If you can't indulge in a little magical thinking in Hollywood, you might as well declare it dead, right? Case in point: "The Oogieloves in The BIG Balloon Adventure" seems to be setting a record this weekend. Exactly what that record is, however, appears to be a matter of diametrical dispute.

Forget about all the rhetoric you hear on the campaign trail this fall, the Securities and Exchange Commission is taking the job creation dilemma by the horns. It is proposing that a ban on advertising by hedge funds and similar private investment funds be lifted in line with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), which seeks "to increase American job creation and economic growth by improving access to the public capital markets for emerging growth companies." It was passed by Congress and signed into law in April.

Normally, when you see an NBCNews.com headline such as "Home Prices Up For Fifth Straight Month," the inclination is to rub the palms of your hands together in anticipated of a glut of consumer spending. Everybody wins, right? Movers and landscapers, bankers and insurance companies, the cable guy and newspaper deliverers (what's left of them), the Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond, marketing budgets and ad campaigns.

It's time to get an update to your GPS map of the rental car marketing universe. Not only is Hertz acquiring Dollar Thrifty for $2.3 billion but -- and arguably more significant from a pop-cultural POV unless you're a Dollar Thrifty diehard -- Avis is dropping its "We Try Harder" from its advertising after a 50-year joyride, "Ad Age"'s Rupal Parekh informs us.

With the air clearing on Apple's surprisingly swift and broad victory over Samsung Friday in their patent face-off in federal court in San Jose, attention is turning to the impact of the decision on future innovation in the tech industry, barring any major reversals of the jury's $1 billion decision on appeal.

Start the presses. The bench presses, that is -- and all the other hard work that goes into an effective exercise and fat loss routine. "Just three minutes a day won't make you thin," the Federal Trade Commission revealed yesterday.

Five major marketers charged with violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by a coalition of advocacy groups deny the allegations, saying they are unwarranted. The Federal Trade Commission, which implemented the law in 1998 -- it is intended to gives parents control over the information that websites can collect about children under age 13 -- says that it will carefully review the complaints filed by the Center for Digital Democracy and 16 other groups.

I've avoided coverage of the Apple-Samsung patent dispute the way many of us put off preparing taxes, even if we know it's inevitable that we do so. I took heart when I read that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh herself was aware of the soporific qualities of much of the proceedings when she said yesterday, "I need everyone to stay conscious during the reading of the instructions, including myself."

Nike is going to see just how high retail prices can jump this fall, particularly when it releases the LeBron X, a shoe with sensors that measure how high its wearers can leap, for a reported $315 at retail, The "Wall Street Journal"'s Shelly Banjo reports. The increase "may test even the most dedicated Nike fans," including one Banjo interviews who is organizing a social media protest over "crazy excessive" prices.

If you sell anything that has a label, makes a claim or contains ingredients other than the pure and unadulterated driven snow (or its equivalent), you'll want to check out Stephanie Strom's story about the glut of lawsuits filed against big food companies in the last four months. It was posted online Saturday, ran on the front page of the "New York Times"' Sunday edition, and is attracting the predictable range of comments -- which is to say that most are on polar opposite sides of the issue.