The Thessaliad Redux

I am a moron. A very tired moron.

Okay, the offing. I could not sleep last night. As in, at all. And decided to go out and get my Sims 2 expansion packs etc. You know, as you do. I managed Family Fun Stuff and Sims 2 Pets but for some reason, both GAME and Woolworths had sold out of Glamour Stuff. I came home and ordered it (and the next Strangers in Paradise TPB) from Amazon, splashing out for next-day delivery. No problem, right?

I installed everything, but for some reason, nothing would run. Eventually, after much poking around, I realised why - I'd installed the two new ones on the C drive whereas everything else was on the E drive. So I figured, fine, I'm a moron, I accept this; I will simply uninstall them and reinstall them on the E drive where they are supposed to be. So I uninstalled.

Did I remember to take the Downloads folder out of My Documents before I uninstalled? No. Thankfully I have a relatively recent backup and haven't been downloading objects in awhile, but I'm sure I've lost some stuff at least. So again, I am a very tired moron.

Still, now I'm stressed and aggravated and still won't be able to sleep, so I'm going to continue on with the plan as previously described: reinstall the expansion packs, put my downloads backup where it should be and then learn how my pets work. Anything else can wait until I'm not such a tired moron.

Bleh.

Sims 2 PETS!

Oh my gods that looks so cool...

Fine, I'm sad and geeky to get so bouncy over pixellated pets for my Sims, but ... dude! Sims 2 MicroMoggy! And I mean, no wonder it's taken them so long to get the next EP out; they have done some serious work on this, from the looks. Between pet customisations that put Sims Unleashed to shame, plus the ability to have them breed, plus all the new interactions for the Sims themselves, plus the new objects...

*squeepoing*

Okay, today is looking up. Now, just have to wait until October. Wah. Oh well, the Glamour Stuff mini-EP is coming out at the end of this month ... not that Sim-fan modders haven't beaten them to a lot of this stuff already, but hey, stuff is good.

squee...

Weed-through appears to have been successful. It loaded first time (still took forever, though) and didn't crash despite having built at least 70% of an occulty hoodoo shop. Still, I am not downloading anything new until I upgrade the Frankenbox. I still have things to delete, too, but I may be smart and do that via BodyShop, as a lot of it's clothes. Even so, all of the deletion is not to make room for new shit but to make the shit I already have run better, which is depressing. New RAM FTW!

Changeling today. Still not king, though. Damnit, why can't someone in the damn werewolf-heavy thread just do what the damn Child of Gaia asked and start looking for the Garou that didn't turn up to the damn meeting? It would be nice. Instead we've got a bunch of people yes, doing stuff that vaguely furthers their own plots but um ... trying to gather an army? Hello?

I have discovered the joys of Podcasting.

dis_connection was going on about The Now Show, which I haven't thought about one way or the other in over a year but suddenly realised that I found funny. So, since he was obliging enough to include the link to the Podcast of last week's show, I decided to download it. Or rather, subscribe to the Podcast. But since I didn't have time this morning to have a listen on iTunes, I shunted it over to my iPod and had a listen there. Which resulted in me sitting on the bus on the way to Finchley Central, scaring other passengers by apparently randomly giggling like an idiot. Mitch Benn definitely has his moments, but Marcus Brigstocke is my all-time fave. I love a man who gives good rant.

Buh. My nasal passages still hurt like hell and I very much did not want to get out of bed this morning. I mean, at all. There need to be more Bank Holidays, damnit. dodgyhoodoo wants me to check out whether I can take some holiday at the end of June sometime, but June seems to be booked up. Michael's got two weeks and Angela's got a week at the end of June. I might be able to take off when Angela's off in the last week, but I want to wait until this stupid mid-May review thing is over with. After all, I don't want to take holiday in June if I'm in shit at work in May. It doesn't seem right, somehow. But we'll see. Review is coming (probably next week).

I need to do something about my Sims 2, which keeps on crashing. Usually this is in the Create a Sim section, "Make a Baby" option with this one stupid hairstyle, which apparently has teen through adult but no damn child mesh, so it goes through this godsawful crankcrankcrank thing to generate a random hairstyle for a child (blonde, for some reason, even on the brown, black or red recolours) and the extra demands on my substandard RAM causes the whole damn thing to crash and burn like the fucking Hindenburg. So not that hairdo, then. Shame; I like that hairdo.

