#BBcanChat Episode 1 - by @todmaffin

Alright, what's up? We're 1 minute away now until the start of Big Brother Canada. Less than 60 seconds away. I'm Tod Maffin in Vancouver. Cory is in Winnipeg with his group of folks. Say hi everyone!

Woo!

Hello! And Jenny from Edmonton is going to be joining us shortly. We might have Jocelyn from Calgary signing on as well. This is the inaugural episode 1 of BBCanChat of Big Brother Canada. And it's starting in 30 seconds. So if you're watching us on the live feed, put this off to the side, put us on mute, and then come back to us in the commercials. There's not going to be any activity, obviously, while the show is actually airing. We're just going to be watching alongside with you are. So come back, and we'll talk to you guys in Winnipeg, and hopefully the other two in the first commercial break. All right?

All right, sounds good. Talk to you then.

OK, see you then, guys. Alright, so first commercial break. Hello Winnipeg, where are you? They're in Winnipeg. We have two more people that have joined. Jocelyn T. who's in Vancouver.

Tod, you're still on mute. Oh, I'm still on mute. Oh, hold on.

No, no, can you hear me now? There we go. You guys were on speaker mute, I think that's what's going on. Anyway, so that's Corey in Winnipeg, Jocelyn down below over here in Vancouver. Who actually cannot watch the show but is listening to it because she's at work right now.

I'm that lame.

And we have another Jocelyn just to keep things balanced, and she's in Calgary, and that's her face there, although we can't hear or see her yet, so she'll need to unmute herself. Okay, probably only 30 seconds. First of all, guys in Winnipeg, what do you think of the house?

It's amazing. It's way better than the American house, actually, we think.

That's what I thought too. Oh, Jocelyn is in Calgary, joined us as well. Hi, Jocelyn.

Hi.

I have a cold.

I'm a real mess. And I wasn't planning for video, so hi.

That's OK. No problem. So that's Cory in Winnipeg over there. Let me just finish with you guys. Do you have a fan yet, or a favorite yet? Because everyone's going to be like on Team So-and-So. What's the room like over there? Who's the favorite so far?

We like the hot social psychologist that doesn't like shirts.

And gay men always like fat girls.

What do gay men always like?

Fat girls. Curvy girls.

Well, straight guys like curvy girls too, for the record.

So we do like Suzanne. We want to dance with her at the club.

Suzanne is the Aboriginal curvy girl who works on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. A little bit of fact-checking, the radio show that she works on, the radio— I'm a radio personality— is CFRO in Vancouver, which is Cooperative It's kind of like discount, it's the socially active radio. It's not a commercial radio station, so it's not like she's a big star here in Vancouver. Hey, what did you think of the hot tub with the fake snow? That was a nice touch. Swimming pool. The lap pool, it's not a swimming pool. Whatever, you swim in it, you go in and you do laps in it. No, I think it's a swimming pool forever.

Is it an infinity lap pool as well as the hot tub?

I think it was like a hot tub with snow sort of all the way around it. Although I have to say— OK, so two things I want to bitch about. First of all, $100,000? That's it?

I know.

I know. I feel very strongly about this also. They're spending 10 weeks of their life. Pay them a living wage.

Occupy BB.

It is tax-free as well, we've been told.

It's still kind of cheap though, don't you think? It's half a million in the US. All the other reality shows are like a million dollars. Excuse me, excuse me.

The difference is this: in America you have to pay taxes on your winnings, in Canada you don't. So $500,000 in America is only $250,000. They take off half the taxes.

It's still more than $100,000.

No, no, it's not that much more. And listen, America—

Shut up!

You have more money than I do then.

America is 10 times the size of Canada, so it's got 10 times the advertising power and all that stuff.

So $100,000 is not bad.

And you get a car.

And that's true. There's a car that's thrown into the deal as well. I got to say, the have-not room looks pretty damn nice to me.

I'd stay in a hotel. It's fine.

I paid an hour.

I was going to say, staying in a hotel room and having a trick in a hotel room isn't the same thing.

Yeah. All right, the show's back on. We'll see you guys after the commercial break.

Bye.

OK, welcome. We are in the second break. Those of you watching on the YouTube feed, thank you for joining us. We now have 5 people. So unmute, unvideo yourself. From left to right— I don't know if it'll work this way on the video— is Cory and his group of friends in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

And his houseguests.

Woo-hoo!

And his houseguests. And then next is Jenny, who is a superfan in Edmonton who's joined us.

Hi, Jenny.

Who obviously has us on mute still.

Awesome.

Oh, Jenny?

