7/05 - last update???

So I haven't updated in a while. I got a better computer, plenty of specs etc., but didn't install the sims. Didn't install sims 2 either - it seems I'm over my sims phase. It's nice to think that someday I'll return, but who am I kidding? Videogames still haven't advanced enough yet to go back and play old games without feeling irrelevant. What with not being in the age group mtv advertises to anymore, I don't need to feel any less relevant. Do you understand what I'm saying? MTV DOESN'T CARE ABOUT MY SPENDING HABITS ANYMORE! Could there be any less reason to live?

But moving on, I've found that I've lost some of the sims knowledge. I only (evidently) check my email every few months, and I can't seem to answer a lot of questions anymore. Sorry guys, I don't mean to be rude, I just don't remember, and I don't want to misinform you, as I can't test it in-game. It's sad, because the community was really getting to a point where they had the tools and the expertise to really tackle some ambitious stuff. It wasn't meant to be, though. I sit here and try to imagine the circumstances leading to the 400+ of you who visit my site every day. There are certainly some crazy stories in there, I'll tell ya. Someone should do a series of short films about sims fans who still play the game a little bit each day. Although I'm betting some of you just download now. I was in that phase for a while, while also creating.

I don't really pc-game anymore. The sims burnt me out on customization for a bit. I won't lie, I think Spore will be awesome - I might even purchase it. But it's been consoles for me the last year or so. I hate to be like the common demographic I belong to, but since Halo 2 came out, I've been pretty much addicted, and no resource-management games have attracted me since. No sims, no rts, hardly any retro-gaming.

I'll be honest, I really miss the hobby. If only there were something in real life that was that fulfilling, know what I mean? Because even in the most creative of fields in RL,you still need to eat, and giving everything away for free was the funnest part. Stupid Santa and his stupid elves, they get all the fun.

Anyway, while I'll never say never (imagine if violent videogames were banned forever & Cox tripled broadband costs), sims content probably won't ever come trickling out of me, so it's time for a summation. Excuses, excuses. I downloaded sims stuff, and some of the sites, some of the presentation of these downloads, was so much more elegant than the game itself. The game had possibilities, but not enough. Too many barriers, barriers to these object and skin designers, to their aesthetic senses (if you will permit me). Which led to frustration. I hope that Ra makes the game she was planning, and that Bunny Wuffles is okay and starts a second career illustrating children's history books or something to encapsulate her graphic design sense, and I hope all you great site designers decorate some loft apartment somewhere really hiply, or develop a friendly and daring ui for Window MCE or some other clunky program. To all the downloaders, download away, scour the web, and learn to make what you want. It's the only way to get what you want, right?

I figured if it happened, I wouldn't be around to see it, and I had hoped it wouldn't involve me (yay, it didn't!). But there's been a little crisis in the sims 'hacking' community recently, and I've expected it for some time. Who cares what it's about, and I'm not about to take sides, because both sides are wrong, or rather nullified, and I'll tell you why.

In cases in the sims 'community' where graphics theft is involved, it's slightly more clear-cut, to a certain ridiculous point. So-called hacked objects present a different challenge. You see, the script for coding objects is very simple - because of its disabled nature, it's also very complicated to do the things you want. As in, you pretty much have to copy what maxis did with something. The operators are there, but you can't for example 'assign' the Global Game Edition to a number - you can only check for it. So the language is incomplete despite the possible syntax. If only. Only slight alterations ever work. For example, I have a potion-vending machine, with all the chemistry-potion potions available. I didn't steal a bit of info from Oddsim's machine, I stole all mine from the Maxis chemset. But they all look pretty damn similar, let me tell you. Now Oddsim probably won't accuse me of stealing stuff when I release it, and I harbored no fantasies that he had hacked into my computer to get the files (the jury's still out on whether or not he invaded my brain, but I'll keep quiet on that one) when I discovered his (90% of my own done, thank you very much).

Anyways, the point is this. All you object hackers out there, and you might recognize yourself in this paragraph, and know that I do love you, but you act silly sometimes: you, as object hacker, are different than the graphics people. So first off, quit telling the noobs that what we do is miraculous or study-intensive - it's not that way for us, or we wouldn't do it, so just be honest. Additionally, go watch the Food network, for maybe a week, during the day (take off sick, take a vacation). Have you noticed that some of the recipes resemble one another? Chefs have lived in this environment forever - none of them accuse others of theft - even when its obviously so. There's only so many ways to roast a turkey, time and temperature-wise. There's only so many different rubs of herbs and fruits and wine you can use. There's a physical constraint on the creativity of chefs, as there is in programming languages, especially bleak ones like "simantics." We can only follow certain routes to get where we want. Finally, realize why you started doing this; you wanted better stuff for your game, right? Sure, maybe now it's all about the Fame (and the Money, and the Women, and the Bling-bling...), but originally you wanted cooler downloads. The only way for you to get cooler downloads now is to continue doing it yourself, and to let others learn from you. Imagine if all the hackers out there started from the same starting-point as, for example, Candall of the infamous female pleasure device and the evening and morning rain? Maybe some of you did, or like me, close thereabouts, in the hex-editor days. How long did it take us to get here, and how many lame mistakes did we make? I know I made a lot. I spent hours and days on stuff that I know now to be impossible, or doable in 15-20 minutes. And I want to be surprised by some young upstart with a cool download, still. And if he has to steal every bit of the code on one of my objects to do it, to just add that little touch at the end I hadn't considered, hey, that's fine. And I'll go further - if I'm working on something, I actually want other people to also be working on the same thing, and if theirs turns out different, worse, or better, I want them to release it. It's better for all the 'hackers', and by extension all downloaders, if we have an open community, an open code-base. As far as I know, I feel confidant saying I 'found' (historically speaking) the hide-for-cutaway coding on objects - but I actually just rediscovered it, in something all the object programmers at Maxis knew about. And subsequent individuals used the coding in their objects. That doesn't even necessarily mean they'd ever downloaded my stuff, or heard about "my" discovery - because this "code" we're writing isn't stuff we make up and program into an executable - it's right there in front of us! That particular code was used previously in all the windows the community had produced - who's to say one of those individuals didn't do it on purpose, with full knowledge? On a more specific note, both my wardrobex and my costume doors have unique functions, substituting one constant for another - yup, I thought of that. But you know what? Can't get a patent for it. Can't get a patent for a certain combination of paint colors in your apartment, either. Maybe a patent lawyer could explain the underlying principles of such a system, with such strict constraints on the medium and ease of reproduction. But that's just my 2 cents.

email

...try "soliduspilcrow @ yahoo.com" if any of you feel the need to email. Just too much spam in my regular site address...

Open the Pod-bay door, HAL...

