Someone playing ts2 theme music:
https://youtu.be/IXt-Wt4Z7Uk

At last I finished all the biographies of each playable sim of my new neighborhood now I will be able to take photos with some coherence.

This is my favorite sims 2 playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE1...84187152D692D80

@Bubblebeam -- I've noticed that TS2 is very good for detecting glitchiness of both computer and user. It's my alert that my simming computer is ready for a defrag (or whatever it's called nowadays -- I miss the Windows 95 interface where you could watch the hard drive getting organized in colour-coded squares!) and also for my own malfunctioning. The first time I experienced anhedonia while playing TS2 was the first time I realized that something I'd experienced since childhood was neither the world being sucky nor me being unappreciative. Basically, if it can spoil TS2, it's a serious problem, and almost certainly NOT YOUR FAULT -- I think this is because TS2 is so good for integrating whatever is bothering you that if it starts to fail to, it's because your own coping mechanisms are failing faster than you can keep up with it. I did fail to heed this last year, for a while, and I'm still negotiating with it -- my slowpoke-scatterbrain new self (not new normal! I'm trying to fix it as fast as a slowpoke scatterbrain can!) is swamped with the idea of picking through my Sun&Moon collection to replace the items that have changed file names (I am not happy about that! I think this must be close to what it's like having to update CC for TS4 patches!), my exaggerated impatience has me considering trying out the RPC for the chance of less glitchy loading (and of course the separates mod) and would have had me merging packages were it not for the reminder that TS2 is still evolving that the Sun&Moon issue gave me, and the useless perfectionist part of me is freaking out that mods are updating too fast for slowpoke-scatterbrain to keep up with (as if that were a bad thing). However, I wouldn't have noticed these issues until they got much worse if it wasn't for the channeling of them into TS2, so even when I'm not playing, it's making it easier for me to figure myself out.

Also, while monolithic domes don't work out in TS2 unless one is willing to use extensive building cheats and/or unlevel walls, trailers are fun to build and allow surprising creativity. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the M&G dome roof more creatively, but as a roof, it has limitations. I'm messing around with the idea of an all-expansions, no-CC, Maxis-styled neighborhood (enough people complain about basegame-only hoods, and while I like them because of the innocence and flexibility, I don't think I could build one -- and besides, I have the UC and am stuck with M&G in AGS, so why not take advantage of it?) and came up with a story about a town recovering from a disastrous storm, counting its losses and rebuilding itself. (Heh, wonder where that idea came from?) I wanted to have a mixture of buildings that could have reasonably withstood the storm and overcrowded trailers shipped in to house the residents who lost their homes...trailers worked, sturdy buildings are a wash for now.

Wait, last year so many people were doing retro-remakes of Maxis hoods, and this year so many are building and making hoods... I think there's a pattern of self-expression modes here. Maybe we wanted to feel like we were in the past and didn't need to worry about the future, and now we're ready to build something new to move into?

I feel like sims ought to know how full or empty their uni performance bar is, and to not roll wants of writing their term paper or doing assignments if it's already as full as it can be without the needed skills. Like, Heather (Huffington), it's great that you want to write your term paper but if you don't wanna gain any skills then it's really quite useless.

Unless they're particularly feckless, I read the "write term paper" want as indicating the will to do the necessary research (gaining the skills) to write a good term paper, so I lock it and it stands in for wants to gain the necessary skills. After all, writing the term paper isn't really that big a deal. The hard part is doing the research and putting it together and keeping track of the bibliography and making the footnotes work (which you whippersnappers have no idea how hard that was on a typewriter, holey cheese).

**Grad school flashbacks intensify** My bibliography for my master's thesis was longer than most papers I wrote during my undergrad days!

What, the paper topic wasn't "Youth in Asia"?

I see unskilled desires to write papers and do assignments as earnest attempts at doing the work, hampered by the student's cluelessness about what they're actually studying and obliviousness to that cluelessness. Sounds about normal for Heather Huffington... If they actually want to make Deans List or graduate (which usually get locked), or fear academic probation, they'll do the skilling -- otherwise, clueless papers are a valid option. Besides, there are other ways to raise the grade bar...

(I may have done something like this. Repeatedly. To the point of being requested by authority to explain the glaring mismatch of different aspects of my intelligence. I suspect they were looking for evidence of paper-buying or other ways...not that there was any to find.)

Term papers.
One rolls a want to write a term paper, despite not needing it.
Me: Oh, great! Off to a community lot with computers with all 6 of you then

For me, if a sim rolls a want to do their Term Paper, but they haven't skilled, I have them skill just a bit as to not render it a waste. The interaction takes a while, which is realistic, and it isn't exactly kind to the needs either, so having a sim go through all that just to not get their progress bar to at least a pass is a bit... wasteful, looking at it from a pure gameplay perspective. How much of the progress bar they open though, depends on their interest in school. Five, or less, they get it high enough for a C, 6-8 up to a B, and 9-10 up to an A*.

