Friday, February 29, 2008

The Britney Comeback -- A Risk Analysis



Risk StatementImpact (1-5)Probability (1-5)Exposure: ImpactxProbabilityMitigation Action
Popstar not capable of getting through interview without using the "word" 'y'all.'3515Immediately begin covert pro-south advertising campaign called "Y'all are people too" or "Let me hear y'all yee-haw!" in hopes of endearing the music listening public to the vernacular and dialect of rural Louisiana
Abs not what they used to be. Popstar resistant to crunches, fickle public resistant to pudgy pop stars.4416Convert popstar to Buddhism, leak story that belly is homage to her spiritual leader.
Popstar may become or may already be pregnant with the baby of her skeezy paparazzi boyfriend.3515Chastity belt.
Popstar apt to flash her girly bits without warning.3412Chastity belt mitigation suggested for above risk should address this as well. 2 birds, 1 very strong piece of metal.
Cheetos addiction leads to unsightly orange stains on clothing.4520Signature color!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Bloggers for Charity Book


Bloggers for Charity is putting together a book to benefit War Child International. War Child International is an international network of charity organizations devoting to helping children who are affected by war. I've submitted a piece to the book and you can too! Instructions here.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

2 Inferior Posts in a Row. Blame Lisa.

Lunch Day 2. The leftover restaurant food theme continues, this time with Bindi Masala from Delhi Palace in Jackson Heights. For my nonIndian readers (Everyone except Kajal and even she might be Puerto Rican) that means "Really yummy okra. No seriously, it's good. Yes good okra. No, it's not even fried. It's totally good. Seriously." I would have certainly eaten all of it last night had I not had samosa chat and 1/3 of a dosa and some naan to fill me up. (I am seriously considering forgoing Friday's weekly weigh in -- ahhhhh denial you are my best friend.).

I offered to order and pick up take out last night on my way over to Amy and Joe's palatial Jackson Height's co-op for our evening plans of catching up on Lost. This is the nicest thing I have offered to do ever because I hate calling to order food. I can't explain this other than to say that I generally don't love talking on the phone especially when the phone call is being used just to relay info (as opposed to chatting) and I do not understand why all takeout places do not accept email orders. Ordering Indian food can be especially stressful since many of the dishes use words that my very caucasian tongue is not capable of pronouncing and there is a possibility (though a much smaller possibility that when ordering say, Chinese) that the person on the other end of the phone will not speak English or will have a thick enough accent that I will not be able to understand them. When this happens I usually just order a number 1 and bail out but when ordering for other this is not a viable plan ("oh look, 3 number 1s! how did that happen?!"). So I went to plan B -- ask my Indian friend (Ms. Boriqua) to practice pronunciation with me. Sadly she was next to no help, claiming that many of the words used were somehow not words in her vocabularly and implying that they could be from a secret different kind of Indian which momentarily had me excited about the prospect of a Native American restaurant right here in New York City (mmmm Fry Bread).

Lunch today was eaten in front of the weekly Settler's of Catan match where, as expected, there was at least 5 jokes made based on someone's acquisition of/need for/offering of wood. As I am always the only girl playing there might have been some sheepish blushing in my direction but in actuality there was none -- probably because I am also the person most likely to giggle at a good "I got wood!" joke. I got my ass kicked for the 400th time in a row.

Lunch posts are always boring: 2
No they're not!: 0

Monday, February 25, 2008

The Quality of this Post May Disprove its Content

There's a blogging advice book on the market (yes, that day has come) called, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch which is devoted to the topic of how bloggers too often write about boring crap. I haven't read the book since I prefer to draw uninformed conclusions but the author claims to offer interesting writing topics to snaz up your boring old blog. I'm all but positive that she forgot to advocate for public nudity or embarking on a series of awful relationships and thank god -- I need to retain my niche. Anyway, I suspect the book is mostly correct -- there are a lot of boring blogs out there -- however I also suspect that the problem is not a lack of interesting topics, it's the bad writing. Lisa and I were chatting on Friday and hypothesized that certainly lunch could make for an interesting post since really good writing is rarely based on having a good topic (though a good topic probably makes good writing easier to come by) so why not write about your lunch? Because we are huge rebels (who also love to eat stuff, especially at the noon hour!) we agreed to both write posts about lunch and since Lisa is a bit of an over achiever she decided to write FIVE posts about lunch. And since Lisa is also an evil bitch who wants me to lose all of my readers she decided I was also writing five posts about lunch. We'll see.

