The Adventures of PKTrekGirl

Well, this past weekend, I actually sat down and played The Sims for the first time since before I went to Japan. Since I've been home, what little Sims time I've had has been given over to catching up on my downloading. But I have now decided that I will NEVER catch up at TSR, and if I ever want to PLAY this game again, as opposed to spending all my time PREPARING to play the game, I will never...uh...PLAY.

So I said screw the downloading - I'm just gonna play.

As I might have mentioned, I set up my game differently on the new computer. This time, I actually set up two games in one. Using the technique one uses for building clean houses for trade (setting up a separate game which contains only one hood where you have NO downloads or hacks installed) I set up a game that I will use JUST for my Victorian stuff. This game will have only Maxis stuff and Victorian user-made stuff in it. I have alot of that kind of stuff, but I noticed that with few exceptions, I don't use that stuff much except in Victorian hoods. So why keep it in the 'main' game, where it does nothing but slow things down?

So now I have a Victorian game and a 'modern' game.

This weekend, I played the modern game as I wasn't in the mood for building and decorating houses, which is what I love best about the Victorian game.

For the THIRD time, I started a Bottom-Up Hood, and got the Crumplebottoms and the Goths well underway.

I also cheated a bit and got the Simovitchs started ahead of time, so I'd be all ready with Betty Simovitch when Bob Newbie Jr grows up.

Once I start playing the Newbies, it's hard to stop because of all the affairs and drama (for one thing, I ALWAYS made Bob Sr be Eldon Hick's father - it just seems right! *lol*). And so I'm gonna get Betty all ready to go so that I won't have to stop playing the Newbies later.

For reasons that escape me, I have somehow made Agnes and Cornelia Crumplebottom into total nerds - taped glasses and everything. So many people love making beautiful children in this game. I like making totally geeked out children: nerdish clothes, hair styles, glasses, etc.

On the Goth side, I have Gunther Goth born, but right now they are living in Michael Bachelor's house and I gotta get them outta there before I let them have Frida or any other kids.

I'll put Mama Hick in the game next - matriarch of my trailer trash family. All of Mama's 4 or 5 kids must have different fathers. And all of her daughters end up teenage mothers. It's like, a rule. :D And of course, loser Eldon ends up living at home well into adulthood. In fact, I don't think I've ever moved him OUT of there!

Now I gotta find out when the next expansion packs are coming out. Girls? You guys know the schedule??

Got caught up on Scifi Friday episodes yesterday.

I had one episode of SG-1 and two episodes of Atlantis to watch.

I'm rather liking SG-1. No Daniel Jackson in this episode, unfortunately. But other than that, it was pretty good, I guess. Although how many times is that guy gonna keep coming back? How many lives does he have?

Atlantis was sort of a mixed bag the past couple of weeks. I liked the one Friday night about Ronan and his past life as a runner...but I just HATED the one from last week - it was just too stupid to see the Atlantis team going all ga-ga over the guy with the like-me potion. *rolleyes*

Thank GOD they saved Sheppard out as the guy with the cold who was therefore not effected. Because I think I woulda hurled if he had been one of the ones listening with rapt attention to this loser's stupid stories.

It was bad enough watching Weir and Ronan falling all over themselves.

I still have 2 episodes of The 4400 backed up...and 3 episodes of Eureka, which I hope to try out. But maybe I'll get to them sometime this week.

Swiped from mutarada



Make your own here:

http://www.shipbrook.com/onnotice/

If you're tagged, you must list 6 random facts about yourself, then tag 6 people to do this meme...

1. I am much more organized in the cyber-world than I am in the real world. My desk at work sometimes looks like a paper bomb went off in the vicinity...but everything on my hard drive is neatly filed, my bookmarks are all categorized, and personal stuff is strictly segregated from business stuff.

2. I am utterly fascinated by Everest mountaineering. I have tons of books on all sorts of Everest expeditions, and know the names and deeds of all the 'major players' on Everest since George Mallory.

Oh. And I am afraid of heights. *lol*

3. I have been to the northernmost point in the U.S. - Point Barrow, Alaska, where I watched the Alaska Native residents of Barrow butcher a 42-foot whale on the shore of the Arctic Ocean in the middle of the night. And because it was playing on the radio in the warm-up truck, I always associate Louis Armstrong singing "Wonderful World" with this event.

