Idle TV thoughts

At first I didn't know what to make of it, What, pray tell, is a Pornanong Phatlum? By the name, could it be an obese adult film star with a mean streak? Turns out, not. PP, no pun intended, is a Thai golfer on the LPGA circuit. And pretty good too. She was right up there in the lead at their latest event. Whew. That was a close one.

Another one is fairly confounding as well. The commercial Verizon is airing on TV. It shows their spokesman dropping a microphone, maybe on purpose. So he grabs another one and -- drops it too. Then a third -- same thing. Well then. Isn't a microphone a communication device? And isn't a cell phone used for communicating too? What exactly is the message here? That during the course of 30 seconds one can expect a call or calls to be dropped 3 times by this company? And they might be doing it on purpose? Well OK, maybe I'm an idiot but, to my feeble mind, this doesn't appear to be great advertising. I mean, would you go on TV and keep scratching at yourself if you were trying to sell some sort of soap or other hygiene product?

Speaking of close ones, maybe the UConn girls basketball team isn't unbeatable after all. Sure, we know they just rattled off a 100 game winning streak and have won the last four national titles in a row. And we also know they've been absolutely blistering most opponents this season, often to the tune of 40 or more points.

Further, the Green Wave of Tulane shouldn't have posed much of a problem. After all, they're a mere 7-7 in the same conference and 16-11 overall. To boot, last time they played, back on Jan. 22, the lady Huskies bombarded them 100-56, a 44 point thrashing.

So this game should have been a piece of cake -- right? Wrong. It was all UConn could do to hold off Tulane and escape with a very close 63-60 win. And yes, the game was as close as the score indicated.

The normally unflappable Geno Auriemma, head coach of the Huskies, looked stunned -- STUNNED. This wasn't supposed to happen. To the untrained eye, it appeared the usual dapper Geno had gone from clean-shaven at the start to a wolfmanish five o'clock shadow by the time the game concluded.

Thing is, Auriemma would likely admit that such a close call was a good thing for his team. After so many wins in a row, complacency is bound to set in on some level. What might have been even better is if his Bambinos actually -- gasp -- got beat. That would have been some wake up call. Because when the NCAA tournament starts, after likely a couple rather easy games, the competition is going to stiffen up substantially. One slip up or bad night and you're out. That just won't do after such a spectacular season. UConn and most others are no doubt expecting them roll to a five-peat. It would be quite the story/upset if they didn't.

Teams around the country had to take heart at seeing how close lowly Tulane could play UConn, probably thinking if THEY can hang, so can we. Maybe even knock them off if we play our best game.

They escaped by the peach fuzzies on their chinny-chin-chins this time.

But it showed they're not invincible after all.

Good news to all the others.

We'll see how it plays out.

Could get interesting indeed.