USB hubs and The Sims

I don't know about you, but my last purchase of a computer gadget left me with a bad taste in my mouth. And it seems I got a second helping.
Some weeks ago my brother dropped by the Challenger store at Tampines, the place I got nearly all the games I own. Now I think those guys do a fine job selling you stuff, so I'm not criticising the store here.

What I am criticising is the damned, damned terok $6.90 USB hubs they sell. You know, those devices that turn one USB port into four? OK. I needed a USB hub. They had a USB hub. So he bought it for me, I plugged the thing in, and it worked. I could connect my flash drive, printer and mouse simultaneously. Hurrah!

For two days, anyway. Then that awful message: "One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognise it."

I thought, OK, maybe it's a dud that slipped through quality assurance. I had it changed.

The replacement worked... for seven times as long. Two whole weeks. OK, one and a half if you go by the numbers.

Sheesh! Who's making all this rubbish anyway? Something called Pixel Technologies, I think--but now I bear them no ill will for making products that go bust after a short, short while and worse, letting not one but two (who knows how many?) devices that "malfunction" when attached to computers go through their QA process . I'm just going to avoid USB hubs like the plague, especially so since the old computer I needed it for's 4 years old and already anticipating the scrapheap.
Still, it was a valuable lesson: if it's too cheap to be good, it probably is. Too cheap I mean, not good.

I love The Sims 2. Though I haven't played it for three months. The game gets montonous after a while, I guess; no matter how many bells and whistles the folks at Maxis throw in. After four generations of prosperity, I threw something in too.

The towel.

It sims every Seem (oops, seems every Sim) becomes the same after you've run a family into wealth enough; it's the same humdrum ritual of taking care of babies, then toddlers, then children and watching them grow up. The first time I raised a baby into an adult I was darned proud of it (That Sim, Lorraine Clements, is still going strong), but as the generations went by... ho-hum. Same drill again. Even the Career Chance Cards, those risks you take with your Sims' jobs, get old after a while. And when a wrong choice drains everything... sigh. Reload. Reload.

But that said I love The Sims 2. Its third expansion's in development, and guess who'll be down at the store--anything to break the monotony, if just for a few more months.

And I've just read more Anthony Horowitz. I don't think he needs my small-small plug, so I'll just say this: he's the crown prince, if not the king, of British children's literature.

As for my own work, the first draft's nearly done. If I can just ram the last few ideas through my thick skull...