David Hoyle

MIAMI, FL — A night of revelry turned into tragedy last night at a Miami nightclub when an attractive young woman — referred to in modern urban vernacular as a “shawty” — was burned in a fire on the dance floor at the Mansion club.

Miami Fire Department investigators reported that the victim had been shaking her thang hotter than the sun in the south of Spain for a prolonged period.  According to eyewitness accounts, the shawty had just finished popping, locking, and dropping her birthday cake, when suddenly she burst into flame.

Shawty fire burning on the dance floor.

As of yet investigators do not know exactly what caused the the shawty to burst into flame. Preliminary findings would seem to point toward some sort of incendiary device under the dance floor, some sort of highly combustible liquid, or spontaneous booty combustion.

Club-goer Sean Kingston saw what happened and tried to summon help by repeatedly screaming, “Somebody call 911! She’s fire burning, fire burning on the dance floor! That little shawty’s fire burning on the dance floor!”

Sean Kingston: Somebody call 911!

Despite Kingston’s efforts, the shawty was fully involved by the time firefighters arrived, and suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 80% of her body.

A distraught Kingston expressed sorrow at the tragic turn of events. “Her body was a masterpiece,” said Kingston, “the order is one in every hundred years. And I was planning on taking it home. So I guess I got burned, too. But maybe I can at least get a song out of all this.”

Shawty Fire Safety Tips

Fire prevention experts offer these tips to prevent shawty fires on dance floors:

• Keep combustible materials and liquids away from dance floors.
• Do not place incendiary devices underneath dance floors.
• Always keep a shawty extinguisher at the ready.
• When shaking your thang for prolonged periods, take frequent breaks to cool your thang down.
• Wear flame-retardant underwear.

SAUGUS, MA –  A Target store manager has been accused of dropping trousers in front of one of his employees.

Falling trouser zone?

According to the complaint filed yesterday, Target employee Sue Yorassov had just arrived for work when she encountered assistant store manager Moe Lester while crossing through the Men’s department on her way to Handbags & Accessories.

According to Yorassov, she saw Lester stocking a clearance rack and had just called out a cheerful “good morning,” when suddenly and without warning “he turned around and dropped trousers right in front of me. I didn’t know what to do or say…I mean, he’s a manager, he’s not supposed to drop trousers.”

Nice rack!

After a few seconds of awkward silence, said Yorassov, “he  just smiled and said, ‘whoops!’  Then he picked up the trousers, put them back on the Ultimate Pleated Khaki clearance rack, and went on as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t believe it.”

Deeply traumatized by the incident, Yorassov has been unable to work, and is entertaining offers of legal representation. “We’re talking Target here,” said one attorney. “We’re talking $64 billion in revenue last year. I wish he had dropped trousers in front of me.”

But this is not the first employee complaint lodged against this apparently deeply troubled store manager. Lester has also been accused of handling women’s undergarments, closely monitoring store changing rooms, spending “way too much” time in the Juniors department, and looking up women’s dresses (in inventory).

I imagine that many of you are wondering what I do when I’m not working on this blog. I imagine it because no one has actually asked me.

So for all of you who weren’t wondering, didn’t ask, and may not care, I can tell you that one of my other interests is writing about cleavage tattoos.

Now stop bugging me.

FORT COLLINS, Colorado — In a frantic 911 call this morning, Richard Heene reported that his six-year-old son, widely known as “Balloon Boy,” has been abducted by aliens.

Richard Heene and "Balloon Boy" in happier times

“I’m not kidding around this time, he’s really gone,” said an apparently distraught Heene. “But don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and look in the attic, the basement, search the whole house. He’s really gone this time! They took him!”

The Heenes grabbed the nation’s attention last week when they reported that an experimental helium balloon shaped like a container of Jiffy Pop was set adrift with their six-year-old son apparently riding in it.

I'll be down in a few minutes

That story proved to be a hoax designed to drum up publicity for a reality TV show featuring the Heenes along with Jon and Kate Gosselin, tentatively titled Using the Children for Publicity.

Heene reported that the family was awakened in the middle of the night by strange noises and intensely bright lights outside. When he went to check on the children, his six-year-old son, Falcon, was not in his bedroom, and all of his toys had been turned on and were careening around the room.

ET also stands for "Entertainment Tonight"

Heene said that when he went downstairs to check for Falcon, he saw him exit the house through the dog door, presumably into the hands of alien abductors.

Heene also reportedly contacted NASA to inquire about the possibility of borrowing a space shuttle.

“He’s probably still in Earth orbit,” said Heene, “If we act quickly, maybe we can recover Falcon before he leaves the solar system.”

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday he was “most surprised and deeply humbled” to win the 2009 Dancing With the Stars televised dance competition, adding that he accepts the honor as “a call to action to confront the dance challenges of the 21st century.”

If you work hard, you can win a Nobel Prize. Or maybe they'll just give you one.

In a brief statement in the White House Rose Garden on Friday, the president said he does not “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, since I did not actually perform a dance routine,” but rather as a recognition of ballroom dance goals he has set for the United States and the world.

Coming on the heels of the president’s somewhat dubious Nobel Peace Prize, the decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise.

“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,” he said, “and those who competed but were not ultimately successful, such as Tom Delay, who was forced to leave the show last week after dancing the samba with stress fractures in both feet.”

Obama will travel to Television City in Los Angeles, California in December to accept the honor, which includes a mirror ball trophy, the White House said.

The Dancing With the Stars panel of judges said its decision to honor the president was motivated by a combination of boredom and delusional hero worship. “We were just tired of watching bad ballroom dancing week in and week out,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba, “and Obama is one cute cowboy! Plus, our last names sort of rhyme!”

The White House also reported that President Obama has also won American Idol, first place in a giant pumpkin contest at a state fair, and first prize and “Miss Congeniality” in a Junior Miss pageant in Lubbock, Texas.