So I'm sorry if any of you are trying to get any email through right now - my account has finally been compromised and deluged with 50-ish virii a day (all I did was sign up at a forum for illegally emulated video games - who'da thunk?) - so anything larger than 3k probably won't get through for a few months, until my address drops off whatever source list is used by those infernal virus machines. But you know, I don't get angry with the little virus-makers themselves - they're really just a product of their environment. They usually just have really ignorant parents who make them surf using aol or msn or one of the other wal-internet-marts that are force-fed to the kmart public, and of course they get both bitter and proficient at cutting corners - and then more naive Outlook users propagate these bugs - and the cycle of life continues. But I'll see if it dies down, and maybe change my address, or put up a temporary one for a while. I miss you guys *sniff*... In other news, I'm going to try and finish the animated-objects tutorial, and add some stuff to the multi-tile thingy - I'm going support now, as I've found I have no desire whatsoever to get superstar and deal with bugs - I want to play for recreation, not troubleshoot someone else's software. Stupid Maxis - or rather, stupid EA. They are consumately evil. I'm still pissed at their draconian licensing policies that kept Ferraris out of my Playstation games, as well. F*cking Electronic Arts. A pox on their naughty-bits. And also, the knowledge to add *.wav's to objects has been fully disseminated - finally. Now we can fully hack the sounds of our objects, which will surely balloon file sizes, but who cares? We all have high-speed internet and 80-gig computers, and if we don't, we suck, like me. But if it means I can make a computer that says, "I'm afraid I can't allow that, Dave" then I'll just take my medicine and like it.

Has everyone been keeping up with the Matrix reviews? I think this film really highlights one of the problems with so-called critics - I've found they mostly don't like the movie because they're old. Being old is not the movie's fault, dude. I'm old, and you don't hear me complaining that my eyes can't keep up with the screen. But I can distinguish between internal and external causes for movies sucking. It's just one of my strengths. I also like the ones who think the fights last too long, and too many. Uh, maybe that's because the movie wasn't made for people like you. It was made for people who have worn out more than one videotape of "Fearless Hyena," as well as anyone who was never exposed to such films and don't know they exist.

I Know it's There

Alright, I'm sorry about the angelfire pop-ups - at least they only come when you first enter the domain, and not again, right? And they're the easily close-able ones - not the java pop-unders. Anyways, I got one taoday while testing the site - apparently, I was the 10 millionth visitor to this site, and qualified for a prize! Uh, wait a second, that can't be right...

Personal Hell

So I heard the riaa has started having bots or something register on Kazaa! so they can send instant messages to all users about how what they're doing is illegal and hurting the record industry. That's funny. So if some grandma is downloading some porn, that anti-vcr anti-mp3 asswipe jack valenti is telling her how poor metallica is and that she deserves to go to jail? Uh, I know it's all overused and such, but I kind of feel like the riaa owes me money and should go to jail for having to be subjected to that shite through the years. You know, psychological damage from being unwillingly exposed to megadeath, the backstreet boys, etc. - I never asked to hear that. And I've never payed for it - yet I'm forced to hear it in public and in private - I can't turn on the radio or flip incrementially through tv stations without hearing and seeing celine dion and b2k(sounds like a burger king special offer) and j. lo and other crap-filled sacks of talent-free human scum. I volunteer to be the personal slave of anyone who accidentally impales mr. valenti with the oblong end of a polo mallet. Tschuss.

conflict resolution

Hey there, on a short perusal around TSR today, I found out about the new alpha-blending capabilities of objects post-UL - which would explain that scuba-tank they're having in superstar. So hello darkrooms - not that I'd make something that ambitious. But it does mean that if one wants to make something similar to, like, say, Raveena's glass coffee tables, with transparent glass, one would have to put new OBJD sections into their coffee tables with the same subindices - or rather, copy the existing OBJD sections. So if you guys do this, it's important to copy each section, then make the qualified adjustment as outlined at Millenium Sims, and be sure to change the object GUID in iffpencil2 before cloning or exporting or anything. The subindex, if you copy the correct existing OBJD's, will by default end up in the correct place. Then simply edit the graphics as you see fit. For windows and doors, it's a little more complicated - I think. Just because, especially for the doors, there's a 'next object of multi-tile' routine during routing that will trap your sims, so watch out (I found out about that one the hard way with my 'sliding door'...). Maybe I'll try something out if I get Superstar. Still up in the air. And speaking of tiling objects, jeez, Maxis made the rugs to use different tiles for different rotations - not cool - so that forty-tiler (and my hopes for a variety of different shapes and sizes and tiles) will be a while before coming - but honestly, do you guys really want to edit forty graphics? - never mind, bad question, you're (we're) all crazy enough I guess. Also, I'm working on a vending machine - it has all the chemset potions. While doing this, I found out about Oddsim's potion vendor, and at first decided to quit, but while drinking my Dr. Pepper Red Fusion ™, I realised I could still make one, since mine has all eight potions, plus a nice little Calvin&Hobbes-esque 'clone problem' - plus it's really fun (and easy) to do the graphics - all squares. But I still have to add four drawgroups so all the bottles are different. As usual, don't hold your breath.

Retraction

Well, she's done it again. “Bunny Wuffles” changed her graphics on her site, to reflect the sim-theme more. This standardization on her part is noble and all, but speaking as someone who has gone the old in-game-graphics route (oh - do I still have some up on the main page?), I must voice my concerns against it. Especially with how greatly I adored her old graphics schema. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it (not any more, at least) - she'll come 'round again. Only a matter of time. It is her inevitable destiny.

Speaking of Video rentals(?), I was at my local video store recently to rent "Formula 51" (my man Sammy J.), when I saw the video cover for "Disney's™ Country Bears©" - now we all know that this was an awful filmic monstrosity, but I found it amusing that once again, Hollywood touts its misconception that the very essence of hipness is composed of teenagers wearing t-shirts under unbuttoned button-up dress shirts with Mervyn's frat-boy pinstripes. They believed it in '85 (Back to the Future), and they believe it now. I derive a particular satisfaction from the fact that all those smarmy pricks in los angeles with their Lexi and their hands-free sets rounded up a bunch of their kid's friends, put them in a room, and had them pick out the 'coolest' outfits, probably from some flashcards. They failed to notice that a) what they picked was the exact opposite of what they were wearing and b) what they picked was actually a joke on what their parents thought was cool. Like, that country bear kid, despite being really creepy animatronics, would get beat up at school EVERY DAY, even Saturdays. And what happened to Disney's™ no-facial-hair policy? The kid's like twelve or something! Get him some Nair!

Aside: as someone living within ten frightening miles of the Disneyland Resort™, let me tell you, the rumors are all true; it is just like the eye of mordor. It haunts your dreams at night. Two big, black ears of pure evil.

Rudie Can't Fail

Two somewhat-related topics, fueled by pre-coffee web-surfing. First, I've been a "webmaster"(don't laugh) for a while now, and it has had specific effects on my sims game. Example? I used to be obsessed with having everything that was remotely unique for the game, every download I could get that would allow for variety. Now, however, I keep my eye on the bottom line, file-size-wise. Always trying to cut corners and reduce load. So currently and recently, no recolors, except for that one super-schlooper I got from Mc-something sims, and of course the objects which I don't really consider to be recolors, like the 7ds stuff and all “Bunny Wuffles&rdquo's toys, and the odd item here and there (like cellomaster's old vegas hot-tub). And forget about extra globals, or extra items that behave differently than default, if they're just slightly hacked maxis items. Okay, item two (I told you, this is pre-coffee): the next sims expansion. Whether or not it's coming, I can say I am disgusted, the same way I felt when they announced vacation, I didn't know why then, but now I can see my disdain stems from the fact that after Hot Date, Maxis has started giving us about 10% thoughtful content, and 90% CRAP. They are PADDING OUT their product with useless offal that does NOTHING for our game, merely bloating our hard drives. Maxis is EVIL and STUPID, and all the things that intersect within those attributes. I'd love the butler from superstar, and I want the veggies from unleashed, and the carnival games from vacation. But I DO NOT want crappily-meshed, muppet-like "pets," ugly inconsistantly-modeled objects that have far too much detail for the presiding stylistic mode of the game, LAME "country" sofas, and a HOST of other CRAPPY PADDING that they are force-feeding us. DO NOT tell me that no maxoids realize their product is FLUFF. This is no longer the game they originally released, which was NOT intended to be a full-body VR suit, nor a teeny-bopper AIM analog. Fight the power!

