Welcome to the 265th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal ("NLJ") and its short-form writing sister publication, The Emu Café Social ("ECS"). This newsletter comes to you as always from the administrator, editor, and writer of both publications, Nicholas A. Ferrell.

I published two new NLJ articles and a few ECS short posts last week, all of which I will share below. I also have our usual collection of links from around the web and other news and notes, including our most-visited articles. I will note that this week's newsletter will be to the point because I am working with my good friend and NLJ colleague, Victor V. Gurbo to publish a visual novel this evening. While I had hoped to talk more about it in this newsletter, that discussion will have to wait until next week.

Leaves from the week that was

I published two NLJ articles since mailing Newsletter 264.

First, I published a new NBA research article: NBA Champions After Losing MVPs/All NBA Players (the hardest part was coming up with a title). It recently occurred to me that the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA championship last year while two players who had won MVPs with the franchise, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, were still active but on other teams. I wondered how many times this scenario occurred in NBA history. After confirming that the answer was just four, I expanded my inquiry to include All NBA First, Second, and Third team selections.

In my second NLJ, I shared my latest heroism story in My Heroic Car Rescue in Brooklyn Heights. Always remember that the most important part of being a hero is telling everyone about your heroic deeds.

I published nine short posts on ECS last week, a few of which were not too short. I list them below from earliest to most recent:

• Article On the Mecha Comet modular Linux handheld computer (I would pre-order if I were wealthy).
• Note Footnotes in Buttondown · The Emu Café Social (On last week's Newsletter Leaf Journal).
• Note Final EoL For Vista-based Windows Server 2008 (A final goodbye to the Windows Vista codebase (and my own Vista memories)).
• Note On the Matter of TikTok Alternatives (They can't fix the bad format).
• Note Snowman in Bed-Stuy URL Clues (The snowman was not from the most recent snow).
• Quote Georgia’s Breakaway Regions and Venezuela (Covering a story about the intersection of Venezuela's political shift and the Republic of Georgia's two Russian-backed break-away regions).
• Nostalgia Sega 32X Virtua Racing Decompiled (I had to comment on the story that the Sega 32X version of Virtua Racing has been decompiled as I am perhaps the only person who (A) had a 32X and Virtua Racing in the 90s and who (2) wrote about it in an article about Cybertruck aesthetics in 2024).
• Article Using Cloudron’s IP Firewall (I may have solved the NLJ's recent crashing issue (fingers crossed)).

With my links accounted for, on to...

Leaves from around the web

...I present 24 links from around the world wide web.

Let's set the tone

Every Marketer Says You Need "Taste". Here's What That Actually Means
Si Quan Ong for Ahrefs Blog. January 20, 2026.

It's easier for me to show than tell.

This week in history

This Day In History: Remembering the Deadly Challenger Explosion 40 Years Later
Alana Mastrangelo for Breitbart. January 28, 2026.

Remembering human space travel's most significant tragedy, and the seven astronauts who perished, 40 years later.

Television is 100 years old today (HT Pixy Misa)
Diamond Geezer. January 26, 2026.

Here I learned about the invention of the television.

X marques the spot

Schooner Fame of Salem in Salem
Josh W. for Atlas Obscura. January 13, 2026.

I was going to quip that the Victory Chimes schooner I covered is cooler, but it's hard to beat a privateer schooner from The War of 1812...

America First at Sea: How Letters of Marque Can Enforce U.S. Sanctions
Frank Viola for RealClear Defense. January 13, 2026.

Is that Ron Paul's entrance music I hear? The libertarian moment truly arrives when we start using letters of marque to enforce sanctions.¹

Hindsight 20/20

Judge "Displayed Poor Judgment by Wearing His Elvis Presley Costume ... During Court Proceedings on or Around Halloween"
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. January 8, 2026.

Kicker: The honorable jurist was removed from the bench for reasons entirely unrelated to the Elvis cosplay.

Death cap mushrooms in California kill 3, lead to liver transplants in 3 others
Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. January 16, 2026.

"State health officials are urging residents to refrain from foraging for wild mushrooms since the poisonous fruiting bodies look similar to other varieties that are safe to consume."²

The Navy’s largest ship continues to be plagued by plumbing issues
Riley Cooper for Navy Times. January 22, 2026.

Perhaps going small on the pipes was not the best call.

Firefighters Could Have Prevented the L.A. Wildfires, but California Rules Made Them Save Plants Instead
Shawn Regan for City Journal. December 30, 2025.

I doubt the plants survived the fires.

Problem and solution

Everything You Need To Know About The Guyana-Venezuela Border Dispute
Matthew Smith for OilPrice.com. March 27, 2023.

It doesn't look like the International Court of Justice managed to solve the dispute. Will anyone step in!?

U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Has Shored Up Guyana’s Oil Ambitions
Felicity Bradstock for OilPrice.com. January 18, 2026.

Only after they stop laughing about how Maduro spent years threatening to invade Guyana only to be whisked away from his military base bed in 30 minutes.

Nothing but Nets

Episode 30. It Came from the Swamp (Pt.1). & Episode 31. Legend of the Swamp Dragons (Pt.2).
Gameplan Creative at The Authentic Voice of Sports Branding. December 3 & 10, 2025.

