Frustration in more than one way

August already. Sort of hard to believe. The summers always go by too quickly, but this one seems to have sped by quicker than most. It's not over yet, of course, but once July is gone it's like the summer is really winding down.

I've got the new computer pretty much the way I want it now. I've installed software and made new folders, installed new icons and downloaded desktop images, added names and addresses to the address book and figured out how the mail application works, mostly. It's beginning to feel like mine, to feel like "home."

With the faster processor, I'm able to play The Sims again. Once I had several expansion packs, the old computer would hardly run the game, but this one works like a dream. I, of course, have hundreds of additional objects and skins that I've downloaded, so it takes what seems like a half hour to actually start the game, but once it's loaded everything works fine.

I was extremely annoyed with myself last night, though. I had been working on Ophelia's "Abandoned Garden" (under "Houses"). It's a really cool landscaped lot with a old potting shed and a greenhouse; she had already furnished it with a few things and I was happily buying up new (used) furniture and lawn ornaments and old appliances, and adding clumps of overgrown weeds to the lot. I had created a family and moved them into the house, then had second thoughts and had had a better idea of the family that I wanted to live there.

I don't think I have ever evicted anyone from a "real" house before -- I sometimes move a family onto a vacant lot, use the money cheat so they can afford a house, then evict them from there. So I was under the mistaken impression that if you evicted someone from a house, the family just goes away, but all the stuff in the house stays. Wrong. When I went back to the house with my new family, it was totally empty -- no furniture, no appliances, nothing. Just bare walls and floors.

I had done so much work on it! I tried quitting the game without saving, but that didn't work, so I got out of the game again and threw away (well, backed up) the house and reimported it again. I lost all of the changes that I had made, of course, but at least I had all the stuff that had come with the original house.

Ah well. Like I said, the fun for me is in furnishing and tweaking the houses. I'm much less interested in the actual relationships and character development.

Pictures soon!

Oh, and I sent this out to the mailing list folks -- I created a new page for my Sims that lists the entries over the years where I've talked about them, the ones with pictures anyway. I had sort of forgotten about Zombie Qui-Gon . . .

I'm going to be moving my site and email over the next week or so. The change should be transparent, but it's always possible that there will be a short period of non-response, so if you can't get to the site, just try again a little later. This will also (hopefully) fix my email situation. If you've written to me and I haven't answered, please resend--it's been taking email up to three days to arrive, and frankly there may be some that isn't arriving at all, so bear with me.