roxie will be nowhere in sight once he comes out.

But two hours later, she's STILL THERE.

 WTF, MAN.

Nathan then for SOME reason gets the desire to kiss Roxie. It's as if he decided that perhaps if he gives Roxie some attention, she will leave him alone.

He approaches Roxie with a maniacal evil laugh, as if this is the most brilliant and purely evil scheme anyone has ever come up with.

Okay, so he's not always handsome when he's evil.

He plants a big wet one on her lips. There are magical sparkly noises, and then Nathan speaks some madness.

This is much more effective at getting Roxie to go away. She just left angrily. So he pulled out his guitar and started entertaining* the other bistro patrons. But halfway through his first song, his cell phone rang.

He answered it immediately, thinking it might be a client with a new case. And it was! But that's not all. Get this: The client is Odin Crosby, Heather's husband, and he wants to blackmail someone in town. Nathan accepted the hell out of that case. Stay tuned for their meeting tomorrow morning.

*At first I accidentally typed that Nathan started eating the other bistro patrons. Were Nathan a more bloodthirsty sort of evil, I would say that this is equally as likely as him entertaining them. I may have typed "eating" because I am rather hungry right now, and watching Nathan eat that grilled cheese made me really want a grilled cheese, so I think I'll go make one. Life imitates art and whatnot.

Profession Obsession

Nathan is in a taxi cab. Today Nathan is going to do something important. Today is the day Nathan becomes a doctor.

He needed a job, and he remembered how much money his dad made as a doctor. It can't be that hard, right? Just waltz into the hospital and demand a job, right? It's not like you need years of special training or anything.

So that's exactly what he did, and voila! He is now a doctor. Or rather, you know, a bedpan cleaner. Whatever. It's a process. He's just lucky they gave him a job, with that molestache. Doctors shouldn't have molestaches. Doctors should have goatees.

After getting hired at the hospital, Nathan went to the library, and he used their mirror to give himself a goatee. He didn't have clippers... my guess is that he willed himself to grow a full beard in about five minutes, then broke a piece of glass off the mirror in the library bathroom and used it to shave it into a goatee. Then he FREAKED OUT about bathroom stalls.

Unfortunately, after reinstalling the game I forgot to enable the recording of sound again, so you can't hear his righteous scream.

He went to play his guitar, then, in the middle of the library. That's just how evil he is.

Hey, people are trying to READ here!

It turns out you actually can't just waltz into the hospital and become a doctor. I wanted to follow Nathan to work like you're supposed to be able to in Ambitions, but Doctor isn't listed with the rest of the professions on the computer, and the option isn't popping up at the hospital. I don't know if you have to have certain skills to be a doctor, or what, but that takes work. Nathan needs money now, so he'll take up something that takes absolutely no skills whatsoever: private investigation. Now he just has to sit back and wait for some leads.

A few days go by. One night, Nathan wakes up, goes outside, kicks over the garbage can, then points and yells at it.

Another night, he's at the library when he spots -- gasp -- a BABY. Finally, his long-held dream of stealing candy from a baby can come true!

Private investigators should have a different kind of facial hair -- perfect stubble. And hair that's slicked back, but not perfect -- ruffled from stressful hours sitting at a desk, poring over case files and whatnot. Or something.

Nathan Newby, master of disguise.

Yes, that is a happy dancing panda on his shirt. What of it?

Then I realized Nathan could now change into his Private Investigator uniform, which comes with a hat and its own hairstyle, which is a plain old shaved head.

Though in this shot he looks more like a blues player than a P.I.

Anyway, off to his first case! He goes to meet up with the client.

I don't know what's up with her eyes.

I forget her name, so I'll just call her Eyebags. Eyebags is afraid some guy named Norman is saying mean things about her on a forum, so she wants Nathan to hack into his computer and find out. Seriously? That's all you got? No one's been murdered, no priceless jewels stolen? You just want me to track down some nerd who made fun of you on a forum nobody cares about? Alright, fine. As long as I'm gettin' paid.

All Nathan had to do was go to the library and use the computer. Apparently he just joined the forums and called this Norman guy a "poopen noopen," or something equally ridiculous. Then he returned to Eyebags and got paid. Best job ever?

Just as a courtesy, after Eyebags went back inside after paying him, he stood in her bushes and played her a song on his guitar. Nathan Newby, the only private detective who comes with complimentary music.