The Sims 2 House Designs (Part 2) + Updates

First half of My Year-End Blog Post.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to the few people who read this blog for not being able to update it for more than 3 weeks. I got really busy for the first few days following my last post, and then it got really emotionally crazy after that. Actually, up till now, I got tons of personal drama in my pocket. I'm gonna spill out some of them later, but first...

Super THANK YOU! =) To everyone who made it possible for my blog to reach more than 1,600 pageviews. I know it's not a big deal for most bloggers, but for me, it is. I just started this thing last month, and I can't believe that every single day someone out there reads at least a post of mine. I was expecting I would get some because I do some SEO tricks, but I wasn't expecting this much. So, super thanks to my readers! =)

Anyway, let's get to the main subject of this post: The Sims 2 house designs. Like what I said before, I play The Sims primarily because I get to build and redesign houses. I also promised you that I will show you the interiors of the house I was working on when it's already done. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not gonna happen anymore. I had to delete the whole game because I messed up the installation, so all my work there got flushed. After re-installing the game right, I tried redesigning the same house, but I eventually got bored with it. Well, with the "baggage" that I had, I really couldn't have functioned well.

Only yesterday was I able to temporarily pause all the negativity around me and decide to play the game again. I redesigned a much smaller house and made it really big. I forgot to take a "before" picture, so all that you're gonna see next is the aftermath. Enjoy!

overview

back

at night

front

1st floor, cut

2nd floor, cut

 

inside, the stairs

hallway

way to the living room

still Christmas here

back door

study room

"green" room

living room

"red" room

door to the kitchen & dining

"white" room

my favorite room

2nd floor

for guests

door to bedrooms, bar

where guests may hang out

bedroom 1

i love the colors

bathroom for bed 1

my dream bathroom

bedroom 2

"yellow" room

bath for bed 2

love the tiles!

There ya go! Sorry for the lack of photos, hehe. I hope you all like my Sims 2 house. It's not much, but it's a good start. There's much more to come in the future! So, any thoughts? Please post a comment! =)

Now, for the 2nd half of the 1st half of my year-end post. Let me tell you some bits about my current personal drama...

The day I wrote my previous post was the day someone broke my heart. I was left hanging for a couple of weeks without proper closure, and I suffered so much inside. The torture finally ended a week ago when I found out that everything was a lie and that I got cheated on for months. Yes, the waiting did stop, but a bigger blow came right after. It was a really big blow, but at least it was just one time, and from then on I was able to officially move on. Until now, the wounds are still fresh because every now and then the clot is scratched off, but I know I'm moving forward. Painful and slow, but certain.

I gotta give credit to all my friends who stood by me, picked up the pieces of my shattered heart and ego, and tried to put them back together. I can't name you all here, but you guys know who you are, so thank you! And an extra special thanks to the one who rescued me. *wink* =)

Next drama: family. You know those moments where you and your family are in this happy car ride or something and then minutes later you're all lashing out at one another? Well, that happened to me on our way to an outreach program/Christmas party/family reunion a couple of weeks ago. And I swear, it was like this scene in a soap opera where the people are pouring out the things that they've been keeping in their head one minute, and then they're all pretending nothing happened the next because they're in a social gathering. Hahaha! It was funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Well, all is well now. Feelings have been heard and lessons have been learned. And so, we're moving on together.

Drama number 3: Christmas weekend. The original plan was to spend Christmas Eve at Nasugbu, Batangas, and then tour Tagaytay City up to the 26th. However, things went horribly wrong. The place at Nasugbu turned out to be outrageously crappy, so nobody had fun. The next day, Kuya got so sick that we had to rush him to the hospital and cancel the whole trip. It was the 2nd time that we spent Christmas in a hospital. =( Then, just yesterday, we found out that an uncle of mine died. Sigh... All these things happened in just one month! Imagine how jam-packed my baggage is! =(

Looking back at how 2010 generally went, it's only right for me to consider this year as by far the best and the worst. But, as what I've said, lessons have been learned, and there's no other thing to do but to keep moving forward. In fact, I'm really excited about God's plans for me next year. My capacity to love and trust may have all been drained, but not my love and trust for Him. =)

Note: All The Sims 2-related photos are mine.

