The Sims 3: World Adventures

After months of waiting, I finally got my hands on the first Sims 3 expansion pack: World Adventures.


Happy and excited as a kid who just got a new game, I immediatly installed it. It didn't load.

Bummer.

Geek gets fit (kinda sorta almost)

One of the downsides of my otherwise amazing career is the lack of physical activity. And while I am aware that I should be fit and I love yoga, I am not fit. Yet. However, somes serious steps have recently been taken towards this noble goal.

First, Hubby and I got Multisport cards from my work (and I would like to thank my boss and everyone...)


The cards are way shinier IRL and they let us access many gyms ans swimming pools for [almost] free. We've been using them intensively and visiting a gym twice a week (and the swimming pool later to relax) for a month now.

Second, Husband got a balance for his nameday. A kinda smart balance, that measures your fat and water percentage. The smart balance taught me that I'm made in 50% of water and 30% of fat- sigh.

Finally, Hubby bought me my nameday present: the Wii Fit!



The Wii Fit always tempted me, but I judged it by its cover, and the cover mainly features yoga poses (they look best on pictures), so I instantly thought of the mountain of money I could save by doing these exact same poses on my bedroom floor. But, since I got the console as a wedding gift (I love you Auntie!), its cost dropped significantly and the temptation won.

I like it. It is important to note, however, that it's a weird cross between a game and a workout. It's not a decent game. It's not a decent workout either. But, on a Thursday night, after 8 hours at the office, and knowing that we'll hit the gym the next day and a real workout is not a great idea, the Wii Fit is a pretty cool pasttime.

I may write a better (longer) review, but in the meantime, Gizmodo has an extensive and geek one - enjoy!

Top 5 dumbest Wii games ever imagined (by me)

Man, do I love the Nintendo Wii for its innovative interface! So I wondered one day not how to use it best, but how to use it worst. Dumbest. Ever. Below are the potential games I came up with, or more precisely, what the main character would be:

The baker

Put the bread in the oven.

Feel the thrill!

Post office employee

Do the stamps.

Too much rock for one hand baby!

The slave

Just paddle to avoid punishement.

Let this game enslave you!

(Actually, Nintendo stole that idea from me.)

Janitor

Get in and clean - let the fun begin! Uses the Ajax technology.

Level 1 - floor. Level 2 - windows. Level 3 - toilet.

Barrel organ player

A creative and inventive game based on a truly original concept.



This game doesn't need any stupid marketing slogan, and yet it does have one!

More dumb Wii games here!

[Picture source, source, source, source, source, quote source]

Random thoughts about the Sims 3

I go the Sims 3 as soon as they were out (remember how I couldn't wait in January? I also got the computer but not the flowery desk) and have already wasted many hours playing.

The game has really nice views of the world around us, I mean around the Sims (click to zoom):





The gameplay got improved and is a bit more realistic than in the Sims 2. The genetics are waaaaay better - Sims now make beautiful babies that you definitely want to play with.

Some bugs and glitches remain, however. The one I can't forgive is EA extra content not installing:


The "46" is one of my processors being clogged by the installer. The "0%" can stay up to 30 minutes (haven't tried longer, shouldn't 30 minutes be enough?). I've notified customer support.

The other glitches are funny:



Isn't this table standing in your way?


Get your foot from inside mine, bitch!



This one happened when a boyfriend came with his baby (he was adopting babies behind my Sim's back!), stayed for the night and then had to go to work - a delicate situation to handle.



That baby grew into a beautiful lady (blue-sleeved T-shirt), but look at her sister: her butt is in the water and it's the dirty dishes she's complaining about.



The burglar alarm, the burglar fighting with the police officer and the annoyed neighbors - in TS2, they didn't care.

Geek plays home, starting with the WC

I'm getting married, moving out, then moving in, all that stuff, and today, shopping on-line for cool home items.

Turns out every room in your home can be cool, and the coolest of all can be the toilet.

The Sudoku toilet paper deserves an honorable mention for making it possible:


The toilet seat can bring a lot of fun to the bathroom as well. Well.. sometimes, "WTF was the designer thinking" is more appropriate than "fun". Let this picture speak for itself (or forever hold its peace):

I guess "Pharaoh's treaures" sounds better than "WC content", doesn't it?


