I was sat down waiting for my computer to boot up and felt that it was taking too long. Me, in my infinite wisdom, pressed the '3' key in an attempt to speed up the boot up process If only it did work like that. Not the first time I did that either; I was waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave and was sat there wishing I could just press the speed three button...

My mother and I were visiting our local ice cream restaurant (which we do several times a week). Two little girls in sparkly denim shorts walked by.

"They're wearing the shorts I downloaded from TSR last night," I thought.

When you stop caring what they are doing, and when you get unreasonably annoyed & irritated at the things they do do

To be fair, I've been playing for the past 9 hours and I'm getting quite sleepy.



I've tried to pause youtube, netflix etc by pressing P (when I watch on my laptop, anyway)

Lol that's not even weird. Sometimes I see trends first as CC, then on Pinterest and it's before it arrives in shops and becomes a trend irl. CC creators are extremely fast.

The fist photo was my Sim with that dress, then I saw that dress on a girl in the second photo, and them my mom sewed me the dress on the third photo. It's exactly like the first two except that I wasn't in the mood for taking pictures and the pattern is slightly different.

I wish I could wear some of the outfits my Sims wear. Especially KnightSkyKyte's "Pretty Boy" outfits:


If only I lived somewhere with the meteorological, sartorial and moral climate for me to dress like that. Veronaville is such a place. Scotland isn't.

(I'll happily forego wearing the platform high heels -- I think I'd fall over in them!)

Today I saw a woman on the tram. Yes this is gonna be one of those posts where she looked like a sim.

Specifically, she "had Sandy Bruty's mouth, just with thinner lips"

God, can I just say how much I love these iconic pre-mades and townies? Like, you can literally say "I saw a Melissa Fancy look-alike on the bus today" and people will know EXACTLY what she looked like. I love this game.

Who? Also, I only have a vague idea that Sandy Burty is one of those Pleasantview Townies, but no idea what she looks like.

When you not only have sims-dreams (such as hanging out in a car that belonged to the Grunt family and later leaving it to make space for a very grateful adult Tank who I had a crush on in the dream), but sims-elements find their way into dreams that otherwise have absolutely nothing to do with The Sims. I had one dream where I saw a green stinkcloud around a person, and it only surprised me because they didn't look or smell unwashed, so it confused me that their hygien bar was apparently that low. After that observation, the dream went on as usual. In another, I played chess with the grim reaper. That dream didn't have anything sims-related in it either except that grim looked like his TS2-self with a flower necklace and all.

The platform heels look like one of the more comfortable parts of that outfit! (Stockings on purple look even more comfortable, once you get them on without tearing them. The purple necklace is iffy -- comfortable if quality, with a good clasp, but not if it's online-shopping mall-goth trash.) Pity they don't come in Elder sizes, as I can definitely see PT#9 misinterpreting Strangetown standards of dress and showing up to a formal occasion in such attire.

My contribution:
...when you have this exchange with yourself.
Impulsive-me: This phone is so outdated and doesn't work right anymore! I want a new one! ("Buy cell phone" Want rolls up in my mind.)
Rational-me: (Notices my thought about Wants.) Well, you know what that means, right? What would a Sim do who wants that and can't really afford it?
Impulsive-me: Buy the cell phone!
Rational-me: (Was expecting "make money to pay for it".)
Impulsive-me: I have the money, I want the phone!
Rational-me: I also need to pay the rent...and the phone bill...and...
Impulsive-me: I want the phone! (Has no "Repo Man!" Fears at the moment.)

This is accurate to my playstyle, unfortunately -- a Sim who wants to buy something will buy it if they can afford it and fit it somewhere, so one wanting a cell phone with the funds on hand to buy it would disregard bills unless they actually had a "Repo Man!" Fear, indicating that outstanding bills come first. If they actually didn't have the money, they'd set to work acquiring it by whatever means strike their or my fancy. I don't know if I'm setting a bad example for myself, or emulating my own difficulty relating to personal finance on a more than day-to-day level. (I do understand it enough to know why acting like a Sim is a bad idea, and won't buy the phone until I have more money. This wasn't a good way to reason with myself, though!)

Also, I'm a bit envious of Sim-phones. The NOYIN, once bought, is good for a lifetime bar accidents (taking it out of inventory and losing it, dropping it after use with the same result, and the very rare glitches that can make it get "eated", as Pescado would put it) and if carefully passed on before the Reaper arrives, good for multiple lifetimes. Sure, it's not a smartphone, but everyone has the same phone, so it's not like anyone else is messing around with the latest apps! And at that price, you can get a phone, game player, and music player without mention of a payment plan...and all from a vending machine!

...you misread "Portnoy's complaint" as "Portnoy's cowplant" (and it takes a while to realize you've misread anything at all because you didn't even reflect on it).

...when you get hounded about Pinterest by a series of ads ranging from tasteless, to cringy, to "What's the most justified reason for reporting this?" The reporting only worked temporarily, which is no surprise -- the ads technically are neither inappropriate for my demographic nor inappropriate in general, and they even make sense based on what I was looking at/for...which was for my Sims, not me! It's an old issue, now combined with canny and disgusting use of current events by whoever created the ad concept...and a related banner ad showed up on SFS. Yuck.

