I've done some searching about stocking fridges with food, but haven't been able to find anything on a couple of questions:

I know that by adding home-grown crops to your fridge, the food you cook satisfies sims' hunger more quickly; but, will your meals be better regardless of what you stock the fridge with?  Are lemons "better" than tomatoes, for example?  Do you need a variety of fruits/veggies to get the best meals, or does a fridge filled with tomatoes alone give the same benefits?  Are all sparkly meals the same?

Also, does it make a difference how much you stock the fridge with--does stocking with 10 tomatoes last longer than 100?  If it does, then how much longer?  I've read conflicting info on whether or not stocking the fridge with stuff from your garden actually restocks the fridge (in the same way as buying groceries does), or just makes your meals better.

Much thanks, P

The only image editing program I've ever really used is Windows Paint, and I'm quickly finding that it's good for resizing pics but can't easily do anything else--if it can do them at all.  What image editors do you use? Which one do you think is the best?

Thanks for ideas, psionexile

Are the images you see in the thought bubbles and the speech bubbles stored somewhere in the game files you've installed onto your computer, or on the game disks themselves?

What I want to be able to do is take pictures of sims thinking/discussing topics appropriate to the scene, by cut-and-pasting those images into the picture over the bubbles already present (does that make any sense?).

I can try and hunt for the pictures I want in-game, take screen caps and get them that way--but that could be tedious, especially for images I want that don't come up that often.  I figure I can "guide" the disussion using the "change topic" command, but even so I can't control exactly what they're saying.  Plus, I'm pretty sure that sims won't speak or think of generic items from the Buy catalog except in "watch clouds"/"stargaze," and I don't know of any way to guide those processes.  There must be other thought/speech bubble images I can't bring up, that I simply haven't decided I need yet.

I'd appreciate any help.  Thanks, psionexile.

nb:  This story is about the Sims (the Maxis pre-made sims and townies), but I'm using only words and no pictures.  I spoke to kathy and she said that was okay.  What I hope is that you'll read and comment and/or critique as if it were any other story.  I think the chapters may seem excessively long without pictures, but I hope you won't be overwhelmed by that, and I will try to make chapters and chapter breaks as reasonable as I can.

So there you have it!  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Much thanks, psionexile.