This one just feels wrong, and not in a forbidden fruit kind of way:



However, the best toilet ever was posted today by Gizomodo:


This one definitely takes the art of toilet designing to new heights. Or lows, depending on the point of view.

On my wishlist: the Sims 3!!!

The Sims 3 is (are???) coming!


That game is definitely on my wishlist!

And so is a new graphic card. My Radeon Xpress 200M doesn't seem to be on the list. And so is a new computer, as I only have two laptops (well, only,... ) and you can't add a graphic card to a laptop (can you?). And so is a new desk for that computer, with a flowery desktop like this one:


(But definitely with different legs.) And so is... nah, I'd better stop now.

Big day that started bad

Today was a really big day for me: I decided to start writing my master thesis!

Here's how the title goes:

Displacement of smooth integers in short intervals and their applications in cryptography.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

So. I found the papers with the stuff I needed to start and downloaded the LaTeX template. Didn't compile. Tried compiling a kinda "Hello, World!" document. Didn't compile. Switched computers. Didn't compile.

Started loading The Sims on one of the computers while fighting with MikTex 2.7 on the other one. The Sims would freeze while loading any lot. Started wondering really hard what was going on with the world.

The Sims were easier to fix. I downloaded Sims2Pack Clean Installer, that showed my add-ons by install date, with a red background if they were suspicious. I got them working after a few tries and build something like a dorm that was in fact an apartment lot. Some old guy moved to my so-called dorm, no girl did and the residents would stay in their bedrooms instead of enjoying the kitchen, study, tv room, swimming pool and other cool stuff I prepared for them. Still, doesn't beat the stupidity of the 51 NPCs that moved into that:


Fixing MikTex was harder. Actually, there was no fixing, but getting the 2.5 version from Daddy from two years ago and getting the required packages from some russian ftp server.

But, I wrote my name on the master thesis template, so I have officially started writing it today!

What is that? The poor man's Wii?

Someone tell me what's going on...

On December the 10th, a new gaming console was released in Poland: the VMAX16. Take a look:



It has 7 sports games and controllers with movement sensors - doesn't it remind you of some other console?

It gets weirder, however: it costs 50(fifty) $! That's like an extra controller for the Wii!

And it gets even weirder: googling for articles in English about it doesn't get you anywhere. Searching for the manufacturer, Speed Link, does get you to the official site, but searching for "vmax 16" on that site returns void.

I'm really curious what that thing will turn out to be. My hope: competition for the Wii that will make it twice cheaper. Let's wait a bit for the reviews.

[Source, picture credit]

The video game industry sucks

I recently came across two things:

1. an article in LA Times on how unfriendly to women, and people in general, the video game industry is
2. a booklet by CD Project Red supposed to make people want to work in this industry.

Here are the scans of the first pages:






A picture says a thousand words, so I'll let these speak for themselves.

Geek goes lazy

School starts on Wednesday. Or Thursday. (Anyone knows, by the way?) Anyway, I'm making the most of the last days of freedom, which, besides work, includes mainly this:

Yep, I'm playing the Sims with the newest expansion pack, Apartment Life. Here's a short review and a long review.

Oh, did I mention that I have a brand new hard drive? With a brand new Windows installation out-of-the-box annoying as can be. I got my documents, but my beautifully ordered inbox is gone. I had to google my own father's e-mail address today.

Two days offline ("offline" as in "without internet connection")

Two days offline - can you believe it? We've switched operators so for almost two entire days we've been to Hades... erm, offline. So how did we survive?

Dad was at work. Mom's not addicted. Brother was gaming the whole time. Other Brother delivered some good quotes in response to "watcha doing while you're offline?":

I'm programming in C++ without documentation.

And later:

I'm trying every game that came with my Linux distribution.

(He's using Fedora, by the way.)

So, parents, if you're ever worrying that internet might be a bad influence for your kids, think how bad no internet is for them.

What about me? I didn't suffer that much. On the first day, I was at work and then with Boyfriend. On the second day, I went to my favorite mall to clear it off the final summer sales. I came back with 17 t-shirts, 5 sweaters, one skirt, cheap sunglasses, one necklace and one night gown. Oh, and a new "loyal customer" card from Top Secret thanks to the 17 t-shirts and 5 sweaters. That was cool, but now I'm on-line and that makes me happier than the biggest shopping trip.