I think I was right to trust my early intuitions and decide against trying to get the sims fan-site listing to recognize my site by alerting them of my presence. Right under "peter's place" they'd have mine: "whoa! head on over to this God-#%^&* site for a slew of ingenious hacked *&#! And while you're there, be sure to read the almost scary rantings about the sickly relationship between the maxis pig-dogs and their fattened cattle - er - we mean 'fans'"

And while I'm at it, my 'bitter-counter'© shows that a lot of you visiting here aren't disgusted with the state of affairs. Wake up people, you have nothing to lose but your chains! This situation is worthy of your bitter-time, what you do now will affect the future of electronic entertainment. If all of you would be just a tad less enthusiastic, maxis might do something reasonable, like, oh I don't know, offer the occassional downloadable style set at the main site every couple of months with a little paypal ™ button, so that we could pay to play, instead of paying to not play by buying HUGE expansion packs full of junk we don't need coded by people who - well, I guess there's no reason to get personal, right? Anyways, if you feel up to the challenge of being an informed cynic instead of a hapless consumer, go read up on the sims history, given what I think is a very pleasant and refreshing negative spin over at:

ponderings...

I've been going through my emails recently, as a couple sites I've visited have mentioned having "multiple" unanswered emails. Insert smiley here. When I mentioned I wouldn't answer all emails, and the ones I do incompletely, I apparently wasn't kidding. So, sorry to all those who I've left hanging, but search/find down the page for "ice cream" in case you still have any illusions.

I've started playing around again, iffpencil2 was too fun to ignore. Definately check it out. It's made subroutines insanely easier, what with the "import" feature and all. But one thing popping up now, it kind of goes along with the email thingy, I suppose I pretty much do this for attention, sure it's fun and all, and relatively easy and quick to release (not like all the cool 80%-done flash games I've constructed), but it gets harder to please the "public," which is basically me. I demand, if not perfection, then utility, innovation, and ease of use. I don't want to release anything that requires changing basic game features, I want to only add modular choices, and these choices must have some semblance of a practical purpose (with many notable exceptions - like my "free gift" at my sub-contracting site) - and they must be relatively new. I've been trying to improve my npc's, so that they do different things than usual - a big problem here is my lack of Unleashed. So many options, but since I don't play anymore, it's hardly worth the size it takes up on my machine. As for the innovation thingy though, that's a big thing now - no need to make so many things, due to redundancy in the community - pool toys, dropping decoratives, exotic and special npc's - despite the fact that a disturbing number of these things are on some - well, okay, it's just the one - paysite (shipping and handling? - my a$$... no more condescending euphemisms, please, we're all adults here). Anyways, the way I see it, the game is fun and all, but after a couple months, it's not exciting anymore to just play straight, especially since we've seen all the interactions millions of times. Currently I'm trying to get the meshes out of the online game, because that's step one to extracting the animations, and the "watusi" - I want my sims offline to watusi. But back to the point, after a couple months the only way to play is to cheat, and so we're left with rich, bored sims. What's a sim deity to do? After designing lovely mansions, party, I figure. Or garden, but like I said, I'm Unleashedless. So I want to make more stuff, I do, but what to make? I got my costume doors - I got my pool lights - various great sites have provided for all sorts of fantastic arhitectural accoutremonts - now what?

Actually, one thing I've found recently via iffpencil2 is the parameter where the costume trunk determines the array number of costumes - by default, set at 10 i.e. 10 costumes. Of course, there's less for children, but the 0-10 randomizer still makes every child change. Hmmmm... I think I'm going to try to make a costume trunk that will randomize ads for, oh, say 20 skins, and then add in those skins to the appropriate folder, so that perhaps - parhaps - we can expand the costume trunk. That would be pretty cool. You guys do know how to change costume-trunk skins, right? Maxis made it look scary, but it's not. Anyway, if I can pull it off, I'll add some menu items to it so that they can have pj parties too, and their personal formals/etc., and maybe we can get this party started - of course, adding skins might invalidate the original trunk - but then again, who cares, right? You'll still have the new one - if only I knew how to change the folder it uses to find skins, so that I could add multiple folders...

another on-topic movie

This page is currently out of the authority of the sims-dominant other pages. Perhaps you noticed sim products are slowing to a trickle - I don't know if that will last or not, but it's not drastic enough for me to quit or anything crazy like that - But you'll see some random stuff crop up on this page. Ya see, even if nobody ever reads any of this crap, I don't really know that, because folks still visit here - so I can't very well put my movie "reviews" and miscellaneous windbagginess on other servers - because then I'll KNOW that nobody reads it.

So let's jump right into my experience the other night with the second -lord of the rings- installment. First things first, here's the obligatory caveat that NO, it's different than the book. This one is WILDLY different from the book, and in fact, if I didn't enjoy cg-gore so much, I'd say don't go see it, cuz it isn't the Two Towers. Whereas in the first one, they left a lot out, in this one, thay changed it. Anyways, that being said, let me say what kinda bugged me the most. Now this can be taken Horribly Wrong, if you don't read carefully. So I want to say, that I personally have no problem with individuals who prefer "relations" with the same sex. Whatever floats one's bost, as they say. There is no thing inherently un-filmic or immoral about it, and while I do have friends of that persuasion, I'm also pretty sure I haven't mentioned this complaint to them, just for fear of the awkwardness. That being said, could we have had elves that were more gay? Now, I realize that the director/writer neccessarily take some freedoms, as they see fit - but what exactly about these books prompted them to make their non-wood elves so effeminate? That elf-guy who helps out at helm's deep appears as though they DIRECTED him to act the clasical stereotype - but why? I can understand if tolkien had meant for them to be gay, but I certainly didn't read that out as strongly as the creators of the film. The house of elrond set was so offensively un-tolkie-ney - I mean, I took them to be somewhat manly, classically heroic figures as he wrote them, tall-dark-etc., but the actors, the costumes, sets, and props - they just clash, they don't make any sense. And the one instance where there was a hint of homoeroticism - sam and frodo - well, they cut that out. Somebody went a little pear-shaped in the design department.