Tonight I plan to do little but faff; we have an Invasion ep to watch but I would like to make sure that my Sims 2 does not crash and burn as a matter of course but merely does so in the face of the sequence of events outlined above so I think I'll be doing that tonight. Tomorrow I need to fend for myself in the matter of dinner because dodgyhoodoo is in meetings. Then Friday arrives, thank the gods, and then we have weekend. Yay! Except the weekend needs to be now, please.

I made French toast brunch. Go, me! I even managed not to screw up the sausages. I'm generally bad at sausages. Or at least, I think I'm generally bad at sausages. I'm always afraid I'm going to undercook them. However, it all seems to have worked out fine, except that our deeper frying pan sucks rocks, thank you. Still, I am tweaking my recipe for the egg-milk mix and it seems to be going well (now I add about 2 teaspoons of sugar, a half-teaspoon of cinammon and maybe a quarter-teaspoon of vanilla extract; gives nice layers of flavour). So yay!

Now I am going to have some fun with my Sims, who I have been neglecting lately in favour of Millennium and the joys of having to hand iMisc over to dodgyhoodoo because the software for the wireless whatsit is screwed and constantly generates really stupid IP addresses instead of, I dunno, the one that works. So dodgyhoodoo tends to have to tweak it so it works again.

Right. Sims. I don't know if I should go back to work on the Silent Hill Sims 2 project or just faff. Hmm.

The question this morning was, "Do I blow £12 on the new Rob Zombie album in HMV, or do I blow either £15 or £25 on a new iTunes music card and buy the new Rob Zombie album on iTunes, where it will likely only cost £8, then buy bunches of other stuff?" The answer, of course, was "That depends on whether or not the iTunes Music Store is even selling it", as occasionally the iTunes Music Store is really fucking annoying about what it actually stocks. I checked the iTunes Music Store on my silly work eMac, and lo and behold, when I searched for Rob Zombie, up came Educating Horses, the new album, at £7.90. And I had a yen for one of the newer Static-X albums anyway...

Now the question becomes, "Do I go to the Apple Store at lunchtime and buy my iTunes music card then, or do I wait until after work?" The problem with doing this over lunch is that it leaves very little time to, y'know, eat. Plus at some point today I must go to Neal's Yard to purchase bath and shower gel, as I noticed yesterday that they had restocked it but couldn't afford the larger bottle I wanted. Or I could send dodgyhoodoo, I suppose. But it is open 'til 7pm, so either way.

Best news of all is that Ham-Fisted Editor is on holiday! He's incommunicado all week! Yes, yes, YES! A reprieve from the incompetence! Sometimes life is good!

Now, apart from my iTunes card and possibly bath and shower gel, tonight's tasks will involve Sims 2 hotels; either furnishing the Lakeview Hotel or building the Dockside Palace, the large hotel in which the Mage cabal has holed up after the Molly-rescue mission. I have a very specific image in mind of what it looks like so I may as well actually design it for my World of Darkness 'neighbourhood'. Incidentally, the building of Silent Hill went as well as can be expected, given that you're not allowed to have diagonal roads in Sims 2 neighbourhoods. Maybe they'll fix that in upcoming expansion packs, if I'm lucky. The game designers really do seem to have their fans and users in mind when they design this sort of thing; a big-deal thing prior to Open for Business was trying to build split-level houses, which didn't work without a lot of boolprop hacks. When OfB came out, they included a specific sort of foundation that was designed for use inside buildings so that you could have a split level house without any of the faff. And with the success of sites like Mod the Sims 2, Sims Resource, Parsimonious and all the other custom content sites I peruse on a regular basis (my personal favourites being MTS2, XM Sims and Rose Sims, the latter two having the best hair meshes on the web), the discs of nothing but new furniture, clothing and accessories (Sims 2 Holiday Edition and Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff, coming on 13th April) are probably pretty popular as well. After all, the people who do get them will be able to use the meshes to do neat recolours, which other people won't be able to get without buying the discs as well... Way to exploit the community spirit. At least we get something out of it.

(NB: they have pyjamas with monster-feet slippers attached in the Family Fun Stuff EP. Helloooo, Lucille...)

It comes to me that I don't actually use Sims 2 as a game anymore, really. I haven't played with my Sims in ages, despite having designed the entire Osborne family (all five females, matriarch to littlest in-law) for my Llandeilo shopping district. I use it more as a very advanced doll builder and architectual design tool than as a PC game. Maybe I ought to buy Lemmings or Worms or something; a PC game I actually play. I suppose my games are all roleplay these days, not that I was ever a huge video gamer in the first place. Incidentally, still no word from the Hollow City, but I will nag if I don't hear by Thursday.

