Hey peeps, I’m upgrading my WordPress, so if anything looks wonky, that’s why. Hopefully everything will be up and running smoothly very soon. *crosses fingers*

UPDATE: Whew, everything works! Thanks, Kay, for testing the comments. ;-)

Just for kicks I started a Legacy family last night based on Pinstar’s new Legacy Challenge rules. I gave my founder several handicaps, one of which I already broke (d’oh). I’m enjoying the new challenge immensely, though — it’s more difficult with some of those handicaps. “Middle of Nowhere” especially makes the going very tough — you can purchase only 1 item per day from the Buy menu, and only 2 items from the Build menu. Yes, that means if you want to build a new room, you can only build 2 wall sections per day. So they won’t be living in a mansion any time soon.

I may post some pics of my new family eventually, but I’m going to wait a bit, since I seem to have a bit of Sims 2-related ADD (tm Kay) lately. I’d hate to write about them only to abandon them after a week like I did with the unfortunate Wines family. Speaking of the Wines, I love the ISBI Challenge but it’s only fun if your Sims do crazy, idiotic things, and well, the Wines didn’t do anything but sleep, eat, work, and play chess. Not very exciting. Something like that might have been fresh and funny back in October 2004 when the game was new and we didn’t have stuff packs up the ying-yang, but by now it’s just old hat. (Actually, I just have boring Sims. Or I’m not very imaginative. Because Mao has a most excellent ISBI family going, and Bitsy had a great one for awhile, too — not sure if she’s still doing it.)

That’s why I’m really digging the new handicaps and master points for the Legacy Challenge. It gives the game a different twist. I’m seriously going for points this time, too, which makes it different — there WILL be an alien-zombie-vampire in this family, by golly! Mark my words. Also, many ghosts. I never went for the ghost colors before — now I am. Should be interesting.

Ravelo update coming in the near future – stay tuned!

Melody Wines came to the village of Northcliff in order to start a new life. All she could recall of her former life was kissing “Mystery Sim”, whoever that was. She had no sordid history, no murky past, no childhood trauma. She was a clean slate. “Well,” she said, “it’s time to muddy up that slate.”

She fell in love with the first house she saw and moved right in. (It’s a good thing, too, because it was the only house in town.)

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I had so much fun with my ISBI family tonight that I didn’t want to stop playing. Woo! It’s past midnight now, so I don’t have time for a full update, but I’ll give you guys a sneak preview.

Meet Melody Wines of Northcliff:

I forgot to write down her stats, but she’s mainly Outgoing and Nice, with average Neatness and Activeness. She’s also rather Serious. Her aspiration is Popularity, which I usually hate, but I wanted to try something different. It’s working pretty well so far!

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I said I would update last night, and I didn’t. My apologies. (Not that any of you were hitting refresh every five seconds in eager anticipation of my update, but I’m sorry nonetheless.)

And I said I was going to post a story inspired by Kay (it had to do with the Pleasantview Challenge), but I’ve changed my mind. Again.

I know, I know. Just shoot me now.

Er — don’t shoot. I hate guns. Just clobber me over the head with a mallet or something.

I’ve decided to start with something light and fun (and also very challenging) – the I’m Surrounded By Idiots! Challenge. I tried it before with Christal Chinchilla and enjoyed it very much (though it was quite difficult). I’m not going to write stories but just do commentary, like I did with the Shanleys. Writing major stories is just too daunting right now. My writing muscles are too flabby.

So…how would you guys like to help me pick my ISBI founder? I spent some time with the Random Name Generator and picked 8 names I liked. They’ll all a little quirky, but that’s part of the fun. If you’d like to join in, please review the list below and pick the name you like the best. I’ll then create my founder based on the most popular name.

The Names:
Edgar Deatherage
Alexandria Zirkle
Harvey Whittingham
Adela Weatherwax
Chester Bath
Charmaine Brideau
Ben Bitter
Melody Wines

Pick the one you like best and let me know in the comments section. I’ll create the founder tonight (or tomorrow night, if I don’t get enough votes by this evening).

Thanks, and Happy Simming!

OK, I have a confession to make. The Westward Ho! Challenge has already kicked my butt. The size and scope of it is just incredible. I was tantalized by that fact at first, but after spending countless hours creating families and buildings, the thought of proceeding with gameplay is overwhelming.

Also, I’ve figured out a possible way to solve my graphic card problem — buy more memory. When I get my next paycheck I plan on shelling out some bucks for another gigabyte of RAM. If that works, I’ll be able to go back to my Annabel Island folks. And I don’t really want to have two Victorian stories running at the same time. It’s just too much.

So, with apologies to Paige, I will be dropping out of the Westward Ho! Challenge for now. It’s a really cool challenge, and wonderfully creative, but I just wasn’t up to the task. I’m a very rusty storyteller right now. Maybe I can come back to it later on when I’ve greased the wheels a bit.

So what am I going to do? Well. I’m at a bit of a loss. For the past month I’ve been trying to get back into my Sims, but nothing has really clicked. I even tried the Asylum Challenge for awhile. And the Ravelos…as much as I adore them, they’ve become too distant. I’ve played them for a bit but things just aren’t the same anymore. I built this huge mansion for them and had all these plans…but that was a good three months ago. I’ve lost my motivation to play them. Again, maybe I’ll come back to them, but for now, it’s just not working.

I wanted to explain this to you guys so that you’ll understand what’s going on if I suddenly post some weird story out of the blue. I have some more ideas I want to try, because I really do miss my Sims and writing stories about them. But I need to find something that will inspire me. Thanks so much for your patience with me and for continuing to check this site. Stay tuned, loyal readers. I’m not giving up yet.

I am slowly working my way back to Sims-blogging again; I even spent the better part of a day this past weekend working on a new update! I’m very excited about it — I’m doing Paige’s Westward Ho! Challenge with a bit of a twist or two.

As for my other stories, the Ravelos are on hold for now. I had a bunch of pictures all ready to go, but that was over a month ago, and I’m not ready to dive back into their story just yet. I need to get my feet wet first (hence the new challenge). I’m missing my Annabel Island folks terribly, but they’re still on hold while I await a fix for the crashing problem I’ve been experiencing on my regular Sims account. It has to do with my Nvidia card + Open for Business + too many downloads and may never be resolved, sadly. Who knows? But I’m waiting just in case. I don’t want to get rid of Annabel Island or rebuild the whole thing, so they’re in a kind of stasis right now.

Because I’m playing the Westward Ho! Challenge on my “clean” Sims account, I can’t go too download-crazy with the western/Victorian stuff, so the custom content will be a bit sparse. Well, perhaps not sparse, but not as abundant as in my Annabel Island stories. I went on a little downloading spree over the weekend, so I hope you guys aren’t sick of Victorian stuff yet. I never seem to tire of it. Hee.

Also, I’ve been detached from the Sims blogging world for so long that I’m quite behind on everyone else’s blogs, too. I’ll be trying to catch up in the next couple of weeks! I was thrilled to see that one of my favorite bloggers, Eva M., is back with a new Legacy and a new blog, Pasota Hills. Welcome back, Eva! (I tried to leave a comment on your new blog — let me know if it didn’t go through).

Thanks again to everyone for hanging around this long! Look for an update here in the very near future.