Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXVIII 〜 Crunchy cargo refill
The 228th Newsletter Leaf Journal features links to new articles covering Amazon delivery bikes, anime awards, golf, and more, along with 21 links from around the web and other weekly news and notes from The New Leaf Journal.
Welcome to the 228th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter comes to you as always from the administrator/editor/writer of The New Leaf Journal and its short-form writing sister site, The Emu Café Social, Nicholas A. Ferrell. We had a busy week with several new articles on both NLJ and ECS. I present links to those along with links from around the web and other news and notes below.
Leaves from the week that was
I published five new articles since I mailed Newsletter 227.
March 2025 at The New Leaf Journal comes to you as advertised. I changed things up a bit from previous month-end reviews and used one of my March articles, Good Internet Writing Habits, as a prompt to explain my thinking behind all of my posts for the month.
Two new articles touched on Amazon. In Nivea Water Gel Sunscreen Refills in OXO Lotion Bottle, I explained how I recovered from inadvertently ordering sunscreen refills instead of new bottles. In Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn, I wrote about the strangely endearing Amazon delivery vehicles taking over parts of Brooklyn (I do not know whether my sunscreen or OXO bottle orders were delivered in this manner).
Continuing in local news coverage, I published A Skypark Bridge to Sell You. A deal to pave the way for a Queens casino reminded me of the if you believe that, I have a Brooklyn Bridge to sell you idiom.
At the end of January 2025 I published two articles reviewing 2024 in the world of anime and presenting my choices for the best. Now, in Choosing the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, I made my picks while being limited to Crunchyroll’s (the biggest English anime streaming service) nominees for the some of the same awards. This led to a very different selection than my unrestricted choices because Crunchyroll omitted many of my favorite shows from its nominee lists.
I also published several new short posts on The Emu Café Social. The ongoing Masters tournament in golf yielded Fred Couples Shoots 71 in First Round of Masters and Things I Learned: Oldest Golfer to Shoot Under Par in Masters Round, which are related. Unfortunately, Mr. Couples missed becoming the oldest golfer (he is 65) to make the cut at The Masters (which would have broken his own record) by two strokes. Bernhard Langer, two years Mr. Couples' senior, missed the cut by just one stroke. One of those points is related to an upcoming article. I also learned that Tinder is a Chatbot Dating Service and Chinese Plastic Christmas Tree Manufacturers are in Trouble. Finally, I documented Installing Tinker WriterDeck OS On Old ASUS Netbook, which should turn into a New Leaf Journal article in the near-future.
Leaves from around the web
I think I wrote enough this week to cover many readers for the whole weekend. But just in case any newsletter subscribers are fast readers, I present 21 links from around the web.
Let's...
How to do an overnight bus trip to Hirosaki from Tokyo – Part 1【Photos】
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. April 2, 2025.
...take an overnight bus from Tokyo to Hirosaki.
How to do an overnight bus trip to Hirosaki from Tokyo – Part 2【Photos】
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. April 3, 2025.
...hang out in Hirosaki after arriving via overnight bus from Tokyo.
Believe it or not, this row of retro Japanese bars is actually a hotel!【Photos】
Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. March 25, 2025.
...spend the night in Hirosaki instead of taking the night bus back to Tokyo.
The high-flying 2000s
Ben Wallace Anchored A Damn Good Pistons Squad
Neil Paine. April 28, 2020.
Regular readers will already know that Ben Wallace was very good.
The Jason Kidd Nets
Neil Paine. June 27, 2012.
Consider this a May article preview.
All in the cards
The Company You Can Pay To X-Ray Unopened Pokémon Card Packs Speaks Out
Alan Lopez for Nintendo Life. August 13, 2024.
Call me when they can use their CT scans to tell me how the AI rigs coinflips in the Game Boy Color adaptation of the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
Storytelling With Tarot
Tiffany at Love is Zero. February 25, 2025.
That's one way to come up with an idea for a scene.
Search solutions
Can Microsoft’s Bing — or Anyone Else — Ever Overtake Google?
Nat Rubio-Licht for The Daily Upside. November 18, 2024.
Not sure Bing would be an upgrade.
Searchception
Colin Hayhurst for Mojeek Blog. April 9, 2025.
A good blog post on search engine choice from a small independent search engine.
That's not where it's supposed to go
Wisconsin man arrested, accused of putting superglue in co-worker's soda can
Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. March 28, 2025.
I did a double-take when I saw the headline.
Kanagawa man arrested for pouring instant noodles into train ticket machine
Master Blaster for SoraNews24. April 31, 2025.
“It’s not that I didn’t do it at all, but it’s just that I can’t remember the specifics.”
Things that can only end well
The UAE-founded halal football prediction app giving fans more ‘skin in the game’
Faisal Al Zaabi for The National News. March 25, 2025.
"The founder of a new gaming app that allows users to predict the outcome of football matches without breaching Shariah – Islamic law – is hoping to expand into other sports." That's how it starts... then come the side-bets.
This African 'OnlyFans' paid over ₦1.2bn to adult content creators in its first year of operations
Chimgozirim Nwokoma for Techpoint.africa. April 12, 2025.
While you were going about your life, some people thought that there was just one problem with OnlyFans and determined that the one problem was "lack of local payment options."
