Episode 1

[Roddy Mancuso]

Questions:



1. Which female housemate looks better in a bikini? KAITLIN



2. Which male housemate would make a better underwear model? CODY


3. Which housemate's book of memoirs is more likely to make the bestsellers list? ALEX


4. Which housemate is more likely to lose this competition? NATALIE 


5. Which Canadian housemate is the nicest? TOPAZ


6. Which housemate is more likely to be a star in this year's episodes? SABRINA



7. Which housemate will be more boring in this year's episodes? JENN


8. Which housemate is more likely to win this competition? KEESHA?






Tie-Breaker: 55

If I win, I'll send myself to the House Next Door

[Roddy Mancuso]

It was a pretty busy weekend for me, with it being the Fourth of July and all. I wasn't able to check my email until Sunday, and you could imagine my disappointment when I read through the letter, and saw that I was only an alternate for Big Brother Pulse. On a whim, I decided to go to the forum anyway, and make sure that all the spots had been filled. When, I saw that Wil hadn't checked in yet, and that I could potentially get into the game, I was like:

I immediately contacted Dan, who wasn't around; and then Suzette to see if I could replace Wil in the cast. Suzette allowed me to do such, but told me they'd prefer if I played a male character to keep the cast even. At first I was like "Oh No", I'm a girl playing a male character; and I really had my heart set on playing as Sharon. But, the need to play this game over took me, and I really didn't care who I had to play as at that point.

I jumped right in, and started talking to people, because I knew I was probably behind in the conversation mix. Alex and I really have a lot in common, and I'd really like to consider him my closest ally in the game as we progress. We bonded over a lot of stuff, and our conversation was pretty rapid fire for several hours. I also got to know Keesha, Gina Marie, Cody, Brendon, Kevin, and Kenny pretty well. I'm the kind of person that will gravitate my strategy toward helping and working with the people I tend to talk to the most. I find it is easier to get to know people's tenancies and what not throughout the game, when you actually keep and open line of communication with them.

The first House Next Door competition was a game of Majority Rules. After finding out that I was going to miss the live HOH competition, I really wanted to win the HND competition so I could send myself and be safe for the entire week. The first week in a game always makes me nervous. You'd like to think that people would try and target the inactive members of the cast, because in my opinion it's the only fair way at the beginning; but you can't rely on others to feel the same way. Some people may want to target the threats, or their may already be a formed alliance that I am not part of. It is just too risky, not to be in control of your own destiny this early in the game. Alex had told me earlier in the day, that if he was able to win the HOH, I would be completely safe with him; but I'm not the type of person that is going to put all my eggs in one basket. Luckily for me, some of these other people completely fail at math, and overshot the tie breaker question for the HND competition. This allowed me to scoop up an early win, to seem somewhat strong in competition, but not really have to get any blood on my hands. And it was off to the House Next Door.

The House Next Door is pretty drab and barren. It could really use a good cleaning. I figured it would be a pretty boring week over there, but I'll take a boring week in exchange for safety. I knew going in I would not be allowed to compete for HOH or Veto, nor would I be allowed to vote in eviction; but I also knew there was no way for me to get nominated this week. Once in the house next door, there was a note stating that their was a secret room off of the main part of the house, that was locked; and hidden powers were held in that room. Naturally I was curious as to what would be behind the locked door, so I knew automatically that I was going to try and see what kind of shit would shake the game up. In order for me to get into the secret room, I had to solve a puzzle. The puzzle would give me a clue to the password, and that would grant me access. Luckily for me, I am a huge puzzle freak, and it only took me about 20 minutes to solve the puzzle, and gain access.

Iris controls the secret room, with the opportunity to push one of six different colored buttons. Each button reaped a different power on the Big Brother Pulse house. The first decision was to choose which color button you wanted to push, or you could opt out of choosing any button at all. The kicker was, the people in the house would not know what had caused the power to be enacted, and future visitors to the Control Room, would not know who enacted what power. I had went back and forth and weighed options on whether I should press one of the buttons or not.

After careful thought, I decided to press the yellow button. The ultimate factor in my decision, was based on the fact I knew that both Dan and Suzette had spent a lot of time planning this game out, and this is an ultimately successful series of Big Brother. I felt it would be an injustice to both of them, if I was to go into the Control Room, and not release one of the powers that they had put a lot of time and effort into thinking and planning.

The yellow button, was the power to nominate a third person for eviction this week. I had to wait for Kevin to make his HOH nominations, and then I would have to choose the third person from the remaining people. Should my nomination get vetoed, I would have to make another choice and name a replacement nominee. This power kind of bit me in the ass. I was hoping to come into the HND and not get any blood on my hands this week, but now I'm forced to. I'm just going to have to put in a little bit of time and effort into this, and make decisions that are going to have the least impact on my game. I know, that technically the Houseguests don't know how or why their will be a third nominee this week, but I am also well aware that some of them aren't stupid. They're going to be extremely skeptical and think it has something to do with the House Next Door, and then associate it with me. I'll try and play it off the best that I am able to, but the thing is. The people who I have actually had some decent conversations with, have nothing to worry about.

I'd even tried talking to some of the people I really hadn't gotten to know yet, but some of these people just seem to have no interest in talking to me. It's whatever though, maybe I'm just catching them at the wrong time. The one's that actually make themselves available to talk and then don't respond, are one hundred times better than the ones who don't ever make themselves available to talk to. So, really me decision rests on a small handful of people.