All posts by Hobie

Seems Just Like Starting Over

That song lyric/title came into mind while I was thinking about what to write for this post, and I guess it is that way as basically, the Janelle and Kaysar show is about to end, and we’ll soon be at a point where Big Brother will effectively be restarting.   It’ll be that way because without “Jaysar” in the house, there won’t be the fairly easy targets to discuss, and finally we’ll have some intra-house drama.  Alas, it does seem like the 6 that are aligned are pretty strong and honestly keep winning comps.  The others outside of that 6 don’t really seem to know it?   Or know that they should probably get everyone else left together?   I don’t know – if the HoH competitions keep going to someone in the 6, then it’s like, this season could be wildly straightforward.   But that is never fair to assume as seasons always end up surprising in some ways, as the inevitable alliance breakdown will always happen.

I don’t have the energy or motivation to do a full post about the ins and outs of the last two episodes, so here’s what happened:

  • The Veto competition was all about balancing a ball on a disc.  Memphis won and didn’t use the power of Veto to backdoor anyone.  Jaysar spared for one more week.
  • Nicole A fell for everyone else’s words that Jaysar weren’t on her side.   She blamed Janelle for Memphis nominating her as well as not using the Veto on her….which, what?   I always have to remember that people don’t see everything we do while in the house, but still.   smh

  • Nicole A didn’t have nearly the amount of allies she needed and David was spared, although it wasn’t a unanimous vote, with Kevin and Enzo both voting against David, while obviously the 10 others did vote against Nicole.

At the HoH comp, the goal was to slide three beer steins, one on each of the long shuffleboard tables above.  Whoever could slide and accummulate the most points across all three tables would win HoH.   Janelle and Kaysar were last to go so there was some drama, but in the end, Tyler was able to get the most points and nobody could touch him.

With Tyler the new HoH, there is some potential for it not being an obvious week ahead, but from the feed info I have gleaned, yeah, the first phase/chapter of this Big Brother season is wrapping up in an unsurprising manner.   Truth of the matter is that while most fans are Janelle stans, the houseguests see her and Kaysar only as targets to get out.   It’s honestly not really the smartest thing, as the newer younger players really are bigger threats, but hey, that’s the game that’s being played.  I’ll miss having these two in the house as they both get taken out over the next two weeks (or one week if a double elimination sneaks up on us this week!), but as I wrote above, the next phase of the game will begin and it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

Status & Standings:

Outgoing Head of Household:  Memphis
Nominated: David & Nicole A
Power of Veto Winner: Memphis
Veto Used?  No
Evicted: Nicole A (10 – 2)
New Head of Household:  Tyler

Quick thoughts on the houseguests (I saw my BB14 posts and liked that I had a sentence of two written about each HG so I’ll try it again here):

  • Bayleigh:  Her being in a duo with DaVonne gives her an ally, but I’m not sure what her social game is with the rest of the house.  Floater-y at the moment.
  • Memphis:  His allies and his foes were all tired of his shit this week.  He’s playing his own style of game but it only served to really annoy everyone and likely pushed his alliance standing lower.
  • Cody:  With him not as HoH, he doesn’t really contribute much to the convo.  Still hot, and still a “leader” in the alliance, but how long will that last?
  • Daniele:  She was notably annoyed with Memphis this week.  She is also tight with Nicole F and a likely proponent of targeting Jaysar.   Standing by to see if she makes a move against the guys eventually.
  • DaVonne:  Her refusal to not vote against David seems short-sighted, although noble.  Even when David flat out refused to give Day any info about who he has deals with, she didn’t waver.  I wonder if he’d have her back?
  • Tyler:   I like Tyler a lot, I just wish he wasn’t in that alliance.  I’d like to have him in a different alliance that made me happy.
  • Nicole F:  She’s honestly so annoying this season I can’t deal.
  • Enzo:  He’s going to win this game.  If not that, he still is going to make it to the end.  His social game is so unique but he will never be the target unless he does something stupid.
  • Janelle:  sniff, sniff.  I want her to have had more allies and a bigger alliance, but that didn’t happen.  She’s still the Queen.
  • Kaysar:   There is a hot af pic of him and Janelle from Season 6 that just…damn.  He is still very attractive, but him from 16 years ago (geez, all of us 16 years ago, amirite?)…. Anyway, he and Janelle needed better luck.
  • Ian:  I love this guy, and he’s so cute this season.  I would love to see him organize a counter-alliance to the 6, but I’m not sure he’s got that motivation.  He probably feels his Final 2 with Nicole F is enough, regrettably.
  • Christmas:   I honestly am fine with Christmas – I know she’s on the anti-Janelle train which feh, but I also like that she has glimmers of doing her own thing, like with Ian.  More of that please.
  • David:   I guess he has Tyler’s support for sure, but I don’t know why he pushed Day away.  He must feel more confident about his position than what we’re seeing on the show would tell us.
  • Kevin:  oh man, I don’t know about Kevin.  I know he turned on Janelle and fed Nicole A all sorts of hogwash to her which derailed her game.   He’s probably out shortly after Jaysar, if we’re being honest.

