Back to Normal

Hey all! Just thought I'd pop in for an update. Turns out I won't be away due to laptop switching. My son decided to take the new laptop so I could keep my comfy one I've already got set up for myself. And you're all thinking, "WHAT?! You gave him the NEW laptop?!" Truth is, my laptop isn't that old and I ordered one just like it. Same specs aside from a little faster processor and a little newer graphics card. Not that much of an upgrade to mine. He'll be joining me on RIFT soon and he still has to transfer is Sims 3 life over to the new PC. He's loving it so far. Anything can handle email and term papers. You need some balls to handle games. LOL So I'm back to building and decorating. More decorating lately. I dunno. I'm just in a mood. I really should do some more lots. Lots of ideas. Not enough free time. I'll catch y'all later.

New Laptop

Aye! I'm still here. Simming has kind of come to a halt for me. My new gaming laptop should arrive this week so I'll have to reinstall and all that jazz. I'll get going again as soon as I have that up and running. My son gets my old one for his gaming habit and college. If that wasn't all happening I wouldn't get a new one because I'm quite happy with my current one. Anyway, if I'm absent again for awhile that's probably why. Shouldn't take me long to get it all configured.

On a side note, I've been playing RIFT for fun. That's another 14 hour download I'm not looking forward to on my new laptop. Ah well, I'll sleep through most of it. RIFT is quite fun and the community isn't like WoW, which is what I was looking for, and my son will join me once I pass him my old laptop. It's always nice to game with a buddy. And it's a way to keep in touch with him while he's away. Work has been really bad lately so I've needed a more aggressive game to bust the stress. Sims is great and all, but a little warm and fuzzy for the problems I've been having at work.

So on the simming front, not much to report. Once the computer jazz gets all ironed out I plan to get back to it. Maybe I'll make a website again for my screenshots and stories. I've got a couple lot revamps planned and if I ever get my "office" room organized I might find my floorplans for other lots I wanted to do. If not, I'll just go download some new ones in time. And of course I'll be back at TSR to redownload all my favorite things again.

C'est la vie.

Giggle Fit

OK, some of this is in response to spladoum's comment on my last post. I finally got into Generations a little bit more to check things out. One, I did notice the added shower sex when I sent my guy to take a shower. I actually did a double take. I must say that is long overdue. I know, TMI macgirl! What? I'm 36. Sheesh. I also went into CAS to check out the clothes, hair, patterns and what not and came across the body hair options for men. But, it's only YA up. I was checking out teen stuff and poor teen boys have to stay all babyskinned and bare. What? They can have facial hair. Don't the legs and arms and... other areas blossom too? LOL I know, more TMI. I mean, the teens in sims can drive. They're not 13. Eh, fine, BE that way EA. Ya know, they don't stay babies forever. What do I know though, I'm only a Mom, of a teen boy.

OK, I haven't tried the treehouses yet. I don't have kiddies running amok yet on my lot. I've seen them in the catalog when I was perusing but... spladoum mentioned treehouse sex. Really? Isn't that just sort of WRONG. I mean, your kids play up there. Little kids. In princess dresses and swinging wooden swords. C'mon now. No body hair for teen boys but there is treehouse sex? Something is amiss there. Would YOU want your little princess playing in... that? Would you want your kids to even find out accidentally? What if they caught you? Try explaining the slivers in your behind and why you have to go to the doctor because they're infected. Eeewww... parents don't have sex! That's preposterous. OK, now I have to get my vamps a treehouse just to see. If only they had a tree. ROFL

My sims I'm playing to test this all out are engaged. They were engaged before Generations came out. I saved the wedding though. Well, they went on a date (another new thing, sort of) one night, to The Grind. It was the hotspot for the night. I didn't want to hear them whine about how boring some place was. The date went well and my chick wants a second date with her squeeze. There's a good sign. Anyway, once they arrived home the bartender called my dude to exclaim he needed to have a bachelor party before the wedding. Uh, wow, how'd you know? We were just there on a date. She didn't flash a ring or anything. Didn't even talk about it. Psycho sims. Oops, I mean psychic. LOL I thought, what the hey. So I planned a bachelor party. I could invite men and women, teens on down were grayed out. Gee, we're being so family friendly here with barebottomed teen boys and treehouse sex, guess we better keep the teens out of the bachelor party. I don't get EA logic. I invited just guys because that's just weird to have girls there. What's the point? My chick, however, did not get a call about having a bachelorette party. Hmph. I really wanted to pin a.... nevermind. TMI again. She was home for the party. She did ask if he really wanted her there though. LOL She dressed all nice for it and stayed out of the way for the most part. I sent her out to garden. It's perfectly normal for vampires to garden at 9 p.m. Don't yours? OK, back to the party. The guys were having fun, drinks for everyone! Some "maid" showed up with a radio and danced in the kitchen. That's where the guys were getting all... hyper. Right, it's juice, remember? Ahem, sure. Just... juice, and treehouse sex and body hair. That was odd. I waited for the, um, expected outcome, but that didn't happen. She was done dancing and just decided to go watch TV with my chick. It was rather funny. The guys skinny dipped, drank more, and just had a good old time being boys. The party was a hit and all went home sicker than dogs I imagine. Good luck getting to work the next day guys. My guy automatically got dressed in what I assume is "bachelor wear". Complete with top hat.

