Sims 3 Teens Enjoy FishingThe teen years can be frustrating, because you have the ability to do almost everything that adults can, but you can't stay out past 11PM, drop out of school, or move into a home of your own.  Kind of uncanny how true-to-life this game can be at times!

A teen's curfew is raised from 10PM to 11PM, but the cops are out in force.  I guess there isn't a lot of crime happening in Riverside, because I've never had a teen stay out later than 11:07PM without being caught by the cops.  Too bad, because teens love staying out past curfew - and they get really bummed when the cops take them home.  It's embarrassing for one thing!  And a parent always comes out to lecture you.  LAME.


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The first two stages of life, baby and toddler, are pretty strategy-free.  You feed the kids, change the kids, teach your toddlers the Big Three if you can (walk, talk, and use the potty) and hope things don't go bad enough that the social worker shows up.

Child is the first life stage where you can really do stuff.  But can you?  I was a little frustrated recently, with a character stuck in the Child stage, wondering what to do now.  


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As you may have heard, Dr Pepper is doing a tie-in promo with EA to offer special in-game content when you enter the codes from bottle caps on their website.  They made the announcement over a week ago, and I have been eagerly examining Dr. Pepper bottles ever since then, waiting to find an EA bottle.

I finally found one yesterday at the little store here in town.  Although they carry several Dr. Pepper varieties, only the Diet Dr. Pepper had been replenished with the EA version.  Which is good, because that's the only one I can bring myself to drink.  (Have you seen the calories in a bottle of Dr. Pepper lately?  Whoa!)


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The Sims 3 team has released their Create A World tool, which was originally created for their in-house use in developing the various neighborhood/worlds.  I finally had some time to check it out over the weekend.  I'll be honest with you, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.  It's not an easy tool to start with - this is definitely something for power users!  I was expecting something more like the Edit Town feature or Create A Sim tool.   Instead, Create A World is more like the custom content editor that was released for The Sims 2 (which I also was thoroughly unable to master).


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Last weekend I booted up my copy of The Sims 2 out of nostalgia for last June.  I was planning to buy some of the Christmas themed items from the Sims 2 store (where I still have 1,000 Sims 2 credits orphaned and apparently non-transferable to the Sims 3 store) and have a holiday blowout.  Alas it was not to be, because the Sims 2 store kept giving me an error when I tried to purchase anything.  No Santa for you Sims 2 Sims, I guess you were naughty!

The first thing that struck me was the loading screens, which were endless, and lengthy.  I remember now that I used to get a significant amount of knitting done while waiting for the Sims 2 loading screens to finish.  (And that doesn't even count the first one, really, because if you press the Escape key right after the Sims 2 logo, it skips that mini-movie.)


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I'm a little disappointed in this holiday season with Sims 3, since there don't seem to be as many opportunities for Christmas merry-making as in previous versions.  To be sure, you can download two Christmas decoration items for free from the Sims store: "Winter Wall Wreath" and "Christmas Wall Stockings."

ETA: Of course, the MINUTE that I post this, EA puts up a bunch of free holiday decorations, including a Kwanzaa candle holder thingie and a menorah.

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My intent was to explore the new countries in World Adventures, but I was derailed when I learned about the "Irreversible Transfigurification" feature of the XL display case.  Put simply, if you fill all eight "slots" on the display case, you can then click on it and choose the action "Irreversible Transfigurification."  It costs $500, and you will never get back the items you put on the display case, so use this option with caution!


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I bought myself World Adventures as an early Christmas present for myself.  (I wanted to get it now, before it starts snowing. Last year I was stuck at home for seventeen days thanks to snow.)  World Adventures is basically Epcot with catacombs.  Not that there's anything wrong with that - personally, I like Epcot a lot.  

I took a brief foray to China and France, but I haven't had a chance to check out Egypt yet.  Both China and France are surprisingly rural - "downtown" is just a few blocks, and the rest of the attractions are spread out across the map.  This can be frustrating, because even with the little Vespa-like scooter (France) or the bicycle (China), it can take your Sim ages to get from the base camp (a hostel, basically) to whatever attraction you want to visit that day.


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computerThe Sims franchise has a long history of issuing patches that completely break the game.  Every patch that EA released for the Sims 3 has caused some segment of the Sims-playing population to rend their clothes in rage.  In the case of the most recent patch, it was me.

Ironically, this patch was pushed out in order to fix problems that people had with the patch before.  The "Save problem" caused people to be unable to save their games.  It also cleared out the inventories of their Sims' refrigerators and book shelves at random.  I would be furious if that happened!  


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Dreams!EA pushed out a new Sims 3 patch last night, and the difference was immediately apparent to me.  As of version 1.6.6. Sims now dream when they sleep!  I noticed this right away because the first thing one of my Sims did, after I loaded it up when the patch was finished, was fall asleep.  Thought bubbles appeared over their heads. I thought, "Wait - is that new?"  

I have started making it a habit to pore over each line item in the Sims 3 patches, ever since I noticed some fairly dramatic game changes being pushed out.  For example, as we all know, your pregnant Sim

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