The other week I downloaded an "important vista update" to my computer.  I installed it, and once again, the update managed to kill my computer.  After trying for hours in vain to fix it myself, I resorted to calling microsoft for help.  This is something I would not recommend doing.   After two hours of them asking me to do everything I had already done (and I told them repleatedly I'd already tried these things), I gave up.  I told them I was just going to wipe the drive and re-intall Vista.  They urged me not to.  I was now into day three with no email access (which makes me very cranky).  So I told them again I planned to re-install.  Their response?  When can we call you tomorrow to work on this? My response?  Please don't call back, I'm  just going to reinstall, I'm tired of them.  So I hung up and re-installed.   Of course, I lost everything that wasn't backed up (like Sims 3).  But I was tired of dealing with the whole thing, and did I mention that I hate Vista?  Anyway, now I'm not too thrilled with Microsoft, period.  They called me every single day and left messages about working on the problem.  You know, the problem I said not to call back about?  Finally, I picked up one morning (I work night shift, which just made it all worse) and asked why they kept calling?  Oh, to work on your computer problem. The one I had fixed....days ago.   They kept saying I said to call back, which I expressly did not.  UGH!  Then they sent me a survey.  Come on already!  Anyway, the whole point of this was that I had to re-install Sims 3 and start over, but that's okay in the end, since I know better what I'm doing now. 

Oh yeah, one last thing.  I hate Windows Vista!

So I've been playing this family....started out with just one custom sim, Eden.  She was about 1/8 bar from being a master thief.  She was a master gardener, had full athletic skill, full handyman skill, full cooking skill, was at level 8 charisma, had collected almost every single gemstone & was doing well on the butterflies.....and her beautiful twin girls with Don Lothario had just aged to toddlers and had been taught all of their skills.  She was a kleto who liked to play with fire.  Loved her, absolutely loved her.

Earlier today I went to load the family and they were gone.  I got the dreaded outline on the loading screen, there was nothing there.  I went to my documents to try to get the backup to install, but somehow, that was gone as well.  In a frantic effort to try to recover them, I did a system restore to yesterday, when I knew they were safe.  What happens, you may wonder?  It said "system restore sucessful.  It did not effect your documents."  So they're truly gone and I can't recover them.

After a suitable mourning period I decided to leave Riverview for awhile and start off with a new sim.  Her name is Aspen, and she's on the exchange.  She wants to be a rock star, so that's new game play for me.  I'm just wondering how long I'll have her, and how long I'll work on her, before she goes "poof" and I have to start the whole process over again.  I've been extremely patient with all of the "EA needs to fix this stuff, " but now I'm ticked!  I want Eden back! Without starting over!!!! 

At this point Aspen is at level three on her guitar sklls and making friends with her fellow musicians.  I think this time I'm going to max her out on her job then go in and work on the other skills.  Hopefully she'll make it through before the EP comes along and wipes everything out. <sigh>  Not a good day in Riverview..here's hoping Sunset Valley will be better.

I am finally on vacation!  I haven't had one since November, so I feel like I'm long overdue.  Finally a chance to relax and play Sims 3.  And, to my amazement I see there's an update.

After searching through the forums and much soul-searching, I decided to download the update.  The speed issue was really getting on my nerves.  Before I downloaded it, I decided to go ahead and uninstall the Sims 2.  I haven't played it since June 1st, so why keep it around?  First I burned all the CC I had, then went ahead and said goodbye to TS2.

Much to my astonishment, the patch worked for me.  Not one single problem.  The game loaded, I didn't lose anything, and the speed zipped right along!  YAY!

Then I played for awhile, and guess what?  All of a sudden, my sims outfit turned flesh colored.  Weird.  No matter what I did, it wouldn't go back.  Everything else was fine, all other outfits were fine.  Then I went into CAS to see if I could fix it there.  When I exited CAS back to the game I had the dreaded soft crash.  That hasn't happened to me since the second day of playing.  <sigh>  I was truly hoping soft crashes were behind me. 

I'm going to relax for a bit and be back later.  Hopefully the bugs will have worked themselves out by the time I return.

Oh the joy of a new game...full of bugs, bugs, bugs!  But what else is new?  It's almost standard now-a-days.  The programers and creators must not play the way the rest of us "gamers" do....if they did, how could these things be missed?

My computer surpasses all specs.  My drivers are all updated.  I have a more than adequate power supply to run it all.  So why does my screen go black for no apparent reason?  <sigh>

Yesterday I actually played for a few hours with no problems....or so I thought.  I saved every 30 minutes or so and I never faded to black.  Of course, when I tried to load that save today, it's saved under a different name I've never heard of, the family picture is outlines, and it won't load.

Okay, no huge deal.  I go into Riverview, create a household, move them in, get their relationship nice and high, go to move them and the program stops responding (it's stuck on "processing").  Up comes the task manager....redo all that I just did, go to move them and guess what?  Yes, the program stops responding.  UGH! I'm not sure if it's a problem with the house they're currently in or the house I'm trying to move them to, or something I can't even imagine being wrong. 

I guess I'll go back and try again.  Does anyone even read these blogs?  If not, it's good to vent somewhere other than the forum,  I guess :)

so the game, prima guide, and new graphics card arrived today while I was asleep (I work nights).  I set my alarm to get up 2 1/2 hours early.  I loaded the game to see how it looked on my current card....it looks pretty good but lagged a little, so I asked my bf to switch out to the new card while I got ready for work.  

Long story short, when I left it still wasn't done.  Now he called, and said the internet is down (there some thunderstorms), but he thought maybe he didn't have the DSL hooked up right.  Then someone here said their DSL was down at home, too....so now the new card is in but the drivers can't be updated! 

Hopefully this will work itself out in the next few hours! 

Happy Simming!