Today's lunch is leftover cassoulet from last weeks inaugural meeting of the Wine Club spin off "Eating Fancy Food and Gossiping About Celebrities Club" which was held at the restaurant AOC. How bourgeois do I sound with my frenchie lunch? I also just finished the Julia Child autobiography, My Life in France so I'm pretty much an expert on all edible French things. For those nonexperts reading this post cassoulet is a French tomato based casserole with white beans, duck confit and sausage and pork fat (read: ambrosia of the gods). My leftover portion of France's version of Hamburger Helper (queue all of France hating me, but those Pierres need to cut me a break -- cassoulet comes in canned form! You don't even add your own freshly ground ecoli infested chuck!) is smaller than I would like (since I would *like* to eat a bucketful) but I'm fairly certain that the calorie content is more than sufficient to constitute a full lunch. That said I foresee myself breaking into my stash of granola bars or possible sneaking downstairs for a PB&J come 3:00pm (so much for maintaining that fancy food allure). The best part of the cassoulet was the sausage which I ate every morsel of in the restaurant last week so today I am left with a piece of pork fat and a few bits of duck meat and a lot of white beans. Luckily the sauce makes the beans pretty yummy and also has the wonderful side effect of fooling my coworkers into believing that I am eating a very healthy lunch despite the fact that everything in my Tupperware is coated in a loving blanket of fat.

I am normally pretty disciplined about making some sort of healthy food on the weekend and eating it all week for lunch, this, along with my "oatmeal or cold cereal with 6+ grams of dietary fiber for breakfast" rule is my weight maintenance plan and generally offsets the evenings full of Indian take out and cornmeal pancakes made with 3/4 stick of butter (and consumed watching skinny chicks on Top Model). But the last 2 weekends have been busy (Especially this past Saturday when I had to not only lounge around in bed until 1pm but also needed to watch The Real Dirt on Farmer John and the Jamaica episode of No Reservations -- I really over booked myself) and I fear that the lack of healthy lunch combined with the fact that my new freezer totally keeps ice cream frozen (a feature not offered by the old model so obviously I had to buy a tub of Neopolitan Dynamite and eat it everyday) will result in me gaining about 50lbs. I may have to counter with a couple of liquid dinners or by farming myself out as a wet nurse.

I still contend that an interesting "what I had for lunch" post is perfectly possible... even if this is not that post.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Brianna and Amy Go on Vacation

Possible reasons why the check out clerk at the grocery store in Light House Point Florida (where it is 80 degrees in February -- everyone living north of the Mason Dixon is a sucker) exclaimed, "You've gotta be kidding me!" upon examining my ID.

  • Amy was changing footwear (from flip flops to sneakers) in line.
  • I was wearing a t shirt with the words "Guess what?" followed by an arrow pointing to the picture of a chicken's rear end (thanks for the birthday gift Kajal!)
  • Just before paying I commented to Amy, "Imitation crab is the one constant in our friendship."

Shockingly she didn't call the cops (or the "Living Martyrs" whose van we passed on the road -- apparently God no longer requires you to die in order to achieve martyr status provided you're willing to be a huge dick while alive).

Monday, February 11, 2008

Finally, An Update on My Bras

You may have noticed that over the past 9 months I've become quite the Richie. I've spent over $100 on one pair of jeans and recently purchased boots for $175! I am even considering replacing my now ripped $20 Target rain boots with a $100 pair of Hunters. In the past I have often refused to purchase a full priced item on principle alone mostly because I get more satisfaction from the feeling of getting a good deal than the feeling of having purchased something I really love. And while I still religiously stalk the JCrew online sale (where someone needs to mark down the cashmere henleys below $100) I also have cautiously begun trying on clothing that isn't even on the sale rack and I have to admit that sometimes pricier goods really are nicer. As I have commented in the past the most troubling and unrewarding world of shopping is that of bras. There is no other places where sizes vary so drastically, where pretty almost always equals nonfunctional, where nothing ever seems to go on sale. And of course there is no more well scrutinized female body part then the breast. And thus is created a horribly unsatisfying shopping experience. Last week, partially inspired by new willingness to spend real money on items of clothing, I decided to finally give the expensive bras a chance to wow me so on Friday I tentatively jumped on Oprah's Good Ship Pricey Bra by taking a trip the the Upper West Side's famous brassier-ery, The Town Shop.

