Mao is Surrounded by Idiots!

My new Dell has mysteriously died. It’s been a joke amongst my family and friends that my Sims addiction kills my computers. My last major gaming computer exploded–literally, the power supply blew up–because I left The Sims 2 paused for almost 24 hours. This wasn’t quite the case with my XPS… no, it died while playing Simcity 4. That’s really, really, really sad.

I was playing and suddenly, Windows decided to reboot. I thought maybe I had missed an update dialog. Then it booted back up, and slowly but surely, it continued to reboot… the intervals between the reboots becoming smaller and smaller until finally, nothing. After several hours of figuring out it was beyond my knowledge, I called Tech support. Apparently they were having a “Fashion Party” at their office and it ended up with screaming and yelling in the background while I was getting my support. It was amusing at the time, because I thought it was just the small issue of my graphic card.

Thanks to the warranty (and now I know why they offer it), I got my card and a technician came to install it (the interiors of Dell are like minature hedge mazes, wow). It wasn’t the card because my computer still wasn’t responding. No post-boot beeps, no monitor… it barely made a sound. Technician called support, and now I’ve got a motherboard, a power supply, memory, and another video card in the mail. Great. They had no idea what’s wrong, so they sent me everything but a new system. Stripping the retarded setup and trying to reassemble everything is going to be hell. The tech is on vacation this week, so he won’t be around. Thankfully, neither will I. I leave Monday and won’t return until Thursday.

Thank God I still have my laptop. I’ve already had to go a month without the internet and wow, was that boring. So hopefully everything will be fixed and I’ll have my sims again and all with be right with the world.

I definitely will NOT be recommending Dell to anyone. I haven’t even had this computer a year and it’s pulling this crap? Yeah, no thanks. My Vaio laptop even lasted three years before I had to reformat it. Not to mention the tech said he’d been to several places where the people hadn’t even had the computer a month and it was worse off than mine! Stupid Dell.

Guy had an uneventful four sim years at college. Unfortunately, his return home wasn’t quite the same. Roaches everywhere! Okay, really… this is getting old. To make matters worse… they all got the flu. It was like a row of dominoes… as soon as Guy started stomping, the pop ups came. Buh.

It didn’t take more than a day or two for everyone to regain their health… but it was still quite annoying. Anyway, I had Guy change his aspiration in college and he ended up Family. I was scared he’d have some ridiculous LTW, but all he wants is to reach his Golden Anniversary. I’m actually kind of glad to have a really easy one… (little did I know…)

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As is becoming tradition in the Lex family… poor Guy peed himself not long after transitioning. Of course, this time a ghost was to blame. I’m really hoping I get a girl next… just to save from the “let’s clean up my pee puddle” post-transition party. Sigh.

You can see Holly giving an evil… well, I don’t quite know what to call that. But it’s an evil something all right. She’s the most prominent scarer next to Chastity. Perhaps because they both died with less-than-satisfactory aspirations. Meh, they’re just a bunch of ghostly old cranks!

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I guess Luther figured he had to go out with a big bang before college or something. I sent him out to the telescope to get the last logic point he needed for the scholarship… and not five sim minutes later, I’m taken to a cinematic of him being abducted. Of all the times! He only has so long before the transition and little gre– err (light)purple men from another galaxy are taking him star hopping.

Since he was abducted rather early, he was returned in the same fashion. So he got two scholarships for the price of one, nice! In the end I think he had four scholarships. Either way, it was off to college for him!

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It was a little surprising to me when grim came calling for Chastity. I thought for sure she would outlive Holly! I don’t know what happened there, but nonetheless, she died in gold. She couldn’t complete her last body skill, which would’ve shot her into platinum. Curses.

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As the Torch is passed on, Star suddenly realizes the joy of being fulfilled while Chastity plummets into autonomous idiocy. Unfortunately for Star, she grew up in some really awful pajamas. Bright red and bright purple do not a good match make!

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Star grew up without incident. I was a little worried about how her toddler years would go. I kept the room locked up and did my best to get Chastity into platinum. Unfortunately, to do so, I had to teach Star to walk cold turkey. Ugh. When she finally finished, the poor thing was exhausted so I let the rest of the skills wait until the next day. Holly spent a lot of time complaining about not being able to get into the nursery. That’s right, woman, no toddler harassment for you!

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With this fresh neighborhood, I decided to start out with some "unique" looking sims.  Thus why you’ll sometimes see Sims of varying colors and whatnot about the pictures, probably lurking in the background or walking by.

With that said, meet Chastity Lex (Cancer; 6, 3, 6, 4, 6)… my first Torchholder to endure the responsibility of actually having half a mind.  Well, for the majority of the time, that is.  She’s a Knowledge sim with dreams of being all knowing (darn you, 7 skills maxed LTW!).  As you can see, she’s also very, very… purple.

Sidenote: You can see my attempt at an email challenge behind Chastity.

This spot will soon chronicle my attempt at the ISBI challenge utilizing the game, The Sims 2.  Watch me pull out my hair as I try desperately NOT to interfere.  I’m a SERIOUS control-freak, especially in games such as these.  The only time my poor sims ever get left to their own devices is when I get up for a moment to do something or another… and it’s rare that I ever do that without pausing… so this will be interesting, to say the least!

TBC…