Milton is a suburb of Brisbane Queensland Australia  Not really Malaysia but near enough is good enough......I guess 

That's very interesting Gali. I have noticed the want a new family member in children but ignored it. If I had waited in real life for my first child to want a sibling we would only have had one child  I can probably fit my sims procreation in around their kids wishes.

I seem to be seeing the ghost dormies much more lately. Due to a hardware issue I reinstalled everything, all the disks, and have been playing a mostly cc free game. I used to have the ghost issue in Academie La Tour but never in Fiesta Tech. It has now spread to Fiesta Tech. I blame Glamour.....simlpy because you have to blame something 
The dormies do eventually correct themselves, I have given up worrying about them. In the early days of Uni I reinstalled that ep a couple of times because I thought it was a cc bug, now I know it's just a maxis 'feature' 
The totally invisible sims would be a greater worry. I always select 'say goodbye to everyone' just in case though. I have had occasions where the sim is said to bring home a friend, but I just don't see them....I usually assume they are off on the swings and ignore them. Funny how they bring home friends at the most inconvenient times.

If you like windows that open and close, have a look at the ones on www.pixelsims.com they are in building/windows and doors/page 8 This is one of my favorite sites, all my bathrooms have their louvered windows 

There are so many rules, you are bound to break one without trying  I would like a summary of the rules. I'm forever going through my bits of paper....can I do this... oops I did that 
I'm finding it a fun challenge though. I have achieved some things I have never done before...such as have a platinum sim, and found uses for the maxis options I have ignored. Such as yoga, previously I was a heavy user of the UnlockCareerRewards cheat 
Now I have culinary unlocked, uneaten meals are going in the inventory....no more wasting precious food for me  I find myself thinking 'what would we do in a real disaster'. I suspect we would not waste water with all the hand washing we have to do to keep hygiene up, but as there is no option to fill a bath and share, they just have to. 

I have a completely new game....reinstalled all the disks, no custom content and within moments of playing the Curious house I have an invisible stuck object right in front of the fridge  With no evidence whatsoever I have decided to blame Glamour 
So thanks for bringing this up qvcatullus, it has motivated me to look down in the hacks section and get the fix. I do love those little alien babies, but I have abandonned them to try out the Apocalypse challenge while my version of Strangetown is mostly unplayed.

I had a strange phone one recently too. I entered the Smith lot and the phone notice came up saying "do you want to invite Johnny over" As the active sim was a toddler, his baby sister born after he left for Uni I thought it odd, and hit yes, The next message was to the effect that Johnny was busy and couldn't come now. I checked the other sims in the house and they were asleep, so no one was on the phone 

I have noticed one or two other odd things, mostly to do with the Nanny. In another thread we have decided to blame the latest patch for those.

I had one sim robbed at Uni, that Klara Vonderstein from the student housing group in La Fiesta Tech. Even though she has left uni, married Vidcund, raised his son and had her own, is almost an elder; she still obsesses about it! She sure knows how to carry a grudge 

I sorry everyone is having nanny trouble, but i'm glad it's not just me. I have had nanny's not show up....so the child is left home alone, or I have had them show up two at a time 
At least I now know it's just the latest patch and not the first sign of serious trouble. I would really hate to reinstall again 

Thank you Theo  Those links might help me. I have an annoying SLI pop up when I start the computer. I'll have hubby or my brother look at that help page and see if the fix will work for us.
My annoying message tells me something about SLI not working properly as I have disabled one of my graphics cards. Silly computer  I only ever had one graphics card. But what I did do (confession time) is update my video drivers to the new one 91.31.
I have updated the drivers previously and I think I did it right. Remove old drivers from add/remove program, reboot, turn off anti-virus, install new version.... Check EA Easy Info, it says they are there, play new game that needed the driver, it's all good. But everytime I start the computer now I get the annoying pop-up. 'Sigh' nothing is ever simple!

Thanks Sara that worked  It made the rest of the story so much better  I really really hope Vidcund meets those aliens  Abductions never happen naturally for my sims, I have to use the hacked telescope 

Very funny  I really enjoyed that 

On a related note though....after I get so far in a bbs album the pictures no longer load. In this story, I got as far as Ripp Grunt making an appearance and lost the picture. Refreshing the page just brought me back to the start. Anyone have any thoughts about this?

