Quick Update

Hi all! I know, I've gone *poof* again. I wish I could hang around more but you know, real life and all. Blast!

Anyway, I am working on an enhanced version of my Teagan lot. Not bigger, just better. I'm adding things I feel make it a better lot and changing up the decor, etc. Teagan closely resembles the floorplans and exterior shot of the floorplans I downloaded. The next version will build off that. I plan to retain the manliness of the lot so if anyone downloaded Teagan for the bold colorscheme and non-frou frouiness (frouiness... that's a fun word) of the decor and furnishings, you'll be happy for another go at it.

After that, I hope to do some girly lots. Girly usually makes me itch so it should be interesting to see how girly I can get. I take way too much time doing lots now but it's all the options I always wanted. I just play around with it a lot. What? It's a stressbuster for me. I can't help it I blow 6 hours changing the colors of walls and fussing with roof slopes. You get nice, flat lots with practical layouts and sensible furnishings. I could make a box if you want. Everyone else does. It's called "modern". LOL I may someday just to be like everyone else, but what fun is that? A flat roof would be a nice change...

OK, so I checked in. Nothing random on my mind today. Well, nothing having to do with sims anyway. It's all work and no play for me lately. More overtime this week. So... I'm not sure when exactly I'll get my building fix.

Manly Man Lot

Ha! My title makes me giggle. I know I've been MIA for a bit, but work stress has pushed me back to playing Dragon Age. Ah, there's nothing like persistent gore to calm a gal's nerves. I know, kinda sick. Anyway, I guess I got the bloodshed out of my system because this weekend I finished another lot for all you devoted simmers out there.

My title, Manly Man Lot, kind of explains the decor of my next lot. It's a Craftsman style, which isn't my norm, and I realized about halfway through the decorating that I was sticking to a somewhat earthy, bold, masculine color scheme and decor. Minimal knick knacky stuff, warm colors, leather and wood. The exterior is rather rustic as well. What can I say, I had a bachelor that needed a decent lot to start his life in and out came Teagan. That's what I called it.

I hope to upload the lot and photos tonight after work. Blasted job! Speaking of which, my lunch hour is almost over so I gotta go. Just wanted to give a quick update so you didn't think I died.

Finally!

I finally resolved my technical issues with the game and found some time to get some shots of my newest lot, Ayesleigh. It's due out tomorrow. Woot!

Ayesleigh is considered Gothic Revival style. At least that's what the floorplan it's based off of says. It's not my usual style so I thought I'd go outside the proverbial box and push myself. Even though the roof was a pain in the arse the outcome was worth it. The kitchen and family room layout work really well for sims. You know how they all like to huddle together and be in the same place more than you want them to. Normally I would not build more than a 2-car garage, but this plan had one for 3 and since driveway restrictions are a thing of the past I went for it. If you don't need it for a garage, put all that unsightly hobby crap the sims want and need in there. I can't think of a better place for the sculpting thing or inventor bench. Anyway, the lot turned out pretty nice. The sim I have in it seems happy enough. He hasn't got the family thing goin' on yet but the house is ready for it.

I uploaded a few of my screenshots from Sims 3 recently. Just some goofy stuff I caught on "film". Take a look if you want a giggle. Laughter is the best medicine.

With the long weekend, I was hoping to get my next lot done, but we'll see. With the endless decorating options in Sims 3 it takes me considerably longer to get a lot done to my liking. I have a lot of fun in the process though. Having my woodwork match throughout an entire lot gives me warm fuzzies. It's a disease, what can I say?

And just so I don't forget, everyone have a safe and happy Independence Day!

Another Lot Soon

As I mentioned in my prior entry, I did get a lot done this weekend. I repeat, A lot. One. Uno. I'm so disappointed. I thought surely I could get two done. The one I did do is bigger than my last two and frustrated me to no end with roof issues. But I got it done to my liking and it's fully furnished and decorated, ready for sims. All that is left is to snag some photos of it, do the techie stuff, and upload it. That should only take me three more days. LOL I didn't play at all this weekend so I still want to put some sims in the house and let them run around for a bit before uploading it. My simmies always try out my lots for me, and if I can happen to catch them in a shot or two, even better.

I also had to run my game with custom content disabled. Darn thing won't uninstall a piece of CC and I get an error message and the game won't run. Hmph. Yeah, yeah, I read up on a few things in the forums and I'll mess with that before gutting the whole thing and reinstalling. It's a little soon for me to reinstall. Sheesh. I just need to get the bad file out of the game somehow and I'm sure it will be fine. Maybe I broke it. I dunno. I won't think too hard on it since it's easier to just reinstall than troubleshoot for 6 weeks THEN reinstall anyway. I contacted EA but they just said they got my email and  asked if I had tried troubleshooting measures before contacting them. Um, not to be too picky, but... read my email guys. All the questions they listed for me to answer were already covered. Duh. Whatever guys. I'll figure it out. I always do.

