Have a memorable day.

Memorial Day. Another one of those holidays where they tell you all of the things you're supposed to do to get out and appreciate the great weather, then they come back and tell you about the horrible traffic conditions that exist because you got out and appreciated the great weather.

They call it "the unofficial start of summer," which really means that it's time to hike gasoline prices and start dumping chlorine in the pool.

Pools, when you think about them (and I have) are really just filtered standing water treated with chemicals. After all it goes through, is it really water?

My condo association (whom I've nicknamed "The Wrath of Khan") recently gave out our pool passes. I passed. The letters went out a few weeks ago alerting us to a time and place where we could come and pick them up. This was accompanied by the annual reminder to keep kids in their "swim diapers" and to refrain from vomiting in the pool. Uh-huh.

Things like that make me think that it wouldn't be necessary to remind parents to keep kids in swim diapers unless most of the kids were going in without swim diapers. It's like those signs that remind employees to "wash hands before returning to work." I'm guessing that most of them need a sign. "No spitting in the water fountain." Really? I thought you were supposed to spit in the water fountain. Where do I spit then?

So, I've decided I'm no longer swimming in public pools. If I manage to live to be 100 and some local TV station comes to my birthday party (my 101st birthday, counting the day I was born) and they ask, "to what do you owe your longevity?" I can look at them through my fuzzy glaucoma eyes and stammer, "I don't swim in public pools." Millions of people in their 80s will look at the screen and think, "They told me I was senile."

And now, here's a haiku about pools:

Swimming in public

should be limited to just

spermatozoa.

Words of the day

If yesterday was Photo of the Day (and it was) then today stands to be Word of the Day. The word today is pointless. Used in a sentence: Amerian Idol is pointless.

Several headlines across the Internet (capital I) urged us to click (the cyber version of peer pressure) to find out whom the winner was (I bet none of them used whom) of the latest installment of America's favorite game show, American Idol - as though there is a celebrity shortage that television is working to correct.

Believe it or not, I resisted the urge, as I do with several urges. I also resisted the urge to see the winner of Tuesday's Dancing with the Stars, which has become more of a dancing show than a star show, but I digress.

It's beyond my scope of reasoning to figure out how hundreds of thousands of contestants can logically be broken down to eight or ten finalists without knowing the outcome beforehand. There is too much left to chance to imagine that the producers of a multi-million dollar franchise would leave so much to chance. But we (you) buy into it - by the millions, presumably. At least 20 million sheep will have tuned into Wednesday night's finale, while some of us were flipping between the Phillies versus the Reds and Oriole pitcher Jeremy Guthrie's epic struggle against the Yankees. Riveting television.

Alas, Guthrie had lost his battle long before the night was over and the Phillies would go down to an ignominious defeat at the hands of the Red Stockings.

But be sure, Fox would be the big winner, regardless of whomsoever was awarded the lucrative recording contract, because we know that nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Photo of the day

Looking out my back door.

Click it or ticket - what, exactly?

OK, so we're back on this bandwagon again. Radio and TV ads pumping-up the latest round of "click it or ticket" incomplete sentence fragment threats designed to scare us into using seat belts.

I'm confused. Why? I'm glad you asked.

Supposedly, the local and state police will pull you over if they see that you aren't wearing your seat belt, since it's now a primary offense. So is driving while talking on a cell phone in New Jersey, and I have yet to hear a radio or TV ad campaign directed at those nitwits.

If I drive without wearing a seat belt and I have an accident, I am the only person affected. My beltless body is thrown willy nilly around my car, bouncing off my steering wheel, gear shift lever and windshield until all that's left is a greasy spot. I'm dead, and the guy in the other car is presumably still alive because he was wearing his seat belt. That's their side.

If I am driving while talking on my cell phone, I am distracted and, they say, a threat to others on the road. If I have an accident that is the result of my distracted yakking, I not only injure myself (if I'm not wearing my seat belt) but the other driver or pedestrian that I have hit because I wasn't paying attention to what I should have been doing. That's also their side.

Isn't driving while using a cell phone a more destructive habit than not wearing a seat belt? It is if you're the other person.

I think it's time for a radio and TV ad campaign that tells these inconsiderate slobs that we're out to get them before they get us. There doesn't seem to be a concerted effort on everyone's part to keep cell phone users from driving. The enforcement is patchy. Some areas are tougher than others. If that's true, let's loosen up the drunk driving laws too, so I can booze it up and drive around certain areas without fear of being pulled over. The law needs to be enforced everywhere, not just where they feel like enforcing it. If it's too much trouble then maybe they need some help.

Besides, if they can see a guy driving around without his seat belt fastened, isn't that more difficult to spot than a guy with his hand to his head talking on the phone? Sure it is, but they can pull the seat belt people over everywhere.

We'll need a nifty sentence fragment slogan like the seat belt one, but I'm confident that the knobs in Trenton can come up with something catchy. How about "Shut up and drive" or "Turn off your God damned cell phone, you fucking moron!" I like that one.

We can text it out to everybody so we're sure they know about it.

Another genius heard from.

On Thursday, President Obama will welcome the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers to the White House. Well, most of them. Defensive MVP James Harrison is, as Archie Bunker would say, "The lone dingbat." His well thought-out opinion goes as follows:

"This is how I feel - if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, he [Obama] would've invited Arizona if they had won."

First, it's a strange use of the "as far as I'm concerned," and second, well ... yeah, he would have invited the Cardinals. Maybe Harrison would like to give back the ring and trophy while he's at it because, as far as I'm concerned, they would have given them to the Cardinals if they had won the game.

Sheesh.