Even the servo Poll Tech#9 made was a lush in my game
 
This sounds like my parents  When we would take our toddlers to visit they would turn their bookcases to the wall so my kiddies couldn't touch their precious collection......Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia not first folio Shakespear 

My husband bought himself a Dell laptop about two weeks ago. It was quick and easy for him, because he was too lazy to read the spec's.....but just a quick read of the ad's in the local papers suggest he could have got more for his money. He wanted a basic work machine, and that is all he got. To customise it....add another stick of ram, a larger screen etc wasn't all that expensive. He is stuck with a 64mb ram video card, and as he says he won't be playing games that might be fine. Bet on those long trips away with work he will regret it! Perhaps Dell aims at the non gaming market......apparently there are people who don't play games 

Nice to see that I'm not the only one who has issues with those stairs. Took me ages to realise they were those modular\outdoor stairs and would delete using the ctrl key. I have got rid if them, and the house is much more usable.
 My problem is that I missed a couple of floor tiles as I deleted everything, and while you can't see them in-game, in the neighborhood view they hover over the house  Still it's the Curious brothers.....people expect weird. I suspect to delete these floor tiles I'll have to build up again.......I might get to that one day.....but as I restart often I may just leave it till the next restart 

Not really an answer to your question....more of an observation....but...in the next ep they apparently will have an easy way to paint your own pictures, Snooty has a link to the Maxoids post about this. So your art shop can sell the great art treasures of the world.....as long as you have a copy of them in the My Pictures folder of course 

Very interesting, I shall try this out.....I seem to be knee deep in toddlers at the moment, and as it's not really a cheat  it might help.  I haven't let the parents read to the toddlers (shame) as there is too much to do. I hate to cheat, but at the moment my houses are too big for me, and I'm only getting by with help from Merola's items.

 Not a fan of Maxis music either. I've got all the music and sound muted in game, using the audio option. I don't even get to hear the phone ring....yay!
I just play my itunes. The only sound not muted  is the start up video but I click out of that fast. Really the only Maxis music I miss is the christmas music from the snowman stereo that came with the Holiday pack. I just find that so cute.

Thanks Nova, my counter is indeed back. I haven't looked at the sofa\armchairs yet to see if they match now. I do like them, they remind me of Simzalabins style from TS1, but my sims are too poor to buy them yet 

I have Family Fun installed so I thought that as that was the latest expansion pack that was the only patch I needed. Apparently not. MaxoidMel has posted that you need to install both the OFB and FF patch. In a few moments I will go and try, but at least I'm forewarned about the error messages...so thanks guys.
The interesting patch related problem I have had from the FF patch is a missing object, a mission counter. I have an icon that says no pic and there is nothing on the tool tip to place. It's one in the $750 price range. I had thought it was a custom content issue as I have just downloaded the featured Tuscany kitchen at MTS2....and it is just lovely  but others are reporting the same bug.
It's always fun when the patches break stuff 

Actually, Staroverthebay, I have recently bought myself a computer for my games that is not connected to the net. I have downloaded the patches to a flash drive, they transferred over without problems. I download everything to my flash drive, scan it with Nortons and plug it into my computer. So nice not to have to fight the family for computer time when I want to play for hours!

But I do get your point. It is hard for those without internet access, Just about every game needs to be patched these days. Though Maxis must hold the record, needing to patch a stuff pack 

This sounds like alot of fun, I shall have to try it  I have never used the sprinklers either so I'll have to try them. I just love Dr Pixels fern recolor of the fire alarm (at TSR) and have it in every house. I could use more variety in the fire alarms, there used to be some nice paintings in TS1 that you could have over the fireplace. You really don't want that ugly alarm in your nice living room.

Glad to see the 403 error wasn't just happening to me, I thought I must have done something very wrong! And as I'm not registered at that site I was at a loss to imagine what it was 

I restart Strangetown frequently and have always been able to move Johnny Smith to college. Also  sent the Grunt boys. I guess it helps to be non-awesome  I haven't fixed DNA or used Simpe ever, so perhaps you will have to go back and have another look at what you did there.
As far as the DNA issue is concerned, NL fixed problems with the alien skin tone, and now Jenny and Poll Tech #9 go on to have another green daughter in my game. They used to get a dark skinned red haired girl before.
I'm not sure tis is really helpful, but at least you know those kids can go to college  Good luck with your debugging 

Thanks SaraMK  I finally managed to download it  I guess everyone is taking it at the moment, as it really did take a couple of hours to get......just like the good old days of dial-up. Back then I had to be careful about what I wanted, I had a 300mb allowance for the month 
As it is mothers day real life is going to get in the way of testing this today (bother! I could call the kids and say for mothers day give me a day to myself.....but that would be mean!)
Looking forward to the Uni templates too 

What an exciting project  I'm really interested to see the results. I can only imagine how much work you are doing. It would be way beyond my limited skills, even with the excellent tutorial Blue linked to.
I'm sure no one will mind if those houses are a little 'off'......be pretty cheeky to complain when someone is all the hard work!