Not "ticks me off" so much as "makes me sad"...We have a bird's nest out in the parking lot, I think they're starlings. The babies are HUGE now, not fledged but adult-sized, and hopping around the tree. When they were still in the nest they were pooping over the side and if you parked in one of two spots your car would get pretty well covered once the babies got big. :P Now that they're mobile you'd better not park anywhere in that section. We're talking stinky, fly-attracting poo.

Today I went to throw something in the dumpster and found one of the babies dead on the ground next to it. :( Now, baby birds die; and I hope s/he did just die on her/his own. Thing is, with the volume of poo these birds are generating and spattering half a dozen cars every day, I've kinda been waiting for maintenance to come over and remove the nest or if they don't want to, one or another of the apartment residents to take matters into their own hands. I'm just hoping someone isn't out there with a bb-gun trying to kill these babies just because they don't want poo on their car. :/ There's at least one baby still in the tree, I checked, but I hope they're safe.

I have to get this out 'cause I hate this:frankiemad: I have to do continuing education for my licenses tomorrow (NASD financial junk). We have to do this every 2-3 years (depending on what firm you work for). What stinks, is the fact that the places to take this garbage, are always far away! I have to be there at 8 am, then go back to work; then I have an appt after work, then I have to speak at a meeting.:terrence:

As many of you know, my sister graduated from High School last weekend. We're all very proud of her. :) And her Senior Class Trip was this week. She really wasn't too excited about it because she never felt she "belonged" with her class, but the trip was to Disneyland, and "Senior Night", where Disneyland stays open all night long for graduating seniors from various schools. That was the one part of the trip she was looking forward to. But when they got down there, the chaperons let the kids vote on whether they wanted to do the Disneyland "Senior Night" or go clubbing all night instead. The majority of her class voted clubbing. Now, I'm not dissing clubbing as I know it can be fun and quite a rush, but the school just took away that one and only thing my sister was looking forward to in this trip. She would have been so much happier if she had just stayed home, but of course they make this decision after they get down there. It ruined her whole week. She hates the school even more now than she did before graduation. :terrence:

I don't blame her. Decisions like that need to be made before people commit to a trip, period. What a rip-off. :frankiemad:

Reviews for the Sims 3 are coming in, and they aren't particularly good. These are from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Sims-3-Pc/prod...rBy=addOneStar

This is pretty much what I've been seeing on the major Sims sites as well. I've had the game since the 2nd (the day it was released) and although I haven't done too much with it, my experience has been largely the same; very few furnishings, borked gameplay, and it's impossible to make a decent looking Sim. The game does have it's strong points but overall, EA really dropped the ball on this one. They could have -and should have - done a lot better. :P

The sims to me now just look "too" realistic, when in real life, not EVERYBODY has super smooth skin, (Even wrinkles for elders make them still younger than they could be) or having a "chunky" feeling (not that they're fat, it's just something I can see for some reason).

The fun with Sims 2 was that even though they were supposed to look like humans, they weren't, and it showed nicely. With Sims 2 you could enjoy yourself making lovable faces and appearances, built up with creative personalities and aspirations and preset goals (of course could be changed XD), whereas thus far, I've yet to see a decent Sims 3 sim. I think the makers focused more on reality and less on creating itself.

On the basis of the game speed, I think it was a good idea to make the hours in the game longer lasting (more time to do things, for example), and would make it more efficient and you wouldn't need to pause the game when you have "OMG ONLY FIVE SECONDS LEFT BEFORE YOU'RE LATE FOR WORK/SCHOOL/ETC ONOES" (Heck, that was my deal, at least). This would also eliminate the "limited time" thing where it seems to take forever before you get something done when in real life, it time wouldn't pass that quickly; or so the sims won't age too quickly (I played my family's lot a lot and now I'm almost an adult, it's too soon :(). A minute's a second, but sims move like a second's a second. But apparently EA went and overdid it.

WHAT? You can only play ONE family at a time? That's bull. Seriously. And you can't make your own neighborhoods either??

Now, I do not have the game nor do I intend on buying it (the fear of SecuROM or whatever they put in there, the peoples' reviews on the game, also I just don't want to buy it), but this is what I think about the game. I think Sims 2 is just funner, freer, so to speak. Even if the game speed's a tad too fast for me.

And I highly doubt that the sims are any smarter. 8D

An editor at TV.com was accepting all my crew submissions just fine, then I tried to correct the episode order which he rejected saying his was right, that's how they originally aired (out of order I guess). That may be possible but then he also rejected all my new crew submissions so I guess now he's going to reject everything I submit because he didn't like me trying to reorder the eps or something. :jk: He's not actually allowed to do that though so I may have to go to TV.com staff about it.

A telemarketer called earlier and left a message on my machine. Seems that they've determined that I'm eligible for home refinancing which could result in lower monthly mortgage payments. I live in an apartment. ::)

We get those. We also get calls to lower our car payments (our cars are paid for) and lower our credit card bills (neither of us has a credit card). They make it sound like you've been checked out personally but in reality they just have lists of numbers and know nothing about the people behind them.

The part that really perplexes me is that I'm on the national Do Not Call list, yet these pests call anyway. The increase in the number of calls I've been getting started before I moved so I doubt my change of address has anything to do with it. Don't they bother to read the list anymore? Or is the economy so bad that they're willing to risk an $18,000 fine for a small sales commission? Honestly, as far as I'm concerned it's a form of harrassment and it should be illegal. :frankiemad: