Avis Budget Group is buying Zipcar, the 13-year-old company that controls about three-quarters of the $400 million car-sharing industry in the U.S., for about $500 million, causing some dismay among urban hipsters, environmentalists and proponents of "dis-ownership" across the country. But others see the corporate resources of Avis as a good thing, able to propel the borrow-rather-than-buy movement from the economic back roads to the Interstate.

Mark 2013 as the year that Robbie Burns, the hallowed Bard of Ayrshire for more than two centuries and muse of Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians and a multitude of tipsy warblers, lost his mojo to Psy, the suddenly ubiquitous South Korean whose "Gangnam Style" video has racked up more than 1.1 billion views on YouTube since its debut on July 15.