I had planned on having a wedding shindig but after the bachelor party I just decided to get them married on the beach, at night, alone. It was so romantic. Yep, can't beat a night of fishing, catching bugs, and jamming on the guitars. Oh yeah, they looked at the stars, which I must say is too cute. And they get a nice buff too. I took some good piccies but who wants to see that stuff?

But, how come there aren't a slew of new swimsuits for the kids? With the water slide in there I thought they'd get some new suits. Well, OK, I guess they did if you want them to wear their normal clothes to go get soaked and muddy. Honestly EA, don't you know what kids are like? Gads.

And you might be wondering why I titled this "Giggle Fit". Well... because when I got to the body hair in CAS I just lost it. I mean, it's not the chest, tummy, arm or leg hair. It's the back hair. Lord, you can have a regular bigfoot if you want. Gross! I do not want my sims to look like they're wearing a sweater when they swim. Eeewww. That's just NASTY. And... and... and... in the thumbnails, for the arm hair, GASP, it shows the guy from the side with NO undies! Oh the humanity! But remember kids, this is a pure and clean game intended for FAMILY fun. Teen boys are hairless and older sims conceal their antics in showers with clear doors and treehouses that you once ate bugs in as a child. Perfectly suitable for 5 and up. Sarcasm, I love it.

Oh! Oh! I have an idea for a night of fun for my vamps. I'll send them out to garden, then they'll ride the water slide to the foot of the treehouse, and then they'll have sliver-inducing sex and fall asleep watching the stars. Aaahhh. As soon as I give them a tree that is.

And thank you to spladoum for commenting. I got the warm fuzzies knowing someone noticed me. *sniffle* Ah, I need to go. My eyes are watering from laughing at myself.

You're kidding me, right?

Oh boy. Generations came via UPS yesterday. Right on schedule, thank you Amazon. I took the day off to lengthen the holiday weekend and hopefully spend some time with my son, which I did. I didn't install the EP until last night. I sort of... forgot about it. My son and I were trying out Rift online. It's Windows only so we had to share my PC laptop and take turns. He has a MacBook and a crappy version of XP to run on the flipside. I have Windows 7 and I'm not looking back. Anyway, so we were doing that. A nice, refreshing, change from the immature, annoying atmosphere WoW has developed into. For me, Rift is more what I look for in an RPG so I might actually play it and smile. So far it's been fun.

Once I tore myself away from killing stuff, I installed Generations. Ho hum, usual install nonsense. Had to patch too. Good grief. Ya know, when you open a game case and there isn't a manual, even a small one, it doesn't bode well. So I guess I go nuts and screw up my sims lives because there's nothing to notate changes. There's not even a Prima guide, which also set alarms off for me. Hrm... I didn't play all that long since it took forever to patch and install the stupid thing, and it was late to boot since I was happily exploring Rift all day.

First thing amiss I noticed was my butler was gone. Again. Look, can we install an EP without screwing over the butler for a change? So I hired a new one. I don't even remember if he showed up. Then I noticed the age meters were not right. I found the new tab and adjusted all the ages accordingly. This is an option I feel should've been in Sims 2 and should've been in Sims 3 from the start. Is it really that hard to let us have a baby for a day and die a happy elder after 2 days? Who the heck wants elders around for 80 days anyway? I swear my sims never die. Cripes. Granny will scuffle around for decades and then I'm forced to... create a mishap so I have room in the house for another sim again. Elders do wear out their welcome eventually. I don't find EA's version of old age entertaining. Not in Sims 2, not in Sims 3. I'll admit to killing my sims off in adulthood, right before they age to elder, just so they don't have to go through it. And I'd rather have a young ghost, not a crotchety one. If the elders were wise and vibrant instead of hunched over and depressing I'd let them live. I don't play games to be depressed. We're aging better these days and it's a shame the game doesn't reflect that. My parents are in their 70s and they're not even close to being like a sim elder. Stop the madness!

