The downtowns, shopping districts and Universities are just identical options
for sub-neighborhoods, they're not common (shared) between neighborhoods.

i.e. the Blue Water Village linked to Pleasentview is not shared with the Blue
Water Village that you link to your new custom `hood.

does the showheadlines off cheat not work with progress bars?
I never noticed.

Also, Jaydee uploaded another of her infamous animation boxes for freetime
http://www.jd-movies.com/freetimebox.php

this started happening with Seasons, I believe.

go into your game options/graphics options
(either or, i forget which one specifically)
and (graphics card willing) set view distance to extra large
and fade distance to extra large.

I believe that hobbies are determined by personality.

There's a hack/mod to change predestined hobbies here
http://www.simwardrobe.com/
sims2>objects>other objects>Predestined Hobby Adjuster

Thanks for the info, Beos- all good info to keep in mind.
It's actually a fairly well known issue with that particular
driveway recolor, not packaging with lots- it may have started with
Pests- I don't quite recall.  

The recolor is there and it works, it just doesn't package with lots.  
I believe there is also an invisible driveway recolor by Frillen
that used to, but no longer packages with lots.  

I have all expansions, patched (with the exception of FT- not being patched)
and no stuff packs. I also regularly delete my thumbnail packages,
groups.cache, and accessory.cache - and it still doesn't package with my
lots.  Even if I plunk down that driveway on an empty lot and package it-
it does not show.

There is an invisible driveway here that
does package and is, per creator, ok to include it in uploaded lots- it is
a standalone driveway with it's own guids, though- not a recolor.

once you load the neighborhood, click on the Seasons Icon
(i believe it's a flower), in the top right corner.  
You can change the appearance of seasons (all summer, all winter, etc.)
and the order of when they occur here.

If it doesn't show in clean installer,it won't show up with the lot.
You can add a copy of the package to the .zip or .RAR file.

brilliant!  thank you for making and sharing!

you need to place the electro-ticket machine thing-a-majig on the lot and set a price.  I believe you find it in the catalog in the same place as the cash register.

if you only have the base game-
build as high as you can, then add a dormer (under roof tools)
to the highest level. It'll give you another level of floor grid.
add some walls, remove dormer
(to do this you have to remove the dormer roof and
delete the dormer walls with the wall tool.)
repeat until you have the desired amount of levels.

update your version of inteen
http://box156.bluehost.com/%7Eaestudi1/forums/inteenimater/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=570

also it'd be a good time to check for updates on all of the other hacks you have
in your game.

fantastic job!  an excellent likeness, indeed!

also- you may want to check for updates to any of the hacks that you have in your game.  

And don't forget the patch
http://thesims2.ea.com/update/getpatch.php?appVersion=1.10&languageCode=

I certainly hope you put the package files in the Downloads folder and NOT in the collections folder as stated above.  That'd be the reason that they're not showing up in your game.

I saw this item earlier and thought some might find it useful
http://www.djssims.com/index.php?category=1&subcat=5