Alright, there’s that!   I like that, and will do that again.  Let’s see how things turn out.

Play that Safety Suite OR ELSE!

Geez, Memphis gets his first HoH ever and he becomes a bit more Machiavellian than really needed…and honestly, wasn’t very good at being Machiavellian as the main point of Machiavellian strategy is to not really let the other person(s) be aware they’re getting Machiavellied.  Can I say Machiavelli anymore?  NO, I’m done.

That’s kind of Memphis’ face the entire episode.   He was grimacing while explaining his evil plan of encouraging / forcing as many people as possible to play for Safety Suite, and then even when he revealed his top-secret, dastardly, no-way-anyone-would-ever-figure-out-his-ulterior-motive plan that then only he (and his trusted alliance mates) would be able to play next week (the last week).   NO ONE WILL EVER FIGURE THIS OUT.

Except for everyone, of course.   Dani here was no fool, neither were the Nicoles.  I think others realized what he was up to but also just didn’t want to take a chance not to go for it.   And then Memphis has to make it not look like he and Cody are in an alliance so I guess that’s why Cody ended up playing for it, and it’s like, isn’t it obvious to everyone in the house where the alliance lines are drawn?  Anyway.

Have-Not Ceremony

We get a new wrinkle in how Have Nots will be determined this season – the 4 Have Nots will name their replacements.   Ooo snap.  It can’t be yourself or any of the current Have Nots, and this honestly kind of is great as I think there was a pattern sometimes that you’d end up getting screwed for weeks on end being a Have Not.   Anyway, Memphis names David….

….and that won’t be the last time David’s name comes out of Memphis’ mouth in the guise of giving David an All Stars Big Brother experience.   Ian names Nicole F (although she volunteers to keep him from stressing about it), Nicole A names Christmas, and finally Kevin names Kaysar.

The Safety Suite is Open

Big Brother amped up the drama a lot this week regarding the hour of Safety Suite open registration.  A lot of convos were happening as Memphis kept up his ‘you all better play for Safety Suite as my mind is not made up yet!’ shtick.  To NicolA, he laid that down and she was turned off by it and ended up not swiping.   Plenty others did though, including David, Bayleigh, Cody, Ian, Kevin, Christmas and DaVonne.  We still have to wait for the competition though, so more convos happen…

….this one with the Queen and Memphis occurs, giving me a sense of some hope that Janelle won’t go out this week?   Obviously she and Kaysar could easily be getting set up for a backdoor situation, but she is working the angle hard that they’re both Old School players and there are better targets than her and Kaysar.  It’s true, but still.  Work your magic, Janelle!

There’s also this conversation between Ian and Christmas which pays off very soon, as he wonders if Christmas would use the +1 on him if she were to win.   She is good with that idea and privately thinks working with Ian will help hide her true alliance but also allow her to play some moves just for her.   It’s smart and could pay off down the road.   It certainly pays off for Continue reading Play that Safety Suite OR ELSE!

A Good Day

Yesterday was a good day.   Unexpectedly a good day.  I had made a plan to do a slow-cooker recipe for carnitas, and that honestly was the expectation for the day, in addtion to playing Railway Empire and Horizon Zero Dawn (which both are awesome and I’m obsessed).   I got the morning started off right with some yoga (I’m honestly past counting the days anymore as it is a daily habit now, and I intend for it to be that way from here on out), and then I got the slow-cooking started.

Slow-Cooking Carnitas – Aug 16, 2020

Larry would’ve been proud.   Used a pork butt that ButcherBox had sent to me (I’m still not sure what else to do with a pork butt besides carnitas), then got the mise-en-place done and about 8 hours later, I had delicious carnitas for dinner.   SOOO GOOD.

The main thing though that made the day surprisingly good was that I was taking some supplies over to the home where my mom is living.  It has been off limits for visitors so I expected I’d just get to drop the stuff off in the lobby but when I got there, guess what, apparently I should’ve read my emails from them as visitors are allowed again as long as you have a mask.  So I got to see mom again for the first time in over 5 months.  Even typing that just makes me sad.  She didn’t even recognize me at first as she obviously wasn’t expecting me there either – I had Gatorade in hand and she asked me to put some in the refrigerator and then asked a nurse for her phone to call me and then she realized it was me.   We hugged but I kept the mask on as it’s still an issue.   We spent some time together but neither of us are long-term visit folks, so I left and we knew that I’d come back the next weekend.   I took some pics of us together but she asked me not to post anything so I won’t.  But I really was glad to get to see her.

