After a long night of furtive whispering and alliances changing swifter than Nicole of BB2 fame swapping personalities, the 13 HGs finally settled into a long slumber, the first of many that would be watched by peering eyes across North America. Much to many an east coaster’s dismay, these HGs are as much night owls as those of any other year before them, and the last person drifted to sleep close to 4:00am in the morning. This set the steady stream of straggling, puffy-eyed late risers heading to the bathroom for their early morning routines at anywhere from 10:00am to noon.

Our early morning treat on Day 2 apparently was Jun picking her nose in the bathroom mirror. “Literally,” as DressageRider put it. Well, Dre, I’m glad it was you who saw it and not me! For nearly an hour, we get treated to Jun shaving her legs, Jun sun tanning, Jun scratching her face…and well, I guess it is easy to see how slow-moving mornings in the Hamster House this year will be.

The chatter begins fresh and early on a topic we feed-freaks know all too well: how abominably dirty the house can become. It is pretty small after all, and there ~are~ thirteen people living there. Dana and Jun remark how “ghetto” it looks and how they are going to have to bleach the house down. Given the precedent of Nicole’s second-place win, their clean-spazztastic urges just might help them in this game. Given Will’s ultimate triumph, however, I’m wondering just exactly how much help that might be (I mean, c’mon, when did we ~ever~ see Will lift a single finger to help keep that house clean?).

Instead of jumping up to grab a mop, however, the two settle into a conversation bashing the four HGs who sat out the Truth or Dare game of the previous night. There seems to be a lot of distrust coursing through this house whenever less than five people group up together for any activity, and is that to be surprised? When you, yourself, will backstab someone you are supposedly in an alliance with, how can you ever trust someone else? This means that Alison, Dana, Jun, and Nathan, all part of the original-8 alliance, are wary of David, Erika, Jack and Scott who chose to play chess outside rather than join in with the lap-dancing and microphone-fellatio that took place inside.

As the morning progresses, various chatter sprinkles the house among those waking up and those lolling about the early afternoon hours. Surprisingly, one conversation turns rather personal. Robert, while talking to his ex, Erika, out by the pool, freely admits that he has serious problems with alcohol. At one point it was so bad, in fact, that Rob was forced to quit drinking altogether for fear that he would become a “bum on the streets.” It has now been over one year and 8 months that Robert has been sober. I for one give him kudos for that! Congrats Robert! (Robert also mentions during this conversation that he has a daughter who is of school-age.)

Meanwhile, Nathan is spilling the nomination-beans to Jee and telling him that though Nathan will nominate him alongside Amanda, Amanda will be evicted. Jee takes this pretty well, considering the lessons BB-history has taught, and appears to believe Nathan who tells Jee that he has “his back.” Not long after this, the entire groups assembles in the living room for a meeting where Nathan goes over the procedures of the nominations. From what we saw, it is apparently the same as previous years.

Now the HGs have nothing to do but wait for the impending noms. General chitchat, with some interesting eyebrow-raisers speckled throughout, is the course of the afternoon. I’ll just recap the interesting here:

Jack and Erika, who coins the moniker “Turtle Lady” for herself, confirm that there is, indeed, an alliance between the four (David, Erika, Jack and Scott) who abstained from the late night Truth or Dare antics of the previous night, but Jack is also quick to remark that they should be careful about spending too much time together. Go, Jack. We knew you didn’t have all that FBI-training for nothing.

The women of the house worry (and giggle) and wonder (and giggle) about how BB is going to portray their actions of the night before. It seems there was a common thread to all their DR questions and it has them more than a bit concerned. But that’s okay, one of them says, BB won’t show the cussing parts (um, I thought these hamsters had to watch BB3 while sequestered; are they really this stupid? Heh, it’s okay, you don’t need to answer that).

Scott, who reveals to the house that he is on anti-anxiety medication (and really, is anyone surprised? Scott needs those ridiculous hats smooshing his head together so it doesn’t explode), and Amanda discuss their relationship. Would you be surprised to learn they broke up as recently as April 8th of this year? The way they bicker, I would guess not. Scott admits that he thinks of her each day when he wakes up and that there is a part of him that would like to get back with her. Can we say “Awwww?” No? Okay. Scott then goes on to admit, right in front of all the cameras, after all the bitching he has done about that “bastard BB” who put his ex in the house, that before the show he called Amanda and ~told~ her he was going to be on BB. Though she didn’t tell him that she, too, was going to be a HG (she thought he might have been “messing” with her), he guessed with his Spidey Sense that she might have applied.