Why do people do this to Silent Hill?

Out of morbid curiosity, I went to look at what fanfiction.net had to offer in terms of Silent Hill fanfic. When I got to the Resident Evil / Silent Hill crossover, I got that eye-bleedy feeling but had a quick look anyway. The words "The Umbrella Corporation has taken an interest in the little town of Silent Hill" intrigued me, but the fact that it's SH3 rewritten with Chris Redfield added in screwed the pooch for me there. Going through Silent Hill with a well-trained military sort of guy really takes the point out of it. I still must work on that Silent Hill fanfic I wanted to write awhile ago.

I didn't think to bring iMisc with me when I left the house this morning. This has something to do with the fact that I didn't wake up until nearly half-eight this morning. It really was just "throw on clothes, pet cat briefly, voom". Bum. Oh well. At least I made it into work on time.

I hope I get some energy back by tonight. I haven't even finished unwrapping Sim City 4 yet, but I hope to spend tonight reading up on FAQs concerning turning SC4 cities into Sims 2 neighbourhoods. You know, size translations and the like. Then pulling up the Silent Hill maps and seeing how they fit together so I can make a whole neighbourhood. I'm not entirely sure how best to go about it, but I'm sure I'll find a way. Well, at least I'll make it close as I can get.

Shame we don't have weather. I'd love to do proper fog.

Anyway, back to the grind. I want to go home and play with my new toys but that's not going to happen quite yet, so I may as well make myself useful.

Yesterday was ... well, yesterday was.

We pootled off to Holloway around about midday, got vaguely lost, but at least wound up outside the pub that l0stmarbles and his entourage (I can't think of a better word, really) had holed up, so stopping for lunch seemed an idea. So we did so, and wound up sitting off to the side a bit during the typical rampant rollicking conversation with me still bitching about the whole Tony Blair calls on God thing. Then we went to the convention.

I'm told that this is the first time that this particular event has been held, so it's probably not all that surprising that things seemed a bit ... limited. Don't get me wrong, but the lady who calls herself Scorch who does something called Pyrography had some really interesting stuff on offer (more's the pity, we didn't win the neat herb chopping board that she offered up for the raffle, but we can buy one at another point) and dodgyhoodoo bought a rather nice t-shirt and a nice bit of wall art for me - stuff about the rowan, the tree that apparently rules Aquarians, from the birthdates, and so technically me if you believe that sort of thing. I'm just chuffed when it's accurate. Also, there was a neat demonstration by a bunch calling themselves "The Hedgewitches' Kitchen" on how to make almond face scrub, which has reaffirmed my desire to start making my own soaps and things. Still, a vast number of the books on offer were pure wank, I was rather leery of some of the actual talks and I will never understand the point of having a "book of shadows" with all that silly shit stuck to the cover given that, if you're using it the way you're supposed to be using it - constant reference, revision and hard use generally - all the gemstones and silly bits are just going to fall right off within a week and a half. Give me a nice plain leatherbound thing where you can wipe off the oils, scrape off the candle wax and carry it around in case of inspiration. Also, they kicked out early to ensure that things were completely clear for the Gospel group that were giving the next bunch of talks and general convention stuff. From "Blessed Be" to Christian rappers in half an hour; it was kind of impressive.

Anyway, we gave up on that fairly quickly and sat in the pub for awhile, being eventually joined by l0stmarbles, Maria and a few others from the whole pagan set. We had a good time, though big bottles of cider, while looking really nifty, are too much for people who shouldn't be drinking at all. (I blame Maria; she was the one who encouraged me to pull a Marilyn...) At least I realised that it would be too much and shared the cider out with dodgyhoodoo. The talk ranged from theatre productions to costume balls to torturing staff at the Dungeons to mishaps at gigs to Sisters of Mercy and then just all over the place. Definitely entertaining, but I still wonder if there's ever going to be one of these things where I can actually talk to people about crafty stuff, exchange ideas and learn something. I'm also wondering where the people from the Pentacle forums that l0stmarbles said wanted to 'say hello' went, as I met almost no one yesterday. Sam I think I already knew, I only got Pete's name as he was leaving, I talked to Caroline briefly but only got her name by eavesdropping on the conversation she was having at the next table and the only person to whom I was properly introduced was Neil.

