'Simscreating' my rl house...

is not that simple :P  First of all, the architects who designed this house put the doors all wrong, so I bet my Sims will have problems getting into the kitchen, just like I do with bags full of shopping.  Then there's the mezzanine in eldest daughter's room - there's no ladders to be found (for stairs the room's far too small) that will get my simsdaughter up to her desk to make her homework.  The attic is already stuffed with junk - but no-one will ever be able to get anything as there are no foldable attic stairs either...  I think I will try my hand at making a compost heap and a rabbit hutch - and a somewhat smaller willow tree - to finish off my garden.  Oh, and need to find a skylight for the garage.

The outside is looking almost fine...

Up to this morning :P  I will have to sort through CycloneSue's stuff now to 'decorate' my garden.  There seems to have been a freak storm last night and the garden is a tip... 

I fear I will have to postpone virtual building to do some real life clearing up :P

Up, up and awaaayyy....

Woohooh! Take that, Murphy!

With a bit of tinkering - and the advice of the boy-next-door, well, across, but we're not splitting hairs ;) - I finally got my Sims up and running again - just in time before my subscription runs out, so now I know it's worth renewing :D

I had to throw the towel into the ring and buy a new graphics card.  Instead of going for one of those on the list provided with the game, I opted for an ATI Radeon HD 5830.  According to my 'gaming connoisseur' neighbour, that should keep me gaming for a while yet.  It looks fierce enough with all them copper pipes for sure - it barely fitted in my slim tower :D 

After every installation, things were running smoothly - until we reached Ambitions and the dreaded patch.  You guessed it - black screen, crash back to desktop - aarghhh...  I went back to the thread I started some time ago and reread the comments.  Started   with the DEP configuration and Woohooh!  Things are back up!  Phew!  Of course I had to go and buy Late Night now too :D  I have to admit it was with some trepidation I installed, did the DEP and then tried it out - but it worked - result!

So now I have lots to catch up on and new things to try out.  Let the Games begin! :D

Happy New Year and an update on my troubles...

First of all, a very Happy New Year to all passers by - and even to those who don't ;)  *hands out drinks and nibbles of choice*  Cheers!

Now the update - well, it still doesn't work >:(  I even have a new screen as the old one was (a little bit) on the blink but nada, zip, zilch, nothing - the screen still goes in standby barely a minute in the game.  So, there's only one solution left to me (bar getting another top of the range gaming pc, but my piggybank won't appreciate that) and that's looking into getting a new graphics card as the one I have - quite a good one (NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 to be precise) I might add, as 3D benchmark programs haven't got any problems with it - isn't supported by Sims3 (booh! :P).

But imagine my horror when I found out that the forums aren't working - oh noes!! - all those nice people I had gathered to help with my problems, gone, away in limbo!  What to do, what to do?  *Sigh*  Off we go to dig around on the net...

Feel free to add suggestions here, it's not as we're going to walk over one night of ice before we take such a heavy decision on what to alter in the innards of our favourite toy ;)

Sad :(

*Sigh*

Heavy sigh even...  My Sims broke and I don't know how to fix it.  I've been busy for days now - with the help of very friendly people on the forums and the support help of EA itself, but nothing seems to work.

Today I gave up and put my pc back to factory settings, hoping this would do the trick.

Nothing.

Still the screen switches off.

I don't like this, that's for sure!

Have a look at the help forum - maybe you can give a hint?  Or did you suffer the same fate?  How did you resolve it?

Well, I'm sad :(

Gathered enough Kudos to open a Gallery

The only thing that I had to figure out was what to post in there :/

Didn't have far to think - I'll just post whatever makes me tick besides Sims3.  So expect quite a lot of food pics ;)  I'll save those of the kids, cat and other pets for Facebook :D

Many more 'cookumentaries' are featured on my Flickr site and blog.  Fair warning though, for those who are vegetarian: I'm not ;)

Invisible screenshot - very weird

I uploaded a screenshot and according to my preview in my screenshot table everything is alright, the picture shows properly, the message underneath shows fine and the links in there all work.  The funny thing is that when I view it in my overview I get a blank 'window' with only a link in saying 'here'.

At first I thought that something went screwy due to the html tags as that is also the first link showing (as that also said 'here'), but when clicking that you go to the popup window, which shows normally.  Clicking 'details' gives you the proper page, where everything is normal too.  On my minisite however, it doesn't show at all :(

But now the weirdest thing! When I open an extra browser and DON'T log in there, the screenshot shows totally normally on my minisite.  So that's a first - non-subscribers can see my screenshot but subscribers can't - I always favoured the underdog :D

If anyone would have a clue at what went wrong - feel free to shout!  I sent a support ticket too, but more heads are always better :D

edit after having another look at my 'all screenshots' page - O.O - the weirdness isn't finished yet - when you scroll completely down there's the little bugger naughty one hiding!  He just slipped all the way down.  Now I wonder if any of you see it too, or am I the only one seeing things today?  I just hope no pink elephants will start appearing soon :P

Polls and pitfalls

Creating a poll is tricky - and editing them isn't easy - can't shuffle the questions around it seems - pleh!  Now how do I close the first one and show the second?  Maybe I should have read the manual before jumping in headfirst :P  To be continued...

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle

Do you know that little puzzle game where you have a square of sliding tiles with one missing and you have to slide them around till you have the proper picture?  When I was small, I always used to break out the tiles in the end and stuff them back the proper way, just like I 'broke' my Rubic cube by pulling off the coloured squares and sticking them back on :D

Anyway, that's what I have been doing with my minisite too.  I discovered there are heaps more pods available, so I have been adding, removing and re-adding some, shuffling them around until I thought I had a bit of a presentable 'shop window'.  I hope you guys find your way around it too :)

All this was to accommodate some more of my screenshots.  Mutske has made some fabulous window sills and I wanted to show them off in my game.  Now I also realise I accummulated in the last few months such an immense amount of CC, I really should start a database before I can't properly credit all those artistic creators any more.  If you have any ideas how to do that properly - or just give tips how you keep track of your CC - feel free to comment!

100 Thanks today!

and 100 thanks back to all of you who thanked me for my creations :)

I've been building lately - and they're all huge lots and never small enough to upload, it looks like I'm just too keen on embellishments :P - and am also trying to build a new world.  Now that's not easy.  I've been on the point of chucking in the towel a few times, but slowly, slowly we're trying.  It will take me much more than 7 days though ;)

Another farm has been built...

For a contest on another site I have built a very elaborate farm - farms in Belgium are always rather elaborate anyway :D - and I thought of uploading it for you all to play, but I had to reconsider...  I checked the actual file and ohlala, it's a whopping 108 Mb!  Compare that with the other farm I posted - that's barely 4Mb.  I don't think anyone would be interested in such a heavy package anyway...  I'll just post a few pics then, to let you all have a quick look.  I made heavy use of CC of all my favourite creators.  Especially Rebecah's farm animals were a godsend :D  The farm is again a testimony of how wealthy farmers are/were here in Belgium ;)

I demolished 3 lots in Riverview ( 2 of 60x60 and one of 20x30) and built the farm, a paddock with cows and a camping ground with fishing pond on it.  It was a labour of love (laced with lots of swear words :D) and after placing Sims on it I noticed it's almost unplayable as there's such a massive orchard that even a family can't manage all the tending - sheesh!  But it does look good :D