The competition begins, and houseguests skate unsteadily down their lanes at varying speeds. Slipping on her way back, Danielle tries to use a lane marker to pull herself back uphill to the barrel until Julie says that's against the rules. Someone might have thought of that earlier.

There are clearly varying strategies at play here. Danielle and Ian are going for HoH, while Ashley starts filling her smaller "Safety" jug, which is probably wise given that she's moving at the speed of a jellyfish. Joe's also going for Safety. Probably because he expects to be nominated again this week. And it's not like anybody could have a private conversation in the HoH room with him anyway.

After an ad break, we rejoin the competition still in progress, with Frank sitting on the sidelines in extravagant boredom and the players getting bleeped some more. Julie plugs the upcoming week of shows, which will include a double eviction on Thursday. Finally. Too bad I won't be here to see it.

Julie gets back on the PA, remarking that Mike's the only one going for the cash, while the other eight are split down the middle between HoH and Safety. Jenn calls out that Julie looks great, and asks if she has a sister. Thank you for reminding us of your existence, Jenn. Given the large vessels that need to be filled using tiny cups, we're out long before any actual progress is made. But I'm sure we'll know how this turns out by halfway through Sunday's episode.

M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.