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.

Hey guys. I’m sorry for the lack of updates. Between buying a condo, packing up, working like mad, and rooting hard for a certain reality show contestant, I haven’t had as much time for my Sims. I do have a Ravelo update in the works, so look for that soon. I’m moving at the end of the month, so things will be crazy until then, but after that, I’ll have MUCH more time to work on my Sims stories. Thanks for hanging in there, and while you’re waiting for me to get off my butt and update already, make sure you check out the Legalos Legacy (“Confessions of an Heiress”) — Amy is posting some awesome stories over there!

Hugs to all!

Some good news and bad news this time. (Big surprise, right?) I’ll get the bad news out of the way first: even though I finally got my game reinstalled, it went back to crashing like it was before. So the uninstall/reinstall didn’t fix that problem. Thanks to this thread at MTS2, however, I’ve determined that it’s probably a glitch with my Nvidia card and Open For Business. Having a ton of downloads doesn’t help, either, but since it crashed even when I removed the downloads, I decided to uninstall OFB. Hopefully when Nvidia releases a driver which is more compatible with OFB, I’ll be able to reinstall it, but for now I’d rather be able to play the game (and have all my downloads, although I am slowly reducing the amount).

Since I had to uninstall Family Fun Stuff and OFB anyway, I decided to uninstall everything and reinstall AGAIN, just to start fresh. Right now I have just the base game installed, and I’m going to keep it that way for a bit while I build some houses. Here’s where the good news comes in — my first house is available for download at Parsimonious! It’s called “Marchbanks”, and it’s a traditional colonial. Check it out, if you’re curious.

Before I reinstall University and Nightlife, I’m going to make a few more base-game-only homes for people who don’t have all the EPs — is there anything you guys would like to see? Starter cottages? Suburban homes? Mediterranean villas? I’m taking requests!

Also good news: I ran into some glitches with the Ravelo update, but I worked it out, so look for it TONIGHT!

I’m truly sorry to keep you all waiting for so long. This game is beyond frustrating sometimes, but I love it and I’m NOT ready to give it up yet! Thanks so much for hanging in there!

1. It’s spring.
2. It’s Friday.
3. I got my Sims back!!!

Yes, that’s right, after a month of tearing my hair out trying to get my game to run, I’ve finally made some progress. I got University and Nightlife to install by using the Disk Images method recommended by EA, which basically means I copied the CD files to folders on my hard drive and ran the installation from there. I had tried that before, but it kept asking for the CD, so I had moved on to other options. Last night I tried it again just for the heck of it, and what do you know? It worked! I was able to reinstall all of the EPs and play the game for a full 45 minutes with no crashing. That’s a very good sign. I have no idea what made it work this time — maybe I just needed to reboot? I don’t know. But it worked!

I’m going to test the game a bit longer before putting all my downloads back in, which means…playing the Ravelos! My goal is to get those girls graduated from college as soon as possible, so you might see an update on them as early as this weekend. They don’t have their usual hairstyles and stuff, but I’m just happy to be playing them again.

Anyway, just wanted to share the good news! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.