Yeah. Oh, there she is. Yes, she can see us now. Jocelyn's in the middle, has not unmuted herself, or maybe I have to do that. And Jocelyn there is in Vancouver, who is at work, and I'm in Vancouver as well. There's Jocelyn number 2. Okay, so where do we begin? Thoughts? Who has the first—

Oh my God, Emma is so hot. Emmett.

Emmett?

Which one is Emmett?

The dairy farmer from the East Coast.

Yeah, there was an audible gasp in the room when Emmett came on.

Jenny, welcome to the show. What do you think so far?

I just hate how Canadians feel like they have to try so hard. Like, and what's with all the background music and making it so, like, Canadian, you know?

Were you— I know you were busy with family stuff. Did you see that there was actually a a hot tub and they put fake snow around it.

Oh, great.

Hahaha. Jocelyn #1, you are not able to watch because you're at work. What sign were you holding up?

I gotta say, go UBC!

Social scientist, you work for UBC, so you're gonna get fired after this. Yeah, social scientist, that's interesting. You know, my thoughts as soon as he said that was, he said, yeah, I'm a social scientist, I study psychology, have a PhD. My first thought was, holy crap, idiot, don't say that. Wouldn't you hide that?

Maybe he's doing his thesis research on the house.

That'd be pretty interesting. Yeah, but I would think, like, if I had some sort of skills like that, I would try to— especially if I had PhD, I would try to hide that. Wouldn't you want to be underestimated?

Do you guys remember in the American Big Brother, Danielle kept that she was a nurse under wraps?

Yes.

What is up with that? I just tweeted this. If I were a social psychologist, I'd be like, no, I work in a gas station, and I'm on Big Brother, no bigs.

But did it really help Danielle? Like, do people care?

We don't, still don't understand Danielle's logic.

Between a nurse and a teacher, that was like, what's the difference? But a social psychologist or a gas station employee, that would, that's definitely a difference. He should have lied for sure.

He should have. I would have definitely kept that under wraps.

Cory?

Kindergarten teacher girl is keeping the fact she's a kindergarten teacher under wraps.

Well, you don't want that kind of stuff to get out. I thought this was live, actually, but I guess it's not live because they had diary room excerpts. I think so far the best moment— because I look for these little 2-second moments— I like it when I don't know his name— Bill? Gary? The guy with the sparkles who claims he's not quite gay— not quite— he went up to Danielle, and first words out of his mouth were, oh my god, nice boobies, and then touched them.

We all kind of like Danielle's boobies here in the room. We're not going to lie. Oh, someone. Dad doesn't. But there was some motorboating comments. I'm not going to lie.

All right, we're back, folks. See you back at the commercial break. I like it. I like that twist. I like that twist. Winnipeg, you're the second one up. What do you guys think there?

Yay!

We like that Suzette is the first Head of Household. We just hope she makes a decent decision.

We're worried.

And not Emmett.

And not Emmett.

Mostly. Oh, 30 geek points to Jocelyn, who's figured out how to get the name underneath her title too.

Ooh!

I may have cheated.

By the way, you guys all can go to View More Apps and then click and look for Google Hangout. It looks like Jenny, you've added it, but it's not showing up on your screen anyway. So Jenny, as the resident reality show superstar and not just superfan, what are your thoughts so far? Are you a little less jaded?

Uh, not yet. I'm waiting for it to just— I'm not going to say anything until close to the end, I think. Right now it's just kind of bugging me. I want to get into it, but it seems just lots of yelling and swearing and dirty jokes and stuff. I want it to be better.

Better how?

Like, I guess it's just the first episode, so I'll just give it time.

I'm not a big fan of first episodes of reality shows.

It's true, right? I agree.

Yeah, it is true.

Take some time to invest in it and get the feel for it.

Well, as you can all see, I have now officially put myself on for Team Danielle. I have nothing to base that on. I'm sure that I will regret that decision later. She'll probably be one of the first to go, but she is awfully cute. I do go for the nice ones to look at.

I don't know. Which one's Danielle?

Danielle is the blonde girl with the enormous rack.

Oh, that girl.

Yeah.

It's not a rack thing. It's not a rack thing. It's not a rack thing. It's a voice thing for some reason.

I don't know.

So Cory, do you guys over there think this is so far a good episode, or is it lacking like Jenny does?

Actually, we're pretty impressed with the quality of it. I think that's the general consensus. So far, so good.

I'll agree with you on that. It's good. Good design. Good quality characters. Although I don't like the idea of this not being live. I'm upset with it not being live.

Yeah, we're not live.

I was pretty disappointed by that too. I was totally expecting it. In fact, I thought it was live up until the point where they started doing cutaways into the diary room.

Yeah, no, but, uh, no, so far so good. Like, it's not the lame Canadian version I was expecting.

