Invasion of the Sim Baby Snatchers

[vovat]

1. I bought some fruit cups to bring with my lunch, but I forgot to check what kind of syrup they had. I must have bought the ones with the heavy syrup instead of the light, since the one I had today was incredibly sweet. I'm not totally sure why anyone finds it necessary to add sugar to fruit. Seems like overkill to me.

2. In playing The Sims 2 yesterday, I had a Sim kid taken away by a social worker after being left home alone. I think there must have been a bug in the game, because the family had already hired a nanny, and she really should have shown up before the rest of the family went to work. Those Sim social workers are pesky busybodies. Not that I think it's good to leave a kid home alone in real life, but I don't think they'd be taken into custody immediately. In the original Sims, social workers only took babies who weren't being cared for. They were even able to take a baby that was closed in a room without a door, which makes me wonder if they were actually some kind of baby-snatching fairies.

3. I need to get a new ID badge for work, but since the photo center isn't open on weekends, I'll need to come back at some point during the week. That's pretty annoying.

4. The Oz books aren't that popular in this day and age, but it seems that every fan of the series eventually writes their own addition to it. I don't mind, as it means a lot of reading material for me, but I have to wonder whether anyone outside the small circle of hardcore fans ever reads any of the new ones. Anyway, I found the newest one that I read, Dennis Anfuso's The Astonishing Tale of the Gump of Oz, to be well-plotted, with the loose ends tied up neatly at the end. There were also appearances by some seldom-used Oz characters, including the Wise Donkey, Chiss, and Dyna's Blue Bear Rug.

5. Reading new Oz material makes me think I should get back to work on my own Oz stories, but I'm pretty sure I won't feel that way on the next occasion when I have free time and a computer.

6. Happy birthday to shadarko!

Comments

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

2. I've had that happen a couple times, and it kind of annoys me, especially if I've just worked a kid's school grade up or got them a part time job or something.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

This was the first time it had happened to me. Usually the adults refuse to even leave a kid home alone, but that might only be true for parents. In this particular case, the last adult to leave the house was a roommate who wasn't related to the kid. But anyway, had you hired a nanny?

Do you know if a kid totally disappears from the game after being taken by the authorities? This particular kid still shows up in his former housemates' relationship lists.

[colbyucb.livejournal.com]

Yeah they only left when the nanny was supposed to come, but she didn't.

Kids taken away are put into the pool of available kids for adoption, so if you have another family adopt a kid and you select the correct age bracket, they could end up with the first family's kid.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

So why is it that only scatterbrained old ladies ever become nannies in the Sim world? I know I've had them hang around for long periods of time when there were adults home. They're also always ignoring babies' needs, and insist on changing toddlers' diapers instead of potty training them. The nanny agency really needs to get some more competent employees. {g}

Kids taken away are put into the pool of available kids for adoption, so if you have another family adopt a kid and you select the correct age bracket, they could end up with the first family's kid.

Yeah, that actually just happened to me last night. The kid still has relationship scores with the people in his old household, but his mother no longer appears on his family tree. They must do some heavy-duty brainwashing at social services.

[colleenanne.livejournal.com]

I didn't take away ANYone's kids last week. Although I did get accused of it.

[bethje.livejournal.com]

Maybe not last week, but what about every other week?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

But do you have teleportation powers?

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

The other day I had a nanny set the house on fire (I had no smoke detector) and die, and then they came and took the baby, all before I could get home. Bastards!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I usually get a smoke detector as soon as I get anything that can cause a fire, but I've forgotten at times. Fortunately, no situation like that has ever arisen.

