Thanks! I'll try that. It's so good to know it's normal and not the precursor to disaster I'd been imagining.

In Simpe, Character 560 doesn't show up in the sim browser, but is in the SWAF and Sim DNA sections. In SimEnhancer, 560 shows up as not having a first or last name and as "only exist in the memory of others". In the character folder, 560's file size is 3kb. On the other hand, Character 560.1 is the hotel maid, who seems normal in every way except for having that .1 in her file number.

Until last week, I had only up to Seasons installed, but received all the later EPs and stuff packs this week and installed them. All of my downloads are updated. I'm using the empty templates and noregen hacks. I've read the Deleted 2 thread, but 560 has no name so he/she's not in the menu to be prepped for deletion. I'd like to get rid of 560 and either change the maid's number or delete her and let a new maid be generated. Worst case scenario, I have a backup from before installing everything, but I don't know how to prevent this from happening again. Please tell me how I broke it and how/if it can be fixed

I love this hack!  I never used to let my sims fight, but now there's nothing like watching my hick werewolf sims duke it out with each other   It would be great if it were possible for sims to start a fight without hating each other, that would make it more of a sport.

That's been happening with my gravestones for at least a year.  A ghost dives at its own or another's gravestone and it disappears.  I don't have a solution, but what I've been doing is putting all the real gravestones on a huge empty lot that I never play except to place a gravestone.  Then I use Christianlov's buyable tombs to put fake gravestones where I would have liked the real ones (homes or the cemetary).  It's a pain in the neck, but at least my sim families can have their ghosts. 

I don't think EA will ever fix the disappearing gravestone bug, just look back at the archives here to see how long it's been going on.  We're very luck to have Pescado's nounlink hack.

But isn't there a bug where having a greenhouse with one wall attached to the house lets rain in?  How frustrating when two work-arounds clash like that.

I had a romance couple who'd each finished their life goals of woohooing with 20 people and lived long happy lives.  It seemed that the perfect storyline for their deaths was that they died in an elevator crash while woohooing happily away with each other as happily married elders the night of their golden anniversary party.

I used boolprop to break that elevator dozens of times, sending them crashing down each time.  Finally, he died of starvation, standing next to the elevator.  I sent his weeping widow on a few more elevator crashes, then finally had to use the insimenator to have her commit suicide.

Unless you're going to drown or starve your sim, it's pretty hard to kill them.  Runs with scissors seems to be broken now too (or perhaps I have a conflict, not sure).

I've had "funeral parties" the last two times I tried to throw anniversary parties   One or the other of the guests of honor drops dead in the middle of the festivities and it's still somehow a roofraiser.  Even the widow(er) remembers it as a great party!

Thank you Sara, I'll download those right now and then I'll reinstall the backup again.  I know it was stupid of me to delete all those characters, but the 54 strays frustrated me so much.  It's always horribly sad to see strays in real life and I was furious that Maxis was forcing them on me in a video game.  Thanks for helping me

Pets and Seasons together added 90 extra character, including 54 strays!  I've tried so hard to keep my neighborhood under 500, and I had all the noregen hacks installed, but suddenly I had 90 ugly useless Maxis sims and their malformed pets clogging my favorite neighborhood.  I was so angry that I deleted a lot of the new character files directly from the Characters directory.  I kept the new cops, obedience trainers, and 3 of the 8 garden club members.  I deleted the Crittur, Ottomas, Ramaswami, and Roseland families.  There were three families of strays (all with the household name Smith), so I kept one dog from each family.  I never played any of these characters.  In fact, I installed the two packs, opened the neighborhood once, and then closed it and went on my deleting spree.  So nobody met these new characters and I thought there wouldn't be any memories to delete.

After that, of course, that neighborhood won't load any more *rolls eyes*.  I don't know why, I don't think it could be regenerating strays, since I have nostrayregen installed.  I'm restoring from backup right now.  How can I get rid of these unwanted families and strays without destroying my neighborhood again?

Thank you for the swing set :-)

In my family, pets always had last names and middle names too!  It's just like naming a kid:
first name: something you wouldn't feel stupid walking around the block yelling
middle name: something you would feel stupid walking around the block yelling
last name: same name as us kids, since the dogs were treated like children (except for not having chores and getting lots of treats)  Besides, it's fun to have a family member named "Cleveland Cutiepie Lastname" or "Aslan Butterball Lastname".

Gosh, I want a puppy.  If only my husband weren't allergic

Thanks for sharing the bonus items, Sleepycat and Sissyangel, you've added a bit more merriment to all of our games

Some shelters do credit checks!  My youngest cousin finally got the second cat she'd been begging for and the shelter did a credit check on her mother before letting them take the cat home.  If I adopted a shelter pet, I'd be ok with paying whatever fees, especially if they'd spay/neuter it for me, but I'd never let them have my social security #.  The shelter also called and interviewed their vet about how they were taking care of the first cat, which seems a much better way to gauge how someone will deal with a new pet (though it wouldn't work for first-time adopters, of course).

