TV and Movies

[gardenman]

It's time for the official start of another season of Big Brother! Tonight we'll get the totally fake "Hey, look! I found a BB house key!" videos of the houseguests who are stunned that they're getting a chance to be on Big Brother. Sure, they've auditioned since March, been interviewed a half dozen times, flown out to California for more in depth interviews, and suddenly found a camera crew following them around, but finding a key to the BB house? Shocking! What a surprise! Yeah. Sure it is.

They'll then have an hour to pack that tiny little BB duffle bag provided. (Bear in mind most were notified to be packed and ready to go a week or more earlier and they typically take multiple suitcases of clothes with them.) Then they're driven off to the BB house. (Well, sequester in a hotel in LA for a few days/week first, then the BB house.)

They'll march onstage and then Julie will do her: "This is the first time they're seeing one another" line, except for all during the casting process, in sequester, in the van ride to the studio, and in hair and makeup prior to going on stage, but yep, this is the first time they're seeing one another. (Technically they're not supposed to talk to one another prior to going onstage, but a person cut late in the casting process has said that Jack (the Khal Drogo look-alike) would never stop talking as they were taken out shopping and getting prepped for the show.) Then they'll be let into the house in groups of four (typically) and race around like lunatics marveling at the house. (It doesn't look especially pretty in the photos this year to me, but we'll see how it looks on camera.)

Then they'll all gather around with their champagne and introduce themselves. Some will think it's brilliant to lie about their age, occupation, sick wife/husband/child, or something to try and gain an edge. (Those lies never really work.) Then Julie will pop up on the screen and offically welcome them to BB and remind them to "Expect the Unexpected." They'll be shocked to hear that there could be a twist. We'll get DR footage of the girls saying how handsome the guys are and the guys saying how pretty the girls are. It wouldn't be BB without a showmance or two. And then the first comp will take place.

Possible spoilers coming up!

David, our young black guy who was among my top three men to win this year, may already be gone. Yesterday BB released the swimsuit photos of the houseguests and the individual photos were all shot in alphabetical order according to the time stamps some have seen, but David's was shot an hour and a half after Tommy's. Now maybe David just couldn't find his swimsuit or get ready in time, but that's a bit odd. In the group photos of the swimsuit shots David seems to be the only one not shouting something in the first one and then in the second photo (shown below) either David was badly photoshopped into the photo or Tommy became a double amputee after entering the house but has decided to heroically keep playing the game. Tommy's legs appear to be missing in that photo as he's standing behind David. (He could just be sitting on them, but it doesn't look like it.)

That's David on the bottom right and Tommy, our Broadway dancer behind him. If you look in the space between David's arm and body where you'd kind of expect Tommy's legs to be, there's nothing there except the bench. Now maybe Tommy is exceptional flexible and slid his legs off to the side, or sucked them up into his body somehow, or maybe, just maybe BB decided to photoshop in David. My money is they photoshopped in David.

If you look at Analyse's left arm (she's the girl sitting on the cooler with David) her left elbow seems to magically disappear into David's back/side somehow. She's sitting pretty far forward on the cooler facing left while David's more sitting in the middle of the cooler, her left hand is just above her hip and yet somehow, her left elbow is behind David. Maybe she's also exceptionally flexible? Nah! They photoshopped in David and did so badly.

In the past BB has dragged back in first night evictees for the swimsuit shot, which has proven awkward for those in the house, but they've also just photoshopped in early evictees. This looks like they photoshopped in a version of David.

Kemi, who hadn't been mentioned in the one audio leak we had appears not to be photoshopped in, so she's likely still there. David could still be there also, it could just be they didn't like how he looked in the photos and popped in a different shot of him. BB really needs to up their photo editing game though. If you're going to do it, do it right. Those photos weren't done right. The good news is David's likely back in sequester someplace with a chance to rejoin the game later on if he was a first or second night evictee.

So, we get our first look at the houseguests in the house tonight, then tomorrow night we get our second look. No show this Thursday or next Thursday, but we do get shows Sunday and next Tuesday and Wednesday, then back to the regular Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday schedule after that. At midnight Wednesday (really sometime in the early AM Thursday for those of us on the East coast as they almost never start the feeds exactly at midnight) the live feeds will kick in and we'll really get to know what's happening in real time. Everything we see tonight happened days ago. Everything we'll see tomorrow happened days ago. But from Thursday on, we'll know more or less in real time what's going on.

It should be a fun season. There's no one I really dislike so far. The cast seems pretty solid. Lots of hunky guys and pretty girls. Give it a week or so though and we'll be begging them to get rid of some of them. I'd thought in the preseason interviews that Jack was more thin and wiry like Joe from Survivor, but in the swimsuit shots he looks a lot bigger and more like Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. It'll be interesting to see how he looks on the show tonight and on the feeds.

[Jamma]

Welcome back to a new season gardenman.  BB would not be the same without you.

