During this long, NCAA opening weekend, my wife and I sat down for dinner. I've known this woman since 1993, have lived with her since 1994, and we have been married since 1999. And at this point, after she's enjoyed 15 fabulous years of mustached American-dominated bliss, she posed this question: "What would make a guy want to watch basketball all day long?" At that point I stood up, wearing only a loin cloth, and walked out the door to the nearest sports bar.  

Now, let's look back at the four days of heaven that was weekend one of the NCAA tourney for 2008:

• Note to CBS affiliate KMOV during the Thursday and Friday afternoon telecasts: I am not a 73, I do not yet have  blue hair, I have not begun to wear orthopedic inserts nor use Denture Cream, and I really could care less that "The Young & The Restless" has been preempted and will return at its normal time on Monday.
• A few commercial auto observations:
  
• Note to Lexus: please, we beg you, stop running those less-than-inventive "H" (hybrid) commercials. If you'd like to be amusing, try having the 'H" leave "herpes" or "hair pieces." Here, this is an amusing commercial.
• I really want to see Chevy come back. But they always do something that tells you they simply don't get marketing. For years, they ran ads with bright YELLOW cars and trucks. The only people who buy yellow vehicles are trolls and one-legged prostitutes who drink too much Mountain Dew. Now, they come out with a really, really nice looking new vehicle and they are smart enough to give it a metallic paint job for ads as the better selling Lexus, Acura, et al. has done in recent years. But again, they misstep, by sticking with the name Malibu, which conjures up thoughts once again of trolls and one-legged prostitutes who drink too much Mountain Dew. All they had to do was call it something like the "XJ-7" or the "Uterus" and they'd have a killer product. Stupid.
• Back to hoops: Maybe the good folks at Sienna, Villanova, Western Kentucky and San Diego (German translation) can tell answer this: Besides an extremely elevated level of mercury from all of the coal-fired power plants, what's in the water in Tampa? We always assumed the mercury is what contributed to our executive director freaking out and being deposed as he's a former Tampa-St. Pete resident, but hoops craziness?
  
• As always, it was a joy to watch Duke lose a game of consequence. A few thoughts on the Duke vs. West Va. affair:
• Duke has a group of the ugliest white kids going led by the red head Kyle Singler (again, sorry Hoss) and the Paulus kid who should have followed his brother and failed at playing football in college.
• Despite looking like Marylin Manson could kick his butt in an arm wrestling match, Duke's Jon Scheyer can flat-out play for a kid who's 6'5 and 98 lbs.
  
• the young mustached American Gerald Henderson, son of VCU and Boston Celtic great of the same name, is one of the best slashers to play at Duke since Grant Hill. He's got quite the ceiling as the young people like to say.
  
• Speaking of ex-Dukies, did anyone catch Josh Duncan of Xavier? He's the power forward who - aside from not having the extra-thick breadstick-size eyebrows - really resembles Carlos Boozer in both build and overall game.
• Time-outs: Just how many time-outs do team get in these games and when did they start positioning the TV time-outs for every eight seconds of play? When it comes down the stretch, the lack of flow reminds me of those urinary incontence ads that pop up on golf (note to self, never take up golf). You get ten seconds of play followed by that blaring fan fare "da-da-da-dada-da-da-da" that means another bad car ad is coming up or an ad you thought was funny when it ran on the Super Bowl in the middle of winter, 7,000 days ago.
• OK, it's Saturday night. I just got back from the aforementioned sports bar after being there for 29 hours. Sweat is now adhering my large, hairy legs to the leather couch despite it being covered in plastic. I'm feeling stupid, along with everyone else who had such luminary picks at Pitt, Marquette, and Drake advancing. What makes it all better is when you then talk to your wanna-be pro gambler friend on Sunday morning and they tell you how well they are doing...and you realize they are not. Fortunately, 3 of the AMI's initially suggested Final 4 are still hanging tough: UNC, Kansas, UCLA (hey look, they are all #1s). Could seeds mean something?
• The impact of the three: Nobody gets the ball in low and hits a turnaround jumper anymore. It's always a pass out to the three-point line, the Holy Grail of basketball. I noticed this when I watched "Black Magic" on ESPN. The game has changed dramatically and the three seems to be the culprit. As one who can't hit one myself, I don't like it.
• You have to really hate seeing a bunch of rich, white, soccer-loving losers like Davidson students have anything good come to them but the school's win over Georgetown was special.
• I'm pro tattoo. How can I not be with the tattoo I have of two Mexican-bred chimpanzees knife fighting Wonder Woman and Robert Goulet on my stomach? But what the hell is that thing on Memphis' Chris Douglas Roberts arm?
  
• Note to John Calipari on excess: ease up on the tanning beds, buffets, and hair gel. Your riboflavin count can't take but so much.
  
• Best sight of the week: mustached American with an eye patch in the stands of the Memphis vs. Mississippi St. game. Can't beat that....except if a knife fight between one-armed, one-eyed monkeys had broken out in the stands.
• Finally, "The Family Guy's" Peter Griffin said she looks like a "foot." Now, Maxim magazine sites Sarah Jessica Parker at the world's "Unsexiest" woman. Thank you God.