I had to take out the Random Marriage/Proposal Reject mod because, although it added an element of surprise to my stories that sometimes worked, too many times it just didn't make sense. There is just no way that a Family Sim who has had the want locked to marry someone since college is going to run away at the altar. I like the element of randomness, but I work hard to get some of my Sims to the point where they want to get married, and it feels like a bit of a waste for a rejection to come out of nowhere.

I have decided to give all teens arriving at college a Clothing Grant of §1,000 (Kaching!) So if they don't like the clothes they have arrived in, they can go to the shops and buy something they do like.

So,what will happen to the clothes which they will replace??.will they keep them or donate to a poor sim neighborhood?!

Misheard Simlish, this is too funny
https://youtu.be/tqm9XE0wE6c

That's hilarious. Can't wait to eat lunch with someone and casually say "egghole. Christa famano."

Honestly a great idea, for some reason they always seem to grow up into the worst sets possible for me. They seem to want to make jockey pants a fashion thing.

*Regina George voice* Gretchen, stop trying to make jockey pants happen. They're not going to happen.

Or my cousin's too fresh, even her toes.
---
Oops, I just said "Happy birthday, wohoo" to my cousin who also plays sims. Hope it doesn't get misunderstood

Well, they keep them, 'cause the game mechanic kind of makes them. Or rather they go into a sort of clothing pool that any playable (of the same sex) in the dorm can wear. But I rather like the idea of giving old clothes to poorer Sims. I was sure there was a mod on MTS (I thought by christianlov, or possibly Mootilda) that allowed you to "acquire" another Sims clothes (and at the same time they "acquired" your clothes) but I've looked through all their mods and cant find it. Actually using christianlov's Gussy Up or his Boutique Clothes Rail to buy clothes also results in the acquiring each others' clothes.

The problem is getting rid of the clothes you and your Sim don't want. Unfortunately Mootilda didn't live to comp0lete the final version of her Wardrobe Cleaner. The one she did upload before her untimely death is far too drastic for my liking. It deletes all the family's clothing except items currently selected for Sims' Everyday, Formal, Swimwear, PJs, Athletic, Underwear and Outer Wear. Many of my Sims have spent thousands of Simoleons building up a collection of clothes that they do like, and I fear they'd feed me to a cowplant if I deleted all the ones they're not currently wearing! Mootilda left us the C# source code for the mod, and I wonder if I could get a C# compiler, and learn enough C# to add the facility to the mod to choose which outfits to keep and which to get rid of. (Mootilda was intending to add this feature.) I did formerly work as a programmer, but I never did any commercial work in any variety of C. (I did a short course in C programming many years ago.) So I'm not sure if I can do it. (And I certainly haven't got even a fraction of Mootilda's talent.) Don't hold your breath -- I'll probably never get round to it.


My own random thought -- I've discovered that I love playing dorms, especially big ones. There's so much going on in them. When my game goes onto triple speed because my playable students have gone to class, I put it back to slow speed so I can watch what the dormies are getting up to. There's always something happening. I also liked the half dozen dormies who generated when I moved teens into LGU Dorm 3. In fact I'm so happy both with them and with dorm play in general that I've added an extra dorm to LGU. I've added the twelve-bedded Maxis dorm with a Mansard roof, and I'm currently trying to upgrade it to Peni's standards.

There was a time when the newest housing fad in simland was shipping containers. there are a few featured here.

Now it appears the fad has become possible in the real world.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/14/us/c...-cfc/index.html

I'm surprised it hasn't become more popular-the housing crisis is bad enough that these would be an acceptable replacement for tiny houses or trailers (er, 'manufactured houses).

I find it weird that children can call for various services. Like how is an 8 year old going to hire a repairman and pay for it and everything while the parents are at work? I get this is sims but when irl you grow up repeatedly hearing "must be 18 or older to call" all over tv commercials...

I suppose that children and teens were given some options so that they could live alone in case of being orphaned, although more important ones such as cooking for childs were forgotten ... It's what I always thought.

Downloading new custom content little by little and taking the time to organize it into folders, test each new thing in my game, and add to collections if needed may not be as much fun as downloading tons of stuff willy-nilly, but it's worth it, really.

I finally found a hairstyle that destroys one of maxis. All afternoon doing the 50-50

"My male sims need more shorts."

I then proceeded to search and bookmark ones I want to download.

Today, my landlord and his 2 male relatives decided to install a new gas heater in my apartment.
During the re-arrangement of furniture that involved moving one large baker's table/rack to my bedroom, he caught a glimpse of my computer monitor on pause during a game of "Banished".
(He's Vietnamese, and has a very heavy accent)
He there upon asked me, "Sims?"
I said, "No, that isn't the Sims, but I do play it."
"A very long time ago!"
Me: "Yes it was! But I still like to play it!"

I should have showed him my game..but man, I feel old now-and he knows how old I am!

Being old means you keep beating everything that's tried to kill you. Be proud of it.