Websites With A Cause

In celebration of the 750+ pageviews my blog has gotten since its launch exactly one month ago, I would like to give back by writing about websites with a cause.

This week, while blog surfing at work, I stumbled upon two websites that captured my attention: Mach's Grün and FreeRice.com. You might be familiar with them because they're not really new stuff, but I think they deserve to be featured. I also know that there are tons of other sites like them, and I will blog about them soon (I'm open to suggestions), but for now let's focus the light on the two.

I'm not really proclaiming myself here as a green person, but I do like to participate in advocacies once in a while. I once tried to sign up for the Philippine Red Cross and Bagumbayan-VNP, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Also, for my birthday last year, I donated some clothes and books to my Alma Mater for the victims of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. For this year... well, I feel like I can do more.

So I will! By blogging about these two wonderful sites. The first one, Mach's Grün, promises to plant a tree for you if you write about their programme "My blog is carbon neutral" and include their button on your site. It's so cool, right? You just have to blog and copy-paste some codes and you help neutralise carbon dioxide emissions! Right now, they're working on the restoration of the Plumas National Forest in the US. Kudos to the Arbor Day Foundation and the brains behind the website! I guess this post means that they will soon be planting a tree on my behalf. Yay!

The second site is FreeRice.com. I really like this one because it combines gaming and advocacy. Upon opening the site, you will be welcomed by a background image of palay (rice) and an English vocabulary exercise. So what's the mechanics? For every correct answer, they donate 10 grains of rice through the World Food Programme! Isn't that neat? And the good thing is, the word game is not the only game available. You can choose from 12 other categories, such as English Grammar, World Capitals, Basic Math, and Chemical Symbols! Trust me, it's ADDICTIVE. They even have a warning to the players: "This game may make you smarter". Hahaha! But hey, if you get to help end world hunger, then it's all worth the procrastination, right? Oyeah!

I'm encouraging you guys to take part in their noble endeavors. You can make a big difference before the year ends just by doing a couple of simple deeds. There's no experience that's more spiritually rewarding than knowing that you've helped people and Mother Nature. So if you've got nothing important to do, spend some time on those sites to make your blog carbon neutral and help end world hunger.

The Sims 2 House Designs (Part 1)

Okay, I admit it. No Harry Potter movie marathon happened last weekend. I didn't watch any of the films in the franchise, not even a glimpse or a trailer. And yes, I am kind of ashamed of myself, having broadcasted that I would. But hey, I will get over it soon, and I'm sure that someday, I will see that movie maration through. For now, I'm gonna share to you the reason for all of this:

Yes, it was all because of The Sims 2. I am aware that there's already a third game in one of the most successful video game series of all time, but since I have already mastered the controls and gameplay of this version, I decided to stick with it until I get bored with it.

Some people enjoy playing The Sims because they get to control lives like a god. Others spend so much time building skills and gaining friends for their sim to reach the top of its career. Me, I forget about eating, bathing, and sleeping to do something else: build and design sim houses.

Yes, that's all I did last weekend, and I got three things done:

#1 - I slightly modified one of the built-in two-storey sim houses available and created a three-member family called the Michigans. With no plans of cheating, I moved them in and played a couple of sim days. After a few human hours, I moved on to...

#2 - I enrolled the child to college to be able to design the sim dormitory where the child will live. I got nostalgic about how I did the sim dormitories when I first played the game, so I took one of those I previously worked on and carried out the same things in a slightly different way. The next day, I concentrated on...

