Meh laptop:
Dell XPS M1710
Age: less than a year, got it in February.
2 GHz processor
2GB RAM
nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS
HD:81.1 GB

I love it to pieces. It's been an excellent simming machine. Loading times are annoying, but never anything terrible (2 or so minutes to load the game). Graphics are beautiful, but my one complaint is that the highest available resolution in game is lower than the resolution of my screen (1920x1200), so my game is just the slightest bit blurry. Not much to complain about, though.

Men splashing in puddles always makes me happy

Finally got around to actually taking pictures of my Harry Potter sims! Took me long enough...
All the HP sims I play in game are marauder-era. I've got the marauders, Lily, Bellatrix, Snape, that whole lot, all in their time at Hogwarts. They're incredibly fun to play, but it also makes me rather sad, seeing as I know how so many of them die But it's more fun than sad!

Only pictures I have now are of Lily and James. I'll post pictures of the rest when I take them.

17 year old Lily Evans:


17 year old James Potter:


A dorky little collage I made of their first kiss

Zane Wizouski (now Zane Mariano) had a baby! Well, make that two... yep, Zane and her hubby Nate was blessed with twins Vito and Nellie. (don't have any pictures of them as babies...)
The whole family:


Vito (sometimes he looks really evil, this was one of his rare cute moments XD)


Nellie being tickled by her mommy


The twins are now seven years old.


I honestly just took this picture because Nellie's raincoat is the cutest thing Maxis has ever made. The kids look pretty cute too

I love Callie, Brenda! It's a beautiful picture, too.

Here's Johanna Turpin:






With her twin brother, Tobias:

My newest sim, Nellie Lovett (I need to start thinking of original names for my sims instead of just naming them after characters from musicals XD)

Here's Eddie and Jatan:





I love them :love3:

Vidian and Serena, just relaxing on the beach. I'll post a picture where you can actually see their faces later XD

Nate Mariano chillin' at the beach:

Eddie Hirasan- Technically a teen, but going on 20 years old. Right now in my game, she's partying in Takemizu Village. I love Bon Voyage!

Maxis content just isn't my style, so I rarely use it. I think it's stupid to be snobby about it (I can't exactly think of many people who are snobby about it...), but I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring custom content. For example, I find Maxis makeup, eyebrows, and eyes very unappealing, but it's fine by me if somebody else uses them. I've seen plenty of people make great sims with all Maxis content.

And, on the topic of the contest forum since it's being brought up: Nobody over there gives a damn about how much CC you have. As much as people might like to think, good CC does not automatically make a good picture. If it's not a good picture, pretty hair isn't going to fix that. No one is going to laugh at someone who enters a sim with a Maxis skin.

Maybe I've just missed it, but I'm not picking up the 'Snobby-CC-User' vibe from anyone. Sure, I've seen people who act like snobs and brag about all the paysite content they have, but that's not really on the subject. I don't think people really care what others do with their game CC-wise, as it's their choice and everyone has their own style. Whether or not Maxis content fits your style is up to you.

The hair is a Peggy donation hair, or you could get it from the booty, it's your choice. I really don't remember where the sunglasses are from... try MTS2.

Yay! I love them, Tina!! (woohoo! sneaky walk!) I still need to take some pictures of Zane and Jake in my game, I haven't had time...

And yep, that hair is from Sims Connection. It used to be pay, but now it's not, which is good

Summer, do you mean you want two different layers with different blend modes effecting the same layer? (sorry, that sentence made no sense...) For example, for a lot of my pics I take layer 1 (the un-edited picture), duplicate it (layer 2), and set the blend mode to screen. I then duplicate layer 1 again (layer 3), and move it above layer 2, and set the blend mode to overlay. That creates two different effects on the same image.
Sorry if that's not what you're asking about, and if it didn't make any sense... maybe it would help if you linked to the tutorial you're talking about?

Zane Wizouski and her best friend-turned boyfriend, Nate Mariano.

It's a wonder they even get along, really. Nate's so serious and Zane is so, well, not serious. At all I guess you could be cheesey and say they complete each other, or something like that. I doubt they'll be getting married any time soon, Nate's too busy with work. I also want to wait, like many people, for Bon Voyage, because I think a lovely beach wedding would suit Zane very well.