I hope this question isn't completely stupid, but in case it is sorry in advance.   Are the items in Castaway stories, like the bookcase, toddler block toy etc.  basically just recolors of the meshes in the normal game?  They would be great for a poor or apocalyptic type neighborhood, but I haven't seen them extracted anywhere.  Is it because having them would be as simple as popping open Simpe getting the .png's and making a recolor of the existing items with them, so they figure someone without Pescado's talents will just do it themselves if they want them?  Or is it because there is something really hard and broken about them that I am just not thinking of?  Just curious before I attempt doing it via the first option myself. 

I hope this doesn't count as necromancy, since I know thats bad.  But since this isn't quite a month old I figured maybe someone who knows more about this than I still reads this.  I only recently found and installed this, after backing up and everything and it works fine.  But before I advance my favorite neighborhood several weeks and realize I am screwed, what happens when/ if I get and install Bon Voyage?  I always take out all hacks for a new expansion install.  But since this says it adds tokens to the saves, I am wondering if i will cause a BFBVFS if I remove this hack after using it extensively?  I know the ACR also uses a token method, but that has a way to remove them if I recall correctly at all, which it says to use before uninstalling? I don't see anything about this having a similar option.

Just wondering if someone much more wis ein the way of codes and hacks than me could tell me what will happen when/ if one takes this hack out to install an expansion pack, and doesn't put it back in?

Ok lol maybe I overgeneralized.     Both this one and my old one did it though and I've seen lots of posts about them messing up oddly, as well as people here not recomending you get one if you build a computer for sims.  Maybe they are finally fixing some of the issues with the newer ones.  That would be nice, as they seem to be all thats ever in the lowwer end premade computers available in my area, so I always end up without much of a choice in my price range.   So maybe they aren't bad but at least I still feel less crazy of like my game is having comre critical meltdown lol.

Well I tried it with my Strangetown neighborhood folder which is the original one that was added when he installed the sims.  It works fine in his game and hasn't even been played except when I tested.  And that also broke my graphics.  I also remembered when i was setting up my Victorian hood I couldn't use certain custom neighborhood terrains, because they made my graphics card go nuts, not in this same way, but still odd all the same.  So I've decided since I'd rather not pull my generations in neighborhood to my desktop and my CC as well and reinstall, since it works perfectly right now and who knows what issues my crappy card will have on next install that might break that.  I found bodyshop memoryless clones of all the strange town sims, so I think I'll just make a new neighborhood for them, fix them with SimPE to some semblance of their old relationships, and have a pseudo Strangetown.  Of course I am going to back up my current custom hood before I do this, just in case.  And if I ever do reinstall I'll make sure to mark all the files I need to read only. Just in case they did get corrupted somehow.  Thanks everyone for your advice, especially Flowerchile, for confirming what I thought which is that no matter what Nvidia card you get it seems to make your game do all sorts of odd random weirdness, so I know I'm not crazy.

Thanks I'll check the CD later tonight, before I try a 2 hour reinstall lol.  I'll let you know if it works out. Thanks for all the help!!

Update... it's the Strangetown that doing it....    I don't know why or how, but when I copy it in my graphics go broken, but when I take it out they fix.  I've always restarted the original Maxis hoods this way and never had this problem.  I did it by going to Programfiles/EAGames/TheSims2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods, and copying and pasting the N002 from there.  Is there a different way I should go about this from now on, or could it have become corrupted somehow?  Is there somewhere else there is a working clean copy that is awesome and doesn't suck? Now I'm even more confused, but at least I can play my custom neighborhood.
 
Edit:  I also tried it getting a new copy of the N002 file from my husbands computer as he has his own copies of all the games, and I thought maybe he'd have a better working one.  That didn't work either... I guess my graphics card just hates Strangetown?

Last night I recently began having a rather odd issue with the graphics in my games. When I enter neighborhood screen or lots, the graphics "flash" in and out for lack of a better term, and also become weirdly pixelated.  In the neighborhood screen they will look ok until I move the camera or the mouse, after that they flicker in and out between being correct and pixelated with evey mouse or camera move. The same thing happens on lots.
Here are some pictures that hopefully clarify what is going on.  I apologize for the size, but any smaller and the issue is hard to see.  In the second picture the glitch is hard to make out, but the whole lot is basically as pixelated and flashy as Pascal's head. 

 
This just started last night totally out of the blue.  I had the issue once before while running a screen capture program at the same time as Sims 2, when I removed it the issue resolved, and it didn't happen every time, only once in a while.  As of now I am not running anything besides Sims 2, and have closed all background tasks before running, even my antivirus program.  I've also tried it with and without Gunmods camera mod, which I've had forever, and with and without his lighting mod.  Have loaded the game with and without all my custom content as well makes no difference.  I thought it may have been an overheating issue, so I tried again this morning, after leaving the computer off all night, still no luck.   

My graphics card is an Nvidia GEforce 7300  ( I know the evil, but the computer was all I could afford, and until now I've had no issues, no bluscreen of doom nothing) I am also running Windows Vista.   Prior to the graphics glitches I had done nothing, hadn't installed any new graphics drivers or expansions.  The only thing I did was restore Strangetown to my neighborhoods from the backup in the game files.  Last night after the graphics weirdness I updated my drivers, but not a thing changed.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.   Sorry the post was longwinded, but I figured the more details the more likely someone would have some idea what went wrong.  Thanks again for reading.

Fixing the stats on an object, like the amount of energy a bed replenishes, is even easier than fixing the fridge.  Just download the Sims 2 Categorizer at Paladin's Place.  Use it to open the folder where the beds are and click on their thumbnail.  It has a handy edit object button, where you can change the energy and comfort and such, as well as where it is found in the catalog.