Brandon is (as are others) bothered by "there is" when the verb should be plural but he guesses people do it because it flows off the tongue easier.

There is that, but it's also not unknown in other languages for the corresponding idiom to be regular and singular, even in languages that have far less regularity in their verb conjugations than do we in English. See the German es gibt as in es gibt vierzehn Hünde in meinen Nachbarschaft or the Spanish hay as in en mi barrio hay catorce perros.