A deal right out of Hollywood yesterday brings together two of the most successful juggernauts in entertainment history, both created by men with singular creative visions who drew broader success with groundbreaking merchandising: Walt Disney's legacy company is paying more than $4 billion to acquire George Lucas' film studio and other enterprises, lock, stock and blaster.

A mighty wind blew through Cupertino late yesterday, sweeping two of Apple's top executives out of office. John Browett, who had headed the retail division for about six months after coming over from British electronics retailer Dixon's, never settled into the innovative operation that Ron Johnson built before embarking on his own rocky journey at JC Penney. A search is underway for a replacement.

It is, quite literally, the calm before the storm. The wind is audible but hardly stirring the leaves in front of the house (rats). The New York Times just got tossed on the walk. Even fewer creatures are stirring than usual at 5:40 a.m., it seems, as schools are closed, commuter trains aren't running into New York City and Wall Street is only conducting electronic trading. Hurricane Sandy is preparing to make her abrupt left turn "straight toward Atlantic City" and most of the East Coast is about to be "hit, and hit hard," WCBS NewRadio 88 informs us, as …

Despite losing market share in most of its businesses, the Legion of Embattled CEO Watchers seems to agree that Procter & Gamble's Bob McDonald bought himself more time at the top yesterday when the company released fiscal first-quarter 2013 results that "easily hurdled what many analysts considered a conservative forecast," as the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ziobro puts it. And market share is trending in the right direction, particularly in the home market.

The "adultification" of Halloween will result in a lot of records being broken this season, Bruce Horovitz informs us in USA Today, accelerating a trend toward mortification that has turned "scaring the living daylights out of people" into a year-round business in California's popular theme parks, as Hugo Martin reports in the Los Angeles Times.

Money may not buy happiness, but evidently it can buy burnishment. And that should prove to be a good thing not only for the 38 million annual visitors to Central Park but also for the New York City economy, which has gotten a lot greener even as the park has, as Central Park Conservancy CEO Doug Blonsky made clear in an interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo in July.

The parents of a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died of cardiac arrest last December after drinking two 24-oz. cans of Monster Energy drink -- the equivalent of about 14 cans of regular soda -- on two consecutive days are suing the company for not warning consumers about the potential risks related to its drinks.

As usual, Apple hasn't told us what it has in mind for tomorrow's 10. a.m. PT event in San Jose but "you can't click through more than two hyperlinks on the Web right now without coming across predictions, speculations, rumor-mongering, and leaked information," writes "PC Mag"'s Daniel Murphy, who, like just about everybody else, says that a smaller, cheaper iPad will be the star of the show.

Aficionados of marketing jargon have a veritable trove of phrases to savor in the transcript of PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi's upbeat chat with analysts Wednesday that gives us "the headlines" on its "stepped-up brand investment programs" and "heightened focus on innovation, productivity and execution...."

Target has become the latest big-box retailer to say it would match competitor's prices -- a trend gathering momentum that may deliver a few unwanted consequences, Ann Zimmerman reports in this morning's "Wall Street Journal."