After rushing out of work at 5:15 due to the shop's ridiculously early closing time I walked into the store and pretty much announced to the entire staff that I hated all of my bras which, I assume, is exactly what they want to hear -- I figured why not play into the myth and get the full experience? A young latina sales girl had me in a dressing room and naked from the waist up within five minutes of entering the shop which is about the time I realized that all of my rushing had overpowered my 10 hours old deodorant. I assume that sales ladies at a lingerie shop see a lot of breasts and are therefore unimpressed with the idiosyncrasies of my own boobs (which are completely normal. Seriously! Don't look at me like that!) but is it safe to also assume that they are A-OK with an end of day musk? Let's just hope there's not some secret bra fitter blog out there with a Friday entry about a particularly aromatic customer. Anyway -- they do a lot of staring at your boobs in the Town Shop. If you're the kind of girl who can't get comfortable in the large open dressing room in Filene's Basement or who shies away from the mirror when getting out of the shower you might want to ingest a few shots of liquid courage or possibly a couple of Valium before taking off on your own bra shopping sojourn. La Chica de Bras now knows my breasts much more intimately than any of the boys who have been lucky enough to see them in the past few years and possible better than my OBGYN, my favorite bikini top and my future offspring put together.

They don't do any measuring at the Town Shop which I assume is supposed to make me feel more confident because these women are just so adept at fitting boobies into brassieres that measuring tapes are almost archaic but I would have felt more comfortable if the official assessment of my gifts were a bit more quantifiable. I was last measured at Bloomingdales in December of 05 where they downgraded my new post weightloss breasts from 34Ds to 32Cs which seemed about right to me. But over the last couple of years I've noticed a disturbing mass boob exodus from the confines of the 32C bras. In the morning everything will be fine, the bra comfortable, the sweater puppies contained, etc. And then, around noon, I'd glance downward and notice that a jail break was in progress. Somehow I'd have half a boob in and half out thus creating the illusion of 3 or 4 boobs where once there were 2 (And sadly more boobs is somehow not better than fewer). So clearly there was a problem and despite ample evidence to the contrary it seemed unlikely that my boobs were inflating as the day progressed.

I cannot deny that even without the reassuring comfort of numbers the bras that Lil' Miss Titsling brought back to my dressing room fit pretty well. For reasons that I am completely incapable of deducing she insisted on putting each bra on for me and behaved as if we were squeezing my barrel-like chest into a corset -- I believe at one point she had her foot up on a chair for leverage as she pulled the band around to the final hook. This show was wholly unnecessary as I was capable of easily hooking each bra without so much as a grunt. Perhaps other women feel better about getting all spend-y on bras if it seems that the store staff is seriously exerting themselves. The most concerning event was when the sales lady referred to my right breast as my "titty" which I'm trying to convince myself is a technical term.

At the end of the day I went in for the bra equivalent of buying every album ever released by a new favorite artist and purchased THREE (only vaguely grandma inspired) bras for a shocking $196. So the obvious question is do these new riggings increase my boobage stock by $200? Hard to say. I asked a coworker to check out my rack (it's a casual work environment.) and while she agreed that "they look good!" she claims to not have been regularly checking them out in the past and so could not offer a comparison. Clearly this girl is a huge liar. I can tell you one thing for certain -- there ain't no rocking on this ship. The girls are strapped in and immobile. I think this is generally a good thing.

Friday, February 08, 2008

With Abs Like This Who Needs Shirts?

Some Guy in a Bowflex Commercial: I gave all of my fat clothes to my fat friends!
Brianna: "hey fatties, I brought you some more shirts to grow out of!"
Mike: "Don't thank me now!"
Brianna: "Thank me later when I give you my old fat girlfriends!"
Mike: "Y'all can be my wingmen, which is funny because nothing that big could ever get off the ground!"

Thursday, February 07, 2008

The B.F.L.

The following babble is cross posted at Burt Reynolds' Mustache.