Time for randomness! So, can anyone tell me why babies have favorites? I mean seriously, how does a baby know what falafel is? How does it differentiate between the music genres at such a young age? It can't even talk yet but somehow it knows it likes Roots best? And turquoise. Turquoise? Really? Red, yellow, blue, maybe green and the others, but turquoise? What? How does a baby know? Get a clue EA. I'd like to see the favorites change with every age, not some stupid reward thing. Just make it part of aging. C'mon, not every little girl loves pink until she's old and gray. I dunno. It just seems like a really unnecessary thing when a sim is born. "WAIT! It doesn't have its favorites assigned! You CAN'T take it home yet!" I will add though that the little blankie bundle of joy is much better than the poor naked things we got in the Sims 2. Poor naked babies freezing to death on the kitchen floor.

I still find the social worker coming to take them away, ha ha, from child abuse amusing. It doesn't happen to my families but it still amuses me. Wow. I was a kid in the 80s and man, nobody gave a rat's hindquarters if you were starving or getting beaten. Mommy was too busy with her new job to bother with you and don't ever ask Dad for anything or you'll get smacked because he's overtired, overworked, and underpaid. Babysitter? What's that? I tell ya what, a sim kid wouldn't last a day in my life. Why when I was a kid, I had a key to my house, a bike, some money from mowing the lawn burning a hole in my pocket, I could cook, clean, watch other kids be miserable, feed myself, bathe myself, and by gum I got that homework done by myself every night too. Who the heck needs a babysitter or parents? LOL Ah, the 80s. Good times.

Thanks to All

I just wanted to pop in and thank everyone that has left me a comment on my lots. I haven't gotten around to doing it individually. I never seem to get enough time online to spend in one place to get much done. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you all. The positive comments have really been mood boosters for me.

Also, this might seem like nothing to get excited about to some, but I just realized I've had over 7,000 pageviews to my minisite and over 70,000 downloads. 70,000! That boggles my mind considering how casual I am about submitting. I can't grasp that something of mine has been downloaded by someone, somewhere, 70,000 times. Well, of course it's not ONE thing by ONE person, but you get the idea. I hope.

I have two lots picked out I'd like to try my hand at. A Gothic Revival type and a Craftsman. Neither is my norm so they should be a challenge. I can't decide which one to do next so I'll just do them both. Guess I'll have to see if my power holds through more storms. We've been getting hammered here regularly with severe weather. If the power ain't out I'm hiding in my closet from a tornado. It's really not conducive to the creative spirit. It's been so regular that before I sit down at my computer to work on a lot I check the weather to see if more storms are on the way. OK, I have about an hour before the next one hits. Let's get to it! LOL Yes, it's that bad. It's frustrating enough to have to plan to fill my fun meter around my lousy job. Now I have to plan around the weather too.

OK, I'll stop whining and go. Maybe I'll get something done this weekend to submit. TGIF!

Time to insert the random blurb. Evil babies. Do you get evil babies? Is it really just me and my "high moral ground" (I have a friend that always said that about me.) that thinks this is... disturbing and creepy? Really. Think about it. My son's sim had twins and one was good and one had the evil trait. Whenever something befell one of the parents the baby (I think it was a boy.) would be "fiendishly delighted". Fiendishly? This is a baby. You shouldn't be evil at birth. You need to grow into it. Be scarred for life by some horrible family disaster or chemical mishap. A science experiment gone bad. You know, something horrible to warp the mind, not born that way. Oi. Fiendishly delighted. O...K... I suppose I'm the only one expecting the baby to float in the air and spin it's head all the way around too. Projectile vomiting pea soup is optional. I think my son put this sim in the criminal track when he grew up. Go figure.

Aveline Lot

Woot! My second Sims 3 lot has been approved and is due out tomorrow. I thought I'd pop in to give some details on Aveline. If this stuff bores you, don't read it. I'll ramble on like I matter regardless.

So, Aveline is my second Sims 3 lot, and I consider it to be a big sister lot to Amethyne. Big sister because it has more than Amethyne. I added a fireplace and swapped out the formal dining room for a family room to have warm, fuzzy time. I also added a basement room for nectar making/enjoying. I have a snobbish sim that loves her nectar and I put her and her quickly growing family in this house. (I swear she's pregnant 24/7. Do your sims woohoo autonomously? Mine do and I don't have any hacks at all. I guess somebody's dream finally came true. Not mine, however. LOL) Uh... where was I? Oh yeah, amenities. Aveline still has a decent size kitchen. I had to hack some of it off to make room for the basement stairs. The butt end of the house became a mud room type thing. Still 3 full baths and laundry. Two more bedrooms have been added upstairs. Just a matter of adding some walls and rearranging others. So if you really have a house full of sims that all need beds and stuffing them in a huge room barracks style ain't yo thang, then this lot might be for you. The yard is still big and open. I added a pool in back just for kicks. My sims never use it but it looks nice. Aaahhh. Useless nice things. Gotta love 'em. My sims prefer trampolines and Sim Gnubb. I do have a sim that has an odd attraction to his sprinkler system though. He's so cute. Um, anyway, that probably wraps up the newness for Aveline.