OK, so I get past the tweaking and think I have things right as rain again. I decide to take my sims to the dresser to pick out new clothes because I'm sure new clothes came with the EP. Well, I was right, sort of. The ladies got a few cute items. A nice set of trail sneakers. A cute flirty skirt, some odd tops, and some "Mom" clothes. You know, stuff I'd wear. LOL That doesn't mean my sims look like Moms. What fun is that? Mine don't run around in minis and stilettos either, but you find a balance. There are also some more bad hairstyles for women. Helmet hair made the cut I see. Butch and Sally won the hair lotto too from the looks of it. Now the guys got a few nice cuts, surprisingly. There are no new shoes for them. Yep, no cool track shoes for them. They have a couple pieces in the wardrobe I'd use. A couple, meaning 2. No new jewelry or watches. This is all in the YA/A category since that's what age the sims I was playing are. Maybe the kids got a landslide of new stuff, but the older sims didn't and I didn't feel like going into CAS to look. I'll explore more tonight.

Now, let's get back to the dresser and changing outfits. I get done setting outfits for my girl and up pops a message saying she created a new outfit for herself and what a memorable moment it is and do I want to share it. Seriously? An outfit is a Kodak moment? You're kidding me. My guy got the same thing. NO I don't want to SHARE this! Who cares?! They did a few other tasks and memory bubbles popped up for those too. Stop it! EVERYTHING is like a big deal now. It's annoying. But if you want the really good interactions and "memorable moments" you'll have to catch those yourself in the game because it has no concept of what really makes a memory worth sharing or keeping. Lemme guess, when a toddler poos for the first time it will be telegraphed across my screen as something for the scrapbook. Heaven help us.

Gifts are apparently part of the EP. I went into my sims inventories to tell them to read books and eat fruit and there was an extra "give gift" option. Joy. I didn't try it. Later, when I care. My sims haven't started a family yet. They're vampires and have long lives ahead of them. I also saved their wedding for the EP to see if anything spectacular was done with that. I found wedding arches in the catalog, along with a slew of space-sucking, useless ugly objects I'll never use. There's this nice pile of decorative pillows. I thought, "Cute. I'll put those on the bed." No. Forget that. They're HUGE. They take up as much space as the bed. Gosh, they look like pillows you'd put on a bed or couch. There should be a warning on some of this stuff. "Warning: Objects in the catalog are larger than they appear."

Oh, and one more complaint. Why are the 80s coming back in this EP? There's this new... tux (I use the word loosely) for the guys and it's awful. Ruffles galore. Just get one in light blue and you're ready to head to the Footloose dance. Bizarre is one word to describe some of the clothes. Fugly 80s is another phrase that comes to mind. Ya know, 1985 and beyond is tolerable, but before that, no. The 80s were crazy. I have fond memories of the 80s too. That doesn't mean I want my sims to wear that crap or look like complete dorks at their weddings. Oi.

Really the only thing to get remotely excited about in this EP is the age adjusters. I was working that out my own way with just the one slider. Now I won't have to mess with it so much. I can program it the way I like it and leave it. I'm not labeling it as a fail yet, and I will explore it more soon. I just hope there is something else in there to float my boat or things could get ugly in customer service. The good news is I didn't bother with my CC. I just installed and went for it. It all works and is still there. No errors. No oddities. Have no fear for your CC.

Wow, I need to cheer my grumpy butt up.

New Screenshots

Just wanted to let you all know I posted a fresh batch of screenshots. Should be worth a few giggles.

12,000+ views!

Holy mouse-click Batman! My minisite has racked up over 12,000 views! Remember, it's the little things in life. It's nice to see activity and know I have some regular visitors. Keep clicking!

OK, celebration aside, I'd just like to say how much fun I'm having. I'm back in the game and playing my vampire again. I had forgotten how fun they are. Which reminds me, I have a gaggle of screenies to upload here for giggles. I've been collecting them and have gotten my habit back of taking shots of everything under the sun, because I can. I know some don't like freewill but I encourage folks to keep it on, especially if they really want the fun meter to rise. I keep mine on the high setting. They do the wackiest stuff if you just let them run a bit. That makes for great photos. And some of that stuff will never happen if you don't let sims do what sims do when and where they want to do it. Sure, I've gotten my handful of "surprise" babies from certain extracurricular activities my simmies sneak off and do when Mom isn't watching, but for the most part, it's a blast. Nope. No hacks. My sims in Sims 3 have always autonomously woohoo'd if I didn't keep an eye on them at all times. Don't yours? Freewill, try it.

