She sure is in shape, though.

But why does she hold that card that says "Big Brother" on it all the time? Is it like a CBS hall pass? Does she sometimes wander off the set and onto other shows' sound-stages? 'Cause we've heard rumors.

Anyway, it's the Wednesday live-banishment extravaganza, and Julie launches into her usual routine. Her captive audience greets her with its customary enthusiasm, applauding on cue as if on an infomercial.

Chen greets the hamsters with her usual elan.

"George, George, George," Julie chides her cherished manchild. Oh, she can't get enough of his antics!

George has bleached his hair platinum and is decked out in a toga, with some sort of faux laurel on his wrists and on his head like a crown. He looks like Hunkius, the first Roman transvestite emperor.

We'll be seeing a lot more of George tonight than we ever wanted to see. Especially after he gets emotional and starts raising his arms.

His back is a luxuriant carpet of comfort.

The Intrepid Pumpkin asks Jamie how it feels to be marked for banishment for the first time. Jamie describes it as "part of the experience."

We know what comes next -- a rousing entreaty to "live life." Our thoughts trail off as we wonder why no one has thought to throw Jamie a thesaurus, preferably an unabridged one expertly aimed, when we hear something that makes our ears perk up --

A follow-up question!

The merciless Chen has gotten Miss Maybelline to admit to a feeling!

"I'm a little nervous," Jamie concedes, tentatively. "I haven't eaten much today."

There may be a future for Chen after all on "The Early Show," the second worst TV show of all time. The chops she's learned on "Big Brother" will allow her to take on tougher interviewees in the future, like Martha Stewart, or Jeff Probst, or maybe even some people not employed by CBS.

George is a little nervous, too. He thinks he's getting 86'ed tonight. He's posted a few signs around the house in an effort to jump-start his career.

"Chicken George needs a job," reads one.

"For sale: '92 Ford pickup, see Chicken George," reads another.

"The Chicken Man's got that feeling that he's going to fly the coop," he tells Julie, who fails to point out that chickens don't fly but asks instead how he felt about getting nominated by every last hamster.

George assures Julie that he "loved it."

The real reason George was nominated by everyone is that Brittany blurted out to Josh that George's wife had all of Rockford involved in a scheme to target the other guests for banishment.

In the low-IQ world of the "Big Brother" house and its network environs, this exaggeration was inflamed into a much bigger one. So the other hamsters naturally went after him.

This elementary explanation isn't discerned by George or Julie.

"I'd had a really bad time the week before," George goes on, "and this is the first big laugh I laughed all week."

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