Talk about walking into a birthday totally unprepared!  10 years is a long time, especially for a website dedicated to video games.  But here we are, officially turning 10 years old.  Normally this would be a huge milestone for anyone, planned out months in advanced…but as I stated earlier in the year – this is going to be a bumpy year for me taking care of personal matters and putting on the “big boy” shoes to step out in the world.

So, where do I begin in with my rambling thoughts…Ah.  Site improvements.  As you may have already noticed, the categories are getting overhauled.  I’m separating news into their own content fields.  For example, are you only interested in reading about Late Night?  What about The Sims Medieval?  Well, they are split up into their own games so just click the category link under each post title and you’ll be able to read all of the news pertaining to that subject.  This is still a work in progress and tweaking to it, but this should make it easier in terms of organization.  I’d like to thank Jinx from InfiniteSims for giving me a hand on this.

Next up, we have a new design in the works.  I can’t say much about it just yet, but machinima and graphic artist TheSidDog is currently underway working on a new theme for the site.

Once we get the new design worked out – all of the pages are going to be overhauled, possibly on a easier content management system then what we have now (pretty much nothing).  This is going to take the longest time to set up – mostly because I have a back log of programs, patches and tutorials to add.

Ummm…that’s pretty much it in a nutshell for the site’s progress.  Expect to see broken links in the meantime as I frantically switch the urls and the names of pages/categories around!

Now, real life issues – I can’t remember if I posted about this already, but if things go according to plan with my Realtor, the last few months of the year is going to be extremely busy.  I’m closing on a house at the end of next month, and they have a few major things they have to fix before I can move in.  So I’m playing the waiting game, but I pretty much think I’m locked into purchasing the house.  Of course, once I do I’m going to repaint it to my colors – so I don’t think I’ll have my stuff actually in the place until December or January of next year.  I’m eager to start working on setting up my Sims theme room and start doing podcasts 🙂

Last but not least, the thank you’s are due.  It’s hard to imagine that it has been 10 years.  This was such a tiny site back in 2000 hosting a couple of my personal programs for The Sims and a few custom downloads.  Now it appears to be one of the biggest and active sites in the Sims community (note, I’m not the bragging type, so please don’t take offense!).  I owe my gratitude and thanks to the staff – Simillions, Frankie, Luke S., and our tech guy, ManagerJosh.  I also want to thank the countless number of Sim fansites out there providing the great content and keeping up with the news.  And of course, our readers.  Without you, I’d pretty much be talking to myself…although I tend to do that anyways, so…yeah 🙂  Oh, and of course, we have EA.  Sure, they can be a pain in the rump at times, mess things up, make tons of mistakes…but in the end I’m addicted to their games – and you’re guilty of it too 😛  What can I say, they make excellent games – when they work 😀

-Jud