Sims

The Sims, a popular computer game that's sold more than 100 million copies in the last eight years, has often been called a "dollhouse" game. What happens when the dolls break out of the dollhouse? That happened last summer when Electronic Arts, publisher of The Sims, teamed with Swedish clothing retailer H&M to sponsor an online fashion runway featuring outfits designed by players of The Sims. The companies received 1,000 digital entries uploaded to The Sims' website, then selected 60 outfits -- worn by Sims, of course -- to feature on a virtual runway show hosted by Yahoo Inc. The show got more than 500 million views, and about 100,000 people voted on the outfits.

In the musical "Avenue Q," there's a happy-go-lucky song about a dirty little computer secret. It's called "The Internet Is for Porn. " Theatergoers from the respectable middle class giggle helplessly throughout this number, but imagine how quickly the laughter would cease if government agents knocked on their door demanding to review their Internet browsing history. Such a scenario is underway in "The Nether," the daring new drama by Jennifer Haley that opened at the Kirk Douglas Theatre Sunday.

Electronic Arts Inc. sold more than 1.4 million copies of Sims 3 in the game's first week on sale. The debut, which included 7 million downloads of player-related content, is the best first-week performance Electronic Arts has ever had for a computer game, the Redwood City, Calif., company said. The Sims series has sold more than 100 million copies since 2000, making it the top-selling title for personal computers.

Some iPhone 5 users are turning to support forums to find a fix for an alleged glitch with the new SIM card that causes the device to suddenly stop working. The users say they are unable to make calls or connect to a cellular network after the phone abruptly displays a message "No SIM card. " One user has started a thread on the support forum titled " iPhone5 'NO SIM CARD INSTALLED' 'NO SERVICE.' " Quiz: Test your Apple knowledge "I'm in various places like a restaurant or my home and I get the same issues," she said on the thread.

In the musical "Avenue Q," there's a happy-go-lucky song about a dirty little computer secret. It's called "The Internet Is for Porn. " Theatergoers from the respectable middle class giggle helplessly throughout this number, but imagine how quickly the laughter would cease if government agents knocked on their door demanding to review their Internet browsing history. Such a scenario is underway in "The Nether," the daring new drama by Jennifer Haley that opened at the Kirk Douglas Theatre Sunday.

Let's stop holding one another back. I like Public Enemy. I also like the Jewish Defense Organization. A man's wisdom gives him patience, it is to his glory to overlook an offense. --Proverbs 19:11 L. CARTER SIMS Playa del Rey

Southern Californians work out religiously. Southern Californians worship the athletic human form. Still, potential parishioners must feel a bit disoriented as they venture down the sweat-scented hallways of a racquetball club in Fullerton looking for the Rev. Jack Sims' new church. Crack-thwump! Where they might expect a procession of choirboys, they get rows of panting aerobics enthusiasts and booming rock 'n' roll. The clank of weight machines replaces church bells.

In a move to avoid lengthy questioning about the victim's behavior, attorneys in the murder trial of John J. Famalaro agreed Monday to tell the jury that Denise Huber's blood-alcohol content showed she had consumed several drinks the night she disappeared. The attorneys for the defense and prosecution agreed to tell the jury that Huber's blood-alcohol level was between .08% and .11% when she pulled over to the side of the Costa Mesa Freeway with a flat tire six years ago.

HARPO'S GARDEN; By Roger Lee Kenvin; (July Blue Press: 118 pp., $12) Here is a book with no publicity machine behind it. The stories between its pictureless blue covers are about growing up on Spanish Island, off the Maine coast, a place with a winter population of 1,500 that swells to 3,000 in the summer. Locals refer to the four seasons as Winter Wet, Winter Cold, Mud Slop and Tourists. The town store is run by Old Sims, whose politics are: " 'You voted for Clinton, didn't you?

Speaking by phone the other day from his home in Pacific Palisades, "Falling James" Moreland, leader of the Leaving Trains, was calm, articulate, open, sincere and charming. He didn't sound like the sort of person anyone would want to scald with a pot of hot water, or bonk in the head with a hurled beer stein. But listening to the Leaving Trains' 1991 EP, "Loser Illusion Pt.

Tom Sims, an innovative skateboarding and snowboarding pioneer and former world champion who helped bring snowboarding to the masses by pushing ski resorts to embrace the fledgling sport in the 1980s, has died. He was 61. The founder of Sims Skateboards and Sims Snowboards died Wednesday at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, said his sister, Margie Sims Klinger. "He was the godfather of all board sports," Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave Magazine, said Friday.