Ad blockers, honey. Gotta use 'em or life under capitalism is intolerable.

A few years ago, after searching for a vending machine for my Sims, I got ads for Real Life vending machines!


It looks like I now believe I am a Sim. I heard myself saying ."When I was an adult, . . . "

In other words, I've accepted that the Sims' aging conventions apply to me -- I used to be an Adult, but now I've grown up into an Elder.

Did I grow up well? I think the jury's still out on that one.

Well, if Sim aging is relevant, we both hit elder and I didn't even get a birthday cake! (59 being the usual age for an elder)

I know I haven't grown up well. I have a lot of childish traits.

@Peni Griffin -- I whitelisted SFS because it has so few ads (and they're usually inoffensive banners, rather than scammy popups like some hosting services) and because I feel it deserves support in some form. I use it for hosting too, after all! Pinterest is a phone issue, because I tend to go looking for stuff in the app when I'm not near my Simming computer, then download in huge clusters later -- optimizes my time, scratches that Sims itch, and reduces the risk of massive "shopping sprees" that get tiring and confusing because of looking and downloading at once. I've never figured out how to do more than reduce the number of ads on the app, and now they seem to be getting more frequent and weird. Also, to be blunt, advertising decision-makers still seem to be mostly egotistical men. It's not that the product in question is a bad thing, and maybe the euphemistic nature of the ads is needed to get them to the audience who really could use it, and maybe they have to be that tasteless/cringy to allow the lowest common denominator of consumers to see through the euphemism, but I do wonder if people in seventy years are going to have the same WTF reaction to these things as people now do to certain awful (and heavily euphemistic, which makes them more confusing to modern viewers) vintage ads.

@AndrewGloria @FranH -- I think in terms of Adult and Elder as well, mostly because there's such a very noticeable difference between me (finally Adult, couldn't drag out Young Adult any longer) and my parents that I can't consider them in the same age category as me. It also has some official standing -- at least in the US -- in terms of expectations about working and looking out for one's own needs and consequences of not doing so up to officially mandated thresholds. The idea of there being an upper age for Adulthood is even named as such in the category of Able-Bodied Adult Without Dependents for receiving government benefits -- managing to get old enough to not be an ABAWD means you are no longer required to juggle working enough hours to get benefits without making too much money to get them, because you're no longer an Adult! (And why is Senior considered a better term than Elder? Elder sounds dignified to me...) That usually starts at 65 though, which is too old for Sim Elders -- I actually consider the start of Elderhood to be equivalent to 55 in human years because of the fertility loss, and that's pushing it. 50 would be better, but it feels way too young to start being an Elder. I actually should look up Almighty Hat's documentation on that again, considering that I use her age mod and its matching ACR modification now...

Also, I often feel like I'm a glitchy Teen-in-Adult-body like I think the Curious brothers are revealed to be in Maxis Strangetown if you use InTeen and aren't very careful with their biological clocks. And isn't PT#9 a Child or Toddler in an Elder body there? I was definitely something like a Child-in-Teen-body most of my teenage years, so maybe I'll finally feel like an adult if I get to 55!

I also feel like a glitchy Teen-in-Adult body

As for how I can tell I've been playing too much...

A few nights ago I had a dream where I was being chased by a yellow Social Bunny through an abandoned school. I was then saved by a pink Social Bunny... it was bizarre.

@Freefalldreams @CrystalFlame360 @FranH
I guess I must be a crazy mixed up kid (only not so much of a kid any more!). My physical age has seldom coincided with the age that I act! After being a horrible toddler (I was in the habit of screaming until I got what I wanted), I grew up into an adult-in-a-child-body, or even an elder-in-a-child-body. As a seven-year-old boy there was nothing I liked more than drinking tea and chatting with a group of old ladies. At that age I hated teenagers, and thought they were the cause of all the evil in the world. At seven that was OK, but as I reached twelve, the inevitableness of my thirteenth birthday was becoming a problem. I think I thought there'd probably be a nuclear war and I'd never get there. (This was the 1960s and the Cold War was at its height.) Well, there was no war, and my thirteenth birthday came, so I just became an elder-in-a-teen-body.

Then, when I was 17, partly under the influence of my naughty little sister, I decided to become a teen! I reckon I've been trying to be a teen ever since. I grew my hair into a Beatles style (a bit like Andrew's hair), and started going dancing at clubs. But I never really became a "proper" 1960s teen. I never took drugs, and I'm still a virgin. I smoked a few cigarettes without ever inhaling, and I drank a little alcohol after my eighteenth birthday, but I never really liked it and I'd always rather have tea (the drink that cheers but does not inebriate). When I was about 19 or 20 a colleague at work said that I "dressed like a hippy and acted like a priest". (Around the same time, on an in-work training course, my mother was assessed as a "Bohemian Puritan", so I clearly take after her. ) I never had a girlfriend, and I never even considered looking for a boyfriend instead; it was still very much illegal in Scotland at the time. (The law had recently been changed in England, but only for the over-21s, and -- even for adults -- homosexuality was still considered socially and morally unacceptable.

