see more Epic Fails

This post is interesting for 2? flisters, but It's fairly short, so I'm not putting it under a cut.

OK, so I've been playing The Sims 3 for six weeks, and most of the novelty has worn off. It just isn't as addictive as The Sims 2 were, back in 2004, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that there are no expansions out as of yet. This has everything and all to do with the fact that the "look & feel" of the game does not appeal to me, and all the cool new features do not help.

It is first and foremost the Sims' faces that trouble me. They may not be as horrifyingly ugly as some of the default templates in TS2 (out of 32 templates, there are 7-8 that are actually usable), but neither is it possible to tweak these templates into something equally pretty as the Sims we can make in TS2. The Sliders just don't allow for it. To give an example: In TS2 you can give the upper lip a "Bow of Cupid" shape. If you try the same in TS3, the upper lip ends up triangular. *sigh!* Also, you've got the choice between a pointed chin and no chin at all. There just aren't enough options to get the result how you want it. Does this mean that higher polygon count = fewer areas that can be manipulated? I thought it was the other way around. There is also a significant problem with the in-game testures. They are blurry, giving a play-doh look, and badly shaded, making it look like the Sim has either gotten served a knuckle sandwich or suffers from consumption. Then there are the expressions. Yes, they are less cartoony than in TS2, but I wouldn't say they are more realistic. In TS2 a smile is a cheesy ear-to-ear grin that splits the face in two, in TS3 it's an akward baring of teeth, kind of like when your dentist wants to see if your upper and lower set fit together. Not to mention the teeth are badly out of scale, they are for ponies. And a closed mouth smile isn't any better, the lips get stretched out to a clown's mouth. It only looks creepy. Pretty much any expression makes the mouth look distorted.

I've mostly given up on making Sims, because I can't get them to look right. Even the ones I manage to make pretty don't look anything like what I was trying for. I'm back to actually having to imagine the Sims looking a certain way. I was fine with that in TS1, but that was then. This was supposed to be a step forwards, not back. After TS2, and being able to make pretty much anyone, it is so annoying that I'm just about ready to give up on the game. These here creatures aren't Sims, they are Playmo-men! I can't bring myself to care about them. Building houses is a pain in the derriére, because I don't love the Sims I'm building them for. Houses tend to be left partially unfurnished, and I use the standard designs most of the time rather than taking advantage of Create-A-Style any more. Don't get me wrong, the build mode is great and much improved upon. I just don't want to become one of those Simmers who only build and never play. Whenever I've put a lot of effort in a house the past, it was with particular Sims in mind. I loved trying to make them the kind of home I imagined they would have. Whether it was a sleek modern box, a rustic forest cabin, a grand English manor or a Norwegian 1970s cookie-cutter home, I had fun building it because I knew I'd have fun playing it.

Then at last there is the case of custom content. In TS2 we were given a tool for making CC. It allowed us to have multiple skins with different textures, making the faces and bodies of two completely identical Sims look really different. We could have 43958 different styles of eyes, depending on what look we were going for. The way Ts3 is coded, allthough we can have any colour in the universe, we can only have one type of skin and one type of eyes. CASt is great for furniture and clothes, but I wish we could have had the old Body Shop for making genetics, complete with the old sliders.

End of rant for now.

Another reason why I like having my vacations later in the summer: it gets me away from the summer workers. About this time they are getting "house warm", and as the majority of them are between 18 and 23, their maturity is a bit so-so. I shouldn't talk really, because at that age I was completely imbesile. Evidence is found in the early pages of this journal. But we were pretty harmless, Johan, Erik, Sofie, Tina and me. Even Fred was mostly harmless, except when he physically or mentally tormented me and Tina. Our summer workers are probably mostly harmless as well, except that they were up to a bit of mischief this weekend. They left the office in a mess, threw things around and drew "funny" faces on the photos of my friend Linda's kids. The boss asked me if I had seen anyone use her desk during the weekend, but the only person I remember sitting there is a young girl who doesn't seem likely to do that. So it seems someone going on a little hiking trip in their break went behind Linda's desk, which is hidden in the innermost corner of the office, noticed that there were pics there, and drood on them. So it's not a major case of vandalism, but it's just so unecessary. Knowing Linda, she will take it personally, and it might have been the only copies she had of those exact pics. Two more days at work, and by the time I come back from holidays, it will be time for the summer workers to go off to school.