It can be a dog-eat-dog world in social games. Electronic Arts Inc. on Friday filed a copyright infringement suit against Zynga Inc., alleging that the social gaming company's "The Ville" misappropriated EA's game "The Sims Social. " EA's lawsuit was just the latest in a string of bad news for Zynga. The San Francisco social gaming company was hit Monday with a shareholder lawsuit claiming that Zynga investors and executives — including its chief executive, Mark Pincus — had improperly cashed out $516 million in company stock in April, three months before Zynga posted disappointing earnings that sent its shares plummeting 37% in one day. In a blog post explaining EA's lawsuit, Lucy Bradshaw, head of Maxis, the EA-owned studio that created "Sims Social," outlined why EA contends that Zynga "ripped off" its intellectual property.

Molly Sims is a proud mommy! The actress-model and her husband, Scott Stuber, welcomed a baby boy on Tuesday, according to People. "They both couldn't be happier," a source close to the couple told the magazine. The little guy is said to have weighed a little more than 7 pounds, Us Weekly reported . No word on the baby's name, but the magazine said Sims had his "bohemian, modern chic" nursery ready to go. Prior to the delivery, the "Project Accessory" host tweeted : "Thank you to all my followers for all your best wishes as we wait for Baby Sims-Stuber!

Police in downtown Los Angeles have seen cellphone thefts soar as smartphones like the iPhone become easily turned into pay-as-you-go phones. In the first quarter of this year, thefts of cellphones increased 32% in the downtown area. In the one-mile-square area of skid row, the increase is even more pronounced, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Vernon. Individuals reported 54 cellphones taken in crimes within skid row in the first three months of 2012, compared with 115 during all of 2011.

Here's your all-the-man-that-I-need Monday roundup of consumer news from around the Web: --Tech monster Apple just doesn't have enough impressive news to report. So as a public service, allow me to convey that the company's stock has topped $500 for the first time. It was the latest step in a rally that began more than two weeks ago, when the company reported staggering sales and profits for the holiday quarter. Apple has been trading the position as most valuable company in the world with Exxon Mobil since last summer, but the latest rally has made it 17% more valuable than the oil company.

The gig: Frank Gibeau is president of EA Labels, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. that produces the Redwood City, Calif., game company's top franchises, including Madden NFL, Need for Speed, The Sims and Star Wars: The Old Republic — its most ambitious and costly title ever. The break: After Gibeau graduated from USC in 1991 with an undergraduate degree in business and international relations, he broke a leg when a stairway collapsed, pinning his leg beneath a block of concrete for nearly an hour.

Three have been fired and 10 have quit. Nine have been promoted. Two have killed suspects while on duty. And one stands accused of falsifying evidence in a murder case. For most of the 44 Los Angeles Police Department officers labeled "problem officers" in the landmark 1991 Christopher Commission report, the past four years have been tumultuous. The commission said its intention was to illustrate, not define, what it called "the problem of excessive force in the LAPD."

Los Angeles Police Officer Henry J. Cousine--a police ring on his finger, an LAPD tattoo on his leg and battle scars on his body--says the officers accused of beating Rodney G. King swung their batons like "little girls." Then he ticks off some of his own episodes of violence during a decade as a beat cop: three fights and three shootings. "You get in my face, I'm going to fight back," Cousine said. "You swing at me, I'm going to knock you off your feet. And you pull a gun, I'll kill you."

Two American scholars won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their separate research examining cause-and-effect relationships in the economy and how expectations can drive policy decisions and behavior by consumers and businesses. Thomas J. Sargent of New York University and Christopher A. Sims of Princeton University were praised for analytic methods that have had a significant influence on economists and policymakers. Their techniques have been used to study the effect of fiscal stimulus programs, such as the controversial Recovery Act of 2009.

As a suburban kid growing up in the bedroom community of Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County, choreographer Jamal Sims gained most of his musical influence from television and movies. Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video made him want to dance; "Breakin" introduced him to spinning on his back. But it was "Footloose" that turned him on to a kind of dancing he hadn't seen before, specifically country line dancing. So when director Craig Brewer wanted to talk "Footloose" with Sims, best known as the choreographer of the "Step Up" movies, Sims admits to being intimidated — believing that the original 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon was not an easy redo.