The Nets really should have re-branded to the Swamp Dragons. For one, the proposed Swamp Dragons logo was awesome. For two, it would have saved us from the current Brooklyn Nets branding, which represents everything that is wrong with contemporary branding. With that being said, I will grant that the Nets' post-Swamp Dragon shield logo, which they took to the 2002 and 2003 NBA Finals, was not bad.

Michael Porter Jr. Finds Meaning After Almost Losing Basketball
Mirin Fader for The Ringer. May 31, 2023.

I had a brief bout of drop foot in 2018 and would not have been inclined to play basketball with it. Michael Porter not only wears a special brace to play with drop foot, but is currently putting up All Star-caliber numbers for the Brooklyn Nets.

Winter animal rescues

Upstate NY firefighters rescue squirrel trapped in dumpster on Christmas Eve
Caitlin McCormack for the New York Post. December 28, 2025.

Dumpster diving is dangerous.

Freezing reptile dubbed 'Lizard in a blizzard' is rescued after being buried in Rhode Island snow
Kimberlee Kruesi for AP (via Te Washington Times). January 30, 2026.

It's not nice to abandon lizards outside in the winter. Look at that sad lizard in the photo!

Remembering Nintendo handhelds

An Ode To The Game Boy Advance
Wouter Goreneveld at Brain Baking. March 27, 2025.

A good look back at the Game Boy Advance.

The Best Mistake Nintendo Ever Made? Why 2DS Is The Perfect Embodiment Of Gunpei Yokoi's Core Principles
Dan Morelle for Time Extension. January 22, 2026.

I have a 2DS. I prefer the 3DS clamshell design but I will agree with the author that the "3D" was largely useless (save for Mario Kart 7 in my humble opinion).

Simple projects to try at home

Project: A Poor-Man’s Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitor (ABPM) ft. A&D UA-651BLE
Grough Lui at Dr. Grough's Tech Zone. September 20, 2025.

Just a little DIY project.

How to make barista championship milk at home
Morgan Eckroth at Coffee For Here. January 16, 2025.

If you have no problem with time-consuming and potentially messy activities, you can make your own freeze-distilled milk.

All in the family

Roman Catholic Church ban in the Middle Ages loosened family ties
Caitlin McDermott-Murphy for The Harvard Gazette. November 7, 2019.

The map highlighting where cousins and uncles-nieces don't tend to get married is indeed telling.

More infant deaths linked to cousin marriage than substance abuse
Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph. October 4, 2025.

This is about the UK. In light of the foregoing link, let us briefly set aside the obvious context and just blame Henry VIII.

Finishing with some vocab

Ductility on the Web
Jim Nielsen. April 10, 2025.

Nothing but respect for combining fun vocab and web standards into a single article.

Doxing, Not Doxxing
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. March 25, 2025.

I agree with the headline -- but only tentatively -- in order to avoid being "doxed" or "doxxed" by someone in the pro-"doxxing" camp.

Jimmy Parham: Tee for Two, 1988
Bob Kuska at From Way Downtown (Re-Printing article from August/September 1988 issue of Philly Sport by B.G. Kelley). January 13, 2026.

The second paragraph of the 1988 article is a work of art.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2025 article) to track page visits. 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 our most-visited articles for the week of January 24-30 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 21, 2026.
   2026: 2 appearances and 1 top placement.

2. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025.
   2026: 5 appearances and top placements.
   Cumulative: 32 appearances and 25 top placements.

3. Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025.
   2026: 2 appearances.
   Cumulative: 37 appearances and 8 top placements.

4. Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023.
   2026: 4 appearances.
   Cumulative: 23 appearances.

5. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis
   Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022.
   2026: 3 appearances.
   Cumulative: 66 appearances and 4 top placements.

Analysis

Despite having its best week in 2026 thus far, Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search saw its 17-week streak atop the weekly ranking come to an end, with Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine, in its first full week online, doing enough to claim the top position by a narrow margin. The race was close throughout, with the DuckDuckGo article leading the whole week, but Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search gaining ground from Wednesday-Friday to make it close. Based on their current numbers, I expect to see them fight it out again for the top spot in coming weeks.

Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search was just the third article to put together a streak of 10 consecutive top placements, and it had the second longest first-place streak overall.

Longest Newsletter Week First Place Streaks

1. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (25: 2021-22)
2. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search (17: 2025-26)
3. Tiki paralogue trick in Fire Emblem Engage (11: 2023).

It also tied for the second-longest first-place streak to start a year at four, matching The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei in 2023 and being behind only Tsuki ga Kirei's eight-week streak to start 2022.

While the top two articles last week separated themselves from the pack, Amazon "Cargo Bikes" in Brooklyn had one of its best weeks on record, which is no small feat for an article that has appeared in 37 weekly rankings since last April. But what would have been good for the top spot in more weeks than not was only good for distant third in 2026 Newsletter Week 5.

Taking Leaf

Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed this issue and 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.

As I noted at the top, I am working on publishing the first ever NLJ-developed visual novel this evening, so I will leave the newsletter off here. If you are interested in the game, I encourage you to check in on NLJ this week and look forward to next week's newsletter for more information.

Until February,
Cura ut valeas -- Nicholas A. Ferrell.