George, the dad from Illinois, and Curtis, the lawyer, get up early and dig up the residents' $100 prize in the garden.

The challenge today is fashioning a clock using two raw potatoes as the battery. The chore would bore even an eager Cub Scout to tears; the audience could be forgiven for noting that the "Survivor" producers had their cast eating bulbous maggots at this point.

The kids are going to get sick of having Mom and Dad around. Over breakfast, George gives an impassioned speech about his children: "That's my life, raising my family," he says. "You should know, it's not the sexual things, it's the companionship," he continues earnestly. Wonder if his wife feels the same way. He finally begins to cry. "I've never been away from them," he bawls.

It's the group's first breakfast together.

This sends Karen to the confession room again, crying as well. She has been in the house all of 24 hours and it's her second visit. George seems genuinely to miss his family; Karen, by contrast, is carrying a lot of negative emotional baggage. First chance she gets, she unloads on her husband in the confession room. "He brought up so much conflict, him being negative and not worrying about me," she sobs. We now know why Karen's in the "Big Brother" house. It was either that or Prozac.

More girl talk: Karen hates beauty pageants; she doesn't know Jamie is a beauty queen. Later, Jordan confides to Jamie that she's a stripper. She calls it being an "exotic dancer." She decides she's going to wait a while before telling the others. Jamie indicates that she won't tell anyone.

Cassandra catches Mega in the bathroom and talks straight: "They're gonna think you're a certain kind of brother when you go around shaking your booty," she says. She's telling him he's acting like a cartoon of a black guy. William's having none of it. "I gotta get something emotional goin'," he says. Speaking for many viewers, he says he's sick of the endless biographies being proffered.

George has a very hairy back.

And then it's dress-up time! Brittany, sporting green lipstick, dresses up Karen in a wig and kewpie lips. Wacky George gets ahold of the wig, dons sunglasses and calls himself "No Soul"; with a few posture pointers from William, he does the funky chicken.

(B.W.)