Still haven't written that dratted job app.

So I went and got The Sims 3. After having read a lot about it on More Awesome Than You, where they played a pirated copy for a few weeks before the official release, I decided with both eyes open that I still wanted the game. I had to try it before I could decided I didn't like it. But guess what? I like it.

( Insane Ramble )

Three posts in one night! That's my new record, I think.

Name 5 dead characters you'd like to see resurrected

Archie Kennedy from Hornblower. Why? Because he was made of awesome. He was Horatio's first and only friend on board the Justinian, one of the very few people who could bring out Horatio's sunny side. So what if he wasn't cannon? Half of the other characters in the series are either original or badly OOC anyway. Archie deserved to live. He was beaten and tormented so badly by the ships resident bully he developed seizures, he was lost at sea, spent 2 years all alone in a cell in Spanish prison, and none of this broke his spirit! Archie was becoming a very good sailor and officer, and he would have been great captain material if he had been allowed to become more than 26 years old. He died because Buckland was an incompetent asshat who should never have been at sea in the first place, and definitively not been First Lieutentant! His last act on Earth was to save his best friend and several other crew members from death by hanging by accepting guilt for something he didn't do. I say he deserves on-screen ressurection. At least now that Jamie looks so hot. When they make the planned-but-not-planned Hornblower movie I doubt many fans would object if they found a way to bring him back once again.

Sirius Black because death by curtain just doesn't make sense.

Lupin and Tonks because Lupin deserved to experience happiness in a free world where he would be accepted, Tonks because she was just a kid, and because they deserved to get to be around for when Teddy took his first steps, said his first word, started Hogwarts, graduated from Hogwarts, married Victoire... You get it.

Fred Weasley because he was a twin and George must have lost half of himself along with him. And because the twins were an awesome double act. And because the Weasleys deserve happiness, not grief.

Moiraine from The Wheel of Time because she was the only sane female character in the story, and the destruction of the doorway shouldn't logically have killed her, just trapped her in that tower-world. However, I haven't read the entire series yet, so I still have a hope that she'll be back transformed into a more powerful form, Gandalf style.

Oh dear, I seem to have signed up for Twitter... So far I'm stalking Silje, Julia, Nick, Harry Potter, Roxette and The Sims 3. And Nieves and Cynde if they'll let me. :D

If you want to stalk me back I'm Winter_Moon. Pay attention to that underscore though, because as usual the username in it's pure form was taken.

Is there no account for the Horations yet? Other than the feed for the convention in SF, I mean. It would be really neat if there was one we could follow, where they could announce things like "Rogue chat at 19.00 GMT" or "Seriously hot new pics of Jamie! See Bilge for more info!" LOL!

Two of my f-listers have their birthday today!


Happy Birthday ScaryFanGirl!


Happy Birthday Mister Al!

Meme gacked from Nieves and Silje.



1: Veronika is really my middle name. It means "the true image". I nearly fell of the chair when I found out, because in my head "Veronika" was always the name I used for the true me, which is often hidden well. To be honest I much prefer it to my "official" name which means a whole slew of synonymes for violence and killing. I wish I could legally change it and actually get people to call me Veronika, but they never would.

2: I have the same birthday as my favourite author, who is no one other than J. K. Rowling herself. I also share the exact birthdate with Harry Potter. Allthough I don't really believe in horoscope stuff, I could always hope the stars were in the same positions in 1980 as they were in 1965, so that I may have some of her talent.

3: I've always lived in the same house, except for short periodes when I rented flats in Kristiansand. I'm a born and bred "country" girl, used to run freely around in the forest and abandoned parks in my neighbourhood. Though I don't mind visiting cities and spending some time there, it's good to get home to the more rural/suburban parts of the world again.

4: If you add up all the time I spent in Oslo between 1984 and 1991 it's probably almost a year, most of which was spent cooped up in a bedroom going crazy. I read a lot of soul-scarring articles in Science Illustradted which may or may not have made me smarter. One day I was so bored I re-arranged my uncle's tools after size and colour. For a man who never had to do any carpenting (they lived in a flat) he sure had a lot of them. The good thing was that the adults would buy me toys to keep me entertained. :)

5: My mom said many times that water was my true element. I love swimming, whether it is in the ocean, a lake or a pool. As a kid I actually spent most of the time swimming under water. I was never especially afraid of water (only of jelly fish, the poisonous sort), which led me to do a few silly stunts, like The Bathing Toy Incident of 1984, Part 1 & 2.