#3 - I created my cheat sims. I made an overly wealthy family with the intention of giving them the most luxurious life I've always wanted ever simulated. I purchased one of the biggest sim houses in the neighborhood and spent the whole day and night remodeling and designing everything. When I finished, I played a couple of sim days, and then wrapped things up.

I can't really say I'm a frustrated architect or interior designer. After realizing early in my life how awful my drawing skills are, I immediately crossed that one out of my list. Maybe I'm just really into it, like how we say we're into a particular cuisine or color.

And to end this brief post, I'm going to publish MS Paint screenshots of the sim house of my cheat family after the remodeling (no indoor furnitures yet). For the inside look of the completed sim house and the dormitory I did, wait for my next post. 'Til then!

Front overview

Full overview

Rear overview

Overview at night

Gazebo

Gazebo and walkway

First floor overview

Second floor overview

Third floor

P.S. I didn't build the sim house from the ground up. It was built-in and I just made tons of modifications. I think it was originally a two-storey house. Lol

Update: The Sims 2 House Designs (Part 2)

Note: All photos, except The Sims 2 logo, are mine.

7 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Harry Potter

Once again, it's Harry Potter season. It's very much felt right now here in the Philippines, and I can't wait to see The Deathly Hallows Part 1 in cinemas. However, I decided that, since there are only two films left in the best movie franchise ever, I will watch the first six installments first before watching the latest one in theaters. This is to refresh my memory and drench my mind in HP glory.

Yes, I'm gonna try to engage in a Harry Potter movie marathon. Starting today. Ooh, I'm so excited! Let's see if I will make it up to the sixth film, which is my favorite. But first, I'm gonna share some trivia, things that you probably didn't know about the book series and its author. Plus, some photos that reflect how much the cast has evolved since 2001.

• Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe all share the same birthday — July 31.
• The secret code that Mr. Weasley types to get into the Ministry of Magic is 62442, which spells out “magic” on standard phones

Harry Potter looking genuinely like a boy (HP 1)

Little Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger (HP 1)

• Hermione’s name was almost “Hermione Puckle.” It has a sour tone to it, doesn’t it? J.K. Rowling thought so, too, and changed to something that suited the character better. Rowling has said that Hermione has a healthy dose of herself in there, as she was quite the know-it-all herself as a child. Hermione was originally going to have a younger sister, but Rowling never found the right moment to stick her into the books.

Toddlers no more (HP 4)

• “K” is not a legal part of J.K. Rowling’s real name. She changed it from Joanne Rowling to J.K. Rowling in order to appeal to her male readers. 
• Gilderoy Lockhart, the insufferably vain professor and celebrity from The Chamber of Secrets, was based on someone Rowling knows in real life. The rumor is that she based him on her ex-husband, but she has been quite adamant about denying that. “He used to tell whopping great fibs about his past life, all of them designed to demonstrate what a wonderful, brave and brilliant person he was. Perhaps he didn’t really believe he was all that great and wanted to compensate, but I’m afraid I never dug that deep,” she has said. “He’s probably out there now telling everybody that he inspired the character of Albus Dumbledore. Or that he wrote the books and lets me take the credit out of kindness.”

Draco Malfoy still a kid (HP 2)

Tom Felton all grown-up

•  As you probably know, King’s Cross station is where young wizards hop on the Hogwarts Express to get to school. What you might not know is that the station holds special meaning for J.K. Rowling: it’s where her parents met. They were coincidentally both headed to Arbroath in Scotland when they met on the train. King’s Cross was intentionally chosen as the gateway to Hogwarts in homage to Rowling’s parents.
• In author J.K. Rowling’s mind, Dumbledore has always been gay and, in fact, had a crush on Grindelwald. This could explain why Dumbledore accepted Grindelwald’s actions, even though he knew they were wrong.

The late Richard Harris (HP 1-2)

Michael Gambon (HP 3 onwards)

Sources:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28627
http://www.bupipedream.com/Articles/11-Things-You-Didnt-Know-About-Harry-Potter-/16562