4. I read lots of biographies, but rarely do I read one cover-to-cover. I usually just open the book at random each time I pick it up to read it and find a part I haven't read yet.

5. I collect signed, numbered prints (mainly by Bev Doolittle and Byron Birdsall - one west coast and one Alaskan artist) and have a nice collection of art in my home.

6. My favorite bumper-sticker right now:

F
The President


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!


Tagging anyone who has not done this meme yet. :D

All of a sudden, when I pull up all the tagged entries for one of my tag topics, the entries will only go back ten pages when I hit the "See Previous 10 entries" link.

I know that I can still see older ones if I use the archive, but has this always been this way and I just never noticed it?

Or at one time could you go back more than 10 pages worth of tagged entries under a single tag?

Thanks for any assistance!

My sister totally ROCKS!

As most of you know, I sit in traffic for about 2 hours a day, each and every weekday, in order to get toand from my office, which is only about 12 miles from my house.

The one hour going home time can be even longer if one particular street in Sandy Springs (Abernathy) is backed up from Roswell Road.

When we were driving down to Florida, however, my sister and I got in a conversation about Atlanta traffic, and when I mentioned my dissatisfaction over the Abernathy situation, she squealed "NO!! You don't have to DO that!" And then she proceeded to give me directions for some back roads through neighborhoods that would allow me to avoid Abernathy completely if I wanted.

See, she lives in that area, and knows every route to everywhere, however obscure. Comes from driving a carpool for 8 years I guess. *lol*

Well, last night is was pouring when I left the office. Even though it was 7:30, Abernathy was a mess. An absolute mess. It would have taken me *at least* 1/2 hour to get from Abernathy and Barfield to Roswell Road (only about 1.5 miles) and another 15-20 minutes to get to Johnson Ferry, which is where I turn left to head up to Cobb County.

Well, instead, I tried these backroads that my sister told me about, and ended up sitting in ZERO traffic.

ZERO.

Saved me about 35 minutes of just sitting on Abernathy in gridlock.

I was so happy - you have no idea!

When an Atlanta resident gets even a SMALL victory over our constant gridlock, it is cause for celebration. And this is cause for a MAJOR celebration, because these backroads will probably end up saving me at least a couple of hours a week.

My sister ROCKS!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

"ABC announced late Monday that it had scrapped plans for [Mel] Gibson to produce a miniseries on the Holocaust."

Probably a good idea, that.

*ROTFL*

...if Mel Gibson was an alcoholic BEFORE he opened his pie-hole and spewed out a bunch of racist crap?

Or is the 'alcoholic' thing a new development? I mean, being as how the label 'recovering alcoholic' tends to evoke tender treatment (and even sympathy)...whereas the label 'racist anti-semite' tends to...well...not.

How nice that they rushed him right into treatment (where the press can conveniently not get ahold of him)...now that he was caught drunk driving and spewing racial epithets.

Wonder why he wasn't in treatment LAST week about this time?

*giant rolleyes*

You know you have watched too much Deep Space Nine when you hear Patrick in the back of your head declaring "That's a stupid question!!!"

*lol*

Anyhoo.....

So I have just downloaded a bunch of fonts from Dafont.com

Where do I put them?

I am assuming it is not directly into PhotoShop, but perhaps somewhere in Windows or something?

Thanks for any assistance.

Well, last night I did a bit of catching up from my vacation: a few episodes of The Daily Show (Have I mentioned that I am in love with Jon Stewart???) and last week's Stargate SG-1.

Stargate SG-1 was pretty decent, although the ending was a bit...abrupt. Sometimes, Stargate does that...they develop a story for 55-56 minutes, and at the 56 minute mark, everyone is dying.

But by the 59 minute mark (which is when the credits roll), everyone is back at the base and A-okay.

Which is what happened in this episode.

SPOILERS below the cut!!!!

( Read more... )

Okay...so I still can't figure out who the 'seven' are, but I guess that will come in future episodes...maybe when he gets to this prison colony or something. Although I suspect the Hot Babe from the spaceship to the penal colony will be one of the seven. *lol*

Hopefully he will exact revenge on the evil infiltrator guy. Can't stand the evil infiltrators!

