Gunfire rang throughout a Chicago suburb as an employee of Little Nero’s, a popular pizza chain, was attacked after making a delivery.

According the pizza boy, who wished to remain anonymous, the assailant was an agitated old man who not only took pleasure in attacking him, but laughed while doing so.

“He said he was gonna give me to the count of ten,” said the blonde-haired delivery boy. “There’s no way that crazed maniac got to ten before that tommy gun started firing off rounds.”

The pizza boy was also emotionally distressed from the ordeal. “He called me ugly, yellow, and a filthy animal. Plus, the guy was a real cheapskate. Barely left a tip.”

A police investigation, led by an officer who only went by “Harry,” yielded no further evidence. The residence, belonging to the McCallister family, showed no damages.

“If there were in fact gunshots, wouldn’t there have been bullet holes?” said the officer with a gold tooth. “The place has been jumping too. Parties, dancing. I saw Michael Jordan there one night.”

Despite the upcoming release of a new album, R&B singer Chris Brown has felt lost recently, as his damaged public image has left him devoid of women to beat.

“I have a new album out and I need to celebrate,” announced the beleaguered batterer of women, “I haven’t felt this great since I was on my way to the Grammy’s. But without channelling it into some good ol’ fashion fist to face action, it just feels empty.”

Brown went on to state add to that it’s “been far too long since [he] laid a haymaker into the body of a woman” and would settle for any girl who “knew the deal.”

When asked if he had any preference, Brown was quick to say that he’d be grateful just to punch the cashier at Denny’s. “That’s what it has come to. Raining pain on the old lady working the graveyard shift at my favorite restaurant. I mean, she’s asking for it – wondering how me meal was, and all. Bitch please, it was delicious. Now stay still for a second.”

To celebrate the release of his new album, Graffiti, Brown threw a record release party and invited many women. Nobody was punched.

“It was a good time, I guess,” recalled a noticeably crestfallen Brown, who took a couple practice swings at the air to “stay fresh”. “It’s all relative though. A man needs a good woman by his side to enjoy life. And then he needs to teach her a lesson.”

With the popularity of vampires peaking, observers of cultural trends have turned to the centaur as the candidate most likely to gallop into the hearts of America’s youth.

Citing the success of the Broadway production of Equus starring Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe, analysts contend that there has never been a more opportune moment for the mythical Greek creature composed of a human torso atop a horse’s body.

“In fact the real question is why it’s taken this long for the centaur to break through,” contends Phil Davis, a Greek mythologist-turned-market analyst avowedly bullish on centaur futures. “Look, it’s simple: little girls love ponies and women love bare-chested men, so it follows that centaurs skew young adolescent.  This thing is going to hit them right in their sweet spot.”

Asked who he envisions as the face of the forthcoming trend, Davis suggests Twilight star Robert Pattinson.  “He’s already so closely associated with sexy mythological creatures, so it will simply be a lateral move for him.   Plus he’s got those washboard abs, which are going to be front, center and on top of those glistening horse haunches.   Yeah, a centaur-Pattinson has major stud potential.”

While surpassing the popularity of vampires will be no easy task, the consensus among analysts is that centaurs are the cream of the crop when it came to “second-tier mythical creatures,” beating out lackluster contenders like the Minotaur and America’s own Bigfoot. Davis refers to the latter as “too mopey for the mainstream audience.”

“Bigfoot is to vampire as David Schwimmer is to Robert Pattinson,” elaborates Davis. “Unless whining is your thing, Bigfoot is no sex symbol.”

*co-written with Peter Queck

Despite raking in over $32 million during its opening weekend, Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are did not attract its expected audience. In an attempt to be ironic, hipsters took to coffee houses throughout the nation, organizing a boycott of the heavily anticipated film.

“Sure the trifecta of Spike Jonze, Dave Eggers, and Karen O. is a dream of mine,” said a hipster who later admitted that by “mine” he meant “everyone he interacts with”. “And as much as I want to see this movie – and I’d trade my Nicolas Cage autograph to see it – that’s just what the mainstream expects me to do. And I don’t subscribe to that society. I do, however, subscribe to The Believer, which I’ll be reading in the meantime.”

In addition to the hipster darlings behind the film, the subject matter is especially appealing to those boycotting it.

“In the book, Max gets sent to bed without dinner, and I relate to that because I often go to bed hungry because I can’t afford groceries,” said hipster David Hoffman, whose parents send him a weekly gift card to Whole Foods. “But I won’t see this movie no matter how much they cater it to me. It’s why I don’t shop at Urban Outfitters.”