I don't know much about computers, so I don't understand why a firewall wouldn't be able to block EA's spyware?  I have The Sims 2 and all of its expansions listed as blocked in the Program Control section of ZoneAlarm, and under Alerts & Logs it says that it blocked the Sims from sending data out this afternoon (darn thing tried four times!).  After reading your post I looked at the ZoneAlarm support pages and they do say that it monitors the kernel-level (that's for version 6.5 though, so it may be new).

I took it more as them begging people to pre-order three copies and then return two of them as soon as they got the code.  That pumps up pre-orders and the responsibility for the returns can be pushed off on somebody else.  Typical large-company think.  Anyway, the three codes are all the same, they're still using the same code from the Nightlife and OFB bonuses.

The police already fight with the burglar, don't they?  That Ramin Centowski drip always gets his ass kicked, but Demi Love seems to win most of the time and then she arrests him/her.  It would be nice if the homeowners could fight the burglar too though, rather than just standing there like idiots next to the open-mouthed police officer as the thief waltzes away.  Last time a house was broken into I removed the front and back doors and watched the policeman and the homeowners stare dully at Jessica Ebadi as she ran around the living room.  After about ten sim-minutes I used the Inge bush to delete her, then drooling Ramin wandered away confused.

I've noticed that if there's an alarm on the outside of the house the burglar doesn't seem to show up as often, if at all, but that might be a coincidence.

Virginity should be lost early so that the wedding night can be spent properly: eating leftover cake and steak, drinking champagne, and opening envelope after envelope of money.  Ah, sweet memories.

I tried turning face blending off before having the originals get pregnant, but the clones still looked different from the originals.  Once you mentioned that though, I looked more closely at differences and saw that there's something un-recreatable about the original OFB characters.

Olivia Larson and her clone granddaughter both have the same hairstyle, but it looks much flatter on Olivia.  Same with Elise Larson, she has the same hairstyle as her clone but it looks a bit longer and fuller on her.  This stays true throughout all changes of the portraiture.  If these sims had been in the original game, I'd guess that they had the original style of their haircuts, just as there's a ghost with a beehive that's not available in the game.  Since they're newer characters it just seems weird.  Too bad too, since Elise Larson's hairstyle is a nice version than the one her clone can have.

The OFB pre-made characters seem to have genes that are slightly different from their actual faces.  With most sims, if you make a sim breed with herself, she'll have a son with her genes, and if you make him breed with himself, his daughter looks exactly like the original sim.  OFB sims look slightly differnt from their clone grandchildren.  Florence's eye sockets are wider and further forward than her genetic eye sockets; Malcolm's eye sockets and chin are different; and Theresa Ramirez (resurrected) has a shorter chin than her genes would dictate.  I haven't done plastic surgery on them and there is only one facial structure listed in Simpe.

When I tried doing minor plastic surgery on Florence Delarosa (enlarged her ears a smidge), a second facial structure appeared.  However, putting the second facial structure over the first did not change how her next son and clone granddaughter looked (well, perhaps the granddaughter's ears, not sure on that).  So, is there any way to get OFB sims' genes to match their faces?

I love Dizzy's breakfast at midnight hack and have never had any problems with it.  Some of my sims like nothing better than chili at 3 a.m.  Dizzy must have been a very good hacker to make something that can work through every expansion without any updates.

I've seen (East coast, USA) a lot of guys wear claddagh rings either as promise or engagement rings.  I surprised my husband with an engagement watch after he gave me my ring   Maybe the Glamour pack will include jewelry, that was one of the best little details about Hot Date.

Maybe the top of the Show Biz career was supposed to have the sim's formal clothes as the uniform, but someone typed in the wrong number.  Too bad the typo didn't put them in pajamas or underwear, that would have been amusing.

It does, but only for a little while.  When you type it, the roof goes back to normal, but it will put itself back at a 90 degree angle again.  I guess after the next save?

I liked the Maxis wedding gown.  I'm hoping to find it for download somewhere.  'til then, I'll use this altar, thanks for posting it 

Common law comes from England and is the basis of American law.  Actual statutes and case law may vary from it (though they're often based on it), but common law is the default that many judges turn to if there's no statute or relevant case to guide them.

To go back to the original topic of the thread, I've had the same problem with adopted kids turning up connected to only one adoptive parent.  Once, a gay couple adopted a kid and she retained links to both her original parents and didn't have ties with either adoptive parent.  I don't think I've had a couple adopt since then, one or the other just gets "insimenated".

Common law has been developing over the past 800 years or so.  In that time, there would very rarely have been a case where a married woman would have wanted to prove that her husband was not the father of her child.  Until the past 150 years or so, a non-marital (illegitimate) child could not inherit from either parent.  However, a man might have wanted to allow his wife's child to pass as his if he needed an heir.  The law could not allow his relatives to swarm in and try to have his child declared illegitimate after he died; it would have made estates even more difficult to settle.  So the law left it purely up to the father to decide if he would challenge paternity, and told all his greedy relatives to take a flying leap (denied them standing).  That's largely what genealogy was invented for: inheritance.  Under the old mindset, expecting every heir to be the blood relative of his father was as absurd as expecting every marriage to be for love.