Enjoyed the first episode, which I saw the other night (at last). It's a bit dated, but the storyline is good so far and so it will no doubt be a good show. I hope to watch another episode this weekend, when I have a bit more time. I have alot of scifi to catch up on though - last week's Scifi Friday and The 4400. Plus there are new episodes this weekend.

You really can't get behind on these scifi shows these days....

Last night I got 'round to watching the latest episode of The 4400.

Up until now, I've been really liking what they are doing...but this episode really went a bit far for my taste.

SPOILERS under the cut!!!!

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After the cameras (and unfortunately for him, microphones) caught our fearless leader in an....erm...'unguarded moment', The Daily Show was kind enough to provide the following clarification on what Dubya really means when he uses the following terms:

Dubya's Language Conversion Chart

Shit = Kidnapping Israeli soldiers and launching rockets into Israel.

Bullshit = Suicide bombing.

Fucked-up Shit = An illegal nuclear program.


*ROTFL*

Well, I was really busy this weekend working on a PhotoShop project (thanks to Lis!) so I didn't get time to post earlier, but I kinda liked the beginnings to SG-1 and Atlantis.

VERY minor spoilers behind the cut:

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If there is someone on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met in real life without the internet, then post this sentence in your journal.

French toast with butter and powered sugar only - no syrup.

Two slices of bacon.

Fresh coffee with hazelnut creamer.

This is comfort food at it's finest.

My company's cafeteria changed management recently, and this morning I went downstairs to try out the new menu...and the new chefs.

Verdict: I see ALOT of french toast in my future.

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine, a classic film trader in Sweden, told me about a fairly inexpensive DVD player that he knew the code to - the code to make the player region-free. The player itself was not expensive, and I figured I could put my old player in the guest room with my old TV, and so I purchased the DVD player. It was less than $100 at Amazon.com

When I got back from Japan, I ordered my first DVD from the UK (an Errol Flynn film that was released only in R2), and it arrived yesterday. My friend called me and helped me with the code, and volia! I now have a region-free DVD player.

This makes me VERY happy.

I have a question for those of you who are familiar with PhotoShop and PaintShop Pro.

I have had PhotoShop 7 on my old home computer for a couple of years now and really like it - I use it mainly to make avatars and desktops, but I also do a few things for The Sims in it.

However, the program was not owned by me (it was Coaster's) and now that I have a new computer, I am trying to get a graphics program. I don't really want to have to keep the old computer, just so that I can make avatars/desktops and Sims stuff in PhotoShop 7.0, and so I have been looking at programs - specifically, PhotoShop CS2 and Paint Shop Pro X.

Now, I remember back in the old days, these programs could both be used for roughly the same things, and both could be used for the purposes I describe above. But now I see there is a HUGE price difference between the two. From Amazon.com:

Paint Shop Pro X - $84.99

PhotoShop CS2 - $589.99

Why is there such a huge price difference? I am assuming PhotoShop CS2 is way more powerful, but in what ways? I don't understand all the graphics terminologies in the product descriptions...so I really need someone to explain the difference in ENGLISH.

And possibly give me some advice as to which one to buy for the purposes I have outlined above.

Also, do PhotoShop 7.0 brushes and such work in PhotoShop CS2?

Thanks for any assistance!

So I finally got caught up on The 4400 last night. I had let 2 episodes stack up on TiVo, and so with the one last night, I had 3 episodes to watch: Gone - parts 1 & 2 and Graduation Day.

Bottom line: this show is getting REALLY interesting. It's beginning to remind me of a cross between The X-Files and The Dead Zone with a touch of Buffy thrown in or something. I'm really likin' it!

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!!!

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Well, today I am working on getting my game set up on the new computer. Man, what a project!

This time, in order to aid load times, I've actually set up my Victorian stuff in a separate game. I'll keep all that period stuff separate from the modern stuff, and hopefully the game won't get too bogged down for the foreseeable future.

I've got alot of downloading to catch up on. I am so far behind at TSR, it would take me weeks to catch up if I tried!

Anyway, I've not even PLAYED OFB yet. I mean, I've played the game since I installed the EP, but I've not even been to the business part of the game yet. I am so far behind! And I'll feel really dumb asking questions at N99 about OFB, cus they have been working with it for WEEKS now - since early March. And so I'll be WAY late to *that* particular party.

Oh well...hopefully after today, I might have enough stuff installed to actually play the game! *lol*