And here's something else, it's a trend I've noticed. They had P. jackson et al on pete rose a while back, and I got this from the bonus dvd's too - P. rose kept asking p. jackson about, well, good, interesting questions about details, and decisions - the kind of stuff a director should talk about on the dvd commentary. but p. jackson just kept going general on us. His big thing was about the computer versus a really good story. he'd talk about how it was important that no matter how good the cgi was, the story had to be better. I know george lucas always spouts off about this kinda crap too. Well I hate to break it to you, boys, but you're not talking about YOUR movies when you say these things, or maybe nobody LET you see your movies, to save you the embarrassment of digging your own holes. P. jackson, let me tell you - you had a good story - oh wait, then you took out all the humor and excellent dialogue from the books, emasculated your wizard, making him a coward and condensing his good lines into 2 short minutes in the first film, took out any interesting expositions, replacing them with wooden ones, made the elves shitty little pessimists, made frodo even more snivelling, took any human nuances out of saruman, disempowered the ringwraiths, and just in general pedestrianized the story (I mean, come on - one of the major points in the books was that Sam kept asking if 'this' was the muntain of fire, but no, it was still 'further' - a very strong literature, showing the daunting task - but in the first film, they can see the mountain of fire right there at the end - LAME!). So, p. jackson, your 'story' sucks. You are an idiot who lucked into a failsafe movie, fed by fans who will IGNORE your mistakes, and a public who is starved for even half-assed stories - your movie's still better than all of the fiction that the typical consumer CAN'T/WON'T READ. So I guess we should CONGRATULATE YOU(?!?!?!). Oh, and do you know why the fans go? For the special effects. We really didn't expect much from you, and it was delivered as we presumed, but at least we get to see ents on-screen. So try not to bruise yourself patting everyone on the back for pretty much screwing up whenever possible, i.e. the little things, i.e. all the things we love about the books. Don't expect your film to live as long as the story, because your story sucks, and sooner or later computer imagery will get even Better, and then someone will make a better movie. Alright, hateful rant over, now I must return to NOT making crappy movies - if anyone wants me, I won't be Peter Jackson. Later.

Moving Sale

Within a week or two you'll be able to get everything that might suddenly disappear from here in the interim - I'm just splitting up my site for those with different needs. One for the (ahem) "finished" stuff that does all sorts of wacky stuff, npc's etc., stuff that works right out of the box. The unaltered, still-in-their-old-clothes hacked stuff will be moving, however, along with at least a couple new objects that are equally unfinished presentation-wise, but which work perfectly well. I just can't successfully pull off the whole renaissance-person thing, so when people go to that site, they know what to expect - if they come here, they won't get excited about the function of an object that looks like crap - everything here will be ready-to-wear. Everything at the other site will only be for those brave enough to dig into object creation, with of course a tilt towards graphics, which I don't have the patience to persevere in. There will also be a smattering of sorta free-form tutorials, which may or may not address specific topics, but which will at least present to the public the *.iff knowledge I've slowly accrued over the years (how sad) - things like adding tiles, drawgroups, pie-menues, tweaking the xml, and especially all the neat tricks I've figured out how to do with my favorite program, iffpencil, and just basically whatever random stuff I come up with. It'll kinda be like this ranty section, but *.iff-related, with a paucity of illustrations. I'm doing all this for a couple reasons - this site, whenever I update with the cutesy stuff, goes under for a few hours. No problem. But I also have on this site things that are of a scarcely reference-nature, hopefully more so later on, and who wants to wait four hours to look at a couple lines of hex to simply jog the memory? So that stuff will be somewhere that is less frequented, so that both sites will serve two different cohorts of the community, who even during casual perusal tends to be able to devour bandwidth. And the other reason is because I'm slowly learning flash, or at least the graphic and javascript aspects of it, so it lets me play with site design and usability. I only have one solitary download available there right now, and none of the rest is complete - most of the flash is just swishy placeholders to test out the ftp stuff and the javascripting - I haven't even completed the title graphics yet, so you won't know the name yet, but if you want to check it out in its nascent stage, it's at THIS URL, and make sure you have the flash 5 plugin and javascripting turned on. Again, while most of the html pages are valid links, the downloads are not, except for some pool stuff - but fear not, within the week all download links will lead somewhere. So anyway, I'm not asking for feedback or debates or anything, it's a relatively offensive site at times, but this is just so that if I get crushed by a rapidly-deflating zeppelin tomorrow, at least someone will see my little moo-cow. Later.

fatigue

There's a disturbing trend among websites and creators of "hacked" content. When you read the descriptions of downloads, they start sounding plagiaristic - "I got tired of how...," "I was tired of (doing x) to get my sims to...," and the infamous rhetorical, "are you tired of ...? well now..."
It seems like all of us are very tired, which isn't quite historically the best inspiration. It can't be a good sign that we're all making stuff because we're tired of something. Usually when one is that tired, one moves on. Too bad maxis/ea wasn't better at making us not tired. I've had blind dates that made me less tired than the bugginess of our shared obsession. Are we all going to wake up one morning, and say, "I thought I was depressed, but it turns out my game just sucked."? Just a possibility.

burnout of the criminally insane

The colors are changing. It must be Autumn.
But really, let me tell you what really gets my goat. I can go out there in google-land, or kazaaland, or whatever, and I can download pictures of housewives cheating on their husbands, I can download my favorite nintendo games of yesteryear, I can hear the newest hit singles, and I can even download Unleashed if I don't mind about no sound and waiting 16 hours on my sad little dial-up. But can I download Gill sans bold italic? Noooooooo. I suggest to any of you ladies out there looking for a good, honest, law-abiding fellow: find yourself someone who likes typeface - they are truly the virtuous.

Also, the huge rug I made was kind of a throwaway - it was to go under my huge dining table, which still had flaws. Not any more. The only flaw now is that my graphics for it suck. As soon as I upgrade them from embarrassing to piss-poor, I'll post it. It's 3x6 tiles large, so good at parties. Maybe not at this site - she's getting a little strained, bandwidth-wise. The old girl may not make the winter. I might branch out to a different place, it's a little cuter and closer to the stores.

Go Now

Dang! I found a button for “Bunny Wuffles&rdquo's site. But have no fear, I will find a way to steal her images! Muhahaha... Anyways, it's my now-official second-favorite site, because it's perfect and I think that if you're a reasonable person, it should be the ideal schema for a sims website. “Bunny Wuffles&rdquo's seen the trends come and go more than most of us, and she's now finally come out with a well-thought-out, fully-conceptualized sims website. It has a clear purpose, realized concretely in a thorough fashion, with oodles of neato downloads - and possibly more importantly, but definately hipper, she has an abundance of tutorials for all of us - presented with a certain panache you just don't get from most sims websites. I don't know how much they'll help some of you veterans, but she discriminates quite effectively between what one must do and what one could do to fully realize one's vision - little things like chair-legs and shadings and brick-joints - and for anyone who's ever trudged through 7ds' nightmarish javascripted, no-right-clicking-allowed, 10-lines-of-instruction-per-page tutorial on tmog, well, say hello to user-friendliness. Go there. Now. You'll enjoy yourself, and trust me that, as with my other favorite site, it should perceptively raise you above the melee that is the sims online community, and if you can do that, you're one step closer to curing your addiction.

And isn't that confident bunny such a maddening image? Do not cross the bunny.

