The Deerfield Beach, Florida, fight started because the victim, Michael Brewer (seen here), owed another boy $40 measly bucks for a video game. The indebted boy, 15-year old Matthew Bent, retaliated by stealing Brewer's father's bike, a crime for which Brewer called the cops.

That's when things got insane: Bent called up some friends and they went over to Brewer's house, allegedly doused him with lighter fluid and then set him on fire. And now for the truly disturbing detail: witnesses say Bent ordered "pour it on him," while the others laughed and chanted, "he's a snitch." (Apparently the s-word hasn't gone out of style.)

The five accused — the youngest of whom is 13 — have been charged with aggravated assault, but 15-year old Jesus Mendez, who allegedly started the fire, also faces attempted second degree charges. Brewer, meanwhile, suffered second degree burns all over his body.

All this over a stupid fucking video game, the root of all 21st century evil.

Image via WCBS.

Scientists, it's worth noting, aren't pinning the blame on climate change, although an unusually dry summer did contribute. What a coincidence.

While the late pop-star's dermatologist allegedly believes he's the father of Paris and Prince Michael, there are still rumors swirling around Blanket. And, of course, those rumors are wild, titillating and just plain wacky. Some believed that restrauteur Al Malnik fathered the long-haired 7-year old, but Malnik denied that claim.

Now, in an apparent grab for even more outlandish hearsay, British tabloid The Sun — and others — are citing sources who claim Macaulay Culkin shot his wad for the king of pop.

Thankfully, these sources are well aware that the nonsense their spouting sounds like bullshit:

So many names have been mentioned as prospective dads, and this is probably the wackiest yet. But Jackson and Culkin were best friends. He was one of the few people Jackson really trusted and Mack never let him down. Really, Jackson idolized him - that's why he asked Mack to donate sperm. Deep down, I think he always wished Mack was his son. Creating Blanket was the next best thing.

Actually, the more we think about this, the more it's feasible that Culkin did the deed for his buddy Jackson. As the source said, they were best friends. And what's more best friendly than donating your sperm so that your pal can create the illusion that you're actually his son? Nothing, really.

Really, this must stop. Marlon Jackson came out this weekend said perhaps the most sensible thing any of the family has said since Jackson's death: "Those were Michael's kids - regardless of where they came from." Here, here! These kids are going to be messed up. That's a fact. They hardly need the media circling like vultures, questioning from whence they came. But perhaps this is simply a sad example of supply and demand.

Praise be to the lord and all that is holy, Couric turned Jackson down, probably because he was a pedophile and also because he had "weird tape on his nose."

If the thought of Couric and Michael Jackson enjoying a romantic evening together isn't nauseating enough for you, you need turn only to this clip of Larry King on Jimmy Kimmel's show from two weeks ago, wherein King recounts his 1981 date with a young Couric in Washington, D.C., and actually utters the following words: "Once, I did Katie Couric."

Again with all appropriate praise to the TV gods, King misspoke: He did not "do" Couric, who is 24 years younger than King, because "I thought we were going to go up to the apartment, Katie and I, but she said she had a roommate." Naturally, Kimmel asked why King didn't go for the threesome. Sweet dreams tonight, kids!

Cook, who we presume must have been tipped by one of his "people" to the fact that Ben Silverman was out there on the internet just douching it up all over the place, stepped up his game and rose to the challenge like a true star. With his appearance on Oprah's show today, Cook effectively looked Silverman squarely in the eye and proclaimed, "I'll see you your topless locker room freestyle horseshit and raise you a rape role play fantasy"! And Oprah just sat there nodding approvingly, looking out over her audience of serfs glued anxiously to their seats in the fleeting hope that she might bestow a shitty car or a morsel of chicken upon them, and laughed, in typical thuggish overlord fashion. Then, she and Dane went backstage and engorged themselves on KFC while millions of Americans sleep hungry AGAIN tonight. The end.

And thanks to Gawker video intern Krutika Mallikarjuna for putting this clip together.

See, conservative superlobbyist Grover Norquist holds a secretive, off-the-record power breakfast each Wednesday with various DC conservative powerbrokers and journalists (WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE, KAUS?) For years, many have wondered what goes on at these meetings. Now we know: they wear ridiculous clothes, for laughs.

Some employee of Grover's got drunk and bought a Snuggie, which is how 100% of Snuggie purchases happen, and then he brought it into work. The rest is history! Terrible internet history! This guy promises to bring the Snuggie to the next Wednesday meeting, which means we'll soon have even MORE of these wonderful photos.

In the meantime, here are Joe, Tucker Carlson, and Andrew Breitbart, all looking ridiculous, wearing memes.

He dreams he's trapped in academia—strange academia:

My only company are the four gargoyles which adorn the corners of my diploma. They smile at me sinisterly.

As I say, this is how my nightmares always end.

That purple sunshine is killer. Sometimes David dreamed he was in the bookstore—zombie bookstore:

"Stop! Please!" I shout. "I can't read all these!"

