I have read everyone else's posts and you have been given some great advice -- I wouldn't even bother posting anywhere else now as those other places aren't going to give you better advice then what you've been given here already.

The only thing I wanted to add is that don't feel embarrassed that you had a pc custom made to be able to play the games -- I have known others who did as well.  Plus, many of us (myself included) that bought the old original game, went out and bought new video cards, ram, etc. to upgrade our older pc's so we could play the game well too.     Believe me, if I had the money to go get a brand new, top of the line pc that would play my sims 2 games even better then the one I currently use, I would. 

One thing you need to remember is that most people start out making "boxy" houses.  I've been playing since September 2004 and am a member of tons of sims 2 sites and believe me, that's what I've read over and over and over again.  I now have some houses on MTS2 (they are not great, but I guess acceptable enough to get on their site) and when I first started out, my houses were boxes too.

The first time I tried to make one that wasn't a box, I made an "L" shaped house.  Then I finally learned that they look better if some of the rooms stick out more than other rooms and if the second floor (if you have a second floor anyway) is not the exact same size as the first floor.  Usually I will make the second floor smaller and not actually have it be the exact same shape as the first floor.

Just get brave and experiment.  If you work with an empty lot (with no sims' living on it) then you won't feel pressure to hurry up and get it done.  Then, if you don't like it, you can always bulldoze it and start again.

As far as decorating it goes though, well sometimes I think I do a good job but other times I can't quite get it right.  I just think that I don't have that "artistic" touch that a lot of other people have and I don't think I can "learn" it either.  I think you just either have it or you don't.  So, I can now build houses that I like, but I still am not happy with my decorating choices.

As far as not being able to get the stuff you download, do you always make sure that it is supposed to work with the games you have installed?  Cause if you download say, a new table that is really just a recolor of a table from Uni, but you don't actually have Uni installed, then the table won't show up in your game.  Also, if the item you downloaded is a "brand new" item with it's own mesh, do you make sure you download both the mesh and at least one recolor for it?  If you don't get both, the item won't show up in your game either.  Plus, once in a while if something doesn't show up in the catalog, just try opening your Thumbnails folder and deleting the thumbnails that are inside.  The next time you start your game up it will take a little bit longer to load, but it will regenerate those thumbnails and things that were missing before can end up showing up.

But as I said, don't feel bad -- the majority of people start out like that.  Just don't give up and eventually your houses will start looking better and better. 

My daughter came home from school with a friend who brought a game called The Sims and they were playing it on our computer in the den.  I watched for a while and it looked like fun, so we bought it.  Then we bought Livin' Large.  I played it for a while, but got bored of it.  A few years later, my daughter told me that EA/Maxis was making a Sims 2 and I responded, "Really?  hmmm, that's nice." and wasn't interested -- until just before it was released.  She was at a website looking at all the preview pics and insisted I look at them too.  Well, it looked soooo much better than the original sims and it said that EA was releasing The Sims 2 in September (my daughter's birthday is also in September) so I thought, "It would make a great birthday present for her."

Bought it for her -- ended up playing it more than she did, lol!  I only have s2, Uni, N/L, OFB, Pets (took that back off -- can't stand that ep), and Seasons though.  Well, I also have FFS, G/L and Celebrations but that's it.  I don't have any of the newer ones.

Oh, so people don't think I'm cruel, I bought my own -- so I've bought all the games twice.  Once for me and once for my daughter.    But I actually play the game.  She hasn't played it in years.  I bought all of them for her and she's only installed s2, Uni and Nightlife, the rest are still in unopened cases. 

Oh, and Seasons is my favorite ep too. 

Yes, try updating your video drivers.  That may fix your problem, at least I'm hoping it will.  Here's a link that will explain how to update drivers:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/installgraphics/install.html

Oh, yea, definitely -- I've had lots get glitched that were already in the game before too, so I know you're right about that.  There is also a tool called the HCDU that I use whenever I add a new hack to my game just to make sure it doesn't conflict with any other hacks I've already been using.  It's on a site called Paladin's Place -- or Sim Wardrobe.  Here's the link for that site:

http://www.simwardrobe.com/

If you don't have it already and you do go to get it, the link just takes you to the home page.  Then click on Sims 2, then on Programs and it's the second one on the page.  When you run it, it will check all the hacks and if it finds a conflict it will tell you which ones might conflict with each other.  Then you will have to choose if you want to delete one of them or not.  Although, I know that sometimes it's okay to have two that the HCDU says will conflict just as long as one of them loads into the game before the other one.  But I don't know which hacks can work that way -- TwoJeffs from Simbology has talked about how there are a few of his hacks and Pescado's hacks where the HCDU reports a conflict but as long as his (TwoJeffs) load after Pescado's then there really isn't.  So, I know it's okay sometimes even if the HCDU says it's not.  But you'll have to see what the HCDU reports and then try to figure out what to do.  I almost always delete one of them, especially if they are not  TJ's and Pescado's.

Thank you, hardwaretoad!    Yea, I did finally find those myself, but it took a lot of looking, lol!  Just kept finding the clothing first but not the necessary shape mesh, but I did actually finally find that link myself.  I don't know why I thought it was only on the ISA site, but was glad it was here. 

Do you use The Sims2Pack CleanInstaller found here:

http://sims2pack.modthesims2.com/

If not, you should download it, install it and then run it.  It will show 99.99% of hacks in red and then you can delete them if they are not hacks that you intentionally put into your game.  Glitches like you are talking about are often caused by hacks that are either not compatible with the games you have or are not compatible with other hacks you have installed.