6: Most of you probably know that my long term goal in life is to be a writer. I am realist enough to understand that it will probably never be my full time job, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to write something that's good enough to actually get published. Unlike most of my friends I write contemporary stories. I never write romance, because I feel badly written mush often ruins what could have been a good story. I write for my own entertainment as much as the readers, but I like sharing my stories with others.

7: My other dream is to move out to the countryside and have a lot of pets. By a "lot" I mean a couple of dogs, 2-3 cats, maybe a few rabbits and chickens. Oh, and a fish tank. Always wanted a fish tank. I'd get an SUV or some other sturdy car, drive deep into the forest or up into the mountains, and go for long hikes with my dogs and whatever friends who wanted to come along. A few years ago mom, my cousin and I did that almost every weekend, and I miss having an active life terribly.

8: Pretty much every single fandom I've ever gotten involved with online can somehow be traced back to my involvement in the HP community a few years back. It all starts there. I made my first internet-friends through Potterdom, and I miss the good old days when there were still more books to come and we spent the years between speculating, analyzing and coming up with one theory crazier than the other. I even miss the crazy drama that went on in the community, all the bizarre personalities, the ridickulous conflicts and the forum wars. The end of Potterdom left a hole it's not easy to fill.

9: I have, however, found a new fandom that seems every bit as complex and fascinating, and that is the Age of Sail. If somebody had told me in 2004 that I'd be drooling over English sailors form 200 years ago I'd have thought they were abit crazy or something. I love moody, honest, self-kicking Horatio Hornblower and brave, loyal, funny Archie Kennedy. One day I'll probably read the Aubreyade, Patrick O'Brien's books about the sea-faring Jack Aubrey, I just have a few other series to finish first.

10: My college years, 2002-2005, were some of the best in my life so far. I met a very diverse group of friends and we just "clicked right". We were as far from your stereotypical group of computering students as you can possibly imagine, and we kept each other happy and insane through 3 years of project work, term papers, lab sessions, the occational party and lots and lots of hanging out in the cafeteria or in Tina's dorm room. The third year was especially great, all the losers had dropped out and we were becoming a really tight knit little group that knew each other really well and trusted each other. And then college ended.

11: There are times I'm embarrased about being Norwegian, and wish I was born somewhere else in the world, like Britain, Australia or Germany. It's not that I feel Norway has done a lot things that we should be ashamed of, but many people up here feels our country is just a carricature, saying the whole world laughs at us and that Norwegians are never taken seriously when they go abroad. I guess I could 1: Close my ears and never go outside the border, 2: Emigrate and apply for citizenship somewhere else, 3: Say f'ck them all, I'm proud to be different. Everybody comes from somewhere, and most people in the world come from somewhere weird anyway.

12: I taught myself to read when I was 6. Before that I recognized certain words, or rather the "image" of what the word looked like, but at 6 I suddenly realised I understood words I hadn't seen before. I suppose what happened was that I knew a lot of kids poems and short stories from the little books I had by heart, so I sort of knew which word was which. And I had a collection of Winnie the Pooh comic books that had been read to me so many times I knew what each character was saying in each panel!

13: On the other hand I had a very hard time with maths. I always tried to be good at it, because I wanted to become a veterinarian so badly and than you need to have top marks in all classes, but maths and me just never clicked. Me and numbers don't click.

14: I used to think that getting a long, difficult education was the road to happiness, because pretty much every adult I knew stressed this fact so many times during my childhood and adolescense. I wanted to have lots of knowledge and a "prestigeous" job, but the only reason I wanted this was so that I could fulfill my dreams, which is described in fact #7. For a few years I tried to be "intellectual", reading difficult books and trying to aspire to something higher than life as a countryside oik, believing it would make me happy. It didn't really.

15: I have no idea what political ideology I should go for. I'm in favour of individuality and trusting people to be able to make their own choices, but on the other hand I also strongly believe that everybody should have the same chances in life, despite how poor or rich your daddy is. That's why I'm mostly against private schools that are not based on alternative ideologies. I don't think it's fair that children with rich parents should get a better education than those who are poor. That way social differences would just get bigger. The best thing about living in Norway is the flat social structures. and the socialist-democrate side of my heart cries at the thought of changing that.