So I reckon now, after years as a teen-in-an-adult-body, I've grown up into a teen-in-an-elder-body. I like to think it still looks more like an adult body, but I have to admit it's now rather spoiled by the male fat morph.

I think that playing The Sims 2 helps to keep me young. There are a lot of teens in my game, and I have to say I often find them easier to relate to than older Sims. I suppose I can empathise with teens through having been one, whereas I've never been a parent. When teens disagree with their parents, whether in The Sims or Real Life, my instinct is to side with the teen, because, well, I've been there. (Against that I used to side with my parents against my very badly behaved sister.) The teens in my game are a bit idealised. (I suppose all my Sims are.) Even the promiscuous ones tend to try to do it in a way that minimises any harm to others. My Sims rarely use violence. It's a matter of both mods and playstyle: I prefer my Sims to talk through disagreements and resolve them peacefully, rather than fight about them.

This may be a good place to state that teenage Sim and friend Andrew is not a self-Sim. Andrew is very neat and organised, whereas I am messy and chaotic. I actually think that, despite our relative ages, Andrew is actually more mature than me. He and Julian have kept a very solid relationship going for years, whereas I've never been in a romantic relationship at all. But despite our differences, I feel I've put a lot of myself into Andrew's character. Andrew is gay. He accepts himself as gay, and the society he lives in accepts him as gay. It took me until after I had created Andrew before I admitted, even to myself, that I was probably gay. The fact that I was playing several Sims neighbourhoods where gay Sims outnumbered straight ones, helped me to accept this. I rather envy Andrew growing up in an environment where he can be so open about his sexuality. The issue of him going every Sunday to church, and eventually getting married in church reflects real world conflicts in my own head. His reluctance to have woohoo before marriage is a reflection of myself. I'd really like to have grown up in a society as open and accepting as Andrew's, and I wish I'd been able to do some of the things he's done. But I don't begrudge him and Julian their happiness and success, and it really warms my heart to see how happy they are together.

Well, I fear I've drifted a bit off-topic!! Nothing new there! So I'll just get on with playing with my Sims, and living my life as a rather immature teen-in-an-elder-body.

@AndrewGloria Even though it's entirely not rational, I insist that you are about my age because I know you are in the lifestage of living with and caring for aging parent(s) as I am. Therefore, you are early forties.

Never mind reality.

Here, have a swig of elixir of life! We'll get you back to properly forties in now time. Wait, no, better play a video game and get your aspiration up first. That's more like it.

Sadly, no, Sunbee. I wish was in my forties. I'm afraid I'm substantially older. I'll achieve my threescore and ten on Thursday! In most respects I still feel about 17! I can hardly believe it's over 50 years since I left school. When I left school I remember thinking that it didn't feel long since I started. I still remember my first day in school aged four, going on five. For most of the day I just played with Plasticine on my desk, but the teacher also taught us the letter S. It was shaped like a snake, and it made a noise like a snake: "sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss". My life has passed far too fast. I've got a wonderful potential future behind me. But at least I've had (almost) 70 full years; not just 70 to 80 days like my Sims would get in a vanilla game. Even as a child I wanted to slow time down. Is it any wonder that I play The Sims with aging off. I wish I could turn aging off in Real Life too.

I hope I'm good for a few more years still, but I'm afraid that I know that I've more birthdays behind me than ahead of me. My mother is 92, but now has severe mobility issues. Women in my family usually are long-lived, but most men die early. My father died at 70, despite being fit and healthy for most of his life. My grandfather died at 60, but seemed to achieve far more in his life than I have in mine. My maternal great grandfather lived till 95 , but he died in 1961 (and he only had one leg by the time I knew him). I feel in better health than my father was at 70, so I hope to see a few more birthdays yet. Anyway, my mother really needs me now. Maybe you can see why I don't want to meet the Grim Reaper.

When I spend my game time more on creating things like clothes, skintones, hair and clothes recolors, and SimPE modding than actually playing the game. I guess it's 70/30. 70 percent of the time is spent on creation and 30 percent on actual testing and gameplay.

When I play FFXIV and go to decorate your apartment, only to realize that no, I can't spread wallpaper or floor tiles like I do in Sims 2, and find Myself thinking the game is glitched.

I woke my partner up at around 3am to tell him to remind me that I need to back up my Sims game ("the whole game! Not just my megahood. Onto the good external harddrive!") Because I had a nightmare that I corrupted my game. Then I explained to him that it's been a while and it would be a shame to lose all my progress and that I keep meaning to but as I'm not on the laptop often these days I never do and it's been about a year since my last back up.

So anyway I just got home from work and already he brought me the good hardrive before I had a chance to even turn the laptop on. I'm surprised, I thought he was mostly asleep for my early morning Sims rant.

The best spouses know and understand a gamer's worst nightmare, and they'll try to make you happy because an unhappy gamer is nobody you want to be around.

When you're out driving somewhere and see a house or store building and think to yourself : "I can build that !".

Congratulations on the birthday, Andrew May the years ahead be good to you. Not being that far behind you, we will make the best of the rest