But don’t think that Scott’s sentimental romantic side is as genuine as he would like Amanda to believe. Not less than a half an hour later, Scott is overheard saying to another HG: “So do you think that Amanda bought all that stuff out there?” and “Man, I just pulled a Will. I’m having the time of my life in here.” It seems that though BB had Scott pegged as a “Josh” (from BB3), Scott is doing his best to be a “Will” (after all, Scott scoffs at the notion of being compared to Josh, who is not nearly as good-looking as he is. Um, okay Scott).

Finally it is time to get pretty for nominations. While everyone gets ready, Nathan has to have a talk with Michelle about not feeling bad for Amanda. Apparently Michelle doesn’t want Amanda to get a sweep of votes against her. Nathan assures her, however, that someone’s true character will come out when they are nominated. It sounds like he doesn’t have much faith in Amanda’s. Conversation in the bathroom turns to tattoos and one that Justin gave himself on his ankle in the sixth-grade. It’s not really looking too hot anymore, but Justin still has fond feelings for it since he did it to himself. Way to go, Justin, nothing like scarring your body for life when you’re only 12 years old to give you the warm fuzzies.

It looks like noms will have to wait a bit longer as the HGs sit down to dinner. Their fare for the evening consists of simple potatoes and rice, but many give compliments to Jun for making it so tasty. Afterwards the house settles into yet more chatter. Jack works on Nathan and butters him up by telling him how great it is that at his age he knows so much about politics. Jack wonders if Nathan has ever thought of running the race himself and Nathan admits he has thought long and hard about it. Other HGs play chess and mill about, waiting, waiting, waiting as we are for…

FOTH! It must be nomination time. We come back to Nathan sitting alone and looking despondent with the nomination box in the HOH room. The others outside aren’t fairing so well, either. Someone comments, “No one died. It is going to get worse.” After little time, we realize that Amanda and Jee are, indeed, nominated and that Dana’s key was pulled out first. Oh yeah, and Jack continues basting Nathan with compliments, this time on his nomination speech.

Amanda tells Scott later that she knew it was going to be her (the tune of every nominated HG). It’s clear to her, she says, who he wants out. Though she is sad, she handles the nomination pretty well.

With the dirty work done for the evening, the night falls to typical BB activities: lounging, hot-tubbing (after minor complications with it), basketball thumping, chess, and chatter. We hear various snippets of convo that make us smile (or frown as the case may be). Justin tells Jee that he trusts Alison—if she says she will vote one way, you can count on her doing that. Oh Justin, Justin, I think that ink poisoned your brain cells so many years ago. There is talk about the POV, but no one thinks anyone but Amanda would use it (Jee admits he will vie for it, but won’t use it). Scott rants privately into his microphone about some “dude- man” while alone in a bedroom and we are left to wonder if he is, indeed, losing it, while Jee remarks that the game is totally predictable and it all comes down to strategy or luck. ??? As one of our posters, Phantom, stated: “I didn’t follow that logic either, so don’t be alarmed.” Dana asks Robert about Erika’s “boobs”— if they were really small and that is why she had to have breast augmentation surgery. Apparently Robert says this is so.

Amanda asks Nathan why he nominated her, and he takes the easy way out saying it was too early, so he just had to go with his gut-feeling because he felt threatened by her. She’s not so won over, however, and asks him directly if there was a conspiracy to get her nominated. He won’t give her straight answers, though; the most he will tell her is that various HGs (unnamed) came up to him and told him to keep an eye on her. He tells her not to give up hope.

And so the chatter continues. Reading these updates to summarize for you fine folks, I am weary of finding nothing interesting to write until I see this post subject: “Jun gets punched in the face and cries.” Woohoo! Now we’ve got some action. Oh, but wait. It was an accident. Oh well. Apparently Nathan accidentally hit her with a pillow while she was under the covers on his bed. She didn’t take this very well as her glasses were almost broken, but in soon enough time she settles down. The ceaseless chatter about relationships continues on and on and on… Dana, who won’t “do” anything in the house, has made a date with Scott for outside of the house, has flirted incessantly with Justin, and says she’d rather hook up with David. Haven’t we heard her verbally drooling all over Nathan, too? Looks like Dana is a play-ah!

The kiddies are now tucked in bed, whispering and giggling and chatting as they are wont to do. Nathan is tucked up in his original bed (not the HOH) with Dana, Jun, and Michelle. There is talk of erect nipples and Asian areolas and country boy drawls. The night is winding down on Day 2, and this poster here is glad. It’s time to drag myself to bed, slumber the night away, and wake up to Day 3!