Finally, I got some new material

OK, I admit it.  I've been phoning it in lately.  Easy-peasy music vids, a few hit-and-run posts.  But none of my trademark profound, pithy thoughts.  So here goes, as I try to recover my Muse:

• How great is it that we've nearly made it through June without a 100° day?
• An advertising banner towplane made an emergency landing not far from my office this afternoon.
• I finished The Day After the Dollar Crashes last night.  At first I thought it was a good read, talking about the unsustainability of the debt spiral, and giving a fictionalized projection of what a financial meltdown might look like.  But in the last three chapters, the author exposed himself to be an idiot without any real clue as to how to recover from such a crisis.  Lots of utopian, New World Order, new-age pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo, but nothing practical.
• Ironically, a lady asked me late this afternoon what I thought about an impending collapse of the financial system.  She'd been listening to someone on the radio, and maybe even the author of the aforementioned book.
• I think there is a looming market correction/global financial episode/recalibration in the not distant future.  Exactly what it will look like, I don't have a clue.
• A man in our office yesterday said he was buying real estate because of the uncertain times.
• Since I'm not an investment advisor, I didn't challenge the statement.  But, if I were planning for civil unrest and anarchy, real estate wouldn't be my investment vehicle of choice (especially when we're nearing the top of the market), unless it intrinsically had some income producing ability (e.g. farmland, timber, minerals).  When the stuff hits the fan, a desperate government can impose just about any property tax rate it wishes, effectively confiscating the property.
• My thought is that in a dystopian society, I would only want to own what I could personally defend.
• I'm not a prepper, but I do have some water and enough long-term food stores that I could get by for a short while.  I wish I had a generator.
• A book I saw in a resale shop recently:

•  Since I didn't buy the book, I guess I'd better hope that someone like Chalupa Cabrito is around if I need a wound closed.
• Middle son got six stitches yesterday, after a dog (of a breed not known as aggressive) bit him, possibly in a separation anxiety attack, at the kennel where he works part-time.
• Last weekend I awakened from dream in which I'd been spending part of an evening, with a woman - platonically, but not without hopes - and we were walking out to our respective vehicles.  She got on her cellphone, and says to some person "OK, dawg, so do I get a second date?"  I was gonna walk her to her car, but I just turned and went straight to my own.
• The next morning, my dream involved a girlfriend I had from about seventh grade through my junior year.  We were sort of reminiscing (cue Little River Band), and she says something like "Yeah, I really didn't like you."  That kind of jolted me awake.
• Wow, striking out two dreams in a row.
• So, was I the inspiration for all those John Cusack characters: Walter Gibson (The Sure Thing), Lloyd Dobler (Say Anything), Jonathan Trager (Serendipity)?
• I don't even know how to kickbox.

An instant before Gib realizes Alison hasn't left on the bus.

How iconic is this?

This was from 2001 - he's got a few more miles on him.  I can relate.

• If I ever crave pain enough that I start dating again, I think it would be cool to use Gib's pickup line: "You know, I've never met anyone like you before. Usually when I meet someone new I feel awkward and shy. But with you it's different. I can talk to you. You know what I'm thinking without my having to explain to you in fancy terms. We speak each other's unspoken language... fluently. I love you."  If she gets the reference and laughs, it'd be a really good sign.  If she doesn't, then she's probably younger than mid-forties - too much of a culture/generation gap.
• My employees have been harassing me about a woman - about four years my senior - they believe is seeking a relationship.  Yes, there are indications that could be true, but I don't view them as definitive.  While she is attractive, and able to have an intelligent conversation, I'm thinking she's an α-female.  The witty repartee we have in my office would get to be a beat down if it were on a full-time basis.
• I need someone more laid back, down-to-earth.  Like Sally Field in Murphy's Romance, maybe Amy Madigan's character in Field of Dreams.
• Yeah, all my movie references are seriously dated.
• One of my customers informed me yesterday that his [second] wife had moved out this past week.  Not his second wife this week, but the one he's been married to for about 8-9 years. 
•  Apparently she didn't cotton to his demanding some accountability from her lazy kids.
• It's not the first time I've seen this happen.
• Makes me think maybe I'm OK- even better off - to live alone.  It's not like women have been lining up to audition anyway.
• Here's HuffPo's take on married bliss.  Seriously, HuffPo, do you think any woman really believes #13?  Inconceivable. And I do know what that word means.
• Since I finished what was supposed to be a 'serious' book, I'm moving on to Graham Nash's autobiography Wild Tales.  But, I've got a Barry Goldwater biography on my office credenza, so as not to get carried away by levity, and to maintain a veneer of gravitas.