It’s Day 32 of the Live Feeds and as early as 8:30am, BB comes over the PA to tell the houses’ sleeping inhabitants that the veto competition will begin in an hour and a half. None of the HGs really seem to care, however, and when their gentle reminders prove ineffectual, Big Brother becomes more of a Big Mama when they firmly list all of the HGs names followed by: “I said it’s time to get up for the day!” The authoritative approach apparently works, as everyone begins to tumble out of bed and get dressed, but it is also clear that some of the HGs aren’t happy with it at all. Jun says it’s bull-*****, as she was in the middle of a good dream, and Robert, as poster UpAllNite posts, channels the spirit of Dana to say that “this pisses him off!”

Meanwhile, Erika, Nathan and Jack are having a little powwow and what is said is quite interesting as it is honest: Erika tells Nathan that she is sorry that “they” have to vote against him this week (I think she really means only herself, since Jack cannot vote), and Nathan takes it like a trooper. He replies that he understands, it is a game, and it’s a worst case scenario for their team. Very impressive, Nathan. We’ll see soon enough if he actually believes that or not.

The HGs group into the LR as usual before a competition. It’s 10:00am and the POV competition should begin at any moment. As they wait, they talk about various, mundane things. Nathan usually drinks diet coke every morning. The HGs want music and ask BB for a concert like the HGs had last year; Jack reminds them that just because it was done before, doesn’t mean it will be done again. Jack is wearing what he calls his “nomination shirt”: a bright red polo shirt. Alie and Nate banter: she tells him somewhat jokingly not to look at her, touch her or breathe on her. When he asks if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, she retorts, “No, I woke up looking at you!” Well, to be more precise, his feet—they slept head to toe last night. Sarcastically Nathan remarks that Alie’s husband is going to be a lucky man. “Which one?” Alie asks. “All of them,” Nate replies.

Robert, not surprisingly, continues to complain, “It’s 10:20am. Why do they wake us up so ***** early? Why do we have two ***** hours to get ready?” To be fair, a lot of the other HGs are upset about having to wait, too. Some of them end up dozing off to sleep; others play cards; meanwhile, each person is called, one by one, to the DR. Over in the HOH room, Robert tells Jun that she is a pathological liar, but she only responds with her nose high in the air, and her ponytail swinging around, “I am not a pathological liar. I am a pathological actress.” Cute. When Robert asks her if there is a difference, she answers emphatically, “YES, definitely.”

Finally around eleven in the morning, we go to FOTH and the Quoridor POV competition takes place. It lasts a very long two hours, and though right off the bat we do not know who won, we can reasonably conjecture that it wasn’t Nathan as we overhear Erika and Jack tell each other that they have “one more week” and that it “couldn’t have gone better” for them. Erika states that she will ~not~ risk giving Nathan a sympathy vote. She also seems to think that, even if a Stooge wins HOH next week, too, they are safe because they’ll go after Alie (how little they know—Jack is their next target).

Eventually we hear from Nathan’s lips himself that the POV winner is Robert—two weeks in a row! What scares me about this is this: The player who usually wins competitions in which other players can be specifically targeted for elimination throughout it is usually considered to be one of the most non-threatening players in the house—and that player very often makes it through right to the end. Egad! Both this week and last week’s competitions were exactly of this nature.

With the POV in Robert’s hands, you’d think that Nathan was a goner, right? But what is Alison doing at this very moment but pleading his case to the Stooges?! She says that if Jack stays, he will come after Justin, but if Nate stays, he will not—he will put up Erika and Jun. She also adds that Jack is due to win a competition as he has most assuredly been throwing them. How funny that, as convincing as her case many be, she couldn’t be more wrong about anything: Jack is not so much targeting Justin anymore as he is targeting Alison (as individuals; but to break up an alliance of three, I still think he’d go after the Stooges); Nathan, though he has said different in his pleas to stay, will still target Justin (I think); and Jack has NOT been throwing the competitions, per his own words in the DR. Still, whether Alison actually believes what she is saying or not remains unclear. That doesn’t stop it from being a smart ploy on her part: it’s no genius’ brainchild that Alie can control Nathan much more than she could ever hope to control Jack.

Just after two in afternoon, the HGs get their first Subway meal for the week. Everyone seems genuinely happy with it. Alie even comments on the differences between it and Burger King: with Subway, you can actually hope to lose weight, but eating 39-grams-of-fat Whoppers everyday only makes you fat. The only thing that throws a kink into this statement are the cookies from Subway that they are munching happily on, but Jack adds as if reading a really bad endorsement: “But – if – they – are – made – by – Subway – they – are – tasty – and – nutritious!”

After loading up on some sandwich goodness, the afternoon falls to the same old: napping, chatting, sun-tanning, card-playing, etc. Nathan, for the most part, mopes throughout the house, alternately looking sad and pissed off. As with most nominated HGs who feel the inevitability of their eviction looming upon them (why do I suddenly feel as though I’m in Big Brother: The Matrix?), Nathan mutters several times over how he is “tired of this God-forsaken place.” Erika, meanwhile, sets up a little play pen for the turtles with the giant chess pieces outside, while Jee and Robert look on and throw out mean, anti-turtle comments: “I want to see the turtles drown!” They tell her that one of the chess pieces will blow over and crack a turtle’s back and she’ll get “sued” by BB; Erika only continues doing what she is doing while she looks ultimately unconcerned.

Afternoon chatter: The HGs miss Dave and revisit his covert pool splashing operations with laughter. Alison, while lying in the bathtub, discusses with Nathan his imminent departure and together they bad-mouth the Stooges (she should be careful—if Nathan truly is a goner, there’s no sense in saying something that might piss off those who will be staying in the house). Nathan bemoans that “this is all Dana’s fault.” He declares that he won’t even talk to her in sequestration, he is so angry with her. The DR, however, has given him hope: they told him not to think it is already over, that anything can happen this week. Uh, didn’t they say the same thing to Dana?

