A Car, Two Movies, and Some Sim Stuff

[orikes]

THE CAR

I've actually had it since Wednesday, but things have been so busy, I haven't had a chance to snap a decent picture of it to put up. May I present, my Nissan Rogue... (which anyone who has played D&D or Everquest with me will find hilarious)



I am leasing rather than buying, but I made sure that I got more than the standard mileage. Ultimately, I think I got a decent deal on the car. I'm negating that somewhat by leasing, since I'll pay more in the long run, but it lets me get into the car I wanted at a monthly payment I could afford.

The funny thing is, even though this is MUCH bigger than my Neon, I'm getting a ton better gas mileage. The Neon was so beat up and so old, I was only getting about 19mpg. It's taking some adjusting to get used to driving it, but so far I'm loving it.

TWO MOVIES

On Friday night, I went out with a bunch of friends and saw "Indiana Jones and the Kindom of the Crystal Skull". I can say with no hesitations that I enjoyed it quite a bit. There are a couple of things that I wasn't really sure about, but taking a step back from it, I think they do fit with the franchise. It just seemed really abrupt. And no, I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say, it was good, I liked it, and it's ranked very closely to 'Last Crusade' in the order of Indy Awesomeness.

Yesterday, I decided to go see "Prince Caspian". The Chronicles of Narnia are one of the series' that I have fond memories of from my childhood. I read them over and over again. I've always found the allegory suggestions interesting, because while I never read them as allegory when I was a child, there were some life lessons I took from the books that have stuck with me. I don't agree with everything that has those allegorical overtones, but that doesn't mean I'm going to toss the books out on the curb.

So, the movie. It was awesome. They actually added quite a bit that is not in the books, but I think they needed to pad out the story somewhat. The climax of the book isn't quite as exciting as what happens in the movie, and the other things they added also worked in well. I like what they did with Susan since she gets shafted later on. Peter got some nice bits too that fit with his character.

Reepicheep was VERY well done. He was always one of my favorite characters from the books, but he's never translated very well to other media before. With the CG effects in this and Eddie Izzard's voice, he was pitch perfect. (One interesting factoid.. Warwick Davis, who played Nikabrik in this actually played Reepicheep in the BBC miniseries of the books.)

I'm very curious to see what they do with the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, since it has quite a bit in it, but some of it is very strange. It should have a very different tone from these first two movies. Either way, we'll get to see Lucy and Edmund back, as well as get to see how they handle Eustace.

All in all, I liked both movies and heartily recommend them. I hope that "Caspian" doesn't get overlooked in the crush between "Iron Man" (which also rocked) and "Indy".



I really can't get myself going on the BC. Every time I open up the windows document I have set up to start writing, I just draw a blank. I've forced myself to fill in about ten slides, but it still doesn't feel right. I think I'm going to have to add something so I can get through the introductions and into the meat of what's going on.

In the meantime, I finally got the last of the plotty scenes I need for 4.7.



It's all set up and ready to be written. As you might guess, it's going to deal with Ian quite a bit. I almost called this "Ian's Story". I have been planning this update and the next for almost as long as I had been planning the quest. It will end in a cliffhanger. I will probably have many people very angry with me.

I think what will happen is that I'll get the plotty scenes I need for 4.8 shot, and then play the neighborhood through summer and fall. That should get some of Gen5 to teenagers. It'll delay getting 4.8 out, but probably not much more than would normally happen with my l33t skils of procrastination.

Some of the plotty scenes I had to shoot for this involved Ophelia (as you can see from one of the thumbs in the cover...



She really is a true Romance sim. In this picture, she had known Ahbjeet(sp?) for all of two seconds before they were making out. Peter Ottomas was essentially standing in line as he swooned her. He had only known her for two seconds as well, but he had all sorts of ACR fun queued up.



And while she's alternating between guys on the front lawn, two of her other dates are dropping off bouquets. I had to laugh at Robi showing up in the middle of the day. He smoked as he walked up to the house, smoked as he put down the bouquet, smoked as he swooned over said bouquet, and then hissed at the sun and ran away.

For the most part, I don't have too much trouble with ACR turning all my sims into skanks. There are times I have to watch them (Micah is too nice.. he won't say no to anyone, but he'll never initiate anything on his own), but for the most part, couples stay together without much issue. There are a few exceptions, though. Ophelia is one of those. I haven't given her any secondary aspirations because she doesn't really call out for any. She IS a Romance Sim.



I decided to start playing my placeholders as well, partialy because I wanted to play, but knew I couldn't play any of the main houses. I'm glad I did, because I discovered Charlotte's first love. That's David Ottomas there. The two of them have two bolts without any tinkering and are very cute together. But they are, perhaps, rushing things a bit.



At the very least, they reminded me to turn off teen woohoo for the neighborhood. Thank goodness TwoJeffs added that to ACR. Simagroop handled teen woohoo in her Broke Legacy really well, and Stacielee handled Whedonberry's teen pregnancy with panache. But I really just don't want to go there. There's already so much going on in the neighborhood, I don't want to have to deal with teens gone wild and more Banned4Lyfe moments than I have to.

I'm probably already pushing the envelope in some respects. I had one person ask if I was getting more 'adult' with the Pseudo Legacy. I don't think I've really changed, since I know for a fact there was some off color innuendo in the very first chapter, but I think I have gotten better with my screenshots, so now I've got words and pictures combined.



Back on subject, since I'm playing the Ottomas family, I did have to say goodbye to Dora. She went quicker than I expected. I think I only got one season with her. The guy balling his eyes out behind her is the garden club dude she'd been wooing. They had JUST finished a dream date when Grimmy showed up. To be honest, I kind of miss her.



But then I see Sharla and realize that her face will be around for a long, long time to come. I don't know if Sharla and Dora were designed to resemble one another, but they both have that 'skull with flesh' look to their faces.

As a side note, I don't know what it is about that house, but people are constantly falling asleep in their food.



Including this guest, who fell asleep and then still got aspiration points for it. That's Ivy Buccaneer, for anyone wondering.

Okay, back to work.. and trying to overcome writer's block.

Comments

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

That actually makes a lot of sense. I love my dreams, but the reality in them is really warped. There was one dream I had where the moral to a story was 'And the rabbit gave her son a biscuit.' I have no idea what it actually meant, but it's stuck with me for many, many years.