Below please find the LJ of Jenny Rowland, who fears no Google.

Dateline early April 2011:

Oh man! Previously this entry was postdated out to April 22, 2011, because seriously like WOW that is so far in the future surely it will stay at the top of the page forever. What is with the passage of time. (Now I'm totally going to leave basically all of the rest of the post alone since what I really needed to do was move the date. Will I seriously still be using LJ in 22 years? You'd think we'd have the Internets in our brainpans by then.)

Free userpics here. Credit anyone who I note the art as belonging to.

Four Panels is, uh, kind of officially dead. It's been a bit long to call it just a hiatus, and now I has other things to do.

One of those things to do is the Zombie Rights Campaign, where we fight for the equal rights of all persons, living, dead, or at any state in between. One of the things we're most excited about there is The Lurch For The Cure -- head on over and check it out. Right now we're selling t-shirts, and all proceeds from each shirt go to the Lynn Sage Cancer Research Foundation. These folks pay other folks to fight breast cancer so you don't have to. That is good stuff to do.

As of July 2008, I am working at Epic Systems Corporation, outside of Madison, Wisconsin, as a software dev; and I still say I've totally found the Nerd Mothership. It's like being raised by wolves, and then finally being rescued by your tribe, who on the way back to the village proceed to talk about how this is totally like that one episode of Star Trek. Then they ask you if you have your towel.

We gave up on fixing my old computer, and now I have a monster of a laptop and wilsonator's drive in an external drive housing dealie. My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite named Osterman. Naming a Satellite "Osterman" is a two-layered reference that you probably have to be me to get. Hint: one half is musical, one half is a major motion picture. But anyway! I now have access to all my old files and things! This is good, even if I do have to put up with Vista on Osterman. But I guess it's worth it, since now I can come home from my job programming healthcare software and spend my evenings programming hacked objects for The Sims (that would be The Sims I). I fully intend to get a working set of bunkbeds in the game eventually!

There, that should take care of the twice-yearly-if-you're-lucky top-of-the-page update. Dash dash dash. Dot!

I should probably actually get around to posting stuff, huh.




General warning: sometimes I swear.

Last time: Ruthie died and I was sad. This was also perhaps not the best thing for the kids, as it left them with no "responsible" "adults" watching over them except the evil supervillain with the doomsday device, and the crazed womanizing Romance sim who kept rolling wants to marry half the town. Drew became a teenager with a gigantic chin; jerkface Derek died; Aldo and Toby became teens with more normal-sized chins. Michael re-impregnated Toby's mom Roxie, and Adrian was abducted by aliens! They gave him back, though.

( Last week at work I started sharing an office with someone. This week she started keeping a sword by the door. I have concerns. )

Next time: probably the gen 2 spares update, since I've got it almost finished. And then, for the main line here, college! I don't know exactly what will happen because I haven't actually played much more yet. I do know that I'm trying to figure out my favorite for heir, and having a hard time picking between delightfully derpy Adrian and neat-point-having, darker-skinned, founder's-mouth-inheriting, otherwise-boring Aldo.

We just bought a house. :D :D :D

So mecha was all "hey the Overture Center has announced their next season of stuff" and I was all "okay let's take a look" and he brought up the website of our friendly local performing arts center and we were all "don't care about West Side Story, don't care about Rock Of Ages, Wicked sucked, Bill Cosby eh" and then he got down to the music-performance-y section and I started literally jumping up and down and seal-clapping.





I think the plan is for you to get suckered in by the lolarious covers, and then you listen to the rest of their stuff, the actual big-band standards and the original compositions, and realize that it's even better. Unless you're some kind of loser who doesn't like things that are awesome.

SO THERE. Now to play some Sims.


PS Wicked really did suck why did they bring it back again this year dang

This weekend I saw a bunch of awesome indie horror movies at the Muvico theater in Greater Chicago Area! Seven of them were zombie films, and predictably enough, there was very little in these offerings that was even tolerant of the Differently Animated, let alone accepting. I did get to see Juan Of The Dead finally, though (it was awesome aside from all, y'know, the anti-zombie violence). And Thirsty for the fourth time. We bought slushies at the concession stand for Thirsty, because you gotta get your slushy. I really wish they would put it out on DVD already, or at least put up a trailer that gives you a better idea of how much awesomeness you're getting. I'm not even linking to the trailer because it sort of ruins some of the surprises of the film.

We also went to IKEA, but once again I was cheated and saw little in the way of oak or pine, and absolutely no Norsemen.




General warning: sometimes I swear.

Last time: Generation three heir Michael woohooed with lots of women, and managed to get some of them pregnant! Four babies were born: Drew, to townie Jaiden Trimble; Adrian, to furry llama cultist Daisy Smith; Toby, to Maxis-made playable dormie Roxie Sharpe; and Aldo, to townie Trista Raha. Drew was left on the floor stewing in his own poop a lot. Michael decided that teaching his babies how to do things was as much or more fun than doing the thing which makes more babies, which is frankly kind of messed up for a Romance sim. There was a family reunion where 4234853892 Merricks showed up, and gen 3 spare Jeremy cried like a little baby. We finished up with all the kids as children except for Aldo, who was still a toddler.

( Even if you're not gonna drink it, you should still get it, y'know? Get the most out of life. )

Next time: Aldo becomes a teenager, and the last baby of gen 4 is born! Merrick teenagers continue to be abducted by aliens, and Merrick ghosts continue to make people pee themselves. Michael gets old, all the kids leave for college, and I finally make a new Merrick icon out of one of my favorite Merrick screenshots ever. SO EXCITINGGGGG

Wait, it's been HOW long since I bothered to post? (Part of the problem is ARGH ENDLESS WAR ROOM AT WORK TO FIX CUSTOMER ISSUE I HAVE TO BE UP AT 7 EVERY MORNING WHYYYYY, and part is that I wanted to post the gen 2 spares update before I started gen 4 main... but that ain't happening for a while yet.)

