Now Ikea meatballs have a little bit o' horse

Another day, another superhero "dies" for a year or two before we learn it happened in the alternate universe where Batman is actually named Bryce Wayne. The New York Post says:

Just tell us where to send flowers. Here's a picture of the current and soon-to-expire Robin:

I had no idea Bruce Wayne cloned a sidekick using Cabbage Patch Kid DNA.

WANT SOME? NEIGH The European Horsemeat scandal widens again. The New York Times reports:

It's less than one percent - which, according to a Swedish National Food Agency official, means that the facility that made the meatballs "handled horsemeat at the same facility." There will be a warning label in the future, just as with nuts. May contain trace amounts of horse.

CATCHING UP Former internet sensation Charlie Sheen was tweeting away during the Oscars. Same old cray-cray Chuck:

The photo:

BUSINESS Recall the discussion a few weeks ago about Penneys, and how their bold new clean-store / one-price strategy resulted in horrible results? This WSJ story has more, and includes a note on the company culture the new boss had to fight:

Well, that's the relaxed, employee-friendly atmosphere that made people love to work there! The new bosses decided that changing the tone might actually reduce profitability.

Kidding. Reaper time:

All of whom, you can bet, spent office hours watching the Harlem Shake. In related news: Yahoo is now totally unreasonable, insisting that people who work from home come into the office. Reasons:

It's a remarkable company when you have employees who are hiding from the people who give them money.

APPS The most overused word on the internet does not apply to this. It's a minimalist weather app. It's nice. It is not stunning. No one reels back in astonishment, unable to gather words to respond. Please stop saying something is stunning unless it literally hits you on the head with a hammer.

That said, the app has a great response for people who pirate the app. They'll probably complain, too. I didnt want to pay ninenty nine cents thats like twice what i wld pay but now i cant use this at all

While we're at it: the URL of the page uses the common internet construction: the best(x) you'll ever see, a variant on the best (x) you'll see today. It's a cousin to The best (x) you've never seen. Stop telling me what I will or will not or have not seen. Thank you.

Also, ease up on using "adorable" for everything. Your cooperation is appreciated.

BEST NEWS YOU'LL SEE TODAY Out of nowhere, this:

Achewood was a brilliant web comic that burned out and died a few years ago, was resurrected last summer and faded again. Its creator, Chris Onstead, said this on his blog today:

Hope it works out. Don't know how the dialogue will translate from print to animation; seeing the words of Roast Beef, all flat and affectless, is different than hearing them. But I wish him luck.

WEB The mass suspension for doing the Harlem Shake seems extreme, especially if there was official adult supervision who were in on the joke. After seeing video of actual riots in local schools, this doesn't rise to the level of an actual melee. It was a controlled, purposeful melee with intentional disorganization. And it almost forced me to abandon a goal I set a while ago: never see a Harlem Shake video.

It has nothing to do with any objection to the meme. Nothing about it sounded as stupid as planking or owling or picking up ice cream cones by grabbing the ice cream or any other witless attempt to "go viral" and land on Buzzfeed for 37 minutes, after which the rest of your life is a slow decrescendo. It was an experiment: could I avoid an internet craze entirely? Of course I could. I would have, too, but once I mentioned to my daughter that I was trying to avoid Harlem Shake videos, it became her objective to get me to watch one. This weekend I finally used my holdout status as a bargaining chip: if you do this, I will watch a Harlem Shake video.

That worked, of course. So I watched a Harlem Shake compilation. Okay, I get it. Guy in a helmet, twitching. Then everyone engages in spasmodic writhing. I really don't feel like I was missing much. Point is, I failed to avoid an internet Thing, which makes me wonder if that's even possible these day. Or advisable. It doesn't matter whether the Craze is any good - people just hate to admit ignorance of it. Because then you can't be blase about it before everyone else. 0