Those Hipsters who did go to the movies this weekend built on the ironic support for Where The Wild Things Are by seeing Couples Retreat.

“I hated it so much,” smiled Hoffman as he wistfully watched children exit the Wild Things theater. “I bet the studios didn’t expect that. I can’t wait to add it to my Laser Disc collection.”

Charles Buckman, the last known fan of the NBC drama Heroes, has been raving to seemingly nobody in particular about the lesbian kiss that took place between costars Hayden Panettiere and Madeline Zima.

“It was so hot,” Buckman said to a blank wall. “Heroes is back! Am I right?”

Buckman’s wife Alison, who stopped watching the fantastical drama when it “started to suck,” has begun to be uncomfortable her husband’s incessant rambling.

“There are no other fans left for him to talk to about this,” said Dansky, who could only feign interest for the first two days. “Since Monday he’s been calling everybody he knows to recap the kiss and how ‘it’s exactly what the show needs.’ But he doesn’t know anybody who still watches it. I’m starting to think he’s just putting the phone up to his ear but not actually dialing anyone.”

Though the show’s fan base has been nearly depleted, NBC expressed optimism after receiving the ratings for the much hyped episode.

“Our numbers indicate that the episode was watched,” said an NBC programming exec. “That’s up from last week.”

Buckman, the one viewer, unfortunately missed last week’s episode, as he was preoccupied telling nobody about the upcoming season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

After the internet was flooded with false reports of his death, Zach Braff has responded the only way he knows how: with a poignant voiceover.

In a video posted to his website, the voiceover is accompanied by a dramatic shot of Braff gazing out a rain-splattered window while life-changing realizations pervade his mind.

The powerful, thought provoking voiceover is printed below:

Everyone has their own way of dealing with false reports of death. Some people like to read their own obituaries. For others, it’s finding ways to hold on to the people they love. Ultimately for myself, it’s about frantically calling your grief-stricken mother to convince her that you are very much not dead, while Donald Faison shows up at your doorstep screaming ‘Say it ain’t so!’

Upset that his reputation as a psychopathic dog fighter has overshadowed his zest for transmitting genital herpes to unsuspecting women, embattled quarterback Michael Vick has signed on to star in a reality program designed to show his true personality.

“I want my fans to know the real me,” said the star of the upcoming The Michael Vick Project. “The guy who goes by the name of Ron Mexico and knowingly transmits an incurable venereal disease.”

“Ron Mexico” was the alias used by Vick when getting diagnosed for the STD, and is a persona he plans to bring back every week on BET.

“Long before I was ever building rape stations for my dogs, I was spreading herpes to unsuspecting women,” recalled a proud Vick, who faced charges in 2005 after adding another woman to his herpes tally. “Now I’ll be spreading it for a national audience. That’s how Ron Mexico do.”

While being the epicenter of a herpes outbreak is a dubious distinction, BET executives supported their new star, feeling that in comparison to the dog fighting ring, it’s “really not that bad.”

“It’s not like I set up rape stations for the women,” Vick assured BET. “I just told all the girls that I had an invisible condom. A bumpy, invisible condom.” “

Nefarious gambler and anti-manure lobbyist Biff Tannen has announced plans to erect a twenty-eight floor hotel and casino in downtown Detroit. Tannen, famous for legalizing gambling in crime-ridden Hill Valley, will live in the casino’s penthouse with his wife, Lorraine, and stepson, Marty.

The hedonistic haven, named the Pleasure Paradise Hotel and Casino, will be a welcomed economic boost for Detroit, a city Tannen likens to his hometown of Hill Valley.

“Detroit has that same post-apocolyptic ambience that Hill Valley had back in ‘85,” said Tannen, adding that Hill Valley was “filled with crazed scientists and punk kids who wanted nothing more than to see [him] fail,” but that Detroit seemed to have “no signs of any scientists, or any intellectuals at all.”

“It was time for me to make like a tree and get out of there,” Tannen said with so sense of irony.

Tannen, who accumulated his fortune on a suspiciously lucky day at the race track, went on to state that his arrival would provide much needed employment opportunities to the once mighty Motor City.

“I’ll have to find some buttheads to wax my car,” Tannen scoffed. “Those two coats are not gonna wax themselves.”

While Tannen’s gambling streak has been ongoing since the mid-50s, he did specify that when it comes to Detroit sports, he would never wager on the Lions.

“I have a good feeling they won’t ever win another game,” Tannen confidently stated after consulting a nearby “Ooh La La” magazine.