Okay, so I tried restarting Sims 2 and it just wouldn't start. At all. Jon went and looked for a solution for me 'cause I was busy fuuuming. D: Turns out that I needed to delete my groups.cache and accessories.cache from C:\My Documents\EA Games\Sims 2 (or the Vista equivelant which is more like C:\Users\[myusername]\Documents\EA Games\Sims 2).

I guess either Freetime itself, or the patch, ends up writing garbage into those caches, so I had to delete them to force the game to remake 'em. (Of course, I backed them up first, and you should too if you want to try this).

Other stuff... (mostly RPish)

So, the next expansion, the 8th (?!?) is going to be "Apartment Life" it looks like. The concept seems somewhat like University except with no school, and it applies through a Sim's entire lifespan.

Man. I know I am going to buy it. =_=

I recently uploaded a patch for Freetime that included a Securom update that borked my game. Well, I got the dreaded message indicating a conflict with emulation software (which I don't haaaave. This computer is clean!) I was despairing I wouldn't be able to play, until I found this link to a forum explaining how to fix it.

To put it short, rename your SIMS2EP7.exe (found here, assuming you did the default install: C:/Program Files/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 FreeTime/TSBin) and download this new version straight from Securom.

Worked for me! :O So thought I'd pass it along in case others who play Sims 2 PC and run into the same problem come across my site.

I got my limited edition boxed set of Portishead's new album, Third, yesterday.

My god, it's *gorgeous*. I mean... it's everything I was hoping it'd be and yet it's surprised me a lot. I mean, it's Portishead, without a doubt. The whole album has their mark on it. But it's got a different feel to it from their previous two albums. I think it's particularly the percussionist(s?) they started using, it gives something of a primal feel to the songs. Yet it's still electronic, primarily, or at least acoustic put through electronic filters.

So it's this mix of primal and modern... timeless, somehow, and with Beth Gibbons' haunting vocals floating over it all. It's just... beautiful. I mean, this is THE album of the year for me. I waited 11 years to hear what Barrows, Utley and Gibbons could come up with musically and creatively, and I am NOT disappointed.

I've been playing this album... over... and oooover... on repeat. Going to learn every one of the vocals if I can!

I ran Emberdays today, because duh, it's Monday!

And I ended up running a lot longer than I thought. Like, 3 hours longer. *boggle* Mainly because I was too pissed/distracted the night before to really work on anything. I'd say more, but the reasons are too personal to say here.

I ended up spending the majority of the time trying to keep up with all my NPCs while writing the descs for all the guests, and then the people at the end: Miral (who for some reason decided to pick on Valeriya, bad NPC!) and Daruban in particular. I was saving Daruban's entrance for last, though I don't know how it will affect things just yet.

I'm tired... really worn out, but I'm installing Sims 2. Slooooow process. I'm on the third expansion as I speak (Nightlife) and have 4 more to go. I also found out I forgot to save my Churasan eps before reformatting the old hard drive. So sad. Those took *forever* to torrent and now they're all gone. :(

I'll write more when I feel coherent enough to write stuff. o.O

I ran more ED today, which... went all right, I think. It was just slow and delayed, and Valeriya hardly got any play, which made me sad. She still got to drag Kamal along though. Hah, it amused me to write him there, like some sort of angry tiger on a leash.

The pacing kinda got shot by my lateness and slow posts and such, so hopefully I can get things going again next week. Grey and Kraken are going to play Milena's convo with Iesan later in the week (probably Friday.)

Other than that... Soul Collectors is slowly shaping up in terms of players. I've got: a Dusk Abyssal, Dawn and Eclipse Solars and a No Moon Lunar. (The Eclipse is the only completed sheet so this roster may change later). I'm still wondering whether I gave too much for the chargen. :/ I probably did, but it's too late to change it now, sadly. So I just have to hope, HOPE! that the others will be reasonable.