On the plus side, Neil had the Changeling source material that he and Michelle borrowed a year and a half ago. So week after next, Changeling is go! dodgyhoodoo has already come up with his character, and I know weaselbitch wants in, but still have no responses from the rest of you. lokean? neonchameleon? Hello?

Afterwards, we tried to go to the Japanese place at Finchley Central for dinner but it was packed out (a good sign) so we moved on to Two Brothers, a somewhat swanky fish restaurant. Very nice food, though; we must go back when it's less crowded. I swear, half the reason we go out to dinner is to get new ideas for our own cooking endeavours. (Admittedly, the other half involves being too tired or just plain not arsed to cook or wash up.)

So today, I will be playing Sims 2 and cooking duck for dinner. Also getting the last bit of rest I can before ... *sigh* ... work tomorrow. Bleh.

New toy yay!

Okay, no new toy RightNowThisMinute; I do not want to appear as sad as I am about my general enthusiasm for the new Sims 2 EP. Then again, I am reliably informed that, so long as I am not queueing up all night for an XBox 360, I have not even entered the realm of sad yet. I might disagree, but can't be bothered. Easier to stay home and faff a bit. Besides, I don't even know when GAME opens; 10 am is a safe bet. So that is when I will leave the house. Yay.

I'm going to have to give the anniversary bash a miss, which very much sucks because I was really looking forward to it. Still, I'm not quite up to it (started being really fragged around six yesterday night and was asleep on the sofa during one of the louder portions of Moulin Rouge by half-eight, which is when we'd be actually eating dinner), can't have a drink if I want one because of the stupid antibiotics and would generally be a bit of a party pooper. I will send anniversary wishes to the happy couple tomorrow during Pagan con thing, but am sending gifts (I can't keep track of how many occasions have gone by before I finally came up with something for them, so I hope they like what I've finally got them) via dodgyhoodoo for tonight.

Still, there's going to be all the partying without me. Muh. Well, at least I have (or will have) new toy; that should keep me company. We were watching the designer's walkthrough (for the benefit of Mr Hoodoo; sorry, I literally could not resist the Beatles ref) and he says that I will have obscene amounts of fun with this one. I agree, happily; this one looks mad. But I'm being patient. Only 40 mins or so to go.

And finally, the next Sims 2 expansion pack (Open for Business) comes out on Friday. I have been looking forward to this one but of course, being me, I haven't been paying the remotest bit of attention so it's come as a bit of a surprise. If I didn't check Mod the Sims 2 so often, I might not have known about it at all until next time I was in GAME or something.

Now, of course, this makes me think about my budget and the need to make Spending Guilt as painless as humanly possible. I am mindful of the things I need to replace, mostly in the field of essential oils. Patchouli and marjoram, mainly; I used those up (except for some Boots crap patchouli I bought when I was a little less choosy about where my oils came from) making a bottle of oils for dodgyhoodoo's preferred bath foam mix. I've kind of given up on the sandalwood, because no one seems to have much at the minute and apparently dodgyhoodoo got evils when he asked for it at Neal's Yard the once. As for Watkins, which is where I prefer to buy my oils, the spot for sandalwood is just empty and I'm kind of afraid to ask - at this point, I'm considering getting a lump of sandalwood for burning (they do sell it there) and trying to make my own. I'm not much of a fan (actually, I'm not much of a fan of patchouli either) but dodgyhoodoo likes it.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that there are expenses, and those expenses will make Spending Guilt an issue, particularly when I'm being gouged by Transport for London on a monthly basis. So Sim City is going to have to go on the "to be purchased next payday" list, along with more memory for the Frankenbox and another iTunes music card. At least there's a plan. Plans are good. Plans make Spending Guilt less of an issue.

I wish it were out RightNowThisMinute, though; I'm so bored. Still ill and tired and achy (but less achy), though. Then again, if I'm still feeling crappy and unable to attend l0stmarbles' anniversary do on Friday night, I'll have something to keep me company while everybody parties without me. Then again, I'm a little trepidatious about the anniversary do, mainly because since I'm on antibiotics, I can't drink, and it's always distressing to me when the occasion contains drinking and I can't indulge. (I don't mind if it's because I don't want to, but not being able to sucks rocks.)

However, come hell or high water, I'm going to the Saturday Pagan con thing. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.