I'm Not Dead Yet
Just very busy. Sorry!
Tried to tackle programming via an online class with outdated technology and then very buggy brand-new and expensive technology that resolutely refused to cooperate, so I was a sad camper.
All is well now. Learning about the joys if Illustration and The Sims 2. Not at the same time.
Inevitably, Sims games require more patience and time than I usually have. I quit playing in, what, 1999 or something? Got tired of having to play "guess what will bork the game this week". I tried to quit, but they lured me back in! Got an EP for Xmas and am such a completist OCD freak that I acquired the others. Have not had time to really play, mind, but it looks like a lot of fun.
I suppose the Sims are still so dirt stupid that they manage to burn themselves to death making a sandwich, and still too passive that they won't go potty unless you force them to (which leads to big puddles on the floor). They also used to be insanely stalker jealous. God forbid that one pixel person like another one. Craziness. Ideal for the micromanager personality.
I was always "good" to my little imaginary pixel people. Never deliberately killed them which can be as much of a challenge as the game proper is supposed to be. So many ways to die. You can drown because you are too stupid to climb out of a pool that doesn't have a pool ladder. You can spontaneously combust, even in a hot tub, if it's summertime and your temperature gets too high. (Must find a hack to stop this annoyance.) You can die if you daydream and watch the clouds and a satellite falls on your head, a la "Dead Like Me," the TV show. You can be a right slob and let stinky plates pile up and emit wafts of toxic green fumes and be eaten alive by flies. You can get bitten by a guinea pig (or is that just Sims 1?) and die of a vile plague. You can starve to death if you're too stupid to go eat without being told to do so. You can also die of old age, and if you've had a good little Sim life, the grim Reaper shows up with hula girls and a Mai Tai, you turn into an urn and your Sim family cries for about twenty seconds before chucking your urn into the back yard and trying to commit suicide by poking about inside a Sim dishwasher without the least bit of mechanical skill.
You can also get abducted by aliens and probed and impregnated, or turn into a werewolf or vampire or Pod Person (plant life form).
I want to know what drugs the people at Electronic Arts are taking. They sound amazing.
Anyway, my focus has been on grad school, not keeping imaginary pixelated people from offing themselves by eating spoiled macaroni and cheese. Seriously. If you turn "free will" on and wander off, your household will be full of dead Sims. They are as smart as doorknobs.
In case keeping your pixel people alive isn't enough of a challenge for you, you can try to avoid having fugly Sim children. Gender is no barrier to reproduction. Maxis genetics, however, Maxis being the people responsible for creepy-looking Sims with Sesame Street Bert noses and fish lips and gorilla jowls and hyperthyroid eyes and wooden hair, are bad. How about "African American" Sims with Nordic ice-blue eyes? That's just weird, people. Anyway. Your task is to find the two least nauseating Sims in the game (or download custom content, not that this is usually helpful, as there is actually Sim DNA encoded into the game, which makes me want to create Sim Law & Order and CSI simulations) and attempt to spawn something that wouldn't star in a turn-of-the-century Carnivale sideshow. If you're not particularly fascinated by babies in real life, this can be one of the more frustrating aspects of the new Sims 2 game, because Sims now die. And, like with all creatures, if they do not breed, they die out. You can always make more, but then you have the extinction of an entire family line on your tender conscience. I don't need the guilt.
Other things I could be learning how to deal with is running a Sims business, selling imaginary pixel stuff to imaginary pixel people. I do look at screenshots, and apparently it is a lot easier to have someone you have never seen before have a tantrum in your pixel person's store for some perceived lack of bootlicking from the staff. Hooray, Entitlement Bitches in Sims 2! The usual lazy, unmotivated, slacker employees are mixed into the hiring pool, so you may get a real bonehead who has to be flogged to work. Learning to operate the cash register requires more smarts than a typical Sim has, so hilarity is supposed to ensue.
Or I could be dealing with stray cats and dogs invading my yard, adopting pets, and training them not to destroy furniture, pee in the house, growl at strangers, and so on. But Sim pets are cute.