Hola

Well, enjoy today's update - I'd like to say I'll get all my old tsr stuff updated and posted - "all" as in "each of them" as in "all three" - but there've been some problems with my game, namely my computer eating it - although I seem to be doing fine not only without my game, but even without unleashed. I have two other projects on the burners, one that I really need to finish for a request, but I just don't have the time to stare at a graphics program for several hours, so it's coming slowly. Another one probably won't be released, but it's educational and fun, and I'll have it for my game, which is the really important thing. And I'm still playing with the *.iff files - they're endlessly entertaining, as far as messing with the game. I've got a variety of mean little nasties to put in the game, but they're really only fun if, honestly, you don't expect it. Most of them are only moderately malicious. So I have to release them slowly with banal-seeming items, so when you suddenly can't zoom in close in your game or have your sims sit in any chairs, you won't blame me (muhahaha...). At first I thought I'd release some items that screw people with unleashed, because my gaming self is embittered with maxis - but it still sounds kinda cool, so I might actually buy it when I get employed, and I wouldn't have the energy to take out the traps. So downloads here are still safe, possibly buggy, perhaps a tad misleading, but still benign. For the moment. And to be fair, since you all visit so regularly and patiently, I'll warn you all if they suddenly turn evil - it'll be fun though. It'll put hair on your chest.

Que sirrah...

Whoosh, I just got back from vacation. A beautiful place where people know how to drive and the journalists actually graduated from high school, unlike where I'm at now. Nice and fun, and I have a sweeeeeeet sunburn to show for it. I think more people are visiting here now, but I can't really tell because I inflated my hit numbers by adjusting my counter months ago, and I forget what I set it to. Whatever. But also, I'm getting more mail now, both evil and kind. So that must mean something. So I hope to getting around to answering some of the mails soon, especially for those of you who thought I might not respond. Of course, up til now I haven't had much hatemail, so I could only theoretically act like I knew how to deal with it. And I can only say one thing: it feels goooood. Why does it feel good? Because I have a website and you don't, hate-mailers! Nyah-nyah-nya-nyaaaa-nyaaa. Or if you do, I've never been there, and can't imagine I'd return after one visit, based on the utter lack of subtlety of your prose style. I'm finally getting enough rude, obnoxious email that I can have a "policy," and that policy involves mostly deleting, occasionally forwarding to friends, and always sinister laughter.

I enjoy acting like I'm knowledgable in something, and feel good when I think I've helped others, but it's a crazy crazy world and I don't have all the answers. And sorry, but I don't work for Microsoft or any other corporation that your game is running on - some of the problems you claim to be having would require my actual physical presence to troubleshoot, and I just don't get very good mileage, so you're out of luck. In any case, the best advice I can give is that if you've downloaded something, and aren't comfortable with technology, put it in your downloads folder - it can lead to problems if you ignore readme's, but statistically most sims items are perfectly happy there. If that doesn't work, if you don't see it, if you think it acts funny, well that's just probably the spirit of some ants you stepped on as a kid. If you write me about it, and you don't get a reply, it's one of several things: a) too mind-numbingly obvious and at the same time tedious for me to go through it when the info is readily available throughout the internet b) couched so obtusely as to defy logical comprehension as a question c) something I could only fix by going through your entire sims directory and running diagnostics on all the objects you have and all the tweaks you've made (and just replying as above would compel me to explain to you how to do this, reams and reams of type) d) or maybe I just forgot to reply because I'm kinda sketchy. Basically, if you seek peace of mind, seek not for it through my email address, as my answers will often be more unto questions in multiples of your original problem (i.e. you have 2 questions, you will receive in return 2x3=6 questions as a response). I still hold to my position that questions/insults/requests will be ignored, although in practice most of these are at least responded to. But a response is at the peril of whim, and if one of your friends tells you they received a response, they lie!

Alrighty, enough with the venting. Perhaps some of you found me through “Bunny Wuffles&rdquo's site - I did a couple things for her stuff a while back, and I think they were really practical and helpful additions, so I spent a lot of effort on them, and of course for each completed item, there was a lot of searching, and a great deal of tangential experiments. So I got a little burned-out. I had a few things on the back-burners then, and just took the sims cd out and put in some mindless entertainment before my vacation. But I've still got a little oomph in me yet, so hopefully in the next few days those will come to fruition. And I do mean days this time. I'm really going to try. I was trying to figure out addding draw groups and tiles, but my typical approach to the sims - complete desktop log-jam - wasn't so effective for what's been my toughest problem so far. I just push for the whole project within a certain time period, and all the hacking and xml and pasting and rsmp tweaking required for that was too much for my lack of patience. Bummer. Where am I going with this? Hunh. I forget. Anyway, maybe I'll get it before it's too late. Oh and I just want to say, I'm really pissed about unleashed. Have you seen the screenshots? If the new objects are going to be that photorealistic, maybe they should have just put it into the sims2? Djathink? It looks like crap - total lack of mesh. Tsk, tsk, tsk maxis. We've spoiled you, bought everything you've wanted us to, taken you to all the nice places and ignored our friends to spend time and money on you, and yet you are still so bitchy. If you were my girlfriend I'd dump you. Unless your rich parents just bought you a neat little italian sportscar with a convertible top. But still, your days are numbered!

I went around to a bunch of sites today, just to fuel my cynicism, really. There's so many crappy sites with 'hacked' objects, and not only are the hacks as useful as your cousin picking his nose, but they charge for these items. I won't go into specifics about the creators and the people willing to pay them atrocious fees - but I would like to ask you all, ARE YOU SMOKING CRACK? Are you HIGH? What's wrong with your brain? Ugh. Go to the link above - Ra's site is 1/2 of why I started making stuff. Beautiful site, going there was like hearing T. rex for the first time. I sent her a little add-on once (if she has an archive, you heathens might find out all kinds of information about me! oh no!), and it was really encouraging to give like that. Strange feeling, like Christmas, even though it was a little thing (some time I'll tell you about the other 1/2 of my inspiration, maybe when I'm a little more bitter). Anyway, I didn't used to agree with her against-ness of the sims web, but she's right. And I laugh at all of you who don't have her objects. Ha ha ha! That's what you get. Well, sorta. The point being, that she was right about the slide - although 8DS was and is worth it, it opened up the community to the market, and that has led to a degrading of quality. Weird how that works. They don't teach you that in econ. I don't like mentioning names, but come on... these places suck. I know, I know, free-market etc.... but what would be wrong if just ONE of our society's hobbies/vices were free (other than mp3 piracy haha)? Would that kill anyone? "Oh, my bandwidth fees are too high..." - Well then don't be so prissy about file-sharing and "object-theft," moron. Pretty simple solution. Share your toys. The sims, in its most pure and beautiful expression, is about a simulated world that's a little wackier and more accessible than the real world, and, well, Ra saw this, and I and the rest of us didn't. Of course, having to charge for such things is perhaps what we deserve as a society, for allowing Britney Spears to live, and leaving college graduates to work at Starbucks©. Just another harbinger of our impending doom. So everybody cash your checks, we're going downtown tonight, good little consumers that our games have trained us to be. The most recent expansion isn't about hiking for free in the outdoors on public land, after all.

