www.donaldmarino.com

Well. For those of you who read this and don’t actually know me, I’m a lifelong-afflicted NY Jets fan. Really, it’s not anywhere near as bad as people think. It’s not really _that_ miserable to be a Jet fan. There have been some good high points over the years. It’s not like we never make the playoffs. We have a Super Bowl championship to our name (OK, it was before I was alive), a few AFC title games, several 11-5 type years. I mean some teams’ fans have it worse. The Bengals come to mind.
The new coaching hires are a bit odd. In sports, as we all know, you don’t get to choose the owners. In most competitve sports, if your owner is inept, you won’t win. At least you won’t win consistently. Woody Johnson’s record is mixed in my book. He has bumbled a lot, but mostly stayed out of the hands-on stuff. He is a steadfast Terry Bradway (Jets GM) supporter, which is a negative, but he did bring Herm Edwards for five years, and hire several black coaches. Thats not all bad. Bradway isn’t a prize, but obviously we’re stuck with him. So, now we turn to the new leadership. Eric Mangini from New England’s staff. Age: 35. Runs Heimerdinger out of town. Who’s he hire? Marty Schottenheimer’s kid, recently known as QB coach, SD Chargers. Age: 32. So, I was thinking that since Donnie Henderson (our best coach last year and my choice for head coach) is in Detroit (and I don’t mean coaching the Jets D in the Super Bowl), I could be the guy. After all I’m 33. Right in the sweet spot.
Really, I mean these two coaches are both younger than significant portions of the roster. That may simply not work. It’s too bad Marv Levy went back to the Bills. Hiring him for Defensive Coordinator would bring the average age of the three top coaches to a still young 46. I mean this is an NFL team. I’m not saying these aren’t talented guys. Mangini is supposed to be pretty bright and apparently Schotty, Jr gets a lot of credit for Brees’ strong comeback in S.D., but man, what if guys like Ty Law and Curtis Martin don’t buy in? What if Mawae, Kendall and the other locker room leaders who compare favorably in age and leadership abilities hate the guy? Throw in a 2-6 start and crank up the NY media roasters because you’re gonna need ‘em. You thought this year was hard to endure. It might be a while before the Jets are any good again.

I hope I’m wrong.

I’m set to dyno the car on Feb 10. This is an annual event for my car club. (Mostly 2002-2005 Civic Si hatchback owners)

The last time I did that was two years ago, whereupon my 2002 Civic Si laid down a not-so-mighty 136.7 whp.
Sad to say, I hardly expect to do much better two years later. I have not really added any real horsepower to the car, but the handling is top-notch and the brakes are improved. I’m gunning for 140 this time with my new mid-pipe and Spoon axleback. The shop where we dyno, Dyno-Pro in Denver, CO will plot me a chart with before and after since I’m in their database already. Should be good times. Some of these kids’ cars are throwin’ down 300+ hp. Insane.

I can’t wait until amateur moto season returns! Looks like autocross will be the main course this year as the tracks are mostly gone. That’s OK. Autocross is pretty fun, and I’m still in Street Touring - S, where I am just beginning to become competitive. Maybe I’ll concentrate on a top ten STS finish in 2006.

D

I saw an interesting article recently on cnn.com. Apparently some company is suing Major League Baseball for charging licensing fees for MLB baseball stats.

It raises an interesting issue. The statistics are actually just historical facts, claim the plaintiffs, how can you charge fees? As usual, it’s big money driving this question. The plaintiffs are a company that operates large online fantasy football leagues. The stats are the lifeblood of the product.

MLB is investing a lot of money and resources into keeping and providing these stats. It’s probably a decent source of revenue, also, when you consider that larger outfits such as Elias Sports Bureau, Stats Inc., et. al. are probably paying good sized fees too.
The players’ union is in on the deal and would side with MLB on this.

It’s always interesting when these issues arise around Baseball because of it’s protected status. In this day and age, it’s time to consider whether competitive baseball leagues should be allowed to begin playing. I really think that they should consider ways to modernize the leagues with out having to fiddle with the game itself. Like the way European soccer teams can have league mobility. You don’t have to tinker with the on-field product to try that.

That’ll never happen. Baseball thrives too much on sentimental traditionalism. It’s much more within traditional thinking to find new ways to leverage that well-worn baseball branding (like stats licensing fees, or say, Jonny Damon Yankees jerseys) than to think forward and try something outside the box.

iTunes has an interesting feature I like. It keeps your top 25 played songs handy in a list. What I like is that you can’t fake it out (well, actually you can, but why?). If you want to know your musical tastes, look no farther than your top 25 list. Maybe you’ll find a few suprises. Here’s my list for the period of 2/2005 - 1/2006.

My pick for 2005 Album of the year would have to be The Cosmic Game from Thievery Corporation. That record stood out to me as my favorite last year.