I just cleaned up my LJ and Photobucket.  I removed old stories that are abandoned, and deleted all old pictures from those stories so I could reorganize my Photobucket account.  I left my maxis_taste makeovers and some brainstorms and other rambly bits, which isn't much.  I hope no one is bothered that I deleted this stuff...but I hope it'll help me stay on track with this new story.  It was kind of disheartening to start uploading pics or whatever and see all these unfinished projects cluttering up my Photobucket.

If you're a mod in a community that had one of those stories up, feel free to remove my related postings from the community.  I'm working with a new Uberhood, and since I randomize things, the stories will be different this time!

I feel dumb. I've been playing a lot of Fallout 3 on my PC and, as any Fallout 3 PC player knows, the game is notorious for crashing constantly. One possible fix I ran across on some random forums involved changing the page file to 0 MB, which I did. Now that I think about it, it is possible I made this change after my first Sims 3 foray. The first time I played Sims 3, it worked fine, and after that it was a few days before I played again, which is when the crashing started.

For those that don't know, according to what I've learned just now, the page file is hard drive space that substitutes for some of your RAM. What this means for gamers is that Vista runs off page files in the background, while your game gets to use the actual RAM in your computer. Since I had it set to 0 (which didn't fix my Fallout 3 problem anyway), I reenabled page filing and am reinstalling Sims 3 now. I think this will finally get it working, because Vista + Sims 3 at default settings = more than my 2 gigs of memory...

Keeping my fingers crossed and will update on whether it works!

ETA: IT WORKS! YAY! I'm gonna post this on the Sims 3 LJ forums now!

I "borrowed" a torrented copy to see if it would be worth actually spending the money on. I played the Reloaded version (a beta version) the day it finished downloading and actually enjoyed it! I've since updated it to the current patched official version and I keep crashing to desktop with no error message within a minute of actually entering a household, sometimes during the loading screen, sometimes during the opening video.

Now, due to real life circumstances, I won't be able to purchase a legit copy for a while now, unless my husband out of the kindness of his heart picks up a copy for me with his paycheck. I've taken some sick time (we don't get paid for sick time at my job) and was called off a lot last week. But I just have to know. Anyone think the crash-to-desktop problem is inherent strictly in the version of the game I have, and installing it from a legal disk will fix it? Or do you think I'll continue to have the same problems, in which case I guess my decision as to which game to focus on is made for me?

Of course, if anyone has a solution to the crash to desktop, I'd be glad to hear it. I've updated my drivers, my computer is more than ready to handle the game, and I'm looking forward to actually being able to play it.

Pointless venting ahead.

I've been playing Warhammer Online as my MMO of choice since it was released a couple of months ago. My husband grew weary of it being released before it was finished; said he didn't want to pay to beta test the game. I'm okay with the game still being rough around the edges.

Husband goes back to WoW and is now 72. He sends me a Scroll of Resurrection, good for old players to return for 10 days. I've been trying to set it up so I can play throughout 2 "weekends" (weekend for me is Sunday through Tuesday). I didn't get around to it last night but before he went to bed I said I planned on snarfing his patches over the network so I don't have to spend eons updating.

I turn on his computer and it's password protected. That's fine; I set both our machines up that way because of my mother-in-law's seedy internet activities causing our phone bill to get crammed with third-party charges we didn't sign up for. Since her computer died last month, she has gone into our room when we were both gone to check her email; hubby finds her junk in the history files on his computer and I am LIVID. So I type in the password...and it's wrong. He's changed it. Plus I can't decipher his hint question; STILL can't decipher it now that he's told me what it was. I had to wake him up and ask him. He mumbles and says he'll get to it later. I remind him I wanted to play tonight and he said, "Oh, I forgot about that, it's blahblahblah."

I finally get in and...can't find the patch to 3.0.1!! He installed Wrath of the Lich King from CD, so there's no patch. *sigh* I search for an HOUR for the disc...wake him up again...and the disc is in the drawer I've been hunting through several times! Somehow buried at the bottom of the drawer when I was searching near the top because he's only recently reinstalled. I'm either PMSing or pregnant (eek no!) because I was freakin' crying over this. Not because I was like OMG I HAVE TO PLAY NAO but because I'm so aggravated with not being able to find what I need in this mess. I'm a little junky, and he's a little junky, and that makes our room VERY junky. I've been very stressed lately and prone to snap or burst into tears over the smallest things. How hard can it be to keep our one little area of the house in some semblance of order, at least vaguely organized? And oh GOD is he a pack rat...the stupid drawer, as well as every shelf in the room, is full of little toys and junk he's had since he was a kid because he can't bear to throw anything away. I'm about to say, "OK, we're getting boxes. Anything that you don't feel the need to look at and/or fondle on a daily basis goes in them. The boxes get stashed in another room. They'll still be there for you, they'll just be out of my sight and out of the way for the important stuff." And I'm not gonna be the kind of wife to throw his stuff into the boxes and leave all my stuff on display; I plan to abide by it as well, even though I'm the one that moved here so I left a lot behind already. Ask my sister or my mom; this isn't like me, but two people's treasured junk memories from the past 20 odd years is just too much for one room. I NEED ORGANIZATION!!!

I need to get this off my chest with someone, I guess, since I can't ever show my face there again.

( Got too long, click here to read more! )

I kind of had an idea while I was at work, but I dunno how well it would go over. The only real requirement for the challenge is you need to be part of some sort of Sims 2 storyteller community or forum (LJ, message board, Myspace, whatever). It's kind of inspired by the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. You start off a story, post the first part, then ask your friends to give you ideas of where the story should head. Then pick randomly (use dice or draw out of a hat) which suggestion you'll go with. Post that next part, lather, rinse, repeat until it just gets too bizarre to go on, or you get an ending.

Good idea or not?

I've never done any contests or anything else of the sort before, and I'm always amazed to see what everyone else does with them, so here's me giving it a shot! Fits right in with my Megahood project, formerly SimCity Saga, so here goes!

( Read more... )