So anyway, I'm homeless for a couple months, so it's in with the parents. I don't know yet if that means I'll have more time for sim-toys, or less. But in the tradition of all great webmasters, I'm going to do the right thing and post here what's coming down the line - at best it will get you more stimulated than you should because of the anticipation, and at worst it'll be like those sites that promise something cool and then never update again. I guess we'll see. So anyway, the podium referred to previously should be coming, plus I want to spiffy up the two podiums I put on TSR a few months ago, back when I used mspaint for graphic stuff. I actually have a skin set I'm working on from time to time that approaches a theme, but every couple weeks I redo it - low quality, but improving. I have two projects I'm wasting oodles of time on, but I'll just say I'm wasting my time on them, because they're still buggy. You can bet they'd be cool if they had legs, though. The only thing you'll probably see is a new button to match the new scheme. Maybe a switch-over to all-Portable-Network-Graphics. I'm trying to make more object bits like I have on that one page, but that's part of one of my sketchy projects. One thing I do have for you, it's a cover-charge door. At home, charges your guests $10 and gives the money to you, downtown it takes away from everyone. You can get it HERE. Let me know if you have any problems with it, or how it works on vacation. I didn't try it there, so it might make you sterile or delete your cookies or whatever.

well, I have my own site. So I'm going to say whatever I want, yes? Things that would get me banned at the important forums, and things that would make losers think I'm one of them at the lame forums. So I'll be explicit.
The sims community is particularly close-knit - as a result, object- and skin-makers enjoy a higher degree of community respect than in the realm of other game modding. Now, many of the hackers and creators out there started with other games and continue, and liked the sims and made toys for the sims. Others, such as myself, accrued their limited skills directly because of the sims, and some have gone on but others remain devoted. Among the group of naturalized hackers, who hack various other things and have now come to the sims, their inherent hacking mentality, largely based upon getting much-needed attention and recognition from a community, has bled into their sim creation. The environment from which they sprang is one where there is truly an open-source community - in the sims community, this typically translates to object-theft. My views are posted somewhere around here, and I don't feel it necessary to get into the rightness or wrongness of it, I prefer to view it as an inevitable result. However, I must say that the exploits of these brats are reprehensible to some, but more importantly, their style, or lack of it, is what will essentially sour many people to the online aspect of the game. Their mentality is that hacking is an end in itself - if it can be done, then by god they'll do it. Even if this means dozens and dozens of 'hacked' objects that give your sim a million dollars or all green bars. Now many of these original hackers, for example the great folks at S-O-S, have objects like this - but not only were they typically the first of their kind, they don't have dozens of ugly objects that do it, just a choice few. They also incorporate witty dialogs and catalogue descriptions, unique skins and accessories, and just well-thought-out easter-egg type effects and animations -- in short, all the aspects of the game that drew many of us to its intricacies. These items weren't done for the sheer brute possibility of their existence.
However, having branched out to several e-z groups and forums and chats recently, I've discovered the seamy underbelly of this group. I have since removed those sites from my favorites, so I'm not tempted to go there. When visiting, one typically finds a lot of blowhards who are obviously atrociously unpopular in ther respective gradeschools. They have many dull objects that fit haphazardly in the game with undesireable and useless 'hacking' effects, typically one-line codes sliced from other objects, often other user-created, more sensible objects.
Now, it's great that they can do it, but who really cares? I for one don't. I find that the best objects have an elegant place in the game as it stands, and while I'll admit that I rarely play anymore, I still do occassionally. Most of these individuals, however, creat lame objects with no play-value - they are objects simply done because they are possible, not because anyone has any use for them. And I find that aesthetically offensive.
The best I can do about it, of course, is to ignore. But I find it humorous that these blowhards go on and on about their 'creations,' but when they come upon travails, they implore others for help - and when I have offered it, it is typically met with bewilderment. Hacking is not the same as creativity, folks. There are plenty of stupid hackers. They not only are bewildered by solutions I know to work, but they actually continue to insult - not knowing that I have messed about with sim-files a bit, even though the products of said are rather pedestrian. And while they may be able to insert "kill sim for good" into a couch or a painting, they truly have no understanding of how the system operates, even with the glut of information concerning the banned script station and its language. They have no grasp of the objective philosophical Nielsonian dynamics of the game, and its possibilities. I must say that many of them are quite adept at "hacking" - but often I come upon someone touching things I myself am working on - but they completely fail to have a handle on the opportunities opened up by their activities. They use them for the most mundane purposes, like using diamonds to scoop up dog-poo. And on that note, Tschuss.

Does anybody know what the special ingredients are in swedish fish? What makes them so damn good? I'm serious, if you know please tell me. I've never seen them in a package with ingredients listed, but if it's something I can get, all I need is a bucket of that and I'm set for life.

If I had any variety of skins on this site, I'd put this in updates or something. But since I think my two available skins might have names running into dozens of characters, and if you've actually found this site, you probably have a lot of skins etc., then this should help. If you don't know already, and you're running a Mac, go to ThIs MaC sItE for this great utility - although I couldn't really tell you whether it works or not, haha. Anyway, this brought up another issue: I'm assuming here that *.iff files work on Mac's, since the file type started with Amiga. But what about other OS? Can I put a little Linux penguin on my page? Do Linux users even play the Sims, or are they all busy writing dissertations (I only know one Linux user, and that's all he does)?

How do you like my new button? Not like I have enough stuff to warrant anyone linking me, but HONESTLY, I did it because making the frames was truly more fun than a grown-man should experience (doing that sort of thing). Are there jobs where you make gifs all day? And yes, it's not regulation size. But who decided the size of buttons? Is it somewhere on the w3c site? That's what I thought. Let's just say it's a really small banner. Oh, am I destroying the precious balance of your links page? Muhahaha...

Message to the Visitors

Well, thanks to all you repeat visitors. I'm going on the assumption here (we all know what happens when we assume) that no one could resist downloading something. So given that I've had a large number of people visiting recently, but just the usual amount of downloading going on, I'm assuming some of you are checking back. I'm putting the update dates on the first page for you all. I feel like I'm running one of those mom&pop businesses. Except it's not too kitschy and pretty. That's mostly because being a 56Ker myself, the only thing worse than boring pages are slow pages. I hate slow pages. I despise geocities. Anyways, most of you probably don't even go to this page, and it's really better that way, I don't get self-conscious about people reading what amounts to topical diary entries. Later.

Note: I've added a counter to this page. So remember, you're being watched. It says "non-downloads" on the first page, but you came here anyway, yes? For shame!

Musings

I originally wanted to put down some grand philosophy of the Sims here, about the relationship between events, objects and actions, and my own guidelines for playing, but then I was like, "BOR-iiiinnng." So instead below are some fun games for you to enjoy with your family! Unfortunately, I've started to mess with the html a little, so the fixed background has kind of destroyed the first game. And I'm starting to get a little more interested in musing again.

Since it's so sloppy to muse (have you ever tried musing?), let me start off with a shortcut...

The Sims. The best game ever created! Well, pretty much. It ain't pretty, but oh so addictive.

10 Months!

Well I got vacation yesterday, or, as I like to call it, "ten months of 8DS." Ten months! I could get a girl pregnant within the next couple weeks, and the entire period of gestation would be punctuated daily by visits to 8DS. Vacation is a useless piece of crap. I only bought it because I realized I have nowhere to live as of 6/18, so if I want to buy anything, I have to buy it now, and I liked the couches in vacation. So I've got it. Big woop. It's seriously a mainstream release, I guess EA wants to draw in really lame people who shop at walmart for their software. All kinds of lame interactions with those hideous parasites known as 'children.' Not only that, it's buggy with bugs.

