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Sipdown (138)!

I’ve been kind of avoiding the Spring teas I have in favour of easier sipdowns, but I remembered tonight when looking for a caffeine free tea that I only had about a cup’s worth of this one so I’m finishing it off before bed. Early day tomorrow; I’m getting my first tattoo(s)!

It’s pretty good hot – though it somehow tastes a lot more sugary/artificial. Kind of reminds me of hot Kool-Aid a little bit? I think Kool-Aid makes a Strawberry Kiwi flavour, if I’m correctly remembering, and this tastes just like the ‘kiwi’ half of that flavour. I don’t know why it’s suddenly so much more sweet though? I don’t remember any sort of over the top sugar/artificial flavour from the cold brew…

At first this was almost primarily Honeydew/Kiwi flavour but I left the teabag in the mug while I was writing that giant BBCan section in my Lemon French Macaron tasting note, and now that I’ve come back to this tea the papaya has actually really really been brought out. I’m both loving it and hating it at the same time, if that’s possible. I just don’t think it really goes together well with the melon so much; and I’m not sure how but there’s a “pulpy” sliminess that’s somehow translating into the taste.

So, overall I’m conflicted with this one. I actually really, really liked the cold brew and based on that method alone I probably could’ve been persuaded into picking up at least another 20g for future cold brews – but this isn’t working for me at all, and that’s got me doubting the cold brew. I probably just wont get any more of it…

I wanted to add this to the Lemon French Macaron tasting note I just wrote, but it was already getting long so I’m putting it here. I guess I’m really counting on the fact that at least someone on Steepster watches Big Brother or is interested in starting to watch it…

Roswell Strange’s Guide To Surviving Week One In The Big Brother House:

Assuming there are no major twists effecting the initiation HOH/nominations and no one gets Jodi-ed, there are two valid approaches to the first HOH competition and the week to come afterwards. We shall start with the first one and the only one that guarantees safety; winning.

First off, to even come close to doing this you need to actually be good at whatever the competition entails. Then, you need to make it look like it wasn’t easy winning, even if it is. You want to avoid making yourself come off as a competition threat at much as possible. If you do win, you’ll likely be making some nominations. There are some great approaches to making you’re nominations that will drastically reduce the amount of blood on your hands.

One; nominate the first two people out of the competition. If this is the approach you go with, you’ll likely have the support of everyone in the house except the two people you’ve nominated (obviously). At this point in the game you don’t really know anyone; emphasize this! You’re nominating the two people who performed the poorest because they ’don’t deserve to be here as much’, ’didn’t try, ‘obviously threw the comp’ or whatever excuse appeases the majority of the house. But make sure you stick with your reasoning! If you start talking to houseguests about disliking any of your noms for personal reasons or give any indication that there were other motives to your nominations, the nom that survives (or both, depending on how the veto plays out) will have that much more grounds to resent your decision/target you in following weeks.

Two; nominate the people who came in second and third place. The logic behind this one is very similar to nominating the worst competitors. No one wants a threat around except the person who’s ‘next in line’ to be viewed as top threat once they’re gone (that threat is a meat shield to them). It’s pretty well just as easy to justify this move – but same thing, once you’ve gone there you need to stick to it!

Three; simultaneously the best option and the worst is complete random chance. Literally, draw names from the bag with player tokens in it – the two who get drawn go up. Make sure you do it in front of everyone so they all witness it’s completely legitimate and just as fair. You want to emphasize you’re doing it randomly because you don’t know anyone yet, and no one deserves to leave week one because of a snap impression.

So now that the options if you win HOH are out of the way, what are the options if you don’t? Well, if you don’t win it’s very important that you finish the competition somewhere right in the middle of the other competitors. This makes you forgettable and doesn’t give the HOH the possibility to use either the excuse that you performed worst or performed best. Placing in the middle means that you will have to try to compete, but will also have to convincingly through it. This may be trickier than it sounds because other strategy savvy players will probably be doing the same thing.

If you successfully finish in the middle of the competition, you’re not done yet! The next most common justification for early nomination is that the HOH hasn’t gotten to know you yet/you haven’t made a connection with them. Don’t fall into that trap!

Make sure you go out of your way to have a good, lengthy personal conversation with every houseguest as early on as possible – thus eliminating that excuse. You always want to make sure you have at least one very brief game related conversation because another popular excuse for early nomination is that the HOH didn’t talk game with you. However, with both of these it’s important to maintain some balance as, after week one, people who are viewed as “Social Butterflys” or who are “Playing the game too hard too fast” or “talking too much game” are generally the next people who’re easy to target.

The last thing you can do; avoid any annoying habits and try not to be too loud of a personality or draw attention to yourself. If you’re annoying the house too much you can easily be unanimously voted out similar to what happened to Anick and, almost, to Gary.

Stick to these guidelines and you should survive your first week in the house just fine!