Sims fans stand united this week with a record 100% of voters declaring that the new expansion pack is "a great idea". Four opposing votes were discounted on the grounds that there was no other choice.

This decision was upheld by a Supreme Court vote of 5-4, five being the maximum number of judges we were able to buy off at such short notice.

I think the new expansion pack is:
A great idea	100%

322 votes total (4 votes discounted as being too clever by half)

Reader comments were, as ever, the key to understanding this unexpected result: voter #279 summed up the feeling with "Coolness Yo!", helpfully explaining "that is a really good thing!".

Velaria	Uncle George

Fans of the popular Sims site Velaria's SimGirls were astonished today by the appearance of an original object on the site.

"I thought at first there had been some sort of mistake" said one fan "But then I downloaded it"

"It is similar to one I had already, from Uncle George's. But you can see the difference once you put them side-by-side"

And one Sims expert confirmed: "This is a new table. It has original graphics, correct positioning and was cloned from a Maxis object: in addition, Uncle George seems to have messed up with the palette, and has somehow clipped the top off the original image"

Velaria herself was unavailable for comment for several hours after the news broke, but she sure made up for it later.

Voting for Sim 'Am I Hot or Not?' continues to be The Sim's most popular feature, proving beyond all doubt that Sims fans have more bandwidth than sense.

With many more entries than we can show on this page, we are forced to show only a small selection: but the all new Sim 'Am I Hot or Not?' page is coming soon. As soon as we can get it to work. If you would like to take part in the beta-testing click here.

And if you like cats, click here.

Taking the coveted 'Top Hottie' rating this week is Issue 10's entry from Veronica at SimFreaks. With a rating of 8.8 HU (Hot Units), this skin is, sadly, not yet available on general release.

FingerMouse comes in a close second with a personal best of 8.2 HU, and, amazingly, has yet to complain about the unauthorised use of her(?) skin.

And Seraphine's Dracula comes third with a respectible rating of 6.8 HU, which is pretty good when you consider his unusual take on first-date etiquette.

New entries this week come from My Sims, Simpathetic Reactions, and Nighttime Sims.

Let the rating begin!

Sim	Rating	Best comment
	8.8	'Try Brushing ya hair love' Image from Veronica at SimFreaks
	8.2	'Youre hatter than chrocolate pudding' Image from FingerMouse at Cheap Frills
	6.8	'Where have you been all my lives?' Image from Seraphine at Simsylvania
	NEW rating over	Image from Openlea's My Sims
	NEW rating over	Image from Rocksaw at Simpathetic Reactions
	NEW rating over	Image from Camilla at Nighttime Sims

Pixels match 'almost exactly'

Popular Sims site Jenny Sim Home shut down this week over accusations of 'pixel theft', withdrawing all permission for the use of objects and images from the site.

Including the one above.

We can't use this image

And this one.

Anonymous webmaster J felt that she could no longer continue in the face of such obvious theft: "They have copied my pixel" she said "It's identical in every respect, apart from the colour and location"

"As this blatant theft has been unacknowledged, I am closing my site, for the good of my fans"

Bil gets the blues: the patent, earlier today

Blueprint guru Bil Simser today left the Sims community reeling when he announced that he had secured a global patent on the colour blue.

Despite his long allegiance to the open-source community, Bil apparently felt obliged to guard all aspects of his long-awaited blueprint application with full legal protection.

"I fully expect blueprint to be the biggest Canadian export after seafoods, wood (including wood derivatives) and maple syrup" he said, "I'm not taking any chances"

Under the current legislation, Sims sites are prevented from using colours falling within the visible light spectrum ranging between 425nm and 500nm, which includes blue-violet right through to cyan.

"SimFreaks have already dropped the greeny-blue backdrop, although I might cut them some slack as they host me" said Bil

"I'm currently in negotiations with TSR though" he added.

Sims fan squelch17 today officially withdrew his 'Totally Awesome' rating for SimShop Online and instead rated it 'Awesome', in accordance with new site-rating guidelines.

"Yah, the site is definitely awesome" he confirmed "I guess I just exaggerated a little"

squelch17 confessed to being 'blown away' by the tight design and obvious care lavished on the fledgling site, and felt this may have influenced his final rating. He went on to describe his reaction on visiting the site for the first time: "OK, I was like, hey, this is new, and then I was, like, whoa! Nice skins. Then I noticed they came with swimsuits, PJs, the works. They even had anime skins"

"By the time I got to the murals, I was, like, sold on the whole concept"

squelch17 had reported his findings in several popular forums before coming to the attention of the Sims Site Rating Authority (SSRA), the official body governing site ratings. An official told The Sim:

"We're sympathetic, of course. But recent developments at the Seven Deadly Sims have forced us to recalibrate our rating system somewhat. Our ruling is that the rating of 'awesome' currently stands, and we're glad this was settled amicably"

The SSRA is currently working on UK English translations of the rating categories before extending the system to other languages. Current site rating categories are: