To speed up your game load
To speed up your game load, remove the intro movies from the game folder. The two movie files are located in "C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Movies" folder. Just delete both files there, but not the subfolders. The files to delete (or remove) are:
_ealogo_audio.movie
_intro_eng_audio.movie
To skip the neighborhood movie that you get when you load Pleasantview, Strange Town, or Veronaville, rename the neighborhood while you are in neighborhood selection screen. The fly-over-hood movie never starts afterwards.
Both methods not only save you from pressing buttons to bypass the movies, they also save time because the game doesn't need to load the movies.