Installing, installing, installing....

Today is a pretty typical geek day. Basically, it means sitting at the computer all day long.

Having formatted my hard drive on Friday, I re-installed Windows XP from my recovery CD. Then I installed Ubuntu 7.10, only 34 days before Ubuntu 8.04 is out (you can get the beta if you can't wait, but I don't like the word "beta", or read a review here).

Sunday was Easter, so all I did was install The Sims 2, among with the expansion packs: Open For Business, Bon Voyage and Free Time. Then played a lot.

On Monday, I continued celebrating and installed Visual Studio C# and Visual Web Developer, both express editions of course. However, I didn't even have the time to run one of them.

Today, back to the serious stuff. Right now, getting the 204 important security updates Ubuntu has got for me. Then, installing Java and Eclipse. Then, Sugar, because One Laptop Per Child has been accepted for Google Summer of Code and I'd love to do something with them. Then, Thunderbird, which I'd love to see working under both Linux and Windows, using the same mail folders of course. Then, some SVN client, then, the libraries I need for my team project, namely Tuscany SDO and Apache Maven. Then, getting to work.

Ah, an entire day at the computer. I'm feeling so good right now.

Geek ends the week (happily)

I haven't posted much since Monday, day 1 of a tough week. Here's what I've been up to meanwhile.

Day 2. OS study-party. Few were allowed to participate in this exclusive, invite-only event. (I couldn't just say I had a study buddy over, could I? Nor could as just say "friend" now, there is no rhyme in "friend".)

Day 3. OS study after-party. I love after-parties. Never been to one actually, except for this one. Still, I love them.

Day 4. Morning: studying for the OS exam. Afternoon: Taking the exam. I didn't do bad, but I'm not sure I'm gonna pass either.

Day 5. Playing the Sims 2. My boyfriend bought me the newest expansion pack, "Free time". Now, you know you're a geek when your Sims can play "the Sims 3" and you wonder how deep this recursion goes. Or you make a list of the bugs and the usability issues. Or you pick a different language while installing the add-on just to see what happens. (That's a great idea, by the way, as soon as I have revised my French a bit, I'm switching to German.)

Day 6. Staying at my boyfriend's. We went for a walk as the weather was great and later to the swimming pool. Yep, I've really been lacking sport recently.

Day 7. Staying at home and doing lots of stuff that had been pushed away for quite a long time, like making back-ups. By the way, do you know how great ImgBurn is? I used to have Nero and it kept screwing my blank CDs. ImgBurn is the man! (I mean the app.)

Okay, life is getting almost normal. How awesome is normal?

School goes on.

The team project meetings have been rescheduled. Me not happy. But, that means I start at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. Actually, I'm not sure wether I should had come to the meeting yesterday or not, but I believe that if you have any doubt whether you should go to school or not, stay home.

So I spent the morning home. I did some yoga: two sun salutations. They were hard, but I know I'll get back in shape soon. I made some chicken. I cut my hair in order to look more like a decent human being rather than a coughing and coding creature (is there a point to hiding the sad truth anyway?).

I went to school. First, a networks lecture. I am interested in networks. Since today, but I am. I am interested in security so networks knowledge is important for me. Sadly, the teacher had throat problems and only gave us some general information. 15 minutes and we were free. I went to the lab and learned some Java.

Then came my favourite subject, error correcting codes. It's the continuation of last semester's class, focused on cyclic codes. I liked the linear block codes lecture a lot and got 90% at the final exam, so it's no wonder I went for the cyclic codes as well. Huge was my disappointement when the lecture turned out to be another algebra revision! It was hard to take in the first semester, as every single student knew everything already, but twice? Why? What was I supposed to do? Turned my laptop on and played The Sims.

The next class was an introduction to LaTeX. I played Need for Speed on Xbox at my boyfriend's place.

That was a nice day. But today isn't bad either, as I went to the networks lab and was done with school for this week at noon! Now I have the whole rest of the week for quality time with operating systems (which means I'll be busy and won't be blogging my best, sorry about that).