Waiting to hear how your leg is doing?  Praying no more surgeries.

[gardenman]

---

@Jamma wrote:

Welcome back to a new season gardenman.  BB would not be the same without you.

Waiting to hear how your leg is doing?  Praying no more surgeries.

---

I'm happy to report no more surgeries. In February the third and likely fourth cortice finally bridged and the surgeon said the fracture line looked a little blurrier than it had, so the fracture line itself might be finally healing. In mid-March the leg finally started to feel better. For the first time in fourteen months it no longer felt the same as it did immediately post-op. It's pretty livable right now.

The only real issue is there's a golf ball sized hole in the femur above the knee that they don't expect will ever heal due to the amount of damage that had been done to that section. That area also feels kind of dead. Normally when you flex your quadricep you can feel it in that area and I feel nothing there. The quad works fine, but with no sensation in that area things like going down steps is a bit iffy. Either the leg just doesn't flex leaving you hanging in mid-space or it buckles and collapses. I'm still working on that, but I suspect that may be a long-term issue. It's not a big deal. I just go down the steps one step at a time using my right leg but when I get to the bottom I take multiple practice steps down from that bottom step to try and retrain the leg to work right, but I'm not wildly optimistic about that ever coming back. I think the nerves in that area got a bit destroyed.

I'm back working in my garden again which is fun. I'm not digging using a shovel due to the hole in the femur, but I'm doing a lot with a trowel. I'm starting perennial seeds to replace plants in the garden because it's very easy to plant them using a trowel while planting bigger plants is more complicated. I planted about seventy just yesterday. I planted Asclepias, Echinacea's, Hollyhocks, Oenothera, Lupines, and more yesterday in one section of the garden. It'll take a couple of years to get the garden back to where I want it, but I'm started on the process.

All in all things are going okay right now. They could be better, but they were a lot worse last year, so I can't complain. I see the docs again in August for the next checkup. Assuming I don't do anything stupid (may be assuming a lot) there should be no more surgery on the leg. Granted the knee replacement just below the fracture will be 26 years old come December, so that may need redoing at some point in the not to distant future, so surgery for that could come along at some point, but hopefully not for quite a while yet.

[DrKelli]

@gardenman , thanks for the reminder for tonight's show and your very insightful thoughts on photoshopping!

I am glad to hear that your progress is at least moving forward and not going backward on your leg.  You are so far ahead of where you were this time last year!

[CaliKat]

Thanks @gardenman !  Looking forward to tonight's show, and your daily updates!

[gardenman]

@DrKelli 

They snuck the premier in on a Tuesday for us this year just to confuse us.

I use Photoshop Elements a lot and when they took a photo of David to plop down they forget to exclude the background between his arm and body when they pasted his photo in. That pretty much amputated Tommy's legs. Oops! 

Yeah, This is a much better year for me. It's nice not to be constantly medicating myself this year, no PICC lines, no daily infusions or injections, no more daily ultrasound treatments. I'm back to living a relatively normal life. Last year at this time (June 25th) I was just leaving Cooper Hospital after my first PICC line infection with a brand new PICC line in place and a few weeks of intravenous antibiotics to take in addition to the clotting factor and Lovenox. I like this year much better. The only meds I take now are 50,000 IU of vitamin D every Saturday morning. Even that may end come August. Then I'll get a yearly infusion of Reclast for the osteoporosis, but that's not so bad. Things are looking up.

[gardenman]

Just some info, there's a coupon code that gives you two months of CBS All Access at 50% off. It works even if you're already a subscriber. Just go to CBS.com and pause over your name at the top right, then click on "Account" when that pops up. On the right hand side you should see some blue lettering and partway down it says "Redeem Coupon." Click on that. Enter the code Q9J7F6 and it might just give you two months for half price. It's been working for everyone who's tried it and it just worked for me. (At least it says it worked for me. I'll find out on July 10th when they next bill me.) It's not a huge saivngs, but it's better than nothing.

[sabra]

@gardenman   Glad to see you are back in rare form, especially with your humor.  The leg issue had me cracking up.  Happy that you are getting to plant some flowers, etc. this year as I know you were unable to last year.

[gardenman]

@sabra 

I'm happy to be back. Seeing Tommy with no legs kind of jumped out in that photo. Christmas broke her foot a few years ago and kept playing, so maybe Tommy did get both legs amputated after entering the house but decided to still play. We'll have to see, but my money is more on some bad photo editing.

In a related thing from that photo, the little black straps coming from Holly's bikini bottom serve what purpose exactly? They kind of look like an arrow pointing to an area where most men (Tommy excluded) would likely be interested anyway. I'm pretty sure she doesn't need an arrow guiding men there. I just don't know what other purpose they'd serve though. I do find it attention getting however.

[gardenman]

There was a briefish video feed leak at five and every houseguest but David was spotted, so he's likely gone. He could have been in the DR or napping someplace, but no one saw him.