There are elements of promise, of course. I think I've settled on a vacation island sort of like 'West World,' I don't have many outlets for my roman themes etc., so there's an option. Also, what I'm trying to do now is take the mini-golf elements out of the far file and put them on an object. The best object is the archery range, but because it's connected to the rental shack, it's very messy. Even though the directions for golfing are actually still in the rental shacks, waking them up is another matter. If I hadn't gotten the sprites to look cool first, I would have given up by now (isn't that a cute gif?! Wouldn't it look so precious surrounded by windmills and topiaries?). So close! I don't know what it is, either, I don't think it's the guids. If anyone knows, drop me a line. Yeah, I thought of the dart board too, but trust me, the archery range would be perfect. I'm thinking if I ever figure out what's wrong, I might just clone a rental shack, pretty it up, and make it an exclusive mini-golf shack. But that offends me so greatly on an aesthetic and functional level (except I'd finally have a place for the sid meier head), seeing as how everything for golf is practically mocking us, except for a golf-calling object. I want to break down on the forums and beg for community support, but you know what happens there: some hacker with no sense of proportion will create an object that will require more work to perfect than it's worth.

A Verbose Item of Consideration for Discerning Sims Webmasters

Just a little incoherent spoken-aloud rambling to perspective-ize this disgruntled little community. Any digital file-sharing isn't really sharing, as in 'I'll share this sandwich with you, friend,' but is in fact 'copying,' as in, 'I will copy faithfully this sandwich for you, and give one to you just like it.' Or, more accurately, especially as per the internet, 'come to my house and faithfully make a sandwich much like mine, without actually using any ingredients from my house or yours, only taking up some abstract space at your house, which, if multiplied, would prevent you from making other foodstuffs.' The way I see it (and fair-use laws also, I think), you have your computer on your desk, and it has a C: drive and an A: drive etc., and it also has an external 'drive' that hooks up to the computer not through a serial port or whatnot, but through a network- or phone-line. On this external 'drive' are many files, including the ones on this site and every other site. In order to access some of these files, you must copy them to one of your other drives. Now, as far as the Sims web goes, everyone's caught up in the whole economy of the internet, where things are based on recognition and the silly concept of intellectual property, which while allowing for us to live in a progressively more attractive society, is nonetheless an untenable and ridiculous idea in the long run. This is because violations of intellectual property are nothing like violations of physical property. If someone posts your object on their site, you will become enraged, and take a course of action that will cause repurcussions for them, their web administrator, the community at large, etc. If you do not take action, however, and no one draws attention to the theft, it will exist in a very different way. This is not the case if for example someone burns down your house. It is physically destroyed and evident. NOw you don't live in your Sims object, so yes that is one difference, and if you did, of course it would be property in the same sense. It would also cease to be a Sim object, but instead would be property.

One can also argue that the mistreatment of *.iff's and *.bmp's etc. is the same as if one were to beat your children or somesuch, though of altered proportions. It is something of yours that others are using and abusing without your consent or necessarily knowledge. However, consider that statement; at what point does someone beating your children cease to be an infringement on your property and a violation of your children's own property? I'm not saying that *.iff's should be considered to have independent 'beings' of their own, but that the 'intellectual property' claim is theoretically invalid, it only exists in a society that rewards merit with cash and/or recognition. If we lived in a strange world where no one had to pay for their own bills, they just went out to work in the factory every day, and people were forbidden from claiming their own individual achievements, there would obviously be no need for the concept of intellectual property, and yet do you suppose that therefore no one would further create things? To some extent, and for many people, perhaps, but not everyone. The inherent self-satisfaction of competent and appreciated (even if anonymously) creation would take the premier spot of motivation, as it does, I believe, in all initial web-offerings concerning our beloved game.

If anything, I believe that our beloved Sims web has demonstrated something very disturbing to many people, whether or not they're able to articulate it. Most of the creators of Sims objects, like a great many things on the internet, do so with their own time. Bandwidth concerns and the eventual lure of real money change this, but fundamentally, everyone got their start doing it because they wanted to, as a hobby. Any bona fide hobby is by definition something that you don't charge other people to let you do. I'm not trying to denigrate anyone, I'm just observing here. Like anything, if you can make money doing it and you enjoy it, by all means do so. But don't take your disclaimers of ownership of intellectual copyright too seriously, because humans only value those in proportion to how much they are punished for transgressing them. You can defend your exclusive rights until you faint, this won't stop unauthorized use. In our Web here, this means your stufff is being cloned and tweaked and altered and surely distributed among friends, and unlike the butcher down the street, you have no tangible service you are providing that will ever prevent this, because teenage kids can't make faithful copies of cows at their desk (lord knows I've tried), but they can of your 'objects.' Like the more money-powerful mp3 debate, a lot of people mistakenly construe this as thieves playing on human weaknesses of wanting to get things for free; the criminalization of wanting to get things for free, however, is largely a construct of a culture that rewards intellectual property rights with money. Sorry if it's a little abstract, but looking down on people who want things without working hard for them is a very Western, judeo-christian concept, and like many instances of common sense, is simply a vestige of this system of labor and reward. Even defenders of this are apologetic about it, protesting that end-users wishing to exercise their fair-use rights are bunched together with thieves by the media. As though there was a distinction.

Alright, any argument about who deserves what based on whatever criteria is going to be messy, so I'm not going to argue about any of that. I just wanted to put out this perspective, and maybe show that many of our dearly-held rationales are conceptually weak and at worst arrogant. As for myself, in my net interactions and my intellectual property, I have chosen magnanimous acceptance of a nascent economic system that the West isn't ready for yet. If I'm stupid enough to offer things I've altered and created not only for digital distribution, but internet distribution, then any 'thievery' is the least I can expect. To think otherwise would be hopelessly naive. One can argue as much as one wants that this is your property and that some silly sentence about it being your's should or even could stop people from doing things to it, but to those people, among whom are many talented and kind and well-meaning individuals, I can only presume that you suffer from strange delusions. This is not to say that any of my objects here are or would ever be based on anything other than source bases without permisision, because community standards over-ride rationality. I'm just bringing up some uncomfortable points for any of the brave souls who bother coming to this page. I don't want any emails disagreeing with me, just in case you were thinking of starting a debate or something. But if you have a brilliant agrument in agreement or a workable solution to dunderhead-ism, then fire away.

I must say, that was more fun than shopping at Ikea!

Thank you Maxis for being boring

I'm big on modifying the existing game. It gives me a lot of berth in this area, more so than my Masters of the Universe dolls did back in the day, in that new game 'pieces' can be added quite seamlessly, unlike the hokey weapons I tried adding to Skeletor. I spend most of my time modifying. I used to feel bad about that, having spent all these hundreds of dollars on multiple expansion packs just to do data entry and move files around, but then I realized that was the game that I had paid for. Kind of sick, yes, but we all have to get our kicks from somewhere. My whole push is towards building appropriate nests, in real life and virtual, so what I'm basically doing is trying to construct a game that stands on its own - it will be obsolete in a few years, but I'd like my files collectively to be found one day by someone who'd never heard of the game or played it, and without knowing it, I'd like them to experience the game better than we did when we got it. Yes, weird. But there's also the chance that when I finally get it 'perfect', I might actually play it.

