After the Calling

I’m just going to spew at you for a minute. That disappearance was a bit longer than I originally planned. Stuff just exploded into crazy.  I had to go on a last minute trip to China for work. Tuesday morning staff meeting went something like this:

Boss: I need somebody to go on a last minute trip to China. Someone who is able to leave tonight, met the CP rep and knows the distribution laws over there, and remembers the brief on our new distributor banks that happened last week when Veron wasn’t here. Don’t volunteer if you’ve never visited this site, like Veron, or if you have any upcoming trips, like Veron, who is going to Hertford, England in like four days and is busy preparing for that trip.

Veron: *puts on her “I don’t even know what a CP rep is” face.*

Qualified Coworker: I can go. I know all the distribution laws, heard the brief, I’m already packed and can leave right now, and the CP rep is my mom’s boyfriend. I know Cantonese and Manderin. I learned both when I spent 10 years cultivating rice fields in Dazhai for my masters thesis which was entitled “Totally Qualified For This Trip”. In fact, I still live in China. I commute in every morning from Bangkok, which isn’t even in China, but Veron doesn’t know the difference.

Boss: Mmmmm, yeah that’s nice, but despite my already stating why she’s the worst possible person to go, I’m sending Veron.

Veron: WHA??!? No no no, see, look, I’m wearing my “please don’t send me to China” face.

Qualified Coworker: I completely agree. She is much more qualified than I am to go to China. Her England trip can be postponed even though its been put off for more than a month now.

Veron: Okay, wait, T for timeout -

Boss: Veron, shut up and go to China.

…Yep. So I got back from that craziness yesterday, spent the whole trip hopeless busy and hopelessy clueless, and I’m off to the UK on Thursday. So I figured, in this little interim, I’d just leak simly insanity all over the site.

My house still isn’t quite done, but my cats have been using their pee as a method of biological warfare, and my boyfriend evicted us the minute I came back. It is nice to have cable again though. I realized last week that a heavily dvr-ed routine of Animal Planet, Gordan Ramsey, Spongebob Squarepants, liberal news media, and general access to the internet, when encountered near daily, is more addicting than heroin. If I wasn’t busyoverdosing on the crystal meth of Sharon Shinn series, screaming “BUT WHY, STUPID?!” at her characters all that week, I might have succumbed to televinternisonet withdrawal and actually considered the boyfriend’s “seriously joking” suggestion to try and steal the neighbor’s wifi. Although, I will say, much like crystal meth, there is such a thing as too much Sharon Shinn.  Her good books drive you to unhinged madness and her bad books are… just… awful.  If I ever meet her in person I am going to deliver a swift helicopter kick to the back of her head. Or kiss her full on the mouth. I haven’t made up my mind. Honestly, both actions are equally likely and may happen simultaneously, proving only that I should lay off her novels for a while. And probably never meet her in person.

“Webbed cocooned erotic spiders” showed up NINE TIMES in searched engine terms this week. I love you all. Honorable mention goes to “invader zim bedsheets” , “red fart“, “thumb war lab“, and “loooooooook“.  Schools need to start offering classes on how to do a proper web search.  Despite my entertainment, this is ridiculous. I mean, invader zim and you click on me? For seriously? What the nuts is a red fart?

I’ve been blaming this insensibility on google, because wordpress doesn’t tell you which search engines lead the parade of WTF. But I’m finding that google ignores me, unless you specifically type AtC by Veron or, more recently, webbed cocooned erotic spiders. Any other time, google totally cockblocks me, and RIGHTLY SO because I have nothing to do with invader zim, or red farts, or erotic spiders for that matter. So something told me to check out yahoo, because… yahoo is just… the broken vacuum cleaner of search engines…  I type in “invader zim bedsheets” because, WTF. GUESS who comes up as the NUMBER SEVEN result on the FIRST PAGE??!?!?! As a result of INVADER MOTHERFLIPPIN’ ZIM BEDSHEETS?! I’ll tell you. ReaperofHate on Deviant art. I know this because AtC comes up as NUMBER FRICKIN’ SIX.  And frankly, I think that ReaperofHate should be number one. I mean, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it like you mean it. Why not? Yahoo doesn’t care. Yahoo isn’t even trying.

But they aren’t being entirely brainless (although they are being purdy damn brainless). Turns out that GAYL (!!!!!)  made a comment that  mentioned invader zim bed sheets a few weeks back and apparently yahoo was just as thrilled about it as I was. Number 6. First page. Crazy.  I’ll let you know when I figure out which one of you is behind ”thumb war lab”.

Real, live parapsychologists are commenting on my post where I call bullshit on parapsychology. I’m a bit frightened.

In this episode:  Ten Years Prior: Part VII, (Ten Years Prior: Part VIII is sort of done depending on if I’ll feel like editing the pictures, so I may have something to update with later in the month), “Self Found” for those who follow the SWA Collab, AND Posing Without Pose Boxes III: Not Your Granddaddy’s Overlays. And uploading all that crap in one day sucked more ass than a fly at a horse show. Now I can allow myself to be shipped off to Britain as a sacrificial offering to the gods of adult novelty distribution. We must not anger them lest they rain down their deadly wrath of bad porn and latex allergies.

…Hmph. Look at that. I just realized why searching for “dildo” can lead you to this site.  All of this has everything to do with the update. I will be in and out, around and about. Give me a sec with emails and comments and reading and breathing and everything. Actually, give me another two weeks. Fraps and I had a falling out so I’m not as pic heavy as I usually am… but still extraordinarily pic heavy. LINKAGE BELOW.

Sooooo, I was a little bit hesitant about doing this. Sims 3 comes out in like, 2 seconds, so I’m not sure how helpful these tutorials will be in the long term. I’m also finding that there is a significant amount of vitriol floating around the Sims 2 community.  Not directed at anything in particular… just… vitriol. I was completely unaware of it until recently, but now that I am, it’s a bit intimidating to contribute to a community where there is so much snark and derision. It makes me worry that we’re approaching the end of an era. I’m not really planning on getting Sims 3, at least not until it’s established itself within the gaming world and I can get some legitimate feedback on it. I couldn’t do anything, especially not these tutorials, without custom content and it seems like EA is keeping all modding abilities to itself, which is unappetizing to say the least.

Feh. All that said, I do hope this is of service. I’ll eventually get it up on the LJ, after I stop being afraid of it.

Hello there. So… I had never really thought about doing this, but a few weeks ago, I sat and gave a full, in-depth tutorial to my friend about how I posed some of my more recent story shots. She turned to me and said: “Too bad I’m not a sim story writer, or else that would have been really useful”. For some reason her snark didn’t tell me that I was talking to the wrong audience, and I just called her a jerk and kicked her out of my house… although she didn’t leave, she just sat in my den and ate all my hummus… >:(

Anyhoo, the sim secret (still don’t know what the balls a sim secret is) this past weekend really had me tweaking out, and since it seemed to be geared towards my poses (?) I decided I’d post a “basics” tutorial. I’ve lately been avoiding poseboxes like the plague. Whenever they come out, I download them, test them, and then despise them. I really prefer in-game animations to find my poses, but it is a bit challenging at times, and I do have to put aside about 24+ hours every week to maintain this story. But if others want to try, I figured it can’t hurt to help.

I’ve never written a tutorial and I don’t know how this will come across, but I just hope that it’s helpful. So… yah. This tutorial can also be found over at livejournal’s We Heart Overlays, and if S2WA Exchange wants it, I can put over there too.