Apart from the quacking

It's been a short week, but it's seemed like a really long one. I guess I'm sick--I called the doctor on Tuesday and he said it sounded like I have a virus that's affecting my inner ear. He told me to get Meclizine, which is available over the counter now, and is, I believe, the main ingredient in the non-drowsy seasickness medications.

Well, I don't know about "non-drowsy." If I don't take enough of it, I'm dizzy, and if I take more, I can hardly stay awake. Hopefully it will resolve itself in a couple of days and go away. Suffice to say I'm really glad it's the weekend and I can sleep in. I've been waking up with the alarm, but hitting the snooze button way too many times.

Besides being sick, the other thing I've been doing this week is playing The Sims. Getting the "Vacation" expansion pack has gotten me interested in them, although I've only sent them on one vacation, which was sort of a disaster.

Of course I immediately created a family and sent them to the vacation resort, but I sent them to the public beach rather than to a hotel, and they ended up eating hotdogs and playing arcade games, and then they built a sandcastle right next to the port-a-potties, and then they were so exhausted they were falling down, but I couldn't figure out how to get them to a hotel.

So I sent them home and figured the best course of action, since I hadn't played it for so long, was to get the family established first, get the house furnished, get them jobs, and then send them on vacation. It doesn't help that there aren't really any instructions for the expansion pack, or at least not that I could find. But that's for later.

Right now I've been busy decorating the house, and having a great time downloading new objects. When I wiped out the game the last time, I backed everything up to CD, but I hadn't reinstalled all the objects and skins, so I've been selectively doing that, getting back the things I liked the best, and downloading new stuff as I find it.

I'm only playing with one house right now. The outside (click any picture for a larger image):

With the roof off:

With the walls down:

The Jedi family live here--Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn from The Phantom Menace. They have a sort of zen-like approach to decorating, they like lots of Oriental things around them. My favorite thing right now is the garden:

There are lots of potted plants (one of them must be a gardener!), a few stone lamps, and a little pond. I built the pond last night, and then I was playing in some other part of the house, and I heard quacking. I clicked over to the pond, and there was a pair of mallards happily splashing in the water! I ran upstairs and told Bob, "I built a pond, and ducks came!!" He asked me if I built the ducks, too, and I didn't; it must be one of those "if you build it, they will come" things.

It's a very peaceful place to meditate. Well, apart from the quacking.

The garage was remodeled--they don't drive--into a zendo for working out and relaxing. They do their workout routine in the morning:

Then relax in the hot tub, looking out through the full-length glass windows into the garden:

They originally had an iMac like mine, but then I found one of the new model ones, and they, of course, had to have it. It was pretty expensive, but they sold a few things and raised the cash to buy it. Qui-Gon, especially, likes it, and even dreams about it.

He read the manual carefully before turning it on.

He spends a lot of time playing games on it now.

I didn't keep track of where all the things I downloaded came from, but I did keep track of the coolest sites I found. Here are a few, notated when I remembered what I downloaded at each place. As I mentioned the other day, a lot of the sites I used to visit have become pay sites. The fees are mostly on the order of $5.00/month, and you can usually buy, for instance, a one month subscription, so it's not too outrageous. The following sites are all, I believe, free sites.

• Persimmon Grove - Wonderful gardening stuff--potted plants, seedlings, and supplies (and directions) to build a greenhouse
  
  
• Simaphor - The Balinese fountain, the garden lamps, the full-length glass windows, the mini-blinds, and lots of other things
  
  
• Cheap Frills - The martial arts mat and meditation tree.
  
  
• 7 Deadly Sims - The Jedi skins, plus lots of furniture, other objects, and wonderful skins
  
  
• SunAir Sims - Lots of good quality furniture
  
  
• Miffy's Sims Architectural Supplies - Amazing recreations of actual buildings into the Sims world, including The Palm House, Kew Gardens
  
  
• Keep it Simple - More garden stuff, including koi for the pond
  
  
• Mintha's Garden - Garden stuff, plus a very cool "Loch Ness Monster" type dragon for a pool
  
  
• Garden of Sim - Plants, some very nice jungly wallpaper, and the "Jungle House"
  
  
• The Original Sim - "World Beat" themes with houses, skins and objects
  
  
• La vie en Rose - Some very nice Oriental furniture, including a tea ceremony set