"Oh, but you can," one of the zombies replies in an evil voices. "After all, this is what you're going to spend your life doing." And they begin laughing menacingly, echoing louder and louder until I'm finally crushed under the weight of the books, and I wake to find myself in the small office, chained to the degree.

Worst of all is when David dreamed he was watching the Brady Bunch in a room with wallpaper—trippy wallpaper:

I go back to the Brady Bunch and don't look up until a half-hour later, after Greg and Cindy have apologized to Bobby for stealing his skateboard. I notice the wallpaper is very strange.

Instead of the floral print I had expected, the guy is pasting up copies of Critical Inquiry and the American Journal of British Philology and The Annals of the Conference on Latin American Linguistics. When the walls are covered, the man leaves without a word. I notice that the room seems to be shrinking, the walls coming in on each other.

Doing that blue pyramid blotter in a colorful setting is a rookie mistake, dude. Explain yourself!

We contacted him to get his thoughts on the article, but Brooks came up blank. "Weird. I have no memory of that piece," he said.

HEH. [Chicago Maroon]

Other sought after qualities:

Has expensive tastes while being really cheap
Makes totally inappropriately timed comments
Always wants to go home early
Acts really cold to my sister
Gets extremely possessive and jealous
Constantly touches me at inappropriate times in inappropriate ways
Has a painfully obnoxious laugh or says "that's so funny" rather than laughing

Good lord, guy. Just walk out into the street and find the first girl reading New York Magazine! [Craigslist via DailyNuzzo]

1. The Case Of The Clean Scissors

[The following is an email sent out to employees at a library]:

Hello [library],

I just wanted to pass along a little reminder – not that anyone needs it – regarding our policy on offering the use of library scissors to the public (based on a little experience I had yesterday).

In short, our poicy is: if a patron asks to use scissors, please tell them that they may use them only at the (Ref. or Circ.) Desk. Never, ever, ever let them take the scissors away from the Ref. or Circ. Desk.

The importance of this policy came home to me yesterday: a man (one of our “regulars” – the fellow whom we’ve had to call the ambulance for several times recently) asked me if he could use the scissors, and I said he could use them only at the Desk. He asked me several times if he could take them for a few minutes, even offered to leave I.D., and I continued to say no.

Finally, I asked him why he needed to take them with him, and it turned out that he wanted to go to the Men’s room and cut the tip of a catheter bag that he was wearing so he could drain it.

I told him no, we can’t let him use our scissors for something that involves bodily functions, but that I would call the rescue squad to help him if he liked. He declined.

I don’t know what he did about his catheter bag.

And, yes, in over 20 years of library work, this is a first for me.

Thanks.

2. The Case Of The Non-Hobo

Just a couple of months ago this happened:

I have Hodgkins Lymphoma and am undergoing chemotherapy treatments. I've been holding up really well and still work full time. However, a medication given to me in addition to chemo made me very suddenly ill out of nowhere. I held it together enough to call my brother to pick me up, since I knew I would throw up all over the el or a taxicab (I work at Michigan & Wacker in downtown Chicago.) My boss caught me leaving and in a very trying-to-be-helpful way insisted on waiting with me on the corner for my brother to drive up.

So, I'm standing there, with my very well-intentioned boss, trying to make conversation, until I said, "Excuse me" turned away, and vomited all over the sidewalk, right next to the entrance where tourists go for boat tours on the river. A boatload of tourists was coming up the stairs and were completely disgusted, naturally. I shouted, 'I'm not drunk, I have cancer! Repeat, I am not a hobo!" and continued to vomit. Then I had to stand next to my puddle with my boss, who was too embarassed/shocked to say anything or move, until my brother FINALLY pulled up and I jumped into his car.

When I went back to work a couple of days later, my boss accidentally spilled some coffee on my desk, and I said, "don't worry, I've spilled worse in front of you!"

3. The Case Of The Unfair Race

i was an intern at a nonprofit art space in houston many, many years ago. during a fundraiser all the staff were wearing shirts with the name of the space, and an artist i barely knew came up to me and asked me where he could buy one. i told him they were not for sale, that you had to work at the place to get one, so he jokingly said "then i'm going to take yours." i blurted out "try and catch me!" which was when i remembered he had a prosthetic leg and walked on crutches. i immediately apologized. he was cool about it, but he was clearly not amused. i can still feel my face heat up when i remember the story.

[From commenter unutterable]

4. The Case Of The Xanax Fantasy

This is my favorite work story EVER. So, my friend gets a new job and on his first week has to fly from NY to Minneapolis for a mtg - and this guy hates to fly. So, he squeezes into his middle seat, pops a xanax and passes out. Next thing he knows he wakes himself up in a bit of a contorted position, almost moaning, and realizes he either had a wet dream at the age of 31, or indeed was jerking off in his sleep. His suit pants are a mess, his seat mates won't look at him and the flight attendants are hysterical. He can only surmise that his actions were, uh, obvious. One more hour in the flight, with turbulence, so no getting out of his seat to clean up. They land, and by this time his pants have dried, and we all know what that looks/feels like. He has to spend the rest of the day in crunchy stained pants with his briefcase in front of him. This happened 4 years ago - I cannot get on a plane without imagining this happening to every sleeping person I see.

