(FORTUNE Magazine) – I always find that summer is the perfect time to kick back and ask some of life's really big, Admiral Stockdale--like questions. Such as: Who am I? Why am I here? But it's also a good time to ask some slightly lesser, business-related questions. Here, to my mind, are four such queries:

Why are all the casino companies merging? Think about all the casinos that have cropped up across our fair land over the past two decades. (Have you checked out Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut? Huge!) Anyway, it's getting tougher for the big gambling companies to grow organically, so they have to buy earnings. One transaction begets another. (As in: "We can't stand still and watch them do that!") So now you have the proposed Harrah's/Caesars merger right on the heels of MGM/Mandalay. Harrah's, the nation's biggest casino company, has more of a blue-collar clientele--though its CEO Gary Loveman is a former Harvard professor who still lives in Cambridge, Mass. (see "Teacher's Bet" on fortune.com). Caesars Palace would be Harrah's first prime-time property on the strip. MGM/Mandalay would run everything from Circus Circus to Bellagio to Luxor. The independents left on the strip would be decidedly second-tier. Is this a signal that the great gambling boom is finally winding down?

Where does Steve Jobs go from here? He's already revolutionized the PC business (with the Mac), the music business (with iTunes), and the movie business (with Pixar). Apple just reported some pretty zippy numbers; even its Mac business was on the rise, up 14% in the quarter. Meanwhile Stevie Wonder Jobs still has to find the right partner for Pixar. Here's what he should do. First, keep the faith with Macs. I've heard that Jobs compares their minuscule market share with that of BMW or Mercedes. That's not a bad place to be. Second, make iTunes compatible with the iPod-like devices coming soon from Sony and everyone else. As for Pixar, dude, do an auction! Everybody loves that company's work. What about Steve's Next Big Thing? Well, he hasn't gotten into privatized space travel. Yet.

Why is there so much gas? Wait, you say. I thought gas stocks were on the low side, which is partly why gas prices have been up so much this year? True. But I'm talking about something slightly different. Why bother producing three grades of gas: regular, midgrade, and premium? You don't see regular, medium, and strong chewing gum. Or meaty, meatier, meatiest dog food. According to the Energy Information Administration, 82% of all gas sold last April was regular. A little over 11% was premium, and just 7% was midgrade. Midgrade is just a mixture of the other two (it isn't refined separately), so what's the point of the separate tankers, pumps, etc.? Ban midgrade! People who really want a mixture can fill up half-and-half at the pump.

What happened to Nokia? Ring, ring! Guess what? It didn't listen to its customers. I can understand that to an extent. Flip phones don't make sense. They require an extra motion and two hands. And so Nokia ridiculed them and for years refused to make them. But what Nokia didn't realize is that flip phones are cool, like something James Bond or Snoop Dogg or Courtney Love (okay, not her) would use. Another thing. Consumers wanted crazy color screens, and cameras, and bells and whistles. Again our austere Finnish friends said no. Adding these features is what got Motorola its groove back and made Samsung hot. Not having them is why Nokia's revenue fell in the latest quarter and why its earnings were halved. It's also why Nokia is now scrambling to produce funky, flippy, feature-laden phones (see "Why Nokia's a Buy" on fortune.com). You can't stay dial-tone deaf too long in this business and survive.

ANDY SERWER, editor at large of FORTUNE, can be reached at aserwer@fortunemail.com. Read him online in Street Life on fortune.com and watch him on CNN's American Morning and In the Money.