By Buzz Byrne

If there is a more useless prop in all of reality TV than the “Golden Power of Veto,” I can’t think of it. The closest I can come is Randy Jackson, but still, he is a distant second. We’ve come to the first week of nominations in the household of BIG BROTHER 8, and Tuesday’s episode had the first veto competition, as Amber and Carol fought to win the power to take themselves “off the block.” (A phrase we will hear, in some form, roughly 6,337,918 times over these summer months.)
 
The game to win veto power was hide-and-seek, with half of the HouseGuests playing. Each player was given a veto placard, and whoever hid it the best won. Knowing she was fighting for her very survival in the game, Amber hid her placard … under her mattress. Hers was the first one found. Daniele was the eventual winner, burying her placard in the giant pot of BIG BROTHER slop. When it came time for the veto ceremony, Daniele vowed to shake things up with her use of the veto. She didn’t use it; she let the nominations stand. The only thing I can surmise from this turn of events is that Daniele doesn’t know what the phrase “shake things up” means.
 
That is par for the course, because this may be the lowest-functioning, best-groomed mass of human tissue BIG BROTHER has ever cast. This group is dumb. This group is slow. This group communicates clearest with tee shirts that state things like, “I’m too pretty to work” and “Life is better blonde.” I believe the first quote is from Camus and the second is from Goethe, but it could be the other way around; like Jessica, I get these two confused.
 
I cannot bring up statement fashion without addressing my newest, bestest, most favoritest reality TV knucklehead ... Jen. At first, I only noticed the tee that said “Jenius,” but this week, we got to see a few more: “Jenth Degree” and “Jensa Member.” I am beside myself that I didn’t come up with the Jensa member one earlier. That is pure, well, jenius. I looked up her profile online. I expected to see that her favorite song was “Jender is the Night” and her favorite movie was “The Jen Commandments.” Drink? Jen and Tonic. Clothing store? Jennetton. This is one of those things; once it takes a precarious foothold in my consciousness, I will obsess over it. Already, I feel locked in a dunJen — and I’m sorry, I know this is a tanJent — but the pistons in my mental enJen won’t stop firing.
 
The real Jenius move this week surpassed last week’s meltdown over her key photo. This time, she was jealous over Nick and his serial flirting. Nick was setting up to spend the evening in bed with Daniele, and Jen felt slighted, so she tried to play it off that Nick had put an actual move on her. Faster than you can say “Penicillin!” Joe was out the door and running to Nick to tell him what she said. Nick went after Jen right away, and it was pitifully obvious that she was lying. Other people in the room were even muttering, “Uh Nick, we knew it was BS, man … Don’t be mean to the dim ones.” I don’t think Jen had envisioned it going this badly. Clearly, she thought he was going to be the meat and she would be the Jenderizer, not the other way around.
 
Nick is the flirt, though. He told Amber she was “A super awesome girl.” She told him she was a nymphomaniac. And then, she asked for the Lord’s strength to get her through the eviction safely. If this is what the Lord is spending his time focusing on, it really clears up a lot of questions I’ve had about why things are the way they are in the world.

Amber spent a lot of time talking about her family and wanting to do well for them. I am assuming she meant in the game and not at the chronic condition she was telling Nick about. Since she is a single mom, I imagine her little tyke sitting at home with Gramma, watching Mommy on TV and asking what exactly a nymphomaniac is. Don’t worry little one, when you hit fifth grade and the kids find out who your mommy is, someone will gladly explain it to you. Maybe even with crude drawings.
 
But, America bought the family card Amber was playing, instructing our player Eric to vote to evict Carol. It was pretty clear that was the way the house was leaning, despite the time-wasters in the confessional, where every HouseGuest is asked to give good and bad traits of each nominee. This is all chopped up and manipulated, proving yet again that reality TV is anything but real. Personally, I hang in there for golden nuggets, like when Jen and Nick made up and Jen asked if he was still mad and Nick said he wasn’t but offered the qualifier, “I mean, I’m not skipping to my lou.” The chasm between what he said and what he actually meant cannot be measured by any tools that we have in this time. Scientists from the future will have to study that sentence to plumb its depths.
 
The real story, though, was that the nympho got to stay, and Jessica’s former “best friend forever,” Carol, got the boot. Who is the new head of household? I can’t tell, other than to say INXS wrote in their theme song, “A New Jensation!”
 
Next week, I hope to address host Julie Chen. I am particularly interested in her metabolism, which I think works like this: she orders a salad, loses two pounds and her hair expands cubically by an inch. Let me know what you think, ranters.