What playing Sims 3 does for me

I know I've talked about video games before, but I'm going to revisit the subject again. Mostly because I've started playing Sims 3 again. I don't have all the expansion or stuff packs, and I don't have all of the ones I do own installed right now. But I have the base game plus the expansions I love on the computer and I'm playing the game pretty much daily now, even if it's only for an hour or two.

I've discovered that I like playing Sims 3 because I can make life be as good or as bad as I want it to be. Some days I want a glimpse of the life I hope to lead one day. So I give my sims everything they want, build them lovely houses, give them multiple pets (okay, multiple cats...though I do have one family who has a bird, three turtles, and four cats instead of just cats), give them good jobs, and just generally give them a good life.

Then there's the times when I feel like they deserve to live as cheaply as we have to. I've got a married couple, no children yet, who are working low wage jobs just to make ends meet. They live in a small house with cheap furniture and struggle to pay the bills even though they live as simply as possible. Every now and then I'll cheat and give them an extra thousand simoleons (sim cash) to help them get a leg up so they can get promotions. Sims 3 has three age levels for adults: Young Adult, Adult, and Elder. My poor couple are halfway to adult and still within the first two rungs on their jobs. My wealthy family has one who's reached the top of their chosen career, with the second not far behind. Both of them are barely halfway through the Young Adult phase.

What's that mean? Honestly, it's a game of dream vs. reality. I love playing both of them because they both give me hope. The game where everyone has money, has a good job, and has as much food for themselves and their pets that they want – that they can even afford to support all those pets as well – is fun in it gives me a glimpse of what my future might be. The one where they're poor and live paycheck to paycheck is good also because it gives me hope because even though they struggle they're very much in love with each other and I don't let it stop them from getting things done. Those little bonuses of $1000 they get once in a while is like a bonus on a check. They use it to fix something or buy something they need. (Books aren't cheap on Sims 3. And you need books to increase skills.) I love Sims 3 for just that reason: I can glimpse several different lives all at the click of a button.

Do you have any video games that help you out? What are they? How do they help you?

Sunday 'fess up...Anni's not having luck with a good title this week

Hey everyone!

Well, it's Sunday again.  And since one of my personal goals is to keep up on my blog this year it's time for another post.

I know.  You're all very excited, aren't you? *grin*

I had my usual week.  I worked. I read.  I wrote.  I played Sims 3.  Oh wait.  I wasn't supposed to admit to that last one.  Uhhhh...just pretend I didn't say it, okay? *shoves her Sims 3 disks under the blanket*

Okay, okay.  We all know (or if you didn't you do now) that I have a Sims 3 addiction.  Finances being what they are I haven't been able to indulge in feeding my addiction by buying all of the new Sims 3 titles.  I'm woefully behind.  I only have World Adventures and Ambitions.  But Ambitions is my favorite expansion out of the two and I love playing it.

I enjoy building lives and screwing with them.  I love the fact that with a few keystrokes I can make my Sims wealthy.  (Boy wouldn't it be nice to do that in real life?  Or click a few buttons and have your dream house built for cheap?)  I just love messing with my Sims' lives and making them live out my dreams.

In a way, playing Sims 3 is also like writing.  I create characters, give them lives, and then do my best to disrupt those lives.  I tend to do it on a grander scale in my writing than in Sims 3, and of course I have more opportunities to cause problems for my characters in my stories.  But it's still the same thing: build the world and then do my best to disrupt it.

I've also been reading a lot since I got my Kindle for Christmas.  My new favorite story is READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline.  Himself brought home the book on CD, a copy of which he'd borrowed from a co-worker.  It took us a week to get through it because of a lack of time to sit and listen to the bloody thing (it's 2 CDs, and runs about 16 hours or so).  I was hooked.

Now I'm not much of a 'book on tape/CD' person because I'm not great at listening and retaining stuff.  I prefer to read.  So I used up what was left of my gift card and bought the book for my Kindle.  Warning if you do buy it for your Kindle...it's $12 on Amazon.  Really expensive.  But to me it was worth it.  I absolutely love this book.  I've actually reread the thing three or four times now.

Here's the best synopsis for the story, better than what I could write.  It's got a lot of '80's pop culture references, and given that I was a kid during the 80's I recognized some of it.  Mostly what I remember is when it went into reruns for a while.  The story does bog down in a few places, but there are some really intense spots that make up for it.

I've got the rest of the books I bought with my gift card to get through too, though I keep getting sucked in to one or two titles and want to read them multiple times before I move on.  I expect to get through the rest of my new books soon...if I can stop reading READY PLAYER ONE, that is.

Writing...writing...writing...oh yeah!  That thing I do when I'm not doing anything else.  Actually, I've been doing a lot of writing.  I've started on another one of my projects.  I'm writing a lot of the back story right now, though I'll probably edit most of it out.  The important thing is to actually get it written first before I worry about what will and will not make the cut.

So here are some random music videos for you.  Everyone have a great week!