I hoped ahrubyblue might have a chance to see these before her big adventure! A big day, I think! It would have been even easier if I hadn't been so fussy about CC. Don't you hate it when you have the perfect outfit and it turns out to only work for Adult, but not Young Adult, or vice versa?

( Elaine pictures! )
Now that they're all settled in, I'll be tossing a wedding for Ulysses and Doc Nerd, and I think Cecilia and Cecil will be heading off to Takemizu.

I have a lot of grading to do these days, along with preparing for the holidays, but I'm enjoying it and hope to have at least a short Uni post up soon, and a few reviews, including Doc Nerd's up tomorrow.

I am quite nervous about going to the dentist tomorrow. It's a measure of how nervous I am that I didn't say anything about it before and don't really want to talk about it. The good thing is that I went to the Victorian ball yesterday and now my whole right leg really hurts, so tomorrow maybe my mouth will hurt and get my mind off my leg or vice versa.

I was an extremely good girl and commented on some graduate papers today and ran errands. So now I have a quick picture for the ladies whose simselves went into this mix--

Duodecimus!



He got penguingirl03 's eyes. I think his mummy writeraissa may have contributed to his general prettyfulness. Also in there somewhere is Grandma orikes13 , great grandma Denise avidreader7 , and great great grandma fireflowersims .

He rolled Fortune, and I think he's the first Marian to roll that since forever. They're mostly been Pop and Pleasure. Right now Grandma Pen is the lone Knowledge Sim in that house and everybody else wants to Play On Sofa or Buy Electronic Entertainment, over and over and over.
PurpleBunny is still working on her Celebrity Chef LTW. Sextus may not make his 20 Best Friends LTW, though I suppose I should let him use the family Wishing Well, duh.

I have a few more Romans to age up, and I will probably cheat, sorry, and then everybody is ready for Uni. REALLY. That close, knock on wood, and I sure hope so because I would like to be done or nearly done by the time the three-year mark rolls around.

Enjoy!

</div></div>

 I haven't been all that well, BUT I have an update nearly sorted out:  a two-parter.  I have a filler slide or two to shoot, and then I need to write it up.

I can't exactly predict when it will be done.  I just got my first load of grading/commenting to do, and this will slow me down a bit. The grading will keep up through December, too.  Nevertheless, it's some nice progress, especially since I've played Elaine up to teen and her elder brothers are all in college.  

Generation Nine almost in college!  Yay!

My most recent heiress teened up! Here's Elaine.



I'll leave her Aspiration and LTW as a surprise for now.

I like her in the more normal clothing, but if her brothers are in medieval clothes, I'm kind of stuck.  On the other hand, I may wind up putting them in something--more Maxis, let's put it that way--and if I do, I have a bit more leeway.  Anyway, she's in pinky hearty stuff, no matter what, and luckily she looks good in it.

Parsifal and Gawaine have to go to college right away.  They are really, really close to aging to Adult--within three days, and that's really unusual for me.  The only reason I waited was for Elaine to be a teenager.  She has nearly all her scholarships, too, so probably she'll only spend the weekend at home and then go to college--long enough to have some fun, buy a cellphone, and get the Connections Perks from Daddy.  

Would someone be willing to extract Gen Nine for me?  I'm always a bit paranoid and I have a weird werewolf memory and that always makes me worried.  The only thing is that whoever does it will either have to have a game from before AL OR be able to  put the Sims up on the Exchange.  Saving Sims to file, at least as a SimsPack, means Macs can't install them.  

I've packaged the lots as files, and I removed all the CC except for the skins on Telemachus and Nausicaa.  I did that because I'm not sure what happens if you remove the custom skin off an alien.  Probably something dire and they'd probably have that skin with question marks or numbers all over.  

They're an interesting generation.  

Otherwise, it's been a really busy and stressful time.  I'm getting ready to leave for Virginia early Tuesday morning.  Getting ready for travel always makes me nervous and I'm even more so because last time I left, the catsitter didn't know to come.  She does know this time and we called to confirm AND she came over on Friday, but I'm still feeling paranoid about leaving my babies.  And guilty.  Cats always make you feel guilty.


I'm caught up on most legacies and getting there with the BRRL!  Can't wait!

