Things Retired People Do

Meet Komei Tellerman. You've probably already run across Komei in various neighbourhoods. Some dispise him or laugh at him and some love him. I am one of the latter and always try to find ways to play Komei, and I thought it might be expedient to explain his role in this story. In Findocherty Myle, Komei plays the part of a Knight recently returned from the Sim Crusades [don't ask, I make this stuff up as I go along] and by dint of some heroics in the service of his king, he has been granted the title of Laird and a swampy bit of land to go with it. Albeit in a place far away and difficult to get to, but land nonetheless. The catch is that Komei must build his own community because he is still in service to his king, and the king wants his taxes. Having his income depend solely on the tithes of his tenants, Komei must enticed some serfs to come live on his land. Until his funds improve, Komei Tellerman, now Komei the Laird, must sit it out. Our Beneficent Creator [me] has kin

 I am my own worst enemy. I'll make this post short and bittersweet, but I got an alert yesterday that my OneDrive was filling up and went to investigate. ( insert Boomer Alert here ) It was full of, you guessed it, Sims stuff.  "Well," says I, "That will have to be tidied and cleaned out!" I backed up my perfectly functioning game - I've been careful to package new lots as I build them, new Sims, etc. - and leapt into OneDrive smiting hip and thigh until all was clear.  Take that, OneDrive! You'll not get a penny out of me just because I can't manage my own files. I can and I will. I have done! Except... suddenly I got an Error message when I tried to open The Game. No matter - this is what I have been preparing for. And promptly re-installed everything, then dropped in my saved Neighbourhoods with a flourish. Voila! Except... My families have disappeared. I have no clue as to how that happened except perhaps an inkling that it has to do with Body

I will have creator's notes throughout my narration, but I also like to take time to explain the bigger things as we go along. Like how I created Findocherty Myle from scratch which is my topic for today. It's a great feeling, by the way, to create something entirely to your personal specifications and actually be able to use it. Kinda makes me feel like the benevolent creator. *sniff Most of the time. I actually went to Origin®   and bought Sim City 4 specifically for its ability to create my own neighbourhoods for my Sims 2 because I'm not keen on many of the in-game maps, to be honest.    Anyway, I called the new hood, Loch Cairn, and designed it to be used for small communities. It took me three tries but I learned a lot and plunked it into my game, where I was able to access it, attach a pic to it - I hate those generic green landscape graph things - and promptly put it into use for the creation of Findocherty Myle. I began to add flora. And a stone ring because... dru

 Meet Angelica Flowers. Angelica is not from around here, and by 'here' I mean, Earth. Her home planet is far, far away, and she misses her pointy-eared family desperately. Success, however, on Ange's world means exploration and the attainment of knowledge. Ange is working on her PhD. One of the rites of passage required of Ms. Flowers is a lonely stint on an alien world, during which the student must learn all he/she can for as long as the society endures. Then the student, having kept careful logs, will present themselves and their findings before the Grande Council of Old Codgers to be duly judged. Ange has chosen a feudal Age on a middling planet and settled into a tiny hamlet, called Findocherty Myle. She is hoping to observe its growth and plans to try many experiments. She purchases a small serf's cottage near the crossroads, and notes that it borders on an oaken grove. There's an old man tending the grove. Ange hopes he isn't one of those fanatic types;

 When The Sims first came out over twenty years ago, I fell head over heels in love with the game. I've been playing off and on, through all the expansions and sequels, since then. My favourite version has always been The Sims 2 and recently I've stumbled on some YouTube Creators who play the game so differently than how I do. They are very knowledgeable and I have learned more about The Sims in the past two weeks than I have since its inception. For instance, I eventually accepted as a given the fact that the game would corrupt itself somehow eventually, usually sooner rather than later, and I would have to start anew. I learned to explore the innards of my EA Games files, and by trial and error, what goes where and does this. When Origin came out with The Ultimate Collection of the Sims 2 , I was over the moon; no more hours of uploading my endless collection of discs, base game and all its many expansions. I could now fiddle to my heart's content and when (not 'if