Dollar-poor and gas-gouged, most Americans may have opted to stay home for the Memorial Day weekend. As many paid homage to the day's meaning (and revisited its history thanks to Mental Floss magazine), the Buzz found time to take to the races, peruse working vacation photos from Mars, and bid farewell to a man who shaped cinema storytelling history.

Phoenix Descending
The Phoenix Mars Lander, leaving before the gas price hikes, traveled 10 months and 422 million miles to get to Mars. Alas, it's a biz trip for Phoenix, which joins the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers to dig around and see if the fourth planet had once been habitable (at least, according to Earthly standards). Yahoo! News posted Red Planet photos, and HowStuffWorks took the opportunity to look at the mechanics of NASA itself. Appreciate the Phoenix's sacrifice: The Martian winter will frost her jets and ground her on the Red Planet forever.

Indy Racing
The San Antonio Spurs beat the Los Angeles Lakers in game three of the NBA Western Conference finals, the Detroit Red Wings vanquished the Pittsburgh Penguins during the Stanley Cup's much-watched opener, and some old dogs did new tricks in UFC 84. Still, in the Memorial Day weekend sporting arena, the Indianapolis 500 scored the Buzz knockout—and all the car crashes. Scott "Iceman" Dixon didn't just win his first Indy race: He also brought home a record purse. Meanwhile, NPR did a blow-by-blow of Danica Patrick's own near ultimate fight with the Aussie who clipped her car—which couldn't make her more popular than she already is. Or could it...

Pollack Passing
Silence your ringtones out of respect. Director/producer Sydney Pollack may not have been a household name, but his populist vision dominated cinema throughout the '70s and '80s. The 73-year-old man of Hollywood died of cancer Monday, leaving behind a slew of Oscar-nominated works, including "Out of Africa," "Tootsie," and "The Way We Were." An erstwhile actor, Pollack was last seen as George Clooney's boss in "Michael Clayton."

In other news spiking in the Buzz this weekend...
•Can Oprah Winfrey blame the writer's strike? The New York Times started adding—or subtracting—the numbers, and found that her mighty empire has been steadily declining in audience and readers. While her political endorsements may have cost her, the drop started three years ago.
•The films, eh. But the fashion, scrumptious. Buyers and critics in search of break-out flicks at the 61st Cannes Film Festival had been largely unimpressed, except by French movie "Entre les Murs" and American actress Angelina Jolie. The former won the top prize, while the latter captivated spectators and kicks off FabSugar's fashion recap.
•As airlines have cut back serving meals, a Harvard Medical School study showed that fasting is the best way to avoid jetlag. Look for a study next year about how carrying less luggage makes you speak foreign languages better.