It has been a very busy and exciting 2 months with my little sister Christine in the Big Brother house. One thing I’ve always said starting right now is that it is important to reflect. Personally, I love reflection. Especially THIS reflection:

It is also important to evaluate and dwell on life experiences. I figured now was the best time to look back on my sister’s Big Brother experience over the last two months as she was recently evicted from the Big Brother house in 6th place (Not too shabby considering my best competition finish was second from last in the mile during a 6th grade track meet). Before I go on, I want to make one thing clear. I think I speak for my family when I say that I definitely do NOT speak for my family. The ensuing thoughts are mine, and mine alone.

For the first time this season, my wife Karina, myself and our 3 kids watched the eviction live via web streaming. This is different than the pretend “live” we generally watch as we get the old Mountain Standard Time repeat. So we had a real-time view as things turned south for Christine. We weren’t surprised that she was in danger as we figured either her or Frankie would be going in the second eviction. But, as Derrick won HOH and then Frankie won POV, we saw the proverbial writing on the wall.



This is a recreation of my face as the show progressed

Sure enough, Julie announced Christine was evicted. And unlike previous Houseguests, instead of politely hugging and saying goodbye to everyone who had just kicked her out of her own home, she coldly walked straight out with nary a “toodle-loo”. I am not sure what I think about this display of uber-competitiveness. On one hand, I understand this is a cut-throat game and the other Houseguests just threw out their own alliance member. On the other hand, they did have to listen to Christine snore for the last two month so a “see you later” may have been polite.

Then, upon exiting the house, she was booed by the crowd waiting her exit in the front yard (aka studio). I have to admit, as her brother, but even just as a human, I hated that. I felt bad that this was her first interaction with the outside world after two months of having no idea whether she was beloved or not. Sure, there were boos, I am not going to deny that. But the way some on Twitter have described it, it was an overwhelming chorus of boos. That’s not what I heard. Granted, there were a few boos interspersed with the cheers. But then there was one very loud, very persistent booer. No doubt a great guy to hang out with. While I hated having my children see their Aunt booed in front of millions of people, at least it provided an opportunity for me to discuss with my children the importance of treating everyone – regardless of color, creed, or nationality, even those we disagree with – with respect. Unless of course it is Arizona State University’s football team. In which case we BOOOOO them until they cry or our voices give out!



An in-studio shot of the booer

Christine confronting the mixed reaction and a really angry guy

I am proud of her for absorbing the boos and a relatively unfriendly Julie Chen interview with class and grace though. I think I would have been peeing my pants.

Now a lot of you have already made up your mind to hate Christine. And that is your prerogative. Your lame, useless-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things prerogative. But keep in mind, you are basing your judgment on game-Christine. You don’t know real Christine who is a very sweet, kind, fun person to be around. I know and love this Christine.

However, I apparently didn’t know everything about her as I learned a few things watching her on the show:

She is a competition BEAST!! During her stay in the house she won 2 Battles of the Block, 2 Power of Veto’s, and a Head of Household. I did not realize that growing up. It could be because I was twice her age and therefore dominated any competition involving strength/knowledge or because we didn’t have any competitions involving organizing comic book covers of our likenesses.

During her stay in the house she won 2 Battles of the Block, 2 Power of Veto’s, and a Head of Household. I did not realize that growing up. It could be because I was twice her age and therefore dominated any competition involving strength/knowledge or because we didn’t have any competitions involving organizing comic book covers of our likenesses. Her vocabulary is a bit spicier than I realized. I didn’t know she even knew half of those darn words I’ve seen her say on the show (pardon my French).

Despite the fact that I would have loved to have seen her win, there are some positives I can see from her being evicted:

Hopefully there will be fewer reminders from the Twitter community that she touched Cody’s hair

Her rankings on Joker’s can only go up. I’ve performed some very scientific research and extrapolation based on the most current data. As you can see in Exhibit 1, she has moved from last place to second to last place. An unstoppably upward trend.

Taking that information and extrapolating the trend linearly, you can clearly see she is headed to the number 1 (most positively viewed houseguest). Based on my calculations, this should occur around 2018. Coincidentally, that is the same year that Zingbot will no doubt develop sentient feelings.

Now that football season has started, this prevents a very tough choice for me on Sunday nights. Kidding. I TOTALLY would have picked Big Brother over Sunday Night Football…probably (Side note: why is there no Fantasy Big Brother league? Fun!)

This entire experience has been a great learning opportunity for me. I plan on taking the knowledge I’ve gleaned watching my sister appear on national television and applying it whenever the Wipeout producers wisen up and put me on their show. (Note to self: to avoid Twitter backlash, do not talk about how much I hate the other contestants and absolutely no caressing of my opponent’s helmets. )