Aurora's Sims

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Elina Garanca

Posted by aurorassims on December 19, 2009

Studying in Vienna in 2007, I managed to catch Garanca's Charlotte in Werther. All of the straight boys with me were obsessed with her looks, but she delivered more than just a model figure- she truly captured the heart of Charlotte… not even the gigantic set could overshadow her acting and the beautiful, dark quality to her voice. So, when I heard this summer that she was taking over from Gheorghiu in the Met's Carmen, I marked the date of the broadcast in my calendar. With that date fast approaching, I thought I'd try to take a sneak peak at her past triumphs… and they are stunning.

1) Carmen – Act IITerme di Caracalla – Garanca and Borin – After angering Don José with stories of how she would dance for his officers while he was away, Carmen soothes him by dancing for him privately. 

2) Werther - Act III – Vienna State Opera – Garanca and Alvarez – Werther has just read Charlotte's poetry and discovered that she had kept his letters. Realizing that she still loves him, he tries to convince her to continue their love affair. Despite wanting to give in, Charlotte manages to send him away.

One of the most famous interpreters of Carmen, was Conchita Supervia, a Spanish mezzo. This is just a small snippet of her performance (an entire album of Carmen can be found here), but her personality is so vibrant in the video that I became a huge fan immediately afterward.

Posted via email from OperaTV

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Blog Manifesto

Posted by aurorassims on December 19, 2009

I am an undergraduate vocal performance major looking to make it in the big wide world of classical singing. Through the course of my studies, I have found YouTube an invaluable guide for researching the vast amount of vocal repertoire out there. Every day, some incredible piece of operatic or choral music is posted- either some incredible new singer or an older, hard to find recording. I will try to post three to four videos a week. 

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What exactly was this guy thinking?! “Obama Facebook poll developer comes forward.”

Posted by aurorassims on September 29, 2009

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10363336-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Posted via email from Performance Technology

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Legacy of DOOM!! Chapter 1.2: Formulating Plans

Posted by aurorassims on August 3, 2009

When we last left our founder, Peggy-Sue Evil, her plans to torture all the people of Pleasantview (A/N: I know it’s Sunset Valley, but I’ve always found Pleasantview a more disturbingly suburban name… way more appropriate for an evil family to take over) had been temporarily halted by the birth of her twins, Lucifer and Tom Riddle, with her husband Leighton. At first, she tried to convince the angry repowoman to magic them away. However, Peggy-Sue and Leighton’s jobs fell at the same time, so Peggy-Sue discovered the babysitter, a wonderful service that made her life beautiful and gave her the time to care for the babies she cared about: her seeds. As the twins grew to toddlers, Peggy-Sue discovered a way to make them happy: the suffering she felt when she was forced to take care of them gave them and evil glee that would last for hours.

Growing up without parents to take care of them was hard on the boys, who found their own ways to cope. Lucifer spent his time hiding away inside a box hoping that someday someone would care enough to try and find him. Tom just sat on the floor, rocking back and forth, waiting for his parents to come home. Leighton loved his boys, but the demands of his athletic career meant that he was constantly building team morale by visiting the homes of his teammates. Whenever he did have time to come home, he was constantly wishing to spend time with his wife, whose beauty blinded him to the flaws in her character. This inevitably led to more WooHoo, which led to, well, you can probably guess.
The twins grew into children and began masterminding their own paths to world domination. Tom, with his newfound artistic inclinations, began formulating a plot with his brother to rake in the simoleans by creating eeevvviilll paintings. And, indeed, they were hideous. Lucifer had a bit more trouble- his newfound love of stealing things gave him much satisfaction (and his parents more money), but it wasn’t fulfilling. But a talk with Tom convinced him that he was just being silly- Lucifer would find his path in time. Besides, their new little sister, Maleficent, was already showing promise as an evil genius- maybe she could help him figure it all out when she grew up.
Peggy-Sue kept finding sympathizers among her coworkers as she built up her skills and moved up the ranks of the culinary career- she even became the official produce provider for the competitive restaurant in town, giving her enough money to buy shares in her place of work, the bistro, and the diner, whom she has been supplying. As chief cook at the restaurant, she begins to see the end in sight- she only needs to fulfill her lifetime dream of being a five-star chef and she’ll be able to purchase the food replicator and buy up the grocery store to start implementing her plan. In the meantime, Leighton, ever the ambitious sim, has become more and more popular among the denizens of Pleasantview, signing autographs after games to help his wife afford the grocery store. After one such night, he runs home to find that his only baby girl has grown up into a toddler without anyone seeing- he vows to do more for her.
At first, Leighton truly does make the effort- but he soon realizes that two scheming boys and a toddler are to much to handle on his own- Lucifer recently went into the mausoleum at the cemetary in hopes to find a clue to what his evil plan would be and came back mauled by a bear. He asks Peggy-Sue to help and despite her protestations that she needs to spend more time with her vegetables, she does decide that the least she can do is feed them, even if it does stink.