Taking Fido to the vet
Why your pandemic pup’s vet bill has gotten so high
Molly Liebergall for Morning Brew. January 19, 2025.
More important question: Why do the "pandemic pup" owners in New York City think that their "pandemic pups" belong in grocery stores?
How Pet Care Became a Big Business (archived)
Katie Thompson for The New York Times. June 23, 2024.
Mars the candy maker saw an opening.
Problem and solution
Screens Have Taken Over Classrooms. Even Students Have Had Enough.
Sara Randazzo, Matt Barnum, and Julie Jargon for The Wall Street Journal (via MSN). January 22, 2024.
Young teachers may have never been in a classroom without big brother.
Passing the Point of Resistance
Clare Morell for Commonplace. March 31, 2025.
The case for banning phones in schools and letting the chips fall where they may.
That's a long time
Greenland Sharks Can Live for 400 Years. Scientists Are Using DNA to Unravel Their Longevity Secrets
Sarah Kuta for Smithsonian Magazine. March 5, 2025.
The so-called scientists could have just asked the sharks. Mr. Shark: "We don't smoke or drink. Diet high in omega-3s. Exercise every day by swimming."
Keeping Voyager Alive: NASA’s Project Scientist Faces Painful Choices as the Iconic Mission Nears Its End
Passant Rabie for Gizmodo. April 5, 2025.
As Voyager's voyage slowly comes to an end, a scientist who has been there the whole way reflects on the journey.
Inspired to share by my new articles if you squint
Vietnam’s most unlikely innovator: the post office
Lam Le for Rest of World. January 27, 2025.
I like the little robots.
~SPOILER FREE~ FINAL THOUGHTS: WINTER 2025
Takfumi at Pls No Hate. April 5, 2025.
I featured one of the four shows he discusses, Blondes in “I’m Getting Married to a Girl I Hate in My Class”, in my anime hair color essay of 2025. I'll submit 6/10 for that is generous for that show. (I will also say that the 2/10 he gives to Ave Mujica is too harsh, but I will leave that for a much later article).
Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week
I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2022 review) to track page hits. In each issue of the newsletter, I list our five most-visited articles, according to Koko Analytics, for the one-week period beginning with Saturday and ending with Friday. Below, you will find the most-visited articles of 2025 Newsletter Week XV (April 5-11) along with their 2025 and historic (going back 2021) weekly ranking statistics.
(1.) Calvin Coolidge Describes His Mother, Victoria
N.A. Ferrell. March 13, 2021.
2025: 7 appearances and 3 top placements.
Historic: 9 appearances and 3 top placements.
(2.) Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships
N.A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024.
2025: 13 appearances and 6 top placements.
Historic: 17 appearances and 7 top placements.
(3.) Honey Lemon Soda - Anime Review
N.A. Ferrell. April 4, 2025.
2025: First appearance.
(4.) January 2025 Look at Pixelfed Social
N.A. Ferrell. January 29, 2025.
2025: 8 appearances.
(5.) Hair Color in The Apothecary Diaries Anime
N.A. Ferrell. November 15, 2023.
2025 & Historic: First appearance.
Analysis
We had another interesting week in the rankings. My 2021 article on Calvin Coolidge finished the week with a bug run from Wednesday-Friday to easily claim its third top finish in six weeks. In second and fourth place for the week we had the first and third most-visited posts of 2025 (thus far), respectively. Positions three and five were occupied by first-time weekly entrants.
In third we had my new review of Honey Lemon Soda, which accomplished the rare feat of making the weekly ranking in its first week online. It is certainly off to the fastest start of any of my anime reviews, but time will tell whether it has the same long-term success as my reviews of The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten and A Sign of Affection. Coming in fifth was another anime article -- this one being my early review of hair color in The Apothecary Diaries. I published that article on November 15, 2023, the same day as I published another anime hair color study covering Raven of the Inner Palace. I had expected The Apothecary Diaries to be the more popular review, but my expectations were upended by Raven being more successful in 2024 (20th vs 38th in the 2024 year-end ranking) and thus far in 2025 (14th vs 22nd). But for one week at least, Apothecary has made its first Newsletter Week placement -- perhaps benefiting from the fact that the second season of the anime is currently airing.
Notable leaf journal
I published a notable article in New Leaf Journal history on April 12, 2021, in A Follow-Up Post on the Meaning of “Blob Dylan”. To my surprise, this ended up being one of our most popular articles of 2021, and it played a key role in the development of enough BLOB articles for a BLOB Dylan collection. While this BLOB Dylan article has not been a serious player in our most-visited article rankings since early 2022, it sits in 34th place on the list of most-visited New Leaf Journal articles on the fourth anniversary of its publication.
Taking leaf
Thank you as always for reading, and if you have not done so already, you can follow this newsletter by signing up for our weekly email, adding our RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking in on our archive page.
We are off to a quick start (in terms of new articles) in April, and I am working on multiple projects that I hope to publish in April before and around The New Leaf Journal's fifth birthday on April 27. Things may be a bit slow for part of this next week because I have some upcoming deadlines, but I expect to still have a good selection of articles to share next Saturday.
Until April 19,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.