I still can't understand why Sims insist on running right over to a burning fire. I don't think any human being on Earth would do that. For that matter, I don't think any animal would, either. Knowing to keep away from fire is a fairly simple survival trait.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

4. -- This is funny, because I was just thinking about Oz books last night, because I was reading the comments to a blog asking "What books written today will still be being read in 50 years?" and, well, first of all I was amazed how many people's sense of time was off, how they were naming books that were ALREADY almost 50 years old themselves as if they were "today's books," BUT the issue in question is that a bunch of people said Harry Potter and then a bunch of OTHER people kept arguing that they weren't THAT great and would soon be forgotten once something new and cooler came along, and I thought, yeah, like something that big is just going to disappear out of all libraries by fifty years from now (assuming, you know, all libraries aren't destroyed in some sort of nuclear, environmental, or alien invasion-related holocaust in the next 50 years, which is always a factor in this sort of thing)-- and it made me think how some scholars have compared the HP phenomenon to the Oz phenomenon a century earlier, and I thought, well, it's a hundred years later, not just fifty, and maybe they're not nearly as huge as they were then, but people do still read them, and those who do, like yourself, tend to be very enthusiastic.

I also think kids books have an advantage over adult books when it comes to longevity, in that adults remember the books they read as children and therefore recommend those books to the next generation, but adult popular titles are less likely to be passed down in such a way. So in answering that question MYSELF, I would definitely pick children's and YA books over the adult novelists of today. So Harry Potter beats out any adult bestseller for longevity, hands down!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It's weird how the Oz books were pretty popular back in the day, but are largely forgotten now. How many books from that time period ARE still widely read today, though? I know that Edgar Rice Burroughs was contemporary with Baum, and his work is in much the same situation now. Everyone knows about Oz and Tarzan, but usually not from the original books.

I think the MGM movie has done a lot to keep Oz in the public consciousness. While I understand that Harry Potter is going to be at least eight movies (I've heard that they're going to split the last book into two films), and all of the ones so far have done quite well at the box office, I doubt any of them will remain in the public interest as much as the 1939 Wizard of Oz. And even if they do, they're more complementary to the books than the classic Wizard movie is. For all the annoying changes they've made, they at least never decided that Hogwarts was all a dream, or portrayed Dumbledore as a refugee from a costume ball. {g}

I think some books have remained popular (or at least well-known) because they're taught in schools, but the Oz and Potter books (and probably Tarzan as well, but I haven't read any of those) aren't really conducive to the let's-find-hidden-meanings-in-these style of reading that people who set up literature curricula like.

first of all I was amazed how many people's sense of time was off, how they were naming books that were ALREADY almost 50 years old themselves as if they were "today's books,"

I suppose that can be seen as a mark of their timelessness, couldn't it? Either that or the general public's cluelessness. :P Maybe a little of both.

[shadarko.livejournal.com]

thanks for the birthday message!


also, I say, start working again on your Oz story, same goes for me too. I need to get back to writing my Ev story.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

thanks for the birthday message!

You're welcome.

also, I say, start working again on your Oz story

I really should, but I need to get some motivation. I'd say not working would help, but then I'd probably just spend all my time on The Sims 2. {g}

So what happens in your Ev story? And didn't you write a manuscript about Sky Island, or was that someone else?

[shadarko.livejournal.com]

I did write Sky Island, waaaaay waaay back in the day, when Cow. Lion was still buckethead of oz. That was about Polly the Parrot from sky island hunting down Trot to find out why she never came back for her. I don't remember much of it, besides the Gump being it for some reason.

The Ev story has been bumping around in my head for some time. either it's a story about a boy named Evyn who lives on one of the small island off the coast of Ev, going to the big city in Ev and winding up getting involved with a rag tag group of misfits who are going to attempt to conquor Oz. I realized it was very similar to a Peter story that could have been done by Thompson so I never really worked hard on it.

the second Ev story idea was having a collection of short stories. It would be stories told by the patrons of a tavern called the BucketTree (named after the old bucket tree that use to stand out back, but had since been cut down for firewood since times were hard). It would take place Pre Dorothy's arrival to oz, so I could use possibly the King of Ev, a magic belt using nome king, Smith and Tinker, and their other wind up inventions.

I know in either Ev idea I want to have a small nome who's afraid of being in enclosed spaces.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I remember thinking up ideas for a Sky Island/Oz story, but I don't think there was ever much of a plot. Ideas I had included exploring the Arch of Phinis and Sky Island falling down and landing in Oz. I've also always been interested in the fate of the King of the Pinkies who was thrown off the edge. My current theory is that he ended up founding Rash.