Password Protection

It drives me nuts when you have to choose a password for signing into something, and they let you know how "difficult" your password is. Personally, I always choose something that is considered "easy" but has no relation to me whatsoever. I laugh at the people that pick their address or phone number, but certainly finding an unrelatable word is just as good as a series of numbers, right?
For instance, for the longest time my father used the word "cantaloupe" as his password. No one, and I mean no one, would have guessed this as his password, but he could remember it simply out of the oddity it carried.
So, is there a problem with doing this? Are there really programs out there that are going to nail us for using "easy" passwords?
If anything, I imagine that the use of these ridiculous passwords does nothing more than cause an excessive amount of password changes because no one can ever remember their password! Sheesh!