Today, one of my Sims, Julius, painted a portrait of his wife, Julia, while she slept and dreamt of him.

hmm... Could you explain this more. I'm not really into the SIMS, so I would appreciate some explaination. Did you prompt the creation of this graphic? What influence did you have on the situation that brought it about? Do you feel any connection to this syhthetic aparation of art?
This seems to be a very interesting situation, I imagine it would make a great topic for paper.

Well, the way it works is when your Sim's painting skills are up to a certain level, you can paint a still life. After you tell the Sim to paint a still life, the game pauses and you move the camera around to frame it on whatever it is you want your Sim to paint. So, yes, the creation of this painting my doing.

I'm very new to the Sims myself. I really didn't enjoy the first one. I just couldn't get into it. When I saw a video of the Sims 2 several week's ago in Erik Loyer's class, it made a really strong impression on me. If figured that if "emergence" is going to live up to the hype, its gonna happen in the Sims 2 and I wanted to experience it for myself. So I'm playing it now and I figured that this blog would be a fitting place to share my experience and observations.

I don't feel any strong sentimental bond towards my Sims or this picture... yet. But I do think the portrait is poetic in its plain portrayal of something so intangible in real life.