Is there any way to stop the portrait/icon/thumbnail (whatever the proper name is) from changing every 2 seconds?

It's not so bad if you have a few sims but when the house is full it lags a bit with all that changing going on.

Also, the lag when someone goes to call someone is crazy...especially if your sim knows a lot of other sims...while the phonebook updates all those thumbnails.

ETA:  All eps and sps.