Little things, mostly. When I download fit swimwear for the ladies, if I find time I'll try to paste in the stomach from the fat body - I don't like sixpacks, alright? - and from time to time my costume trunk is replaced. I actually have three exp2 Skins folders - none of them are full, of course, but it allows for multiple themes. I have a wedding theme, although I would never consider a wedding-themed anything while playing - I think that's because they're great skins, hate to see 'em go to waste, and what if I meet some girl who's really impressed by my matrimonial preperation? It could happen. To offset the girly themes, I have multiple themes involving scantily-clad women. One can't let the 8ds skins go to waste. But I'm really getting into the maxis skins now, especially since Hot Date and my doors. It allows better theming for bars/restaurants downtown. It really covers up how limited maxis' downtown was, I believe. I have several clubs, but each has a different theme, so they're all still fun. I have a club where everyone's in their pajamas, and a disco, and a western bar. The lame themes are okay if kitsch-ized downtown. Also, I'm quite excited about the Sims Online. Hopefully the community will be able to port the themed costume trunks into the stand-alone game - it sounds like they'll just be dressers with a typical BCON section, so maybe we can just jack the costume names into PersonGlobals or whateveer. They also seem user-expandable, based on the screenshots, so most of my current themes can be added to them, and clones of the trunks can be generated for other themes (since I keep the blur, in order to appreciate all the great nude skins I have, I have to use the costume trunk).

Cheaters

I love the cheats, and I don't consider them cheating. But I also like playing straight. I typically use rosebud, because I'm poor in real life, so there's no reason why my simmies should have to suffer the same fate. However, I don't like using cheat objects, at least like espresso machines downtown that raise everybody's moods. It defeats my own purpose in the game, which is essentially observational, and if everyone's happy, what's the point. I don't like downtown because of the autonomy problems, but the townies have great autonomy, so I'll just watch them for a few (sim-)hours.

"full-body VR suits"

Now, if you're one of those people who want their sims to grow up, die, and drive their cars (not necessarily in that order - how gruesome!), then just turn yourself around and leave the way you came in. I feel the game really deviates from reality in some significant ways, and that it should. If you want to drive cars, go and get a different game. After all, in real life the living room is not typically dominated by an enormous and gaudy bubble-hookah (how fine if it were). I'm sure I'll insult a lot of people here, but saying these things in public forums gets you excommunicated. I think the individuals who want to have their sims grow to teenager-ness and drive cars and actually want an expansion where we follow our sims to work only want those things because they haven't done them yet. What could possibly be more mundane and tedious than going to work? And don't even get me started on how the game's philosophy would be undermined by discernable sim-speech.

Sharing

Allow me to share my methods of enjoyment. I've always been into total immersion with games (with a lot of things), and the Sims are no different. So the distractions have to be kept to a minimum. I reject any objects that lack isometry, first off, and photo-realism (especially in skins) always gets the boot. I also enforce a relatively strict proportion rule: in the sims world, there are no key-chains or duct-tape or shampoo bottles. These items can exist on other items, and our sims can pick them up, but they have no independant existance, because any such-sized object will necessarily occupy the entire top of a kitchen counter. I've broken down recently in order to allow my sims the pleasure of smoking, but it was a decision that compromised my very being, I can assure you. The other area of exclusion is that of decorative objects: the dissappointment that my tender soul encountered after downloading a water-cooler (one of my first downloads, I believe) that didn't work scarred me in such a manner as to inspire hatred for the mundane Decorative object. Only the exquisitely perfect have a place in my households, and even then I'll typically use the sprites to attach to useful objects. No names need be mentioned, but there are many ugly useful sim objects out there, matched in number only by beautiful useless ones. So the balance of nature is maintained, and life flows onward.

Games

The "Screen Resolution" Game

Using the 'PageUp' and 'PageDown' buttons on your keyboard, you can alter the images on-screen as well as the background colors, allowing for an exciting kaleidoscope effect! Here's some space for you to play. Can you see the squigglies? Remember kids, don't do drugs.

ahhh...this one doesn't work anymore. I'll keep the rules up though, because it still works at lots of places, and my poor little pages don't have much going for them, so this way you know how much fun you could be having

The "Murderers and Dead Sims" Game

I'm trying to start up an online sort of game, along the lines of the Simgoddesses' game of debauchery. I don't have a name for it yet, and I can't think of what rewards I have to offer - but really, the game itself should be a reward! The object of the game is to lure home and kill as many townies as possible. You have to invite them home from downtown, no calling them (you can't have a prior relationship with them, otherwise you're a suspect). If you meet neighbors downtown that you have no prior relationship to, that'll work too. Hopefully these rules make it clear, but if not, then assume that there should be no stalking of children - too many moms would get mad just hearing about that, and I don't need to catch any crap. I'm thinking of designing a death object for the killing, but I think just removing a door should do it. Let's make our murderers the 'let-em-dwindle-away-in-the-basement' type.

No money cheats allowed. Your murderers have to hold down a steady job, and appear as 'just regular folks' to all the neighbors. But I think that either 'outgoing' or 'nice' have to be zero, one or the other. Give me a break, I'm making this up as I go. Screenshots of your backyard plot of gravestones should be submitted to (garbled print). Otherwise, just keep them in your "My Documents" folder as a testament to your depravity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where do I download these files to?

A: Your Computer. Unless you have the Sims installed in your brain, or your cat. If so, just hook up a usb cable to either your nose, ear, or your cat. If you don't have a usb-enabled nose, then you are absolutely screwed

Q: How do I use this Winzip thingy?

A: If you'd read the terms of use on the winzip website, it clearly states that "...any user unable to comprehend this most basic of interfaces, requiring the ability to both read and double-click, is not entitled to the vast world of enjoyment that comes with downloading in zip format..." So you have the official word right there, folks. Sorry, there's nothing I can do about it.

Q:I have this awesome idea! What it is, see, is...

A: SHHH-SHHH-SHHHHH! Don't give it away! You could make some good money on that idea. Why don't you put it into practice

Q: I have a request for an item. Could I send a picture of it to you in an email with the subject "Re:"?

A:If you're feeling lucky today.

Q: after I downloaded one of your objects, my game crashed, my RAM was cut down to 15 Mb, all the porn sites in my "favorites" folder were deleted, and it hurts when I urinate now. What up with that?

A: It worked fine on my system - btw, the urination thing was listed in the readme. Why don't you people ever read readme's?

Q: I'm having problems parsing some Classical Chinese texts. Words that are listed in Karlgren as being adverbs or indicators of inclusion and exclusion don't seem to make the passages contextually coherent

A; I know. The problem here is that prior to very recently, modality was an unemphasized aspect of the texts. In fact, many of these empty words can be imbued with modal meanings with reference to time, number and possibility. My working knowledge is primarily concerned with the Subjunctive mode, of which there are a vast array of examples, at least in the later classical period. Prior to that I think there was just too much regional variation to make a sustained argument, unless you're willing to be sort of rash/speculative. Perhaps if you sent me the actual text I could shed some more light on it. I try to use chiefly TT unicode fonts, so my wordprocessor can handle that