One in sixteen: both Brendon and Rachel will play in the veto competition (with Lane filling in the last slot). Matt is very upset about this, with he and others (Britney) suspecting a conspiracy of rats. In particular, Matt wanted to have a look inside the ball bag to make sure it wasn't full of two given names, and the producers wouldn't let him. Their theory: either CBS or America loves the Rachel/Brendon showmance, and so it must be preserved, no matter how strange things get. (Britney believes it's just CBS.)

Matt, in the event that his HoH does not lead to Brendon's departure, apologized to America. In advance.

Oh, and speaking of things Matt should apologize for, here's an article from The Paper Of Broken Record.

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/sick_joke_backfires_on_bb_m9cSfiYzbiXur4UJiK0cfO#ixzz0uW3AvLr

But as the host-unwelcome commentary notes, if not for this, they never would have mentioned the disease at all...

BTW, the hamsters feel the veto competition will be earlier than usual. As the current theory is that Andrew likely can't participate until after sunset on the West Coast -- game being played for money = work -- the game of the day just became clockwatching. If they start during daylight, then Andrew may not be able to fight for himself -- and it's one more piece of ammunition for The Showmance Conspiracy.

Today's Hamsterwatch ratings provided by a special guest writer.

http://www.hamsterwatch.com/

Unless this is a twelve-hour process, the question of whether Andrew can fight for his own game safety on the Sabbath is going to be answered.

If they don't have it during daylight, they won't have it until Midnight BBT... Sunset is probably not gonna be until 11:30 or so East Coast time, and I highly doubt they'll put the POV up on BBAD....

Brendan and Andrew seem to have a secret alliance that even Rachel does not know about. Either they knew each other before they went in the BB house or they became close the first week before the live feeds.

Well, unless Brendon/Rachel wins the POV and doesn't use it, it's likely that one of them (probably Brendon) is gonna go...

Unless Andrew wins the POV and doesn't use it because he knows Brendon will go up in his stead and be sent home. Matt may not play to win either since he apparently made a (fake) deal with Brendon and Rachel and I doubt he wants to give his real intent away at this point. So if Brendon and Rachel want to avoid being split up, they'd better hope that either Kathy or Lane don't win the POV competition.

is underway. Jokers first reported trivia almost 2 hours ago...

Competition's over, it was the stay/fold one where they have to guess the closest estimate from small sample to big actual... and then decide to stay or fold... First to 3 wins...

There are conflicting reports, but this much is certain: the Showmance won the POV! It's just a question of which one actually has the blingie... Majority of reports in so far are for Brendon, though...

Brendon won, sounds like Rachel/Brendon almost took each other out at one point, though...

...foiled again!

It's Brendon. Counting is science!

LAST EDITED ON 07-24-10 AT 06:08 PM (EST)

Clearly the best hope of the Meow2 is to talk Brendon into using the veto, then put Rachel up as the replacement nominee. And that's easy, right? They've got Matt on their side! Matt is a Genius, just like Britney! Surely a Genius can manage to find some way to convince Brendon of Rachel's pre-veto safety! Matt can do anything!

Except lie without smirking. But he's working on that.

I agree that the best hope for the Brigade is to talk Brendon into using the Veto and then put Rachel up as a replacement nominee. But even though Matt's smarter than Britney, Brendon isn't a dummy either. I think he's aware that if he uses it on one of the nominees -- even if Matt tells him the house will be going after Andrew -- Rachel will go up and the house will get rid of her. And there goes his showmance. He won't use it.

You could argue that Matt started playing a few days too early. If he hadn't been double-dealing -- or, more importantly, hadn't been caught -- he'd at least have a 'Hey, I let you use me as your pawn and everything turned out all right. Your turn' argument on his side. As-is, what he's got for Pay Me Back Brother is Nothing. And not only is he going to have a hard time selling Nothing, I'm pretty sure he can't even give it away.