Or I could be going Downtown and meeting vampires and creepy Townies who sing bad karaoke, have public brawls, and wear shiny polyester leisure suits and raver bodysuits. There's also an elderly Townie who will track you down and beat you over the head if you're indulging in PDA with another Sim, or if you have the temerity to try to swim in a public pool, use the lav, shower, or do anything that involves talking to the appropriate sex and wearing anything other than head-to-tow body armor.
I think the surreal aspect actually appeals to me, so when I have time to do more than poke at the shiny bits, download far too much custom content crap while deejaying and working on digital painting projects, and read the game CD cases and fliers, I'll report back. :)
Of course, I do have a day off tomorrow and am ahead on my Illustration assignment.
Also, still deejaying. Check out my mad phat platta skillz here: myspace.com/britpoptarts (actually, not THAT kind of deejay, as I have no funk in my trunk, just "a liddle biddy bit" of soul and a whole chunklet of rock'n'roll). No mic slaying, just a bit of Dread Pirate Ripped-Disc here.
Cheers. Wish me luck in not annihilating whole hordes of pixel people tomorrow. I'm way out of practice at this Sims stuff. (A satellite could drop on your head? That's just stupid-crazy.)
Edited To Add: still deejaying. Have been getting good feedback. One comment from a listener inspired the following reply: "I have been told I have the taste of an old, British professional male musician. I think that's a good thing. And that's pretty much what I listened to as a wee one, so it makes sense.
They tried to give me Leif Garrett and I used the record as a Frisbee. They tried to make me listen to nursery rhymes and I gagged unless it was Ella Fitzgerald.
Maybe I am proof of reincarnation, and a cranky dead Mod resides within me."
I'll let my friends decide if that is true.
FWIW: Atlanta-area people, I do try to play relevant Atlanta-area artists. Because I *heart* my musician buddys in ATL. Nepotism schmepotism, if it is good and gets requested, it gets played. If you want your faves to continue to get airtime, it helps to drop me an e-mail (at the same myspace.com/britpoptarts address I post here every now and again).
Tried to tackle programming via an online class with outdated technology and then very buggy brand-new and expensive technology that resolutely refused to cooperate, so I was a sad camper.
All is well now. Learning about the joys if Illustration and The Sims 2. Not at the same time.
Inevitably, Sims games require more patience and time than I usually have. I quit playing in, what, 1999 or something? Got tired of having to play "guess what will bork the game this week". I tried to quit, but they lured me back in! Got an EP for Xmas and am such a completist OCD freak that I acquired the others. Have not had time to really play, mind, but it looks like a lot of fun.
I suppose the Sims are still so dirt stupid that they manage to burn themselves to death making a sandwich, and still too passive that they won't go potty unless you force them to (which leads to big puddles on the floor). They also used to be insanely stalker jealous. God forbid that one pixel person like another one. Craziness. Ideal for the micromanager personality.
I was always "good" to my little imaginary pixel people. Never deliberately killed them which can be as much of a challenge as the game proper is supposed to be. So many ways to die. You can drown because you are too stupid to climb out of a pool that doesn't have a pool ladder. You can spontaneously combust, even in a hot tub, if it's summertime and your temperature gets too high. (Must find a hack to stop this annoyance.) You can die if you daydream and watch the clouds and a satellite falls on your head, a la "Dead Like Me," the TV show. You can be a right slob and let stinky plates pile up and emit wafts of toxic green fumes and be eaten alive by flies. You can get bitten by a guinea pig (or is that just Sims 1?) and die of a vile plague. You can starve to death if you're too stupid to go eat without being told to do so. You can also die of old age, and if you've had a good little Sim life, the grim Reaper shows up with hula girls and a Mai Tai, you turn into an urn and your Sim family cries for about twenty seconds before chucking your urn into the back yard and trying to commit suicide by poking about inside a Sim dishwasher without the least bit of mechanical skill.
You can also get abducted by aliens and probed and impregnated, or turn into a werewolf or vampire or Pod Person (plant life form).
I want to know what drugs the people at Electronic Arts are taking. They sound amazing.
Anyway, my focus has been on grad school, not keeping imaginary pixelated people from offing themselves by eating spoiled macaroni and cheese. Seriously. If you turn "free will" on and wander off, your household will be full of dead Sims. They are as smart as doorknobs.
In case keeping your pixel people alive isn't enough of a challenge for you, you can try to avoid having fugly Sim children. Gender is no barrier to reproduction. Maxis genetics, however, Maxis being the people responsible for creepy-looking Sims with Sesame Street Bert noses and fish lips and gorilla jowls and hyperthyroid eyes and wooden hair, are bad. How about "African American" Sims with Nordic ice-blue eyes? That's just weird, people. Anyway. Your task is to find the two least nauseating Sims in the game (or download custom content, not that this is usually helpful, as there is actually Sim DNA encoded into the game, which makes me want to create Sim Law & Order and CSI simulations) and attempt to spawn something that wouldn't star in a turn-of-the-century Carnivale sideshow. If you're not particularly fascinated by babies in real life, this can be one of the more frustrating aspects of the new Sims 2 game, because Sims now die. And, like with all creatures, if they do not breed, they die out. You can always make more, but then you have the extinction of an entire family line on your tender conscience. I don't need the guilt.
Other things I could be learning how to deal with is running a Sims business, selling imaginary pixel stuff to imaginary pixel people. I do look at screenshots, and apparently it is a lot easier to have someone you have never seen before have a tantrum in your pixel person's store for some perceived lack of bootlicking from the staff. Hooray, Entitlement Bitches in Sims 2! The usual lazy, unmotivated, slacker employees are mixed into the hiring pool, so you may get a real bonehead who has to be flogged to work. Learning to operate the cash register requires more smarts than a typical Sim has, so hilarity is supposed to ensue.
Or I could be dealing with stray cats and dogs invading my yard, adopting pets, and training them not to destroy furniture, pee in the house, growl at strangers, and so on. But Sim pets are cute.
Or I could be going Downtown and meeting vampires and creepy Townies who sing bad karaoke, have public brawls, and wear shiny polyester leisure suits and raver bodysuits. There's also an elderly Townie who will track you down and beat you over the head if you're indulging in PDA with another Sim, or if you have the temerity to try to swim in a public pool, use the lav, shower, or do anything that involves talking to the appropriate sex and wearing anything other than head-to-tow body armor.
I think the surreal aspect actually appeals to me, so when I have time to do more than poke at the shiny bits, download far too much custom content crap while deejaying and working on digital painting projects, and read the game CD cases and fliers, I'll report back. :)
Of course, I do have a day off tomorrow and am ahead on my Illustration assignment.
Also, still deejaying. Check out my mad phat platta skillz here: myspace.com/britpoptarts (actually, not THAT kind of deejay, as I have no funk in my trunk, just "a liddle biddy bit" of soul and a whole chunklet of rock'n'roll). No mic slaying, just a bit of Dread Pirate Ripped-Disc here.
Cheers. Wish me luck in not annihilating whole hordes of pixel people tomorrow. I'm way out of practice at this Sims stuff. (A satellite could drop on your head? That's just stupid-crazy.)
Edited To Add: still deejaying. Have been getting good feedback. One comment from a listener inspired the following reply: "I have been told I have the taste of an old, British professional male musician. I think that's a good thing. And that's pretty much what I listened to as a wee one, so it makes sense.
They tried to give me Leif Garrett and I used the record as a Frisbee. They tried to make me listen to nursery rhymes and I gagged unless it was Ella Fitzgerald.
Maybe I am proof of reincarnation, and a cranky dead Mod resides within me."
I'll let my friends decide if that is true.
FWIW: Atlanta-area people, I do try to play relevant Atlanta-area artists. Because I *heart* my musician buddys in ATL. Nepotism schmepotism, if it is good and gets requested, it gets played. If you want your faves to continue to get airtime, it helps to drop me an e-mail (at the same myspace.com/britpoptarts address I post here every now and again).