Sunday 26 September 2004

Pic of the day: Lucy falls asleep on the couch, waiting for a chance to talk to Nemo (front right, with zit on forehead). My days are even less eventful, thank God. At my age, events tend to hurt.

Catching up?

It feels weird to start writing my Sunday entry on Sunday. I used to be a couple weeks behind, and did not get much closer until I got the new microphone from Plantronics. I have resolved to talk to the machine some minutes each day, to gradually train my voice to be used, and to get the speech recognition software acquainted to my voice and pronunciation and vocabulary. Then in November I hope to try for the 50 000 word novel again, God willing, in this year's NaNoWriMo.

Strangely enough, it seems that getting Sims2 has also made it easier to catch up. You would expect the opposite. After all it was another fascinating game that landed me in this mess in the first place. I was usually only a day or two behind until this spring when I took part in the beta test of City of Heroes. Then I slipped behind more and more. But back then, I could play the game but not write about it. Now I can write about it, although I don't know whether anyone wants to read. Probably. There are plenty of reviews and fan sites out there, but there are plenty of fans as well.

There will probably be more fans in Japan now that it is possible to flirt with the maid. I have noticed that there are a number of Japanese anime where maids are portrayed as inherently attractive. The same for nurses, but then again my experience with nurses largely confirm this. ^_^ No, it is probably a coincidence. But maids ... I don't think we have them here in Norway, except in hotels. They are probably called something else. If they come from abroad, I think they are called "au pair", which is French and means something, but certainly not that they come in pairs, because they don't. (Given the large number of page reads I get from French Internet providers, perhaps one of you guys can tell me what it means.) Actually I also seem to have some readers in Japan, so presumably they could tell me whether there are real living maids there. But I suspect that they hit my journal mostly because I have so many anime screenshot as picture of the day. I have opted to not get detailed statistics, because I don't like to spy on my readers, but I see what country or large organization they are from and what pages they see. It seems a lot of people come for my pictures, actually most.

Sadly, my web space is full and I will have to delete pictures each month, starting with the oldest, to make space for the new. I apologize for this, but it seems the alternative would be to upgrade to a business account, which I am hard pressed to justify. Any good ideas are welcome. Even bad ideas won't be ridiculed...

***

My Sims certainly needed the help of a maid when the twins were small. Even though Nanna had quit her job and Nemo (the teen) skipped his homework to help with the kids, they took all available time and the house just got covered in dirty dishes, empty bottles and puddles of water (at best). But teaching the toddlers to potty train, walk and talk took priority. After all, you better have those things in order before you start school.

Things are much better with the Vrimoen family now, thank you. Keeping track of the twins is still a handful, and they just plain don't get along. They are both supposedly very nice, but one is outgoing and the other is shy, and they absolutely don't play the same games. Whenever one tries to play a game with the other, they both get upset and insult each other. Very realistic.

And Nemo ... he and Lucy are seeing each other each day. He is such a total darling, always cheerful and polite, with a smile and an encouraging word to everyone he passes. Lucy's father adores him and he comes and goes in the house, but always he brings with him a friend, and so does she when she comes over to his place. They just never seem to find the right moment to confess their burning love. How utterly realistic. Not that I would know anything about burning love, of course, but ... well, not much at least.

And yes, Sim teens can get zits. That's how detailed it is. You still sure you don't want to buy a new computer just so you can play Sims2? ^_^