Anyway, I still haven't gotten the build bug but I have gotten all my CC reinstalled and sorted. Ah, it feels so good to be organized. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to organizing files and tossing things out. And it's a crime EA releases the next EP AFTER a holiday weekend. How rude! I can't believe May 31 is almost here. My son's high school graduation is this weekend so I'll be kind of busy. *sniffle* My little baby is all grown up. He'll run off to college and forget about poor old Mom. But maybe not. I'm not the "ordinary" Mom most kids have and I think my son has always been proud of that fact. Yep, I'm weird and that's all right. Heck, last weekend I bought my kid GTA4 so he could be online with his buds. Then I spent the afternoon and evening watching my son raise hell and bantered back and forth with teen boys. We use Skype so it's like they're there. We all get along fine. Usually, they forget I'm a Mom until my son has to scold them for saying something completely inappropriate to me. LOL Ya know what, they're pervs, and I accept that. I just roll with it. I know they do it on purpose sometimes just to get his dander up. He's so cute when he's overprotective.

I'm really looking forward to today getting over. The work day anyway. The college I work for is closed tomorrow for some construction work so I get a headstart on the weekend! I can never have too much freetime! I'm still sorting my office out. Once I get that put back together I'll be back to building most likely. I'm very serious about my gaming and I must have the appropriate atmosphere for optimum creativity.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Who Knew

I have to laugh at myself. Really. I'm quite silly. I stopped playing my sims around the time I got Outdoor Stuff, or whatever that pack is called. See, I can't even remember. That last one, whatever it was. Anyway, I'm working on redecorating one of my lots so I can get my vampire started again. I do so love my vampys. Um, yeah, anyway, as I was going through the catalog I came across the hot tubs. A lot more hot tubs than I remember. Odd. Where did all those come from? Oops, oh yeah... I never did play the game with the new stuff pack. ROFL I'm a dork. See, I am not kidding when I say I totally forgot where I was, what I was doing, and gutted my game. I had to! How could I go on like that? So lost, and alone. Surrounded by CC and not knowing from whence it came? The negosity!

But I'm back in the swing of things. Not building yet since I want to get this lot all purdy for my sim so I have a family going in time for Generations. I do like to test things out with my own sims instead of random premade sims in the hood. I don't know why I'd rather torture my own. I'm a good person, what can I say? I will hold off on weddings until the end of the month because I really miss the hoohah of the past. Getting married can be a big deal. So I'd like the option again to fuss over it or just whisper to each other by the pond. I do whatever fits my sims... or my mood. Mwhahahahahahaha. No sims were harmed, at least not permanently, in the process of living out my virtual fantasies. OK, reword that. It sounds kinky and I'm not kinky. I still have the blur on for Pete's sake. No hacks. Nope. Not a one.

As for building, I keep going back to my Ayesleigh lot. I do want to redo that for you all. I can always improve something. So that might be my next venture for the creating world. I've probably gotten quite rusty on the intricacies of build mode anyway. I'll cuss at the roofs and mutter at the stairs. And so help me... "Can not intersect other objects." better not pop up on my screen. I'll have to use a cheat or something. Dang it all.

I am having quite a bit of fun rounding up new CC here on TSR as well as dumping in some of my old. I've jettisoned quite a bit too. Gotta make room for more. There's always neat stuff out there. Can't have enough clutter.

Lunch break is over so I better get back to work. Y'all should be seeing more of me in the days to come.

Where was I?

I should return to the creating world soon. I finished my "perfect" runthrough of Dragon Age 2 and have my post campaign file all ready for the next sucky installment. Well, I hope the next isn't sucky, if there is a next. I didn't like this one, nuff said, moving on.

So I gutted my game in preparation for the next EP. I had no idea where I was anyway. I'm starting to put my CC back bit by bit. I'll be back here downloading some things again I'm sure. I always think I have backups of everything, but some things still slip through the cracks.

