"Fighting Nemo!" warns the headline in the New York "Daily News." "City braces for the mega-Nor'easter with the cute name and the blizzard conditions." It seems to one jaded observer, who wrote a "weather" story or two for the "Daily News" a decade or three ago, that they are making storms the way they used to not make storms. "They" being the media and marketers who know that an apple is just an apple until it's a Jazz.

Growth at fast-food and sit-down restaurant chains is coming primarily from offering lower-calorie chow and drinks, according to a study released today by the Hudson Institute that's partly funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

After weeks of aligning ducks -- most notably global technology investment firm Silver Lake but also including MSD Capital, a $2 billion loan from Microsoft and other debt financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets -- Michael Dell announced yesterday that he will lead Dell back into private hands for $13.65 in cash for each outstanding share. Dell, who now owns 14% of the company, will remain as CEO and chairman.

The 180 non-luxury-car dealerships in 15 states that sell a broad swath of automobile nameplates from "coast to coast" under the direction of AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson will all be operating under the AutoNation banner come June, the company announced last week as it released an earnings report that beat expectations.

So, how many of you just figured that there was some connection between the Cracker Barrel cheeses in the dairy section of the supermarket and the Cracker Barrel country stores on the side of America's highways and byways? There isn't, and Kraft Foods, which launched the Cracker Barrel brand natural cheese in 1954 is suing the national roadside chain, which was founded in 1969, over its plans to extend its brand into retail products that might further confuse consumers into making just such an assumption.

With a clear nod to the wallets of domestic beer guzzlers, the U.S. Department of Justice said yesterday that it would sue to block Anheuser-Busch InBev's bid to buy Mexico's Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona beer, for $20.1 billion, which was announced last June.

In the parlance of a grizzled newspaper editor, Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins seemingly buried the lede yesterday when he announced, about an hour into his presentation, that the first of the already tardy new BlackBerrys he was touting would not be available in the U.S. until March. Wall Street, frustrated by earlier delays, apparently didn't buy it. "RIM shares, which were up about 4% when Mr. Heins began introducing the phones, closed the day down 12% at $13.78," the "Wall Street Journal" reports.

Microsoft's release of its Office 365 Home Premium software to the public yesterday is drawing attention more for how it's being distributed, or not, than for its features.

Retailers in 40 states -- New York, Florida, California and Texas are four oversized exceptions -- can add a surcharge as high as 4% on bills being paid by credit card as of Sunday. But even though there is widespread precedent for the practice at gas pumps and consumers are getting used to uncertain price points for everything from airline seats to online merchandise, most merchants appear reluctant to pass along the fee.

McDonald's Filet-O-Fish wrappers will carry the blue label of the Marine Stewardship Council, indicating that the wild-caught Alaska pollock the fast-food chain sells in its 14,000 outlets in the U.S. are being harvested in an environmentally sound manner. Fish McBites rolling out next month will also be wrapped in the packaging.