 To Stacie, and also to Jamie and Dicreasy, whose birthdays I shamefully missed because I dithered about worrying that I had no time to shoot a proper card.  Happy birthday to all of you!  

The next update is about half written.  It's going to be very long but it's full of nice kiddie pictures so I hope no one minds.  I'd hoped to be finished before school started, and I'm close.  

The first day is tomorrow.  It's going to be weird and tomorrow I may tell you why.  Classes start on Thursday.  But I'm happy that I finished my syllabi, and that was a pain because I had to adjust them all to reflect the furloughs.

I have been a busy bee.

Did anyone see Dr. Horrible on the Emmys?  It was fun!

I have over two hundred pictures, so once I'm done sorting them out, I will be dividing them in half. It's not exactly going to be a Part 1 and Part 2, just 250 pictures is a lot.


I apologize for being so slow.  I had a fellowship proposal to write up this week, and those are pretty complicated.

School starts Monday, and frankly, I am really depressed about it. For one thing, evidently there is talk about merging my department with another one. I don't mind "English and Foreign Languages," but "English and Foreign Languages and History and Psychology and Sociology" sounds as though it's nothing to be taken seriously. And would you want a graduate degree from a department like that? Seriously?

For another, trying to figure out my syllabi is a serious bummer. Do I cut assignments? If so, which ones? If I do, how will I live with the guilt? If I don't, am I allowing the University to pick my pocket by giving them 150% work for 90% pay?

The LA Times today suggested that it would be a good idea to extend furloughs for the UC into next year. Oh, yeah, sure sure we understand that UC faculty are only paid modest amounts, but surely there won't be a "mass exodus." Translation: it is so hard to find work once you are tenured that they pretty much have us over a barrel, so they can carry this on indefinitely. Meanwhile, students are ANGRY. Some of them are going to protests and getting arrested. UC students don't like 32% fee hikes. CSU students, sadly, are used to it by now.

And Monday I get my ten year service pin. WHOOPIE. I already agreed to wear an "I don't want to strike" T shirt. And I am first in line.

What can you do, huh? I'm baking a pie. I figure that might help me, anyhow. And I've been playing. And . . .

well, here is Elaine.







 

I've been playing a lot lately, actually, I'm just really, really sloooow. And of course I do not want to spoil anything, but I do have a few pictures of the Gen Nine kiddos that I thought you would enjoy.
( Picspam! )

I don't know how soon an update will happen.  I've been crazy busy but I did want to get a bit done before school starts next week.  I've also decided to play some of the reverse-Pleasantview families.  What's the point of having them if you're not going to play them?--plus maybe some of the kids will hit it off with the Legacy kids or the Romans, and at this point, I might as well send some of them to college.  The neighborhood is practically brand new, so the character bloat has hardly started yet.

I'm also almost done with a super-sekrit project.

 The Squeaky Clean Legacy, 16.3.b: Romanes Ite Domum II</div></div>

Part 2 to follow in a day or two, but why make you wait?

Squeaky Clean Legacy 16.3.a: Romanes Ite Domum</div></div>

Please comment on my Boolprop thread!

 I'm going to get back to simming soon.  I've been blogging and other stuff and letting things slide (and also getting tight pants from too many calories.)  Last night, no kidding, I dreamed about Cecil.  He was in some kind of athletic contest with a guy half his age and refusing to pack it in.  There's probably a reason he's gone on to have a life of his own way out of my control: I think he's the most independent of my characters, and sometimes, frankly, he scares me.

So, because Cecil wants me to, probably because I left him on vacation, and because I'm not getting anything done, I am getting back to playing TODAY.  

OK, I'm a nervous wreck, as I always am before I travel. I have slightly less than an hour before I have to drive to the airport. And I look at my cats and feel sooooooo GUILTY. Not helped by not having exercised for the last two days.

Also, I worry about what's going to happen to my university. There will be a big protest at the Chancellor's Office in Long Beach on Tuesday, but I won't be there, because I will still be at the conference, and once again, I feel soooooo GUILTY.

