We were in a suburban backyard, a guest at a party filled with people we didn't like. The hosts were the type of people who owned pugs -- small, filthy dogs, smelly and gassy, that run around underfoot and yap.

As the party went on, more and more of the dogs kept arriving, until we found ourselves standing in a virtual rising tide of ugly, tiny, barking dogs.

We tried to bring the plague of grinning, identical pugs to someone's attention, but no one would look at us. The hosts and other guests were just talking about themselves incessantly.

Finally, a big, strapping guy on crutches came over to us. He was looking around at the dogs with a sort of pacific pleasure.

He picked a dog up into his arms. The horrid animal immediately started licking his face.

"Stop," we cried in horror. "Don't do that!"

The big guy wasn't listening. It was as if he couldn't hear us. Strange, druggy music began swelling in the background.

"Don't!" we yelled again, as the dog's tongue lapped his face. The music rose in volume. The young man couldn't hear us!

"Don't let it lick you!" we said. "That dog eats chicken poop!"

Suddenly we were awake, or we thought we were awake. The dream was still going on!

It was all on TV!

There we were, as usual, watching "Big Brother."

We didn't feel good, though. We felt uneasy, as if we'd come uncomfortably close to an unthinkable, horrible end.

We made a note to ourselves:

"Get life."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"Big Brother" may be big, but he sure takes a while to catch on.

Tonight, just two weeks before the sweet, merciful end, the Stentorian Sibling seems to want to ask, just who are the real George and Jamie? And are they really who they seem?

The episode starts off with the much-dreaded juggling challenge. The boys had arrogantly wagered 50 percent of their weekly food budget on this challenge back in the days before the Great Hamster Rebellion debacle, when they were feeling revolutionary and macho.

Now "Big Brother" is going to make them pay for their hubris. After a dour countdown -- Yard Voice is withering and cruel -- clown music plays. The housemates start juggling. The housemates, of course, lose.

"Housemates, you have failed the challenge," booms Yard Voice, who come to think of it sounds really depressed, like "no reason to get out of bed" depressed.

But as Eddie and George mock Yard Voice, George dusts off the falsetto he uses when he wants to make everything seem like it's OK but it's not.

"I think we did okaaay. It was okaaaay."

No, they didn't, but who cares? Jamie is so glad he said that!

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