In my modern life I hide behind a career in software and a love of guys with the last name Mario (especially if their first name also happens to be Mario)in hopes that I will exude a level of geeky-cool so complete that no one will ever suspect that I was once only steps away from a level of theater nerdiery so advanced that in high school I bemoaned my lack of access to a Renaissance fair. The truth is that in addition to my computer science degree I have a lesser known Theater Arts degree that I earned primarily through my brilliant portrayal of a French women who was into some freaky incest with her very own brother. College theater likes to push the envelope, often in the direction of really bad ideas. During my senior year in college I was involved in a couple of plays with my friends Amy and Jill and one very cute sophomore boy who came to be known as The BFL. Amy and Jill and I were speeding along on our way to adulthood and in the spirit of clinging to the small bit of time left in our collective childhoods we devoted way too much energy to discussing this boy. (Do you like how I imply that now that we are adults we never do things like spend entire afternoons munching on fries and talking about boys? Hilarious.). There was giggling, and lewd commentary, and a graph of his behavior. As the one computer science major in a sea of English degrees I probably have to take personal responsibility for the graph. I'd like to claim that I am not proud of this behavior but that would be a lie because I think graphing a person's actions against how those actions affect my opinion of said person is a brilliant idea and, frankly, wish I had time to compile and chart data on everyone I know because then I would be almost as cool this Polish play write guy
He kept a formal list of his friends in order of importance. His best friend would be in the first position and so on. In the event that a "friend" somehow irritated him or, perhaps, pleased him in some way he would be demoted or promoted on the list as the case may be. Witkacy then would send a formal letter to the person indicating his new position. Occasionally he would publish the list in the local newspaper.

This post was going to be about the graph and possibly also about how the making of the graph is representative of every ridiculous thing I have ever done and probably something that I should discuss with a doctor. And this would have been an ok post because who among us doesn't love a good graph based yarn at the writer's expense? But then I googled my former crush and now? Now the story is all about something else. Let's start with the acronym (acronyms = almost as cool as graphs) BFL. Blue Friendly Leroy? Nope. Best Freehand Lassoer? Nu-uh. Bright Fuzzy Leftie? Negatory. BFL stands for Big Fat Liar which is perhaps the most understated nickname I have ever bestowed upon a boy because when it came to stretching the truth our yummy little sophomore could give James Frey a run for his million little pieces (of lies coated in a sweet dusting of crazy).

It all started when he missed a play rehearsal supposedly because he had an audition for some soap opera in NEW YORK CITY (back in college I considered NYC a very big deal and totally worthy of CAPS LOCK). At first we three found this incredibly exciting, what if our little sophomore crush got famous! Certainly this would prove that our collective crush was well deserved and that we have the best taste in the world when it comes to vaguely immature swooning. His plot to skip out on rehearsals would have worked too if not for a meddling 1st year theater student who was desperate enough for a little love from a group of senior girls to cop to seeing The BFL at the sketchiest college bar in the world which is shockingly not located in NEW YORK CITY with the soap stars but 300+ miles away in the exact same town where we went to school! But how could a boy travel to the city, get teary over the death of his father who also happens to be his uncle and who had in an earlier episode threatened to keep him out of the will if he didn't force his pregnant girlfriend to abort their love child, and then travel back upstate all before ridiculously early weekday last call at midnight? Soon after this little episode things spiraled out of control. Below is a (nowhere near exhaustive) list of the series of lies that spewed from The perfect pouty lips of The BFL on a daily basis.
  • He told us he went on a date with a classmate and included details like how she smoked on the date and how this turned him off (we ran into that girl not 3 hours later, she had canceled the date earlier in the evening.)
  • He claimed that he was on the short list for the neurotic prep school boy in Rushmore (this seemed unlikely and years later we watched the dvd extras and confirmed that he was in no way short listed).
  • One day he described his bedroom at his parents house. Firstly the room is apparently round. Next to the bed was a mini fridge. On top of the fridge was a waffle maker. Inside of the fridge he always kept a supple of pre-made waffle mix. This is all so he can roll over on the morning after and whip up some waffles for his many lady friends. (I wish this were true because it would be a sure sign that there is hope for 20 year old boys everywhere. Sadly I know he was lying because were the waffle claims legit dude would have had bare chested women following him around in awe. (boys, take note, the ability to supply me with waffles as soon as I wake up is one of the best way to ensure seeing me naked)).

And then one day, shortly before the debut of the end of term one acts The BFL found out about his nickname and stopped speaking to us. He could not be reasoned with. This may have been because my attempt at reasoning with him was "but... well... you did lie A LOT so the nickname is kind of accurate... " His inability to see my side of things was sad mostly because I was supposed to perform in a scene with him that would have had both of us naked on the steps of the theater building acting out phone sex. (envelope pushed? check. bad idea? check.).

So, fast forward to today. You know when kids do mean things in grade school and moms the world over swear that someday they'll get what's coming to them in the form of a valuable life lessons or (if we're lucky) a disfiguring punch in the face? Well it turns out moms (or at least my mom) are fucking brilliant. This post might have been a charming little tale of early adulthood silliness between three older (and I do say ravishingly beautiful) women and a younger lad looking to impress them. We might all assume that I am a bit of bitch for calling out a boy on his lies nearly 8 years hence and I would concede that in general, I suck. Except this time I don't. This time it turns out that my little story is precursor to another little story that USA Today reported on (if I may be so bold as to use "reported on" in reference to USA Today). (Afraid that having USAToday.com in your internet history might get you fired? I'll sum up: HE MADE UP AN ENTIRE DOCUMENTARY FILM).

Yes, my own little BFL is the Jason Blair of the film world. The best part is that he totally could have interviewed the actual subject of the film but he decided to just hire an actor instead --it seems possible that his biggest vice might actually be sloth not dishonesty

I think Amy put it best,

He must have thought, "eh, he would be really old if he's alive... in fact... probably dead. I'll just hire some old guy. Old guys look all the same, and there are tons down here in Florida. In fact, if he was alive, he'd probably be in Florida. I don't see him. Must be dead." Understandably his next thought was "Hmm. I bet he liked pancakes. He could have some batter in a mini fridge next to his bed... no... no mini fridges in the 40s. Dammit. How can I tie in breakfast food..."

Now obviously the most important lesson to be learned from this story is that I give prophetic nicknames but there may be other take aways. Karma will kick your ass. Sometimes actor does equal liar. And of course, don't fuck with Pat Croce -- dude wrote no less than 2 books on pirates.

When I first contemplated this post I had planned to not reveal the name of The BFL because I am classy and also because I much prefer talking about people behind their back to actual confrontation (everything I know I learned in grade 6). I would hate to have this page pop up at him the next time he googles himself (as I assume all people do on a weekly basis) because that could lead to him actually talking to me. Luckily, USA Today did that dirty work for me and he's already outed as Mr. Pants Aflame all over town. The only thing left for me to do was edit his wikipage.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Technically This Is Not a Tabloid


Mike interviewed me which is almost like real media coverage except that I think he did it just to make me feel better about the Daily News forgetting about me. Mike's a good friend (and a good blogger, you should poke around on his site after you get done learning more about how awesome I am).

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Random Recommends 9

Chuck Klosterman

I would like to sleep with Chuck Klosterman. This is not because he is so smart/witty/hilarious that he has become sexy to me despite his unfortunate nose and general air of goofishness. Chuck is smart/witty/hilarious but these things pretty much never make a girl want to sleep with a boy (I believe this is something that CK himself has observed). People who argue that smarts equals crazy hawt are usually just smart folks who are trying to convert others to this line of reasoning so that in future their own (perhaps not so hawt) ass can get some action. I should know because selling such hogwash is the third official goal of this very blog. No, I want to fuck CK because having sex with someone is like voting and doing the nasty with Chuck is like casting a vote for nerdy writers and I am very pro nerdy writers. Hopefully after our little romp word will spread that hot chicks (me.) LOVE nerdy writers and other nerdy writers with be encouraged by this. Perhaps such buzz will inspire latent talent in those not previously self identifying as nerdy writers. And then all of us are rewarded with more entertaining essays on popculture. It's public service sex. God bless democracy. (consider this my official nod to Super Tuesday).

Mrs. May's Pumpkin Crunch


I bought this snack pack because I needed something crunchy to munch on that could somehow be construed as not horribly bad for me. I went into the deli wanting a bag of salt and vinegar chips and/or possible an entire package of goat cheese smeared on some crusty bread so the pumpkin crunch was obviously a bit of a compromise. However this lesser evil allowed me seven pieces for a mere 164 calories which seemed decidedly healthy in comparison to every other remotely yummy thing on the planet. Dear GOD these are good. If I ever weigh 300lbs it will be directly related to portion control because SURE 164 calories is a totally reasonable snack but that statistic is based on the theory that one can limit their pumpkin crunch intake to less than 45 pieces per sitting and maybe somewhere there is a super race of highly advanced mutants who can conform to such fascist restrictions but I am a mere mortal.

Tweezerman Tweezers


Let's be honest, we all have a few hairs hanging out in places where one would like to pretend hair never grows (no need to reveal these places by name). If you're like me (read: a seriously cheap mofo) you tell yourself that the $8 tweezers that they sell at the drug store are totally capable of ridding your body of such unsightliness. You are wrong. Were it not for tweezerman I would be in the freakshow. I bought one in red because I'm a whore but they come in lots of chaste colors too.