[From commenter trustynails]

5. The Case Of The A-List Genitalia:

I used to work as the assistant to a very famous, award-winning A-list actor and his family. During my brief, but relatively long tenure (a marathon run in the celebrity assistant world), I experienced a number of awkward incidents. Some involved bodily fluids (delicious), some involved confusing his actor friends with other actors, which of course is a huge no-no (oh well, they were old)... But, I'll save those stories for my book. The most awkward experience I had while at the job, however, involved my fingers, the tits of my boss's mom, a towel, and a camera. Sound sexy and scandalous? It wasn't. It was as awkward as fucking shit, dude.

It all happened one summer day, the last day of camp for my boss's boys. The actor in question wanted me to take some pictures of the boys to add to the warehouse of manufactured memories this busy dad keeps of his family. I obliged (duh). So, as I was waiting to go get the boys from camp, I heard my boss shout at me from his office. He needed to get me his precious camera and also wanted to be sure I understood how to use it.

While waiting outside of his office, the door to which was slightly ajar, I decided to take a closer look at one of the paintings in the hall. One that hung right outside the door to his office. It was a gestural painting, line-based, of a woman. Think: Caveman-like. It was painted by my boss's deceased father, and the woman is presumably my boss's mother. Having been an art student, I was fascinated by the composition of the piece. I could easily tell by the strokes (heh, strokes) of the brush used that the artist began the image at the nipple of each breast. From that point, a line swirled around and created the breast and then went on to finish each side of the body, respectively. I was fascinated that the artist chose the breasts as the starting point, because artists usually draw people by beginning with the feature they find most important to the rendering an accurate image. Most will start with the head or the eyes if drawing a human, or will sketch the outline of a body or form. This guy started with the boobs. "What a fucking perv! How interesting!" I thought as I began to trace one of the breasts with my finger tips, just to get a sense of the artist's process (no really, I swear).

And just as I was doing that, the door swung open, and there was my boss. He must have just been in the shower, because he was only in a towel. My fingers became paralyzed, hovering over the left teet of my boss's mom. Completely stunned, my boss dropped his camera, and as he reacted, his towel dropped as well. Being the genius that I naturally am, I decided to try and catch the towel, but I caught a lot more than that.

And there I stood: My boss's junk in one hand and the painted breast of his mother at my fingertips. Mortifying.

The intern was at NBC in New York, at the famous 30 Rock (NBC has not responded to our request for comment). Our tipsters diverge a tiny bit in their details, but all agree that this intern did exist, and she did have quite an accident. They say it all happened on the intern's first day on the job, in June. Apparently, she tried to make a run to the bathroom, but didn't quite get there. One account:

Said intern did in fact shit all over the 18th and 25th floors of 30 Rock. She did it in the hallway, on the floor, on a pile of FedEx boxes, on the way between floors… pretty much everywhere but the bathroom or (hey, sometimes you’re desperate) a garbage can. Or a cup. Or a napkin. Or in her hands. No, just streaking through the hallways. And then she took it into that room where she locked herself in and proceeded to wipe (sorry, I couldn’t come up with a better word) it on the walls, on the computer, on those same FedEx boxes. It was a shitshow (pun absolutely intended).

One tipster even said that the intern was in a meeting with her boss when the drama occurred. News of it spread quickly throughout the building. What was the reason for the treason? We hear that bad foreign water was blamed:

The intern blamed the mess on bad water that she drank in Israel (although she had been back from her vacation more than 2 weeks before she started). The rumor at NBC is that it was some kind of laxative induced disaster.

The cleaning staff reportedly took care of the mess. But the biggest mystery of all: Why, and how, did said intern get to stay on for the rest of the summer? For one thing, it wasn't her fault: the bathrooms were locked, and she didn't yet have a key. And a general sense of mortification kept everyone quiet:

The bosses did want to fire her but were so shocked that she came back that they were a little scared because, what kind of person does something so gross and then shows up the next day like nothing happened? No one wanted to bring it up again, so she got to stay by default.

This poop story is truly nightmarish. Deep inside, we all harbor a fear that something like this might befall us on the first day at a new job. Nevertheless, this person was able to hold her head up high and continue in what must have been the most snicker-inducing environment imaginable. And with little hope of a good recommendation.

Pooping intern: We salute your courage.

White never went back to work at the magazine. Caught up in media attention (which he shunned but thrilled to), prodded by friends, and perhaps provoked by overly solicitous overtures from McGraw-Hill, White fell under the sway of renown and grievance, and then that of the legal establishment. He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building's management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures. He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he'd held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed.

MTA To Announce Deal On Cell Service for Subway [NYS] [Image via]