I thank Cyclonesue for her chimney tutorial. I just built around/over the nasty red brickiness of the chimneys in Sims 2, but now you have to actually remove the darn thing because you get object errors and junk. Bah. Fine, make it harder on us builders. Sheesh. We still kill your ugly red chimneys! Be gone mediocreness! Is that even a word? I guess it's mediocrity. Eh, whatever.

Amethyne seems to be getting a warm reception so I hope Aveline keeps everyone with the warm, fuzzy moodlet. I'm such a nerd.

And, one last random thing, because I know you love randomness. Why don't we get an OCD trait for our sims? That would roll about 3 others into one trait. Efficiency! There should also be a JERK trait. That would combine a few traits into one neatly defined personal flaw. Oh c'mon, my sims need at least 8-10 traits to really have a developed personality. You know you want an OCD JERK sim in your hood. And what would the other 3 traits be then? Hmmm...

First Sims 3 Lot

It's official. I'm back. My first Sims 3 lot is due out tomorrow. Woot! I had a ton of fun putting it together and it's obvious that building in Sims 3 is way more addictive than Sims 2. Heh, I thought the same thing going from Sims 1 to Sims 2.

I'm already working on my second lot. It's an extension of Amethyne. Amethyne is based very closely on the floorplan I found, and I matched the exterior look to the image that accompanied the floorplan. The next one has some additions of my own that I thought would make it an even better lot. All the color schemes have/will change. Aside from a new external color and decor it may seem like the same lot, but believe me, it's not. The floorplan is altered and I added a basement. A whole new lot in the same shell. I often do this when I build. The first version will match the floorplan and then I'll do another version with my own tweaks. I always see potential and never cease to see ways to make something better. Why stop with the ordinary?

One last thing, Happy Father's Day to any Dads out there. And if you have a sim of your Dad, treat him nice.

Back Again

I've found my way back to the sims community. I've been on again off again for about a year and a half or so. And from the looks of the visit counter many of you have noticed. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Truly. Paranoia is a terrible thing to waste. Moving on.

I will answer a question that has been asked over and over and over while I've been away. Yes, I will return to creating. Er, just as soon as I figure it out. Sims 3 is a bit different and I've been mucking with it for less than a month. True. I bought the game back when it first came out but I didn't have a computer that would run it until now. Sad, right? You're tellin' me. Actually, EA really needs to edit their system requirements and supported video cards for Macs. That's all I'll say on that point. Ahem. Anyway, I now game on a PC. Nope, I'm not a traitor. I use my Mac for work and most other things. I game on my PC. Simple enough. My son inherited my original copy of Sims 3 and has been happily rubbing it in my face since (his Mac runs it fine). Until recently. Now I'm on the road to threedom and playing catchup. Back to creating though, I do plan to create for Sims 3. Most likely my forte, lots, and maybe some sims. I've been told I have a knack for making genetically pleasing sims. Possibly patterns. That will require some laptop flipping since Photoshop is on my Mac and the game and TSR Workshop are on my PC. Do I want the hassle? Dunno. It's an awful lot like my real life job and that doesn't really trip my trigger for a hobby, but I am intrigued. Where there is a will there is a way.

I started my first Sims 3 lot last night. That plushie green square adorned in grid lines thought it would get the best of me. I haven't built anything in... too long to remember. There's now a nice modern-type Victorian structure thingy on it. The outside is finished. Now to make the inside purdy. I had almost forgotten how I lose myself when building. Time and space are altered when I'm in that state. Ah, heaven. And I have to admit, with Sims 3 I spend an awful lot of time matching stuff and changing colors and wood grains and then changing them again and back again just because I CAN! Makes me giggle. Crazy? Naw. Just damn happy everything can finally match! And anyone can do it now, but that does not mean everyone should. I've seen some pretty... interesting schemes across the web. No giggle. So perhaps some lots for Sims 3 will show up here if I can figure out how to get them out of the game and uploaded. Should be my usual practical stuff. I know, I know. Boring. But you like it and you know it.

If you've been to my minisite before, you've probably noticed I've redecorated for my comeback. Ah yes... cookies. Mmmmmm... I'd like to throw a hug out to DOT for making a plate of cookies clutter item. I was gonna ask but there it was! Glittering in all its cookieness. All sims must have cookies! Yes, they all learn the recipe and there are cookies in every fridge. No sim goes cookieless on my watch.

Also, I'd like to thank Cyclonesue for her wonderful instructions on roof heights. Thanks to that little ditty I didn't pull all my hair out trying to get 4 different roof heights just so. Roof height sliders. The best thing since sliced bread. But still not as good as homemade bread slathered in peanut butter and jelly. YUM!

That reminds me. My self-sim and my trademark sim, Ryder Drake, are on the Exchange if anyone wants them. I just wanted their portraits for my avatar and then decided to just leave them up there. Sure, I got them up there just fine but I can't find a dang file to stick up here. I feel so inept. *cries* I'll figure it out.

So that's a ditty from me. Lunch hour is over so I better head back to the grind of real life. Maybe I'm back to stay. I won't guarantee anything yet as I never know what tomorrow will destroy but ya never know.

"Have you ever Licked a Lamppost in winter?" Hugs to those of you that get that.