Yeah, I'm surprised by that too. I was expecting it to be like that cute Canadian cuteness, but it's pretty much part of the Big Brother enterprise, you know. The house is the same and They really threw a twist in when they asked her to nominate two people in an hour. That poor girl who answered the phone.

That's a little— hate to cut you off, but we're back again. We'll see you guys after the commercial break. I like the theme music a lot. It's kind of got a bit of an America's Got Talent thing to it, but I like it. Oh, Corey has added his caption. And his Twitter handle.

Ooh, I like that.

I'm pissed.

What?

You're pissed? Oh my god. Oh, that's right, because Emmett, your favorite, is up. Emmett's on the block already.

And the other hot guy that doesn't like to wear a shirt.

Come on! So both hot guys who don't like to wear shirts are up on the block. Any guesses why would she pick those two? She didn't even have any reasons. Usually in this kind of thing— Because she's drunk. Because she's what?

She's had an hour and she's been drinking. And there's no logic behind that. She's nervous and she's drunk.

Yeah, but even the drunk people on the US version, when they nominate, even right off the bat, they at least have this sort of apology speech. Like, hey, listen, we don't know each other. I just had to— you guys were the people who never talked to me. There was some sort of explanation. But there's nothing here. Nothing.

Yeah. Yeah, she's—

yeah.

I don't know why she chose Emmett. I wouldn't mind seeing the redneck fireman go, but— Hey!

Not all Edmontonians are rednecks!

Let's hear that again, Penny.

No, he had some comments, yeah.

Jocelyn, number one in Vancouver, who is employed by UBC and so is obviously cheering for UBC. You can't watch it, you're just listening to the audio feed. So what is it? Is it a different kind of experience just listening?

Yes, I can really only hear the big things that happen and your narration occasionally, and so I don't actually know who is who, but I just picked out the people who resonated, you know, one from East Vancouver and the guy from UBC.

Woo!

Any predictions so far? Who's gonna win? Who's gonna put their neck out and say who's gonna win? Winnipeg? Not Danielle. No, no.

Sadly, not Danielle has been thrown around. No, the gay is not going to win.

No, we don't like the gay. By the gay, you mean the flashy guy who claims he's not fully gay.

Yeah. We don't buy that for a second.

I don't buy that either.

You guys remember Marcel?

Oh, Marcel. Yeah. Marcelus.

Marcelus. I'm sorry. Yeah. It's like his doppelgänger is on there.

Do you guys have a number 2? Who do you think is going to win? Do you have a guess?

It's far too early to call. Far too early to call. I like the social psychologist, but he blew it when he announced that he's a social psychologist.

He did blow it, didn't he? Like major strategic error. Oh, nice face, Jenny.

Wow, look at that face.

Jenny, do you have a prediction?

I think it's too early to tell, too. I don't know their names yet. We've got to see them at the end.

Alright, we're back. 13 more minutes if you're watching on the live feed. We'll be back to you shortly with more chatter, more super fans. This is BB Chat Canada. I am loving that theme song.

I don't know.

Alright, Awesome Jocelyn. So Jocelyn number 1 in Vancouver has dropped out because she has work to do. She was literally at work just listening. So it's down to the 4 of us. Awesome Jocelyn, you're in Calgary, right? Oh, you need to unmute yourself. Oh, no, sis, no. OK, sorry, it was me. It was my fault. So Jocelyn, we didn't get a chance to sort of introduce you. How many of the American Big Brothers have you seen? Give us your qualifications. Why do you deserve to be on our special panel?

I'm fully qualified. I've been watching Big Brother kind of obsessively since 2001. I missed a couple years in there.

Oh, she froze. Look at that. Is she frozen for everyone else?

Yeah.

To subscribe to the live feeds.

Yeah, something's going on. Oh, there we go. OK, she's back. There must be some sort of interwebs disconnection. Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on so far?

Emmet, Emmet, Emmet.

All right, so team shirtless hot dudes. Nice, excellent. I have to say, I was expecting— I was expecting them to reveal some sort of big grand twist. Like, the phone is a nice touch, but I was expecting some sort of, like, we're playing the game differently. Or like, in Canada, we're not going to have a power of veto. We're going to have, you know, whatever.

Perhaps every nomination—

My mom is going to come and bestow something on you. I don't know.

Perhaps every nomination should be like, can I nominate you please? Because we're a little more polite here in Canada.

Yeah, but wouldn't we be mad if they didn't have a power of veto or if they changed something major, don't you think?

Or the sorry, I nominated you, Sarah.

Ceremony.

Yes, sorry, I have to nominate you, Ceremony.

Sorry, yeah.