The evening was good as I had an amazing dinner and then I went and set up the rooftop cinema for another movie:

It felt appropriate to watch it as it was definitely one of those movies that my mom and I watched endlessly when I was growing up.  The soundtrack is still the best.  Footloose was already in my head to watch again as the Number Ones article series this past week was in 1984 when “Footloose” the song topped the charts.  Anyway, it was a fun way to end a good day.

What Else is Going on Besides Yesterday?

A lot of not much?   But I’m passing the time.  Most importantly and awesomely, Big Brother is back.  I’ve of course been posting about this All Stars season as it’s just something new but also something I have loved for so long.   I’m sad Larry isn’t able to enjoy it with me (despite his annoyance it he always would get sucked in).  I do have my friends Mel, Nicki, and Sarah to text about it while episodes are going on, so that’s fun.

With Nicki visiting frequently on weekends, we’ve taken to playing the hell out of Ticket to Ride, and so I’ve gone and bought some of the board game expansions for it.   We will have our enjoyment, dammit!

I re-discovered this picture of Larry from when we lived in Santa Monica (March 2013).  It was when Stacie and Trent had come over for the day and he was cooking dinner.   Larry looks so handsome here and has a great big smile while doing what he was amazing at, cooking and entertaining.

It’s my phone background now.  It makes me happy.

I’m going in reverse-chronological order through my pictures since my last post and while if I was better about frequent posting the pics would make it, now it’s like, eh, no need.   But I did try another recipe in mid July that was a Larry special:  the cajun chicken pasta recipe modeled on what Chili’s makes.   It’s soooo good.  Larry had the recipe in Paprika and I decided to go for it.   Honestly, it was really good, but not as good as he made it.   But I can always try again.  I was really happy to play with cooking chicken breasts though – butterflying them and then frying them on the stove makes them taste so delicious with a proper seasoning on them!

Cajun Chicken Pasta via Me – July 19, 2020

BTW, when Jon & Alyssa were out for last Thanksgiving, Jon, Michancy, and I went to pick up supplies.   One of the stops was Mission Wine & Liquor and thank GOD for that journey as it really is one of those fantastic liquor stores that actually carries a ton of wine with many options and always always has the MONTEPULCIANO.   I don’t think I need wine.com anymore although I did make sure to get my money back on that membership that gets your complimentary shipping!

I love Mission Liquor

Superman & Sound of Music – July 16, 2020

Watching movies on the roofdeck is awesome.   It’s a little bit of work to get the screen up and the projector and sound all put in place, but it’s just so worth it.   One night, I had it in me to want to see Superman up on the roof, because it’s awesome.  It’s also long, and I made an intermission for myself as I was getting a little tired.  I had posted a little about that online and Wendy brought up that maybe I could have The Sound of Music on the roof this year?   Part of me reeeeally wants to have that singalong here, but part of me is also like, is that irresponsible?   I don’t know what the best answer is.   I could see having a few people, maybe?  But it’s like, I think we could wait too.  I don’t know.   But for a moment I was excited and I decided to watch a few scenes from TSOM to make sure it worked up there!  I also discovered you really can’t go up and watch anything until it’s actually dark.  lol

I guess one last picture set to put up is actually what I ended up doing the night of my last posting, which was back on July 12.  I set up the movie theater again for myself (knowing how to do it was half the battle!) and watched The Empire Strikes Back which was having its 40th anniversary and amusingly was the #1 movie in the nation that weekend because everything else is shut down.  It’s quite awesome to watch on a big screen!

The Empire Strikes Back – July 12, 2020

One weekend when Nicki was here, we watched The Goonies up on the roof deck, so it’s been fun to watch some classics in that venue!

Those are the main pictures I’ve got.   Everything else?   Work is work, so that’s good.   I dream about Larry every now and then, and it’s nice.    Sometimes I want to post about those dreams so I can remember them later, but I usually don’t.   Some have been funny – a while ago I dreamt about us trying to get a table at brunch and it was so vivid.  Sometimes I can vaguely remember that he’s actually dead while in the dream and it makes it that much more surreal.  Like, do I tell him?

Alright, I think I’m caught up.  It’s close to September.  It’s crazy to believe Larry’s death was over 7 months ago.  I can’t really understand that 5 months have been lost just being stuck at home.   It’s fucking stupid and I hate it because if our nation had had a coordinated response that made the pain last just 1-2 solid months, we’d likely be in a position now to be rolling things out properly.  But no, that’s not this country.   We’ve got “freedom” to act as selfishly as we want and god forbid your “freedoms” are infringed upon by being asked to wear a mask.   People are just so fucking dumb.   We deserve all that we are getting.

