Saturday 3 February 2007

Pic of the day: Dance like a sim... (Screenshot from Sims 2.)

"Afasaba nepshi"

From my LiveJournal, since most of you probably don't read it (and probably will be happier without). This is a great filler though and actually says a lot about me, I'm afraid...

Hee! Never underestimate the male intuition!

There was this beautiful song on the Sims 2 pop radio station. It showed up on the computer where I have all the expansion packs installed including Pets, but I could not remember it from the usual machine where I have only the first two packs (Uni and LightLife). The vocalist was clearly female, but the song was of course in Simlish. It had a recurring phrase: "Afasaba ..." Each line in the main verses would start with "Afasaba something" where something varied from line to line. Did I mention that it was very pretty? Anyway, I looked up on the sound menu and there was a list of the songs, some of them with an artist name and some not. Those without were presumably the originals that were made for the game before it came out. Starting with the first expansion, EA included Simlish versions of little known songs, thus giving free PR for the artists in exchange for (presumably also free) songs.

So I looked over the ones with artist names (because I knew this song was new, rememeber) and there was "What if" by Lene Marlin. What if? What if that was the song? I don't Lene Marlin from Eve, although I think she is either Norwegian or at least has lived here. (No relation to Teff Marlin, then.) But Lene is a female name, and "What if" sounds like something that could easily become repetitive in a good way: What if this, what if that...

MUSICAL SCORE! Hole in one and all that. I found it on MSN Music, under Marlin rather than Lene, but at least I found it. The real song in English is kinda more symphonic than the Simlish version. On the other hand, the Simlish lyrics are better. ^_^

*dances like a sim*

***

A Norwegian reader pointed out that Lene Marlin is actually from Tromsų, one of the larger Norwegian cities, and has been ubiquitous on the radio since 1998. This would explain the slight familiarity of the name, I guess. It also kind of illustrates how poorly connected I am to contemporary Norwegian culture. Which may not be such a big loss for either of us, I think, but still should amaze the stray reader.

Teff Marlin is a fictional character by one of my fellow players of both Sims 2 and City of Heroes. In fact, he is one of the main characters in her long and complex crossover story between the two games, "CoH Sims". You can occasionally read about him and his friends, with pictures, in Laridian's LiveJournal. Of course, there is other stuff too. "Laridian" is a semi-professional writer, now parent, and overall creative person.