Nephew Number Four is doing better, for anyone who was following that story. His mom called today to say that, yep, pneumonia, but his temperature is way back down and he's not so loopy anymore. I could regale you with third party anecdotes, but shan't.
The Boy is also better. He thought this morning he was well, but I knew better and by this evening he acknowledged there might be something in my theory. Now, it's just a matter of time before I get it.
I'm doing some serious looking into giving acting/theatre lessons. I guess the area Parks Department hosts some crafts sessions, ballet, drum lessons, and actually, I think that's the extent of it. Anyway, I'm going to see how they run that, and if I could start something there. From there, I don't know what I might consider because I am not going to try to run anything out of my house. It's just a bad idea if you're not a babysitter or a piano teacher, and even then it's risky.
But, that's not what I came to talk about. In fact, I'm not certain from what corner of my brain that last paragraph came.
No, I came to talk about The Sims forums. There are a lot of different forums out there for people who play The Sims. This is especially true of the original first game, because it's often easier to share downloads that way than to have someone host their creations on a specific site. It also, to some degree, keeps the rifraff out. (Every time I use that word, I hear Sybil Fawlty's voice in my head.)
But the interesting thing about the forums is how very different they are. I'm a member of three, previously four. The fourth closed down a couple months ago, and was probably one of the largest. It's since re-opened in a completely different way and under new management. I can't come up with a pop culture event to describe this. Possibly like when Ecto-Cooler disappeared, yet was re-discovered as Shoutin' Orange Tangerine. It wasn't green anymore, it wasn't called Ecto-Cooler, there was no mention of Slimer (at which point the drink totally failed to regain my interest, if they'd put Slimer on the box, I'd drink it for nostalgia's sake, but as is, it's not the same). So, you see, the re-incarnation is like Hi-C Shoutin' Orange Tangerine.
Anyway, the original forum (the Ecto-Cooler, if you will) was pretty much devoted to modern style, and in it's last years to the new second generation game. It had a massive amount of people, though you could tell there were regulars, but it wasn't a particularly friendly place unless you had an in. Most of the people there seemed to be European 20 and 30 somethings who were graphic designers or interior decorators or something.
The second is a neglected off-shoot of the first. It came about when one of the mods there realised that the original game players were being neglected. I think they have a French mirror that does well, but the basic place is mostly innundated with semi-rude yet impossible requests and people asking for cheat codes. Yes, they're Newbies, but they're rude Newbies, and people tend to ignore that kind of behaviour, so that whole forum's ignored. I drop in every now and again, but I always end up wondering why.
My third, and my favourite, is a small tropical place. It's for the original game only, and is only a couple years old. I guess the two co-founders have both lived in Hawaii at some point and that was the theme. Can't be sure, but that's my guess. They have a loyal following of something right around 100 members, though there are plenty more registered. The place is incredibly welcoming and laid back and the members there are as generous as any I've met online. It's a community mostly of 40 something women, and a majority of them have numerous serious medical maladies, which is why they're home and have plenty o' free time to devote to a computer game. The rest of us seem to be college age students in one form of transition or another.
The fourth. Man, the fourth is the doozy. It's intended mainly for people who like to heavily hack or mod their game. I don't know how many of you have ever played The Sims, or are even familiar with the game, but they do some things that are just strange. One of the compelling things about The Sims is that is has the potential to be whatever you want it to be, if you have the knowhow. These people do, sort of.
Like I said, they're a weird bunch. Some of them are incredibly talented and can do amazing things with the game, but some of them have no social skills whatsoever. There's one guy, he's fifty years old, and he wants to be a rainbow unicorn pony; in real life, and he wants very much to re-create the world as he wishes it was in his game.
There's another woman, a former biologist, who writes novels and short stories that takes place on another planet. She is painstakingly changing the game to allow it to function within the laws and culture of the civilisation in her novel. She is forever having problems with her game and refuses to believe it was the result of anything she might have done. I have said in the past that it can be a buggy, delicate game, but she has problems that no one else has, involving her uninstalling and re-installing about once a month. If I didn't know better, I'd just say that Macs really weren't set up to play the game, but some of the most innovative object makers I know of for the game work solely on Macs.
Still, I find myself going there and looking through the posts and wondering how on earth these people all managed to find one another. It's not as though the forums advertise that they're for a certain type of person- they're for people who are all interested in the same game, they just have slightly different emphases. Where do you get this incredibly wide range of people from one to the next?
In a way, it reminds me of Peter Pan. You know who I mean if you've been on the Internet more than five minutes, the guy who runs Pixyland.org and was looking for (and has found) his Tinkerbell. The first time I saw his website, I was more than a little creeped out. I put together for him a persona that was like all the people who creeped me out the most put together.
I was astonished, then, just a few months ago, to watch a rather old video interview of the guy. In which he came across as a totally normal man who just happened to like to wear pixy clothes. Suddenly, he was not creepy anymore, like after the first five minutes of To Wong Foo you get used to Patrick Swazey in a dress.
Hmmmmm, I fear I'm losing my tack here. Possibly it is way past bedtime.