So instead, I found this interview with Will Wright about educational gaming. I've been trying to get together with a game company to create something like Sims 2 that you could use to stage any Shakespeare play: you can kind of do it if you find enough CC, but I'd like it to be easier and work out an educational license. The problem is that I can't get anyone to take seriously, and the few who do say "Why don't you try Second Life?" I tried Second Life when it first came out. Not very user-friendly, too many weirdos stopping by to say hello, computer kept crashing. I'd prefer something cheap that students could install and wouldn't have to play online.

Anyhoo, here's Will Wright.

 Wheew.  Two finals today, plus the online one.  I'm hoping to wrap this up soon, but tonight I'm taking a break.

So you know I've always envied you PC people those last two EPs and SPs.  I've especially always wanted AL--(witches, yay!)  And up till last December, I was still holding out the hope that EA might bring them out for Mac.  But frankly, if they cared about a "dead" game, they would have fixed the Sims 2 Exchange by now, right?

The good thing about Sims 3 is that lots of people decided to uninstall Sims 2 and sell their used games on EBay.  And with Bootcamp, I can create a Windows partition.  The guy I talked to at the Mac Store said it was easy, and since he goes to my school, he also assured me that getting a copy of Windows through them would be cheap.

I just got used copies of the base game, all eight EPs, five SPs (Family Fun Stuff, Glamor Life Stuff, Celebration Stuff, H & M Fashion and Teen Style Stuff, plus a bunch of Prima Guides (whatever) and Sims Life Stories, for under a hundred dollars, including shipping.

I probably won't be installing it right away, because I'll need to buy Windows and install that first.  And I'll still be playing my Legacy on Mac, since I have everything there and Generation Nine is born.  But after that, I can play with the premades and maybe the Megahoods.  Because there's still plenty with the Sims 2 that I haven't done and still want to do.  And once I've figured out how to download stuff on Mac and migrate it to PC, who knows what I'll do?

I've finally been playing a bit. I don't even want to think about how many papers I have to grade on this lovely Memorial Day weekend. It came out to about 15 a day, only today I went out shopping instead and bought some new clothes. I suppose they were impulse buys, and I do have to be careful about those, when I have been so good.

But I got an absolutely adorable hat, and a nice black dress and a white dress and a hair accessory from Anthropologie, which frankly I thought was too young for me. I figured I would look all hideous and bulgy but I don't. It's probably because the clothes *look* all floaty and unstructured, which looks like heck if you have any body at all, but they really aren't. They're all lined and well constructed. AND the dresses show off my knees. So between that and some stuff I got from J Peterman, I have some great stuff, if only I had somewhere to wear it.

Dinadan and Penelope gave me their first child. Well, children. Twins. BOYS. Twin boys. It's a good thing I like Dinadan, because between that and his Six Grandchildren LTW he is in my black books. They have two cats, but of course the cats can't have kittens and let the house get all full: there's only room for one more baby as it is. If the worst comes to the worst, I can let Jack and Sophia move out to their own little house, which is what I was thinking of doing anyhow. (Notice how I'm pretending that I'm not all excited to have twin boys named Gawaine and Parsifal?)

Speaking of Sim children, Nausicaa aged up and I am thrilled.
( Nausicaa. . .  )

Finally, some pictures from my garden:
( Two Paradises were in one, to dwell in Paradise alone -- )Have a nice weekend, everybody!

PB

 Don't want to jinx anything, but I finally got to where I'm really, really ready to start tossing weddings and birthin' babeez!  So with the last free weekend I'm going to have for a while, I am going to do *exactly that.* There's already one baby on the way and I am betting it will be purty.  

The Roman weddings may happen a tad later.  But because the Exchange is all messed up, I might post some nice wedding shots on LJ anyway.  It's not exactly a *surprise* that Penelope is marrying Dinadan, and if there are pretty pictures, I don't see why I shouldn't share them.  I don't remember anyone ever saying "RAWRRR I SAW THAT PICTURE ON LJ" before.  The babeez, some of them anyway, might be a bit classified.

Hee, hee.

I can't remember who started the post on what your "white whale" would be for Sims 2 CC. No surprise to anyone who has listened to my whining about it, it is, of course, CC wedding cakes that actually work.

And now! Thanks to eris3000 on MTS2, and thanks to dicreasy and dizzifulbliss , who let me know about them---

Wedding cakes that work!