16: I believe in God, and that he sees into your heart and knows whether or not you are a good person. You can fool yourself and everyone else, but not Him.

17: I think that women can do everything men can do. And sometimes we do it better.

18: It's been 5 years since the last time I had a crush on anyone. Horatio, Archie and Tom Pullings don't count.

19: I'm actually very muscular for a girl. It's not that I have worked out or anything. I did spend a lot of time climbing trees and hill sides (and the roof of our house, helping Dad lay tiles) as a kid, but I suspect it's mostly from genetics. If I start working out, as I plan to, I better stay away from weights, or I'll end up looking like those body builder women you see on TV. And I think body builders are the ugliest thing.

20: My taste in music n hardly be described as anything other than miscellaneous. I do tend to prefer melancholy music to the happier kind, and I tend to like individual songs rather than everything from a band or singer. Usually it's the melody rather than lyrics that gets me to listen, but if the lyrics are terrible the best melody in the world can't save the song for me.

21: I have never been a girly-girlie. My wardrobe does contain several pink pieces, but on the big scale I'm more of a jeans-jane. I played with Barbies and similar dolls, but rather than having them be princesses or pop-stars, the got to star in some grim scenarioes. My friends were the same way, so when we got together we played orphanage, slave trade(!), drug abuse(!!), and horrible hospital. If we saw it on TV, we recreated it with dolls. I remember I had a little vinyl doll that underwent open heart surgery (I wanted to become a doctor at this point), and a similar doll got a foot amputated (or was it a hand?). My best friend back then had two brothers who collected Star Wars action figures, and we borrowed them and played "house" (No, not Dr House :P). Obi Wan was Granpa and Darth Vader was a stupid uncle, with several different versions of Luke, Leia and Han as the kids. They were a very happy and including family who led an unconventional life in a western saloon and smithy, and who didn't care if their children's friends were ewoks or a weird lizard thingies or a hammer-headed shark.

22: When I miss these crazy times too much, I go play Sims, which is my favourite computer game ever. I'm a bit kinder nowadays, so I don't torture my lovelies too much. Because I can't stand the default skin and eyes, I have downloaded replacements, making my Sims look pretty realistic. Usually I don't make glamorous super models, but rather Sims that have a bit of character. Very often I have a back story thought out for them, and set up their life accordingly, using all the cheats and hacks I have. I'm one of the minority that love the Pets expansion, especially cats. Almost every family has a cat or two. The dogs I'm a bit more disappointed in, because it's hard to make a realistic looking version of any of my favourite breeds except labrador. Here's to hoping the pets in Sims 3 will be gorgeous!

23: The last few days I have grabbed myself by the collar a bit and startede eating healthy food. And amazingly I have felt great. I discovered the long forgotten fact that healthy supper = awake in the morning, while junk food before bed = asleep in front of the computer all day. Walking to the bus yesterday I suddenly realised I was walking really fast, like I used to back when I was in good shape.

24: I'm a declared cat person, but I do have a thing for dogs and I'd love to own one or two in the future. Not quite sure what sort of dog I'm going to get. My favourite breed is Siberian Husky, but I know they are very demanding dogs in that they need a lot of exercise (could be done), need a very secured pen as they can jump 2 meters straight up and dig even deeper, and don't always get along with other animals. Border Collies, which are very popular around here, are very smart and pretty cute, but demand even more attention than a husky. So the choice now stands between Labrador and something called Norwegian Buhund, an ancient type of herding dog, which looks a bit like a small husky with a curly tail. Only bad thing about them is they are very noisy, so unless I move pretty far out in the country the Lab seems the best choice.

25: If you managed to read all the way through, I'm impressed with you, and you know me a bit better.

We're discusing Wuthering Heights over at my virtual home, the Horatians forum. I'm one of the minority who prefers the Brontë sisters' dark, unpredictable world over the sensible, well organised world of Jane Austen (though I like her too). Back when I studied litterature in college (2005/06, seems a lifetime ago) I wrote an essy on Heathcliff that the lecturer loved, and since I'm not good at updating, but rather miss writing, I thought I'd post it.



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