If you download lots off of EA's Exchange that come with custom content, then you may have downloaded a hack because many hacks will attach to the lots that people upload.

But, if it is only happening on one lot, the lot may be glitched even if you had nothing in your downloads folder.  Try playing another family for a while to see if this same thing happens to them as well.  If it does, then I would strongly suggest you use the clean installer to check for hacks.  If not, then you may need to move your sim family out, bulldoze that lot and then put them into a new house.

I don't think I can help you, but I answer sims 2 questions at Y!A frequently and I see this same problem a LOT.  Most of the time it is by people playing the game on a Dell Inspiron laptop.  The video card that comes with those (or at least some of the Inspiron's) is a 1525 and doesn't play the game very well.  Often it will play the older ep's just fine, but frequently once the person adds AL, they start having the same problem you are having -- that when they create a sim or a family of sims and then try to Save the family so it's in the sim bin, their game will crash.

Once when I was trying to help someone and I had told them to try updating their video card drivers, they ended up giving me a link to a site that helped them.  Maybe it will help you as well, I don't know.  Here's the link to the site:

http://vermontgeeks.com/blog/?p=69

The link takes you to an article that explains what drivers someone else used to fix his wife's laptop so she could play.  If that doesn't help, instead of posting the Error Log (or along with it anyway) post your computers specs as it is often crucial to being able to help.  Also, if you ask this question on Y!A, or at EA's Sims 2 site in their forum under Technical Help along with putting it here, more people will see it and you'll have a greater chance of someone being able to help you.

Good luck and I hope you can get it resolved.

Y!A -- Yahoo Answers

Oh good, then it's not just something I've done, whew!     I didn't see how it could be, but just wanted to verify that others were also having problems.  I wish the meshes for the SBB were here too, not just clothing.  Oh well, thank you for letting me know.  I'll just try again another day.  I think in the meantime I'll just stock up on clothing for that shape then instead.

Oh, and Happy Easter!

Wanted to add -- I didn't know Pescado ran that site -- or was a part of running that site.  Gee that man must be busy!  He posts at every site I belong to (I belong to TONS, but rarely post at any of them -- just read other people's posts normally), I wonder when he ever has time to sleep! 

eta -- I think I might have actually found what I need on this site! 

I was wondering if anyone else is having problems with that site.  I can get to it, but everything I click on just takes me to a page talking about an error.  I don't think I've done anything to be banned as I've only put two posts on that site ever and they were polite, respectful and followed all rules regarding language, etc.

I figure they are probably just having problems, but just want to make sure it's not just me.  I want to put the Slim Bodybuilder into my game and all I can find on this site is the clothing for it but not the actual mesh for the shape. 

Hey Casual Dude, maybe you've never been burglarized before because they all moved into my simhood, lol!  My poor sims are so traumatized by burglars -- I have every ep and sp up to Celebrations (so, up to Seasons for ep's but Celebrations was released one month after Seasons and I have that one too) and the burglar seems to hit my sim houses frequently.  One poor family were burglarized twice in one sim week!

I have alarms installed on their cars and have discovered that if I leave a car on the driveway instead of having it parked in the garage that the alarm will start going off before the burglar can even get into their house -- which helps sometimes.  And due to my bad luck with burglars, I definitely put alarms near every door that leads to the outside as well.

Anyway, want to move into my simhood?   

Hi, I'm probably completely incorrect, but it sounds like a Securom problem to me.  I saw that there is a thread about Securom on this site, but haven't actually read it yet.  There is also some very good advice about Securom on other sites too, as well as instructions about how to remove it and still play.  I would check out More Awesome Than You's site.

Nevermind, I found the answer.  Thanks anyway! :-)

I wanted to know if it is possible to build a house with a sideways garage if you have newer expansion packs than Nightlife.  Every tutorial I find seems to be pretty much the same and the only way I can get the tutorial to work is to use Numenor's AnyGameStarter with only Nightlife selected.  I made one home this way and then my original (actual) game was messed up along with the AnyGame I had created.  I do not know if this was caused by Numenor's AGS or because I made the house, but I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall to fix it -- nothing else worked.

Also, I found a reference to a tutorial that explains how to put back the actual sidewalk tiles (not the cement tiles) that the game uses so as to prevent corruption of the lot, but cannot actually find the tutorial on the site mentioned.  I was told the tutorial was on MATY, but I have searched and searched and cannot find it.  The tutorial was supposed to be called, "Street Parking" by JadeElliott.  If anyone knows where to find it, I would really appreciate it.

But anyway, back to my original question, does anyone know if sideways garages can be made in newer ep's such as having Season's installed?  If so, do you know where I can find a tutorial explaining how.

Also, I would ask at MTS2, but someone else already asked and Daysies just told them to Search.  I already tried that but could only find old ones that were written to work in Nightlife and which I cannot get to work in Seasons.

Many thanks in advance for any help given.

Thank you again for all your help.  I really appreciate it.  I didn't know where I should post it, and I really have tried several searches.  I must just be typing in the wrong thing under search.  (It's funny, I tried searching for "collages" at the Sims2 site and got tons of stuff on colleges in Uni!  lol!  Here at least, I just got the response that search couldn't find anything.

Thank you for the link.  I tried reading it, but I don't have photoshop.  Then I tried doing a search under the contests forum for "collages" but it keeps telling me that it can't find anything.  But I do appreciate that you tried to help. :-)