A bit later, Alie gives Erika some vital information: she tells Erika that Jack is next on the Stooges’ hit list. Whether Erika believes this or not, we don’t know—for remember, since she thinks Alie is their next target, she wouldn’t assume that Alison would really know the truth. After imparting this bit of info, Alison heads off to return to Nathan, making a short stop in the kitchen with Jun to bash him behind his back, and ends up play-wrestling with him on one of the beds. He pins her down and tells her to call him her “master,” but she only struggles and lets out huge peals of laughter and giggles. Nathan tells her that he should call her “ManTroll #2” (“no wonder Jack got that question wrong,” he says), but she only continues to laugh as she tells him not to touch her, especially with his “stinky feet.” And so the hilarity goes…

By now the evening is in full gear and their Subway orders are already being taken for the following day. The chatting and game-talk continues into the night. Jun tells Jack that Nathan tried to cut a deal for himself, but it was refused; Jack doesn’t seem upset about it at all. Erika lets Jack know about Alie telling her that Jack is the Stooges’ next target, and the two of them don’t know whether to trust Alison or not. Alison and Erika chat about a plethora of topics, but nothing overly interesting: Alie tells Erika that Nathan thinks all the guys besides himself are “dorks”; Alie hopes for a luxury competition on the morrow; they think Nathan will make it in Hollywood after the show is over. Meanwhile, Jun is working out ~hard~: she’s been jumping rope and lifting weights and really making a concerted effort to get in shape. Go Jun!

Night time chatter: Neither Alie nor Erika wants to watch the show once they are out—they don’t want to know the things that went on behind their backs and would rather remember “nice thoughts.” Erika didn’t like Chiara from last year: she befriended Lisa and then turned on her. Donny, apparently, signed a release so the HGs can talk about him as much as they want to and BB can depict him however they want. Alie revels in this fact because, if he doesn’t want to be with her when she gets out, she hopes they portray him as a “jerk” (how ***** psycho and immature do you have to be to have these negative feelings about someone who cheats on you and beats you and yet still think that you want to marry him some day?). Alie tells Jun that Nathan asked her earlier if she only flirted with him and kissed him in Week One to stay in the game (he was HOH), and she looked at him and said, “Well, I’m still here.” This is partially untrue; though Alison seems proud of telling this story, as if she were a master manipulator and isn’t shy of letting anyone know, she actually ~denied~ that she did it for game purposes when talking to Nathan. Jack in the meantime is telling Nathan that he has his word that he will put up the Stooges once Nathan is gone— again, Jack, not so smart. You know, you were just told today, that Nathan has tried to cut a deal for himself. Don’t think that Nathan won’t use your anti-Stooge declaration for his own purposes, because he will.

And so the chatter goes. Many old topics are revisited: Nathan wants a virgin wife who looks a particular way and has a certain body-type. He misses Michelle and may want to date her when out of the house. Many new topics are brought up, but they are as boring as hearing the old ones: Nathan wants his parents to buy him a new car (as poster Fritomade says, “How old is he?!). Nathan thinks Robert is a “dork” and no longer believes any of the bad things he has said about Erika. Alie reveals that she used to be a “Coors Light Girl” who dressed up in a tiny, silver sports bra and shorts set and handed out free stuff to people in bars.

The jabber is endless tonight as the HGs tip back a few beers and enjoy the night. The alcohol loosens some inhibitions as Justin, who is wearing a towel and nothing else, comes up behind Jun, opens the towel, and leans into her backside! “I just felt it on my left butt cheek!” she hollers. Robert is in the meantime bashing Erika in the hot tub saying that she not only lied about her job (she is a bartender and only teaches Pilates once a week), but that she should never have kids as she is horrible with them (an outside source has confirmed this, but as Justin points out, she is very good with the turtles). He also doubts whether she got her degree because when he asked to see it, she said she hadn’t gotten it yet since she hadn’t finished paying off her school debts. Maybe his comments might seem somewhat valid, but he sort of loses all credibility when he says, “She’s almost 34, so don’t let her fool you about being 33.” What? Buddy, until the day before her birthday, she ~is~ 33. Doof. The rest of the Rat Pack joins in on the bashing and no one but themselves is safe. The rest are “idiots.” They are glad that “bitch” Nathan is leaving. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah.

Despite an early morning, this continues long, long into the night. Instead of recounting more of their blather here, I’m just going to note the most important. Robert, apparently, doesn’t consider engagements to be serious at all—he could be engaged fifty times, it wouldn’t matter; only when actually married would he consider it “serious.” The guys try to convince Jee to propose to Carmen (his girlfriend) when he gets evicted or at the reunion show. Robert calls the women of the house “nasty-ass skanks.” Robert gives Jee a massage, but Jee keeps his shirt on—otherwise it would be “gay,” as Justin says. The guys blather on about sex talk and the women they have “done” (with Ratbert involved, the conversation gets rather sickening). They also liken women to jobs: “Just go out there and ask for it, and eventually you’ll get what you want.” Jack thinks that the POV competition was rigged—he is actually quite upset about it, as upset as Jack gets: “It was a farce, rigged, a total waste of time.” Erika and Jack decide that they want Alie to win HOH next week, hoping that she will get rid of a Stooge, and then hope that eventually a Stooge will get her out as she is a strong competitor (yup, they want the Stooges broken up and then Alison evicted once she does their dirty work). They decide that they have to ask Jun who the real targets are for the Stooges since she never lies to them—is it Alison or is it Jack first?

And so the night ends. Tomorrow is a new day, and here’s hoping from one that they shut their mouths up a little bit. Whew.


Until then.