LAST EDITED ON 07-24-10 AT 10:50 PM (EST)

Which is a pretty good summary of Matt's conversation with Andrew. Matt screwed up with the nominations, he didn't mean for things to go this way, he won't campaign on Andrew's behalf but he will help him come up with ideas, and he'll vote to remove Kathy if it comes down to a 4-4 tie. Andrew took this about as well as you might expect: sat through it, excused himself, left, and played a quick game of chess with Hayden.

A very quick game. Checkmate in three.

There would have been a little more irony for a Fool's Mate to happen with someone else in the cage, but it depends on who you currently see as the Fool...

Do you think CBS engineered a set-up for Matt up b/c of the heat they are taking from the public for Matt's totally insensitive use of an illness to garner sympathy from the house? What a stupid, stupid genius he is.

LAST EDITED ON 07-24-10 AT 11:57 PM (EST)

>>> What a stupid, stupid genius he is.

Maybe he's in the 98.1 percentile, but he thinks he's 99.9.
Newsflash, Matt, Mensa is a high IQ society, not a genius society.
A society whose members are now ashamed to admit they belong.

Most people who belong to it are humble and not braggards like Matt.

Perhaps his mother told him he was a genius.
Estee is right; he got too cocky, and started playing too soon.
Never campaign when the other person on the block is a shoe-in for eviction.

ETA, if Brendan uses that POV, he is so dumb.
Just do the classic "respect the noms of the HOH" bit and be safe.

Do you think CBS engineered a set-up for Matt b/c of the heat they are taking from the public

No. For details, see Adam Jasinski . That worthy made his share of stupid comments early in his season, only to wind up winning the thing. Oh, and lest we forget, getting arrested for using his winning to set up a drug ring. As always, kudos for the high quality of hamster casting.

But while CBS aired those statements and took the protests, it did not consider evicting Adam, not did it punish him while in the cage -- and if there had been any plot against his game, he wouldn't have been able to afford all those drugs.

Let's not overlook Amber, either. CBS wouldn't even give reporters access to her after her eviction, and they had so many questions about her anti-Semitic monologues -- not that they would have been able to get them across without first taking twenty minutes to define 'Semitic', 'monologues', and waiting for the crying to stop. Keeping her away from the media was arguably a form of protecting her. (The CBS excuse at the time: it was the America's Player season and they didn't want Eric's public-controlled vote influenced.)

Overall, I think CBS has the Bachelor policy firmly in place: it doesn't matter what they're saying about you as long as they're talking. Any publicity is good publicity, and the stupider the hamsters act, the more publicity they generate -- so go ahead and cast ever-dumber rodents on a descending curve which eventually turns into full freefall. Who knows? One day, one of them might even score a series of US Weekly covers! Dare to dream...

Which doesn't mean the game might not have been rigged beyond the influences of the Diary Room and Chenbot miscalls. (It's a one-in-sixteen chance. For fiction, those come out slightly less often than one-in-a-million shots -- and remember, the FCC already considers BB to be the reality equivalent of professional wrestling: they won't care until someone curses.) With the saboteur plotline gone, Rachel & Brendon are the new Storyline Of The Season. Since one mourning date-widow in the cage doesn't have the same voyeuristic train wreck impact as the ongoing slurpathon, it's in the network's best interest to keep them around as a pair as long as possible. Two in the cage, then two in the jury house: no splitting up for longer than a week.

Still -- those balls could have come out of the bag on their own merits. Even if the Voice Of The House forbid Matt to look in the bag afterwards. Surely they wouldn't have filled the thing with fourteen Rachel & Brandon spheres and just hoped no one pulled a duplicate, right? Not even the rats in the walls are that blatant.

Usually.

LAST EDITED ON 07-25-10 AT 01:27 PM (EST)

Brendon & Rachel are now talking about living together once they leave the cage. (Understand: I believe in the very remote possibility of love at first sight. I just don't think this is it.)