Week 1 Ends and Janelle is Still There

Oh, wasn’t it clear that this is just a Janelle fan page?  Honestly, all headlines are probably going to just be in relation to her status.  When she gets evicted, consideration will be made if we even continue writing.  Yes, I just wrote “we” rather than “I” as one person alone isn’t enough to write about Janelle and if I need to manifest other personalities, so be it.

Anyway, not that I get out of the house much, but it really is hard to motivate myself to write a Wednesday AND Thursday post.   So here we are, on Sunday, and I should probably quickly catch up.   Honestly, not too much really happened?

In the Wednesday Veto Episode, a lot of potential alliances were being made, but I have way too much BB experience to put too much faith in any of them, even the likely ones such as Cody and Nicole F and/or Dani.  Things always change.   Anyway, in the Veto Comp, Cody was hot:

Not a surprise.  The competitors had to rock a banana to charge a timer (and something else, if you know what I mean….) and then go and try to stack vegetable-shaped puzzle pieces and have the largest stack.   Also, pay attention to your timer as you have to re-rock the banana to get more time.   See Enzo:

It’s a lot to take.   So many people time out during this competition, including Cody and Ian.  Enzo locks in a good score of 18 and Kevin HAS HIM BEAT at one point, but then he decides to continue playing as Keesha is still in the comp and then his stack falls and it’s like, dude WTF.   You had the win, take it.  Anyway, Enzo wins Veto.

And does Enzo use Veto? Continue reading Week 1 Ends and Janelle is Still There

Nothing Like a Kaysar & Janelle Team-Up

Man, I love the hell out of these two.  Their awesomeness is not unnoticed by everyone else in the house though as they easily become two juicy targets to take out, especially as the house starts shaking out along battle lines.   There’s Cody and Nicole F (who strangely are allies now?), along with potentially Tyler and Memphis?   Then there’s Kaysar and Janelle, and then everyone else – those others aren’t floaters but it’s just too damn early to say yet.

Anyway, Cody’s plan this week?   Nominate Kaysar and Janelle.  Shocker.   It sucks for my enjoyment as I love these two, and it seems like there’s going to be another new-school vs old-school showdown brewing like what happened on Survivor this past season.   It would be great if old-school gets the upper hand this time, but we’ll have to see if that plays out.

Well, just as Cody thinks his week won’t be too stressful, we learn about the “Safety Suite.”  Everyone is given VIP Passes to BB’s hottest club:  Safety Suite.   Over the next 3 weeks, the Safety Suite will be open for one hour each week – you can decide to scan your pass at the door and you enter yourself in to compete for that week’s competition.  The prize?  Safety for the week.  Also, you get to take a “+1” and that person also gets safety.   It’s like this twist was specifically made to help keep Super Targets safe!?  The downside?   You can only use this pass once, and if you lose, you don’t get to try again later.  Oh, and the “+1” gets a punishment.

This week’s easy targets, Janelle and Kaysar

So, the Safety Suite opens up for the week and absolutely everyone is terrified of making the move to swipe in.  It does indicate you feel you’re not safe and you’re willing to do something about it….which YEAH.  That’s exactly the point of this whole thing.  Don’t put your fate in someone else’s hands.   Both Kaysar and Janelle saw right through Cody’s noncommittal blahblahblah to them when they individually talked to him and could tell they were in trouble.   But neither of them move to go swipe in.   It’s not until literally 30 seconds are left when Kaysar gets up, goes upstairs, and swipes in at literally the last second.   Janelle is right there with him and swipes in too.

Thoughts:  where the hell was anybody else from Cody’s “side” of the house to mitigate this quite obvious possibility?  Like, was no one thinking about the fact that if just Kaysar and Janelle compete, unless they both absolutely fuck up in the comp, which hello, both of them are comp beasts, that means they’ll both be safe?   Where was Nicole F or Tyler or Memphis shadowing them and being the spoiler???  I’m glad they didn’t, but I’m still staggered at this non-play by that side.   Also, some have speculated why did Janelle even bother playing at all if it was likely that she would be Kaysar’s “+1”?  I think her concern is that if Kaysar lost, she’d be fucked.  It seems there was a time limit to the comp and a time out was entirely possible.  So it was best to just hedge bets and stay in the game rather than pray Kaysar didn’t lose.

Come Through, Safety Suite!

In an enormous lounge area somewhere on the studio stage, BB built up a big DJ booth for the competition.   The goal was to be the fastest to recreate the “Twinkle, Twinkle” remix by pressing the right buttons that contained the various pieces of music found in the remix.  Kaysar went first, followed by this Confident Queen:

Janelle’s swagger knows no bounds.  The animated GIF of her entering and throwing her jacket on the chair is just…chef’s kiss.

Anyway, neither timed out, and our winner? Continue reading Nothing Like a Kaysar & Janelle Team-Up