Reaching the top of the athletic career, Leighton uses his money to buy the grocery store and upgrade the house, with room for Peggy-Sue’s ever expanding garden in the front. He insists that the upstairs, where the guests will visit, to be pleasant. But the downstairs, where every single one of his children are evil, he allows to be turned into a lair of black and red.
Leighton and Peggy-Sue celebrate by WooHooing in their new bed, resulting in a baby bump that nearly convinces Peggy-Sue to try to throw herself into the nearby trashcan.
Coming Soon In The Next Chapter: Lucifer finally comes up with a plan that doesn’t involve bears, Peggy-Sue begins to put her plan into motion, the twins grow into teenagers, Maleficent continues to be ignored, a new baby is born and Leighton tries to convince Peggy-Sue to let him fulfill his own dream of an even larger family.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Carolyn-Anne’s posterous

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Gen. 2 Heir Poll Pics

Posted by aurorassims on July 29, 2009





Lucifer Evil
T: Evil, Easily Impressed, Kleptomaniac, Artistic, Perfectionist
Pref: Custom, French Toast, Spice Brown
LTW: Professional Author
C: Spa Package Seller
A/N: Lucifer wants to control Pleasantview through Writing… he’s been researching mind control and has found a way to imbed a chip into his 350th book that will make anyone who reads it do his bidding. If he wins the heirship, he will continue to raise his siblings and will force his brother Tom to stay with him in the house forever. However, he doesn’t particularly want to win, because he doesn’t want to give up the his boyfriend and first friend ever, Nathaniel Andrews.

Tom Riddle Evil
T: Perfectionist, Evil, Artistic, Friendly, Unflirty
Evil Path: Painting
Pref: Electronica, Cookies, Yellow
LTW: Emperor of Evil
A/N: Tom was told that paintings were a window to the soul- he plans to steal the souls of his fellow sims by ordering all his subjects when he’s the emperor of evil to kill those who stare at the paintings and create a Horcrux. His head honcho and best friend will always be his brother Lucifer with his girlfriend Jeannette to create future minions for Lucifer to raise while Tom is busy.

Maleficent Evil
T: Unlucky, Genius, Evil, Friendly
Evil Path: Cooking
Pref: Indie, Lobster Thermidor, Blue
LTW: The Culinary Librarian
A/N: Maleficent has always idolized her mother- she was constantly rolling wants to befriend her mother or get attention from her mother as a child. Lacking this interaction, she has decided to continue her mother’s plans by learning all the recipes she can find and destroying every one that involves meat. She has her mother’s hair color, which I’ve always loved and she’s always been fun to watch.

Cruella Evil
T: Good Sense of Humor, Brave, Evil
Evil Path: Charisma
Pref: Kids, French Toast, Burnt Orange
A/N: Born when the twins where kids and Maleficent was a toddler, Cruella has grown up basically on her own. She also has her mother’s hair, but she takes after her father in terms of features. Honestly, besides a desire for money, she seems to take after her father… she has been struggling to come up with a truly evil plan despite her evil birth, though she enjoys making people laugh until they’re in pain. I predict that she will have some type of mid-life crisis.

Adam Young Evil
T: Loves the Outdoors, Technophobe, Evil
Evil Path: Fishing
Pref: Electronica, Hot Dogs, Lime
A/N: Named after the Spawn of Satan in Good Omens, Adam has had family members pressuring him to come up with a plan since he was in the cradle. He has decided that he will use his love of the outdoors to gain tons of money from fishing and use the money to hire someone to build a rocket with which to threaten to population of Pleasantview. He is almost a direct copy of his father… which is so adorable.

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It Ain’t Easy Being Green

Posted by aurorassims on July 24, 2009

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Peggy-Sue Evil started her time as a young adult in Pleasantview with a simple goal: world destruction. Like her father and brothers before her, Peggy made extensive plans to accomplish her goal. Unlike her aforementioned family members, these plans have a distinctively green hue. While her father and brothers stole candy from children to turn into the ultimate doomsday device, Peggy-Sue looked upon their harvesting methods with disgust- it involved far too much contact with…. children, ugh. Observing the pain and horror on each little buggers’ faces as they ingested their daily dose of veggies, she came up with a plan: Grow lots and lots of evil plants in an evil garden and make them every person suffer by forcefeeding them vegetables until they explode!!! Mwahaha!

(A/N: I keep rechecking, but no, Peggy-Sue does not have the insane trait.)

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Upon moving into her new house, Peggy-Sue immediately walked next door to gain new friends and terrorize their children. More out of habit than anything, she stole a bit of candy from their toddler. Reminded of her of her dead father’s wishes, she immediately set out to find the nearest attractive sperm-donor so that she could get the mini-persons born and out of her house as soon as possible.

She probably should have screened for more than looks, because Leighton here has two traits that could present some problems: Good and Family-Oriented. After proposing, she awkwardly pats him on the back as he exclaims how tired he was of waiting for the right person to settle down with.

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Leighton: OMG! You want to get married?! Yes! Yes! Yes!
PS: Just put on the bloody ring so that I can take a shower.

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Peggy-Sue pops a bump while explaining her evil plans to co-worker Cornelia Goth. Cornelia, always helpful, gives a recipe to help the cause. Peggy tries to push the bump away, but to no avail. Cornelia, at least, is sympathetic. Leighton, on the other hand, is thrilled. His attempts to rub her belly are an unequivocal failure. He, predictably, wants the baby to be a boy.

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The next few days, Peggy does what she can to console herself. First, she raids the fridge, then she insults an elderly man at work by telling him that he looks more pregnant than she does.

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Twins… Twins. Peggy tries to foist one of them off, but Leighton shoves her in the taxi first. Their father is thrilled to have boys, but Peggy-Sue takes her revenge by giving them the evil names she never had: Tom Riddle Evil is the eldest, an Evil Kleptomaniac, and his twin Lucifer Evil is the perfect thug, evil and easily impressed.

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