In other cage news:

Enzo is now calling being a Have-Not as being a Have Alternate Name For Rooster. (Fill in your own blank.) He may also be verging on hysterics from lack of food, because last night saw him go into an hour-long comedy duo routine with Lane about a box of Apple Jacks. It's Must-See TV. It will never make the air.

In other great comedy news (which will again never make the air), Britney lost it yesterday and started listening to the voices in her head, which naturally told her to kill everyone. With a butter knife. The role of The Voices was played by Ragan, who may have been a little too enthused about the prospect.

Rachel has decided she never wants to target Matt. I'm not sure why. How do you miss a smirk when it's a mile wide?

Kathy campaigned. A lot. Badly.

Ragan has decided baby food has no nutritional value. Also that you should cozy up to nominees instead of the HoH, because a nominee could be HoH next week. So at least he's found the pattern.

Kristen ate a spider. Then she looked for another one to follow it up. No one's sure why.

A couple of Britney lines for your inspection, from Hamsterwatch:

(about BB6) "The effing Nerd Herd would not die, you could shoot them in the face and they would not die."

"Have you ever noticed Jesus looks the same in all of his headshots?"

And one telling exchange:

Rachel (about the Diary Room): "Why do they hate us?"
Enzo: "'cause we suck."

I have a hard time believing in love at first sight on a reality show either -- at least, not long-lasting love. Yeah, Boston Rob & Amber found long-lasting love but I don't think they found it at first sight either. And of course, Trista and Ryan found true love as well, though once again I doubt it was at first sight.

Early Veto, no luxury competition, a feeling of resignation in the air as everyone realizes they're stuck with the slurpmance for another week -- put it all together and it adds up to a little billiards, a touch of chat, Kathy finally admitting that she was just trying to lay low, and the usual dose of waffling over the vote poured out with extra-slow maple syrup. Andrew? Kathy? The nominees may care about that result, but the rest of the cage is having trouble finding the energy. Too much time right now for playing too little game. The next vote (last boot pre-jury -- they hope) seems to have more of their attention than this one.

Lane said he wants to win HoH just so he can give a speech something like this one. 'So I nominated you two. Which was a really hard choice for me, because I also hate you, you, you over there, you hiding under the table, and you? You I almost threw over the fence.'

Whenever he's ready.

Rachel's noticed that Matt, Enzo, Hayden, and Lane hang out together all the time.

She still hasn't figured out that they're an alliance.

She actually may believe that if Brendon and others just keep playing up on Enzo's hatred of the Have-Not diet while his friends keep eating, they can get him for their own.

Owsie.

In other news, Lane has announced that he'd like have met Brendon at a bar for the chance to punch him in the face. (Can someone exorcise the no-spirit of Monet already?)

Matt is now trying to convince people that Andrew is faking his reasons for not attending things like the last house meeting -- in other words, faking his religion. Also, Andrew's wife may or may not have a disease.

And the feeds are down -- looks like the Veto meeting might be underway. This shouldn't take more than five hours. There's only so many ways for Brendon to say 'You're kidding, right?'

The Super-Blingy Kryptonite-Encrusted (Mildly Radioactive) Symbol Of Neato was put back in the box, unused.

Schedule for the next two and a half days: 100% waffling.

Andrew said a few things at the POV meeting that shook up the house for awhile; something to the effect of "I'm coming after you Brendon and Rachel". Rachel's reaction is so over the top that the hamsters now believe it was all staged. So, apparantly whatever Andrew said in his defense is going to seal his fate on Thursday. Brilliant.

Other things happened, too, but who cares anymore?

There's a nice photo capture around showing Brendon, Rachel, and Andrew engaging in a three-way hug -- so at least the staging ended on a note of trust, love, and mutual bad acting.

Thanks vince, estee, kingfish, this thread, BB12 and everyone I missed for giving me a good laugh this afternoon.

Like a train wreck I must watch