Once I put DA2 back on the shelf I tried out Sims Medieval. I wasted money on it so I figured I might as well at least give it a try. I can say I gave it a good shot. It took me three tries to force myself to finish the tutorial. OMG... boring. It didn't get much better after that. I  played long enough to be well-loved by all, built a church and tavern. What a nice combo, eh? Beat up the jester, after I fired him, to get rid of a negative blood thirsty moodlet. He deserved it. He was a jerk. I guess the game was somewhat amusing. I just don't get why they went backwards in gameplay. Why the dollhouse view? Why no aging? Why does everything take incredibly long to do? And giving us the fast forward button isn't a solution. It still takes too long and it's boring. Maybe I'm too hard core RPG. I mean, I don't want that much help when I play a game. I want to be left alone and do what I want to do and figure stuff out on my own. I don't want every waking moment dictated, pointed at, and nagged. And you can botch picking wildflowers. Seriously? Picking flowers? A fail? What, now they're taking note of Blizzard's past ignorant ideas? If you were in herbalism in World of Warcraft you used to fail at "harvesting the herb". All you did was bend over, no, they don't even bend over, and pick the flower. Pick... a... flower. FAIL. What? How did I miss the flower? Am I blind? The flower is right here at my feet, disproportionately large to everything else, and it's the only thing I get the icon to click on in 10 miles. How did I miss it? How can I not pick it? How did I fail? Good Lord. Thankfully Blizzard did away with that ignorant feature but it seems EA missed it or something so they put it in their game. It was so needed. Truly. We all need to be put in our place, humbled, by the mere failure to pick flowers correctly. The Watcher says so. Whatever. And WHAT is with the "wax on, wax off" praying? Is my monarch a friggin' mime? Actually, the game was more fun when I just gave up and let my sim sit around drinking ale and reading bad novels. I love, not really, the "collect some wood, get some stone, and kill a bear" quests, but don't let anyone see you. Poof! My sim goes to his little secret place to do the deed. Wow. When was chopping wood and mining stone a top secret government notion?  And I can watch my sim duel some stupid bandit for 20 minutes but I can't see him poke at a bear? If I'm The Watcher, shouldn't I be WATCHING something? Oh, I am, my sim is over there, playing in the bushes, for hours. Right. I'll just um... go make myself some supper and come back later. I just want a medieval neighborhood for my sims. Where everything is medieval and themed. The clothes and chivalry and radial menu choices are all quite quaint. Some of the female hairstyles are quite nice as well.

Alas, it was a depressing weekend of bad games. I'm back to Sims 3 and working on getting my hoods going again. Freedom.

Been Away

I know, I know. Where have I been? Well, I've just been busy. I moved recently and I've finally gotten the mess down to one room. Things are about back to normal for living conditions. Unfortunately it's my office/computer room/spare room that's left. I've been making do with my laptops in the living room for fun and frivolity. I get by.

I've also been playing Dragon Age 2. I blew through it once with ease and displeasure. Now I have a bug up my butt to get my one perfect completion file, archive it, and be done with it all. This installment was an epic fail in my opinion so I'm not interested in doing any more than what's necessary to have a save file for round three. At this point I hope there isn't a three. This one was such a... a... lemme think... such a hopelessly boring, meaningless, immature, vulgar, poor excuse for a "sequel" that I'm ready to go back to board games. Where's my Monopoly gone? It sucks. 'Nuff said.

OK, sucky games aside, I have been stopping by TSR daily to check in and sort of stay up on creations. I have a folder bursting at the seams with stuff I've downloaded since I moved, but haven't installed. I think I'm ready to get back to Sims 3 once I get my game domain (the room left to do) in order. I have to be in my environment to really enjoy my games. I can't just sit on the couch with my laptop, watching vapid TV shows, and sim. That's not really taking my hobby seriously. No. I like to surround myself with my name books, house floorplan collection, binders full of... simmy stuff, and have lots of desk space to write stuff down, track families, and create. Although I think my creating will be whittled down to building. It's what I do and I've given up all hope of ever having the time needed to delve into designing other things or learning new creation skills. I have a full time job already. My hobby doesn't need to become one.

Oh, I also got Sims Medieval. My son dove into that the day I got it and within a half hour we were disappointed beyond tears. Good idea, lots of potential, sucky execution. I haven't played it yet but I probably won't waste my limited free time on it after watching my son. He gave it plenty of time and several different attempts and it just ain't got it. We were so excited too. I do hope to see someone bring the hairstyles to the Sims 3. Some of those are worth keeping. Maybe some of the clothes for that medieval flare. But the rest can go play in whatever that stupid pit they put in the game is. Anus of the underworld I guess. I feel the game was nothing more than a HUGE step back in simdom. We're better than that now. Don't get lazy.

Anyway, I should go. Got stuff to do today and my game domain awaits my organization skills. I'm here. I might just not say anything for awhile. I will be back soon though.

Outside the Box

Phew! I'm all moved in and the boxes are getting less and less. I really don't want to do this again. What a nightmare. But, I'm here and settling in slowly. I hope to be back to the world of fun soon. So many boxes...