That looks like a cat or a small dog with a Sim head as opposed to a human Sim. I have little experience with Body Shop, especially as of late - is it possible BS can't import pets properly?

You can make single strays with the spawned tree as well.

That'd explain why my paper delivery kids were turning out weird, I noticed it eventually corrected itself once I moved on to make some other NPCs. The skintone thing is still being wonky for me though, sometimes it listens but most of the time it does what it wants. I've double and triple checked all the settings on the tree and the only one it isn't following is the skintone selection. I don't create in batches anymore, the last time I did I ended up with a neighborhood full of men in shorts and sandals. *shudder*

I am starting a new neighborhood and am using the NPC Maker tree to fill out the townies and NPCs, but I'm running into a couple of issues. The first is that the "Set Skin" option does not appear to be working at all. It took far too long for me to create a light skinned Grand Vampire because no matter how many times I selected "Lightest" from the menu, I kept getting dark-skinned vamps. The other options for age and gender are working without issue. The other problem is that all of the NPCs I create are using the Downtownie templates (heavy makeup, glasses, etc.) instead of the seemingly more random plain Townie templates. It's been quite a few months since I have played TS2 but I don't recall having these issues the last time I created a set of NPCs. Was I just unobservant back then or is this something that is new/broken with Pets and its subsequent patch?

I love that set of swimsuits. I don't think I've ever played an adult female who had a swimsuit other than one of those.

I kept forgetting what it was too but when I renamed it to something that would help me remember, I started getting a bunch of Blazej Alemahzaoijdsfslkdf names again. It didn't occur to me until just now to put a text file with it so I would stop trying to delete it or rename it all the time. 

That's the NPC/Townie better names file, probably by Jordi. It's at MTS2 and VS.

ETA: Here's the thread at MTS - http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=110889

A very small percentage of people with epilepsy or a seizure disorder are prone to photosentive seizures, which can be triggered by strobe lights, flickering in video games or the television, or even sunlight reflecting off of moving water. There are many variables that have to be just right for photically induced seizures to occur and although it's highly unlikely to happen, it isn't entirely out of the question.

Deleting the bus worked pre-OFB but since they locked the tiles beyond the sidewalk, it doesn't work anymore. You might want to try downloading Windkeeper's fix from MTS2 and either delete the bus or move it somewhere other than in front of the mailbox (I'm guessing that's where the bus door is). I'm not sure if it will work as I have not tried her fix yet, but it may be worth a shot.

You could turn off free will during the dates - you'd still get the notice that your Sim has class in an hour but the "go to class" action wouldn't get added to the queue. Not exactly what you're looking for I know, but in the meantime it might help.

I'm getting the same error message. I just installed TS2 on this computer and haven't changed a thing in the game so far - I don't even have my downloads copied over yet.

Edit: I downloaded the patch again and this time it worked. Dunno what the problem was with the file I had downloaded earlier.

Both Maxis-made computers flash blue in my game too, as well as this one. They all show the correct images if they have not been turned off in between uses, but if the computer was off beforehand the screen will flash blue.

I really liked the budget/family info window in TS1. I wish they would put something similar in TS2 since there are so many ways to spend and earn money.

You could try the FFS lot debugger. It has an option to toggle perma-platinum status.

Mine is 576MB, split almost evenly between genetics/clothing and objects. At one point it was about twice the size but when I renamed and organized all my downloads I deleted a bunch of stuff I never used.

I haven't had any out of stock signs show up in weird places yet, but I have had objects pulled out of a Sim's inventory show up on the far corner of the lot. I was able to pick the object up while still in the inventory mode and move it back to where I wanted it.

I may be totally offbase, but I was able to replicate the problem fairly consistently - it seems as though the objects fly out of bounds when I try to place them too quickly, like I click on the picture in the inventory and then immediately click on the ground to place it, before the object has time to fully "load" (not sure how to really describe it). Perhaps that's the problem with the out of stock signs as well. When the object is purchased, the game tries to place the sign too quickly and it ends up flying off out of bounds.

LOL! Perhaps... 

The child behind the orange dragon is playing with a horse from the toybox and I would bet that the others are hanging out together while the adult is reading to just one of them. I could very well be wrong though (I hope I am because that is really cute).

Yep, they certainly can.

Good to know, thanks miramis!

Every "dirty joke" I've tried since installing OFB has failed, even with Sims who are 100/100 with one another and both in platinum moods. I've never seen it fail prior to OFB unless the receiver did not have the required daily relationship for acceptance. I usually only let my Sims develop friendships over the telephone but the few times I've had them chat in person, it did seem like it failed more frequently than before. I think I'll just stick to Cool Shades and joke/gossip/bust a move to make friends.

Mr. phone stalker was fed to a cow plant and has so far has not placed any calls from beyond the grave. My robot problem seemed to clear itself up too. I don't know what made them shape up but after what seemed like the 50th reboot they did what they were supposed to do. The Cleanbots seem pretty useless to me though - most of the "mess" in my houses come in the form of dirty dishes, toilets, and bathtubs, not puddles and dirty newspapers. The risk of having 500 piles of trash when one goes wonky is not remotely worth the effort of keeping one in the house.

My family just managed to build a couple of Servos and have noticed a couple of things that annoy me about them. The first is that the carpool does not come for them, nor do I get a message saying that they have the day off/a car is coming in about an hour. I suspect it might be related to a hack but I haven't gotten around to taking them out and seeing which one could be causing it. I also noticed that the clock doesn't speed up when Servos are powered down like it does when Sims are asleep. Their "do chores" routine sucks too. They'll clean one or two things and then stop for about an hour or so and then clean another couple of things, wash, rinse, repeat. I tried the nodochores hack but I do want them to tidy up the house when things get messy. I just wish they weren't so stupid and slow about it.

I noticed this too, I think it's still there in OFB. Since it falls out of the queue every time, it sure looks like it's a mistake.

*slaps self in forehead* It didn't even occur to me that the trash can could be placed someplace else besides one tile away from the mailbox. Glad you got it working and hope it stays that way!

If you have OFB replacing the trash can might not work as you cannot place anything beyond the sidewalk, even with moveobjects. You may have to move them out and back in again to reset the lot.