"The whiiiite whaaaale!"



DANG, doesn't that look pretty? There are six different ones. There's even a *chocolate* one. MMM. And the same creator has a bunch of other wedding CC--tables (seen above) and arches and things of that sort that do not require Celebration Stuff!

You can set them for sale if you have Lord Darcy's and Numenor's mods--I checked, using (of course) Gilbert Jacquet as my guinea pig. You can't put them in the Decra-Chills because they are too big. But they really do actually work, as the following pictures of Rosie and Shane's second wedding will show.
( Wedding and cake picspam! )Also, my unauthorized opinion on SimSecret this week--BO-ring.  Also confusing.  I have no clue what the rules are now--the same old nasty cracks seem to be ok, but the nicer ones like "I really love your stuff" aren't--even, confusingly, a Johnny and Ripp one that was a shade naughty but not more.  If Ripp/Johnny isn't a SimSecret, what the heck is?  

So I have been working away on the rebuild, and I'm happy to say that I have most of my families and most of my lots in place. There are a few small details, such as Generation Eight mostly being teenagers, but mostly all those things are easily fixed. I'm not the greatest builder in the world, but even bad buildings can be made a bit better. So here's a guided tour to (some of) my new neighborhood.

( lots of picspam. )

Hope you enjoyed these.  I'm pretty sleepy right now myself.  Pleasant dreams!

While the rebuild is going along slowly, there are some fun things about it.

SHH!  If you know any of the details, don't give it away!

I'm an impatient builder, but even I can't resist the urge to make the legacy house look a bit nicer.
( pictures! )

I'd love to show you some more, but that's classified for now.  Still, I have most of the Sims I need.  There are some things I still need to do, like building and fixing up businesses, but for now, I'm pleased.

 I only noticed this recently, and I'm not sure what caused it, but it's something you may want to know about.

I've recently tried to install some Sims I've had before and gotten an error message: "This content requires Expansion Pack data that is not installed." I know in these cases that the Sim has no content from that Expansion Pack and has only been changed slightly--aged up, or the CC eyes have been changed. Either AL or M & G "updated" the Body Shop engine. So even Sims with NO content from that pack registers as "created with AL or M & G" and can't be installed by anyone who does not have that pack. I understand there was a similar problem with Pets. This is the sort of thing that annoys me with EA. I don't think it's right to create a situation where you can't add CC if you haven't installed a pack that isn't available and will never become available to you.

Di kindly remade Stanley by using Any Game Starter so she could use a pre-AL Body Shop. I know that's probably not an option for most people and I can understand if it's not something people want to do. I wouldn't have a clue myself how to make a Sim with a version of Body Shop prior to the one I have, or even if I could using a Mac.

Just thought y'all might like to know. I've considered installing Windows and arr'ing the whole flippin' pile of stuff, but I'm not very awesome about Windows and I'm not sure if I would have to uninstall my Mac versions. I'm not doing anything odd until my Legacy is done. But that's EA for ya: driving mild mannered professors to a life of crime.

PB

I've been wanting to say something about this for a while, and after Secret #30 onsimsecret , I thought now would be a good time.  For those of you who can't be bothered, it's mostly about how "misogynistic" and "puritanical" dicreasy 's Legacy is, but it ends "at least you can't claim to be a feminist.  You either, PB."

Well, it's hard to respond to something that specific.  The narcissist in me is righteously pissed off to be tossed into an afterthought like that.  Moving along.

Yes, I do think of myself as a feminist.  I'm not going to back away from the "f-word."  All feminists don't agree about everything.  For example:  I think single-sex education really has a place.  I went to a largely female college and an all-female college in Britain and I think it was good for me.  Some people would think that's anti-feminist, because don't I want equal opportunity?  Oh, well.  I do strongly support LGBT civil rights, and I think that's pretty clear without getting all preachy. 

As for the ethics of SC:  ( if you really want to know. )
I don't like to get more specific than that.  I think that obvious morals are really dull, and I want different readers to be able to find something they can like and relate to.  Besides, I have to maintain SOME kind of mystery here.  I might get more explicit when SC is done, but right now I'm too busy resuscitating my neighborhood and my Legacy to do that. 

PB