My least favorite Pop Tart

.....is by far Ashley Fucking Tisdale.

Something about her just makes my skin crawl and causes my hands to form fists that want to fight.

Watch this and tell me it doesn't make you

a) hate her

b) never ever again want to watch The Little Mermaid

No Disney. Not this time.

Thanksgiving in photos

Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving 2007.

It's so nice NOT to go home sometimes!

Jessica the Hippo

So last week my roommate and I finally stopped being cheap bitches and got cable. Since last Tuesday I have watched enough television to more than make up for my long tenure without more than 6 clear channels.

I will be forever grateful to cable because last night I discovered Jessica the Hippo on Animal Planet.

Jessica is an orphaned hippo that this South African couple saved after a flood and raised in their home. She's really something else. Jessica top loves are eating sweet potatoes, drinking coffee and playing with puppies. Watching this hippo play with puppies is the sweetest. They tried to get her to eat healthier and stopped giving her sweet potatoes and the poor baby got DEPRESSED!! She's also very curious about her surroundings and likes to go in the house. She got really good at opening doors and loved to go in and lay on the her owners' bed. Shoot me already before I die from cute overload!!! The hippo can open doors!!!

The sad part is that the attempts to reintroduce her to the wild haven't been working so well. But she has a human family that loves her so much, she gets a massage every night before she goes to bed so that's a plus for NOT being in the wild. My family definitely did not give me a nightly massage while I was growing up.

How can you not just fall right in love with Jessica?

Pretty girls just can't play nice

I pride myself on being the kind of hot girl who doesn't stoop to pranks to prove her own hotness amongst others.

Unlike whoever pulled this joke:

Apparently Ms Rivera, the beauty queen contestant who broke out in hives due to her makeup being tainted, was considered "too experienced" for this pageant and someone was out to teach her a lesson.


My favorite quote from the article is from the prank laden contestant and is about staying in the pageant:

"At one point I said, 'Am I a masochist?'" she recalled, her voice breaking. "But I said, 'I am with God and this is my goal, regardless of the results.'"

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I have cable and can't seem to leave the TV. But while watching an E! True Hollywood Story on Jessica and Ashlee Simpson I realized this:

Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson have mothers who are twins who were obviously separated at birth. Lynne Spears was put in a trailer park in Louisiana while Tina Simpson was sent to a shanty town in Texas. They both went on to marry similar looking men and have similar looking children.

I got cable today!!

I HAVE CABLE!!!!

It's been 3 1/2 long years but my time to shine has come. I cannot wait to be home!!!

Help!! My pussy has teeth!

This is a real movie.

This is a real movie.

This is a real movie.

That's right. This is a real movie.

If I didn't have a boyfriend......

I love shiny things

My tragic flaw is that I'm a very impulsive buyer. If its shiny and bright and costs under $30, I usually really can't live without it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a store called Steps. It's right by my work on a particularly grimy corner of 39th and 8th Avenue. It's one of those stores that has a 14 day exchange-only policy on their merchandise. In the tradition of Forever 21 and Charlotte Rouse, Steps is a place that sells semi-okay designer knockoffs that look really designer in the dark. I went to Steps to buy tights. I came out with purple legwarmers and a sequined dress.

I almost didn't buy the sequined dress. I didn't even try it on--its shimmering magnificence caught my eye while I waited in line and suddenly I was grabbing for it--I just happened to pick up a medium. I took this as a sign that the dress was meant to be mine and threw it on the counter for the saleslady to ring up before I had a chance to say to myself, "Where the fuck will you wear this to Brandy?"

By the time I did ask myself this question the dress was bought and I was back out on 8th Avenue and making my way to the subway.


I got the chance to wear it last night. My roommate and I went to an underground speakeasy party in Brooklyn and we got to dress like flappers. If there's one thing that my roommate and I can both get into, it's dressing up for theme parties.



So it's not the best picture but hopefully you can see why I had to have this dress after not even a moment's hesitation.

I just really love shiny bright things. Remember Lisa Frank? She was the queen of purple and pink and glitter. For a short time n my late elementary school years, if something didn't have glitter on it, I had no use for it in my life. I own seven pairs of different colored shiny patent leather flats. I have a pair of heels that are covered in gold glitter. I had to stop myself from getting a pair of neon Adidas sneakers because I when it came down to it, I didn't need the shoes, I wanted their brightness. If it's shiny and plasticky and glittery, by God, I NEED IT.

I hope this helps everyone when determining what types of Christmas gifts you'd like to get for me.

Unfortuate Irony

And then:

I used to really love Serendipity. I went there on one of my first trips to NYC and at 18 I thought that the Frozen Hot Chocolate was the coolest thing ever. I think proceeded to make Serendipity my New York date spot and whenever I'd visit the current boyfriend and I would have a romantic tete-a-tete over a delicious dessert in a cozy restaurant corner.

Then I moved here and discovered that this city is full of romantic date spots and there's no reason to wait the 2 hours it takes to get a table at Serendipity if all you're looking for is a little atmosphere and ambiance.

I'm still a little confused as to who exactly would pay $25,000 for a dessert that is made with gold.

Brandy's advice for the day:

Never pay that much for something you're going to shit out.

PS: Unless it's coke ;)

Let's all learn this dance!

I'm a few months late on wanting to learn this but I'm into it now. That's right--the Soulja Boy dance!