Yeah, they certainly have a script, don't they? When they, you know, it's like, one of my jobs as head of household is to nominate two people for eviction. And they always say something at the end that's redundant that always pisses me off of that little speech. I can't remember it. Anyway, it'll come back to me.

Favorite—

So on and so forth. They'll pass the thing around and then so on and so forth.

That's it!

It's so on and so forth. Thank you! That's exactly what it is. So on and so forth. It's like people who say also and but. Like, what? Pick a fucking word, for God's sake.

And you are safe, that's me. You are safe. When they hand them the key, you are safe.

Yeah, like, no shit.

You know, like, Jenny's not allowed to talk about what happened on The Bachelor because otherwise she has to pay an enormous amount of money. She's under contract. But I'll bet you that a lot of that stuff is scripted for them. I bet you that there are certain words they have to which is all part of it, you know, like, I mean, the whole— it's a tribal thing, you know, the whole, uh, even Survivor, it's, I'm gonna give you this stick and I'm gonna like that. Oh, commercial, by the way, if you're watching Slice right now, King of the Nerds is unexpectedly awesome for a reality show, I have to say.

Yeah, it would have to be, like, they would have to script it to some point to make sure that it's consistent and that it fulfills the plot, you know what I mean, like, keep it organic, but scripted at some point. I'm sure they must.

I think so, yeah.

They've given this a little bit of thought. And can I add, I love that it's the Lowe's Big Brother house. Like, they had product placement in building the house.

Oh, yeah, and then it's not like, uh, yeah, it could have been Canadian Tire money that they win instead. Okay, so, uh, we're on the last commercial break. We'll talk to everyone after it's over. Here it comes. Thanks for all your care, Big Brother Canada. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Not a bad show. Not a bad show. Thoughts?

I'm going to watch tomorrow.

I actually had a business thing that I have to do that's usually on every Wednesday, and I postponed it to tomorrow so that I could watch this. I didn't know that this was going to be on again tomorrow. Although let me say this.

Holy—

we get the live feeds for free. That was the biggest reveal of the whole thing so far for me.

Yeah, I knew that going in and I'm totally excited, although I worry that my work productivity is going to go down if my boss doesn't find out that I'm doing this. So Jenny, no tweeting.

Yeah, I don't know if, uh, 2 AM to 5 AM, well, if you've got a PVR you can do it that way. Last year I think was the first year that Canadians could watch Big Brother After Dark because I think Slice picked it up, and that's probably what brought it. And I have to say, because I work at home, I videotaped, I PVR'd the full 3 hours, and I let the damn thing play all morning long and watched it. It's horrible. It's a horrible, horrible thing that we're doing.

Are you on that nerd show that we just saw the commercial for, Tod?

I'm not, but I did— I'm not worthy enough. I'm not that nerdy enough. I wish I were, though.

Oh, come on.

Like Danielle getting up and eating yogurt. It wasn't anything like scandalous or anything. But you guys, for our group, I'm going to come up with like a Big Brother drinking game. So far, every time they do a product placement, we have to take a drink.

That's a great idea.

That's the first rule. I'll just add them as we go.

Right.

When they say it was a power move, or they use power. They say it like that.

Oh no, no, you know the one I want to hear is backdoor.

Yeah!

This group also would like to hear backdoor a lot.

No, no, no, okay, let's clarify. Backdoor in the context of strategy.

Oh, I see.

So I don't know, I'm pretty impressed so far. Any closing thoughts before we wrap up?

Who's the host? I don't recognize the host.

I don't know her either. Who is that?

He lives like 2 blocks away from me.

Oh, no way!

Is this in Edmonton?

No, it's in Hamilton.

No, she's filming it in Toronto.

Oh, OK.

It's in Toronto.

Yeah.

And she was a former contestant of some reality show. Ooh, I like the crown, Jenny.

That's fabulous. Thank you. Oh, nice.

But yeah, she was a former reality contestant on something, but I can't recall what.

Yeah. Lockers or something?

Maybe.

So is it just 2 nights a week then and not 3?

It's 3.

It is 3.

Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.

Oh good.

That's a commitment, man.

I was just going to say that's a big commitment.

You're just talking about watching it from 2 to 5 AM and that you have a commitment problem.

I know, I know, I know. It's not like I plaster a logo on my wall or anything.

Okay, well, I have to run. I'm going for a beer. So, um, will we see you guys tomorrow or next week or Sunday or—

You'll see them tomorrow. I sadly have to do my stupid business thing, but Sunday for sure. Okay. Sounds great.

Bye, guys.

Alright, bye, guys.

Thanks for joining the inaugural chat.

Thanks for organizing this. It was fun.

No problem. See you soon. Bye, Jocelyn. Thanks for joining us.

Bye-bye.