I also got around to responding to a couple of comments on previous posts finally.




General warning: sometimes I swear.

Last time: Cassandra got engaged to dormie Jonathan who had a mutual loathing of dormie Cooper who was lusted after by Duncan who slept with dormie Dominic who is in the furry llama cult which Michael got kidnapped into. Knute banged the gardener who was also banging Jeremy who obviously wanted to bang his sister who got knocked up by dormie Forrest.

It really is like a soap opera sometimes.

( Click this link to get rainbow swirl ice cream! Honest! )

Next time: Michael loses his tiny Romance-y mind! Birth, death, and alien obsessions occur! All the bastards get to talk to their moms, in some cases for the first time ever! All in all, a happy time in this loving, well-adjusted household.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/03/25/no-fear-of-a-good-time.html last paragraph

Whoops, so much for my plan to put up an update each weekend. Last weekend, uh... I was on... vacation. Yeah. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Next weekend I really will be on vacation. *mocking trombone*




General warning: sometimes I swear.

Last time: everyone amped the creep-factor up to 11! The llama mascot, who is now an evil comic-book villain because I say so, unleashed his fiendish plot to make cheerleaders pee themselves. Some dude stood behind a tree to staaaaare at college girls. Cassandra decided that being a Knowledge sim meant she should have sex with as many dudes as possible, and Jeremy and Crystal had a nice long talk about their incestuous urges. Michael dated the cow! Duncan dated a dormie named Dominic! And Cassandra got slapped around by blue hair on account of that whole SLEEPING WITH MULTIPLE DUDES IN SEQUENCE thing.

( Heehee bawk-bawk-bawk derrrrp. )

Next time: generation four! Bastards everywhere! Screaming babies! And Michael starts getting confused on just how a Romance sim should be handling the situation.

To whoever the asshat was who ran and tattled to the building assistant about my car being parked in the surface lot (where no time limits are posted) for a whole two hours:

Fuck you. No, really. Now I have to worry about my car getting booted overnight if I ever need mecha to come out to my work during the day, WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENED HERE, you asshole, IT WAS A VISITOR WHO PARKED THAT CAR THAT YOU COULDN'T STAND TO SEE TAKE UP A SPACE. You see, that is the only car we own, and mecha drives it way more than me. I think the last time I drove to work and actually parked was in early 2011. But I registered it on the company intranet like a good little employee, because, after all, there is a nonzero chance of me parking it all day.

But that is THE FAMILY CAR, and I'm not the only one who ever drives it. Sometimes mecha comes here to have lunch with me. Sometimes he's dropping something off, and once a week for a few months he comes to pick up our delivery of CSA vegetables. And he doesn't park in the employee garage because he doesn't have a keycard. He, a VISITOR, parks in the motherfucking VISITOR LOT.

Yes, even though the same car is registered on guru.

But now I've been warned that because I followed the rules and registered every car that I had the slightest chance of ever parking here at work, my car may be booted overnight if it dares sully the visitor lot again. You know, THE ONLY CAR WE HAVE. Stuck here overnight. Because you couldn't trip over yourself to run and tattle fast enough.

I was already having a miserable week, and you're picking a great time to make it worse.

So fuck you. May your own car refuse to start the next time you have a really important 8AM meeting. Me, I guess I just have to BUY AN EXTRA CAR just so my visitors can be permitted into the visitor lot. After all, there has never been any indication that it's not okay for one's friends or family to sit in that lot all day long... just as long as they have their own fucking car to do it in. But two hours with the wrong car and it's ZOMG NEXT TIME WE TELL YOUR BOSS WHAT YOU DID.

MotherFUCK.

Whatever the polar opposite of love is,
Jenny.

[Addendum] A few days after this happened, they put up signs with an actual stated time limit for use of the lot -- 30 minutes or less. I guess someone told them that it's kind of a dick move to punish improper use of something if you won't actually reveal what the proper use is! Especially when someone (like, say, me) emails you asking "hey what is an appropriate length of time to use the lot" and you ignore the question, THANKS BUILDING ASSISTANT LADY.[/Addendum]

Thursday morning I got a chicken pox vaccination, and now the back of my arm is swollen and itchy. :( :( :(

I remain, however, staunchly pro-vaccine. Millions of people -- a large number of them children -- dead each year from stupid preventable diseases, or MAYBE autism if you believe one study by some quack which has been retracted and debunked, and ignore the fact that autism rates have continued to rise even as immunizations go down? Oh man, you're right, put away those needles! MOAR DED KIDS PLZ.

I'm not an actress, though, so I obviously don't know what I'm talking about. Moving on!




General warning: sometimes I swear.

Last time: gen 3 went to college! Crystal peed herself, and Tiffany got herself knocked up IN THE FIRST SEMESTER OF FRESHMAN YEAR and thus dropped out. The boys didn't fare too much better in the smarts department, though, since Knute made "friends" with the telescope-spyee. Duncan met the very intense Dominic, Knute had a commendation put in with Starfleet Command, and Crystal and Jeremy started spending a lot of time sitting together talking about makeouts. There was a disturbing amount of sex, that modifier mainly coming from the fact that everyone is ignoring my ACR acceptance threshholds. :( :(

( This Saturday night, Furious Kitten opening for Outrageous Flavor. Doors open at 8. )

Next time: romance is in the air! Also fistfights. Also furries! Also someone else gets college pregnant LIKE A COMPLETE MORON. Oh, and a little something called THE END OF GEN 3 YAY. All that and Cassandra continuing to suck at Knowledge simming, whenever I get to posting it!