My 6 six year old niece can do it and so can you!!

Myspace really knows me

I've been over Myspace since succumbing to the allures of Scrabulous and Facebook but I still check it. I know where my online social networking started and there will always be a special place in my heart for Myspace and the awful graphics.

Today I fell in little in love with my Myspace page:

Such great sponsored links!!!

Fuck you Facebook:

I'm into...

Terry Gross.

I recently discovered that I was completely sick of my iPod. There were too many songs yet I wasn't getting enough variety because I got lazy with playlists. And to think that I died for that iPod. For all 4 iPods I've had. I thought I couldn't live without it. But now I was suddenly sick of it.

My friend Christos suggested listening to the This American Life podcast as a reprieve from hearing the Chris Brown Umbrella remix yet again. I had no idea what a podcast was and assumed that it was confusing and not relevant to my life. But I downloaded it anyway.

And now I'm hooked. Podcasts aren't hard at all--and you don't have to do anything to keep up with them except click "refresh" everyday.

In addition to This American Life, I also subscribed another NPR show--Fresh Air.

It's an interview show and it's hosted by a woman named Terry Gross. Terry Gross has the most calming and soothing voice I've ever heard. I feel immediately at ease as soon as she said "I'm Terry Gross, and welcome to Fresh Air."

She interviews so many different kinds of people from celebrities to scientists to authors to army generals. And I always learn something new that makes me feel smart and connected to the world. She asks all the questions that I want to ask and she makes sure that the interviewee gives an answer that she and all her listeners can understand.

Thank you Terry Gross for giving something awesome to listen to everyday.

And in case you're wondering--you can download Fresh Air for yourself here. While you're at it, give This American Life a try too.

Noteworthy news

According to this little girl's parents, the circus wanted to buy her off their hands.

I want to let it be known that I've added the following to my list of Things I Never Want To Happen:

• The circus coming to my door asking to buy my baby.
  

And you can read more about this real 8-limbed toddler here.

*UPDATE*: She's ok!!!!

Sunday on the Upper West Side

I've always thought of the Upper West Side as "Real New York." This was the New York the Babysitters' Club saw when they visited Stacy in the city. This was the New York Woody Allen had nervous breakdowns in on the regular. It was on Broadway and Columbus and West 86th and 72nd that Judy Blume placed Fudge and Peter and where its was possible for dinosaurs to come alive at night in museums. This was the New York that was attainable to me--it wasn't a far fetched dream like the Upper East Side. I could have the Upper West Side.

I'd know that I made it if I could move to the Upper West Side.

But now I'm a grown-up and I live in the East Village and I wouldn't trade my Little Dominican Republic building for anything but I still feel pangs of want whenever I'm up and over on the west side.

Sunday Justin and I decided around 1pm that we should really take a cab up to 86th and Amsterdam and go to a little cafe we'd just seen Rachael Ray rave about on Tasty Travels. Twenty bucks later we were standing in front of Popover Cafe and $100 after that, we were stuffed full of popovers and brunch and wading our way down Broadway in a flurry of marathon runners, Maclaren strollers, and hip blonde moms with matching toddlers and Uggs.

Walking down those quiet side streets--77th between Columbus and Central Park West, 89th between Amsterdam and Broadway; it was wonderful and made me fall even more in love with this city. I was walking hand in hand with my boyfriend in our very own "Autumn in New York" and I wouldn't have been surprised if a light jazzy soundtrack started playing and tracing our steps through the sidewalks of the Upper West Side.

It was one of those perfect Sunday afternoons and was straight out of the titles of a Woody Allen movie. We walked down Central Park West and in the aftermath of the NYC marathon yesterday it was strangely quiet and serene. People always say that New York is so loud--it's something special when you find a quiet moment in the middle of the chaos.

We made it back to the East Village in no time thanks to the ever magnificent D train. Turning from 1st Ave down 2nd Street put a little dance in my step--this always happens when I know I'm close to home. The marble and gold of the doormaned buildings by the park had given way to walk-ups and corner delis and cute kids who don't have nannies playing in the street.

I don't think I'll be able to move on up to the Upper West Side even when I have the money. Downtown has become my Real New York now.

This is me. Enjoying a popover.

I just posted my first youtube video!!

Kailyn and Amme are just the cutest things. Whenever people show me pics of their cute relatives, I think, "God, my girls are still SO MUCH CUTER!"

I'm a bad blogger

Hi everyone.

I apologize for my lack of insightfully humorous posts as of late. I was in Texas for work sweating my ass off and driving a Suburban around fitting in with the locals. And then I was back and it was Halloween and you know how that goes.

But now here I be and coming at you on a regular basis from here on out. I will be penning some fabulous blog posts about everything including but not limited to topics such as:

• Britney's new album (it sucks)
• My head trauma (I hit my head really hard getting into a cab this morning and I think I'm dying)
• Preteen fiction (I started on my book and writing about 7th graders is really fun)
• Halloween is over (thank god--too much pressure!)
• My incredibly adorable boyfriend (had to get it out there just because)
• Scrabulous (still addicted)

And much, much more.


Here are some pictures since I know some of you are really visual:

Partying it up.

This is how they do it in New Jersey

Kristyn as Madonna

That's right--I went there.

I don't have enough cute Jacobs' pics on my blog