Virid Intro

Welcome to the 301st 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”).

I have quite a few new NLJ articles to share with readers this week after some lean editions of the newsletter from June-September. Unfortunately, I have nothing new to share from ECS, but one of these weeks we will check both boxes.

Leaves from the week that was

I published five new articles on The New Leaf Journal since mailing our historic 300th newsletter. I had been thinking about going for our first “7 article week” in a long time, but things went a bit sideways with my day job from Wednesday to Friday.

(I am not saying the issue was habeas corpus petitions, but habeas.)

I began the new week by reminding readers that I am a part-time superhero in Brooklyn Indoor Ladybug and Katydid Rescues. Here, you will learn how, in two separate acts of unimaginable heroism, I rescued a ladybug and a katydid from my home in September. (The real highlight of this article is my katydid GIF.) My penultimate article of the week, continued the theme, wherein I answered How and Why I Rescued a Housefly. To be sure, I am not a fan of houseflies and do not make a habit of rescuing them, but I happened upon a special case on the 5th of October, 2026. Unrelated: I published my very late June 2026 at The New Leaf Journal review article on the same day I defied expectations (source?) with my housefly rescue.

My last article of the week turned out to be Halloween and the Closed Carroll Gardens Library. Back in 2024, I published a local news report of sorts on the closure of the Carroll Gardens branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Renovations were slated to be completed by summer 2025, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the library remains closed in autumn 2026. When I happened upon a Halloween decoration in Carroll Gardens making light of the Library’s ongoing construction, I had no choice but to share it with readers.

The aforementioned articles were relatively short. But my second article of the Newsletter Week was long. I finally published my review of The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten S2, which aired from April-June earlier this year. I had promised this review last year when I previewed the second season, and regular readers (especially of this Newsletter) may recall that my 2023 season one review and my joke article about predicting a second season announcement are both former Newsletter Week ranking top-finishers. But my review was delayed by the fact I did not watch the second season until September. Better late than never, I suppose.

Leaves from around the web

While I think I did well in publishing output the last two weeks, the kinds of people who sit down with The Newsletter Leaf Journal are the kinds of people who demand more. Thus, I present 15 curated links from around the world wide web, with my customary commentary to go along with quotes from the links.

World of Sounds

1 | UMass biologists discover what may be the world’s loudest birds. Barbara Moran for wbur. Sep. 29, 2026.

This is not the first time UMass biologist Jeff Podos has discovered the world’s loudest bird. In 2019, he clocked the white bellbird at 125 decibels — louder than a jackhammer. The bird, which sounds like a smoke detector that needs a new battery and attracts mates by screaming in their faces, has its own entry in the Guinness World Records.

I can hear the white bellbird from the included photo.

2 | The Egyptian trumpets that lay silent for over 3,000 years. Sheena McKenzie for CNN. Aug. 10, 2026. [HT Strange Company]

Today, the BBC broadcast gives the uncanny sense of travelling doubly through time — to the people gathered around their radios in the 1930s, who are themselves hearing the sound of ancient Egypt.

I won’t spoil it but things definitely went off without a hitch (or cracking, shattering, etc).

3 | Scientists Discover That Some Plants Can “Hear” and Even Respond to Their Pollinators by Emitting Sounds. Guillermo Carvajal for LBV. May 22, 2025.

Now, an international team led by Professor Francesca Barbero, a zoologist at the University of Turin, has demonstrated that plants perceive these acoustic stimuli and respond to them in an active way, modifying their physiology and genetic expression.

Out: Talking to your plants. In: Buzzing to your plants.

Shopping

4 | Toys ‘R’ Us to open 120 stores, biggest expansion in years — thanks to adults who ‘didn’t wanna grow up’. Lisa Fickenscher for New York Post. Sep. 17, 2026.

Toys “R” Us is kicking off its biggest expansion in nearly a decade, opening 120 stores amid surging demand from adult customers, the company said Thursday.

I approve but I’ll need them to stock Sega Genesis games for old time’s sake.

5 | what is going on with ceiling fans. Kate Wagner at McMansion Hell. Sep. 29, 2026.

Even before the widespread development of integrated LED lighting fixtures, the remarkable rise of direct to consumer furniture production a la Wayfair or Amazon that took place more than a decade ago has led to an unfathomable proliferation of products, each of which becomes its own algorithmic nugget against which other products are measured and in whose image they are later modified based on those results.

Incisive take starting from the proliferation of very odd and unaesthetic ceiling fans on Amazon and Wayfair.

6 | How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices. Barry Yeoman and Jocelyn C. Zuckerman for The Guardian. December 3, 2025.

In many instances, customers may not notice that they are being charged more than what’s listed on the shelf. If they notice at the register, they may decide to put those items back – or ask a store employee to honor the shelf price.

Always watch the register, kids.

Fashion

7 | Hair-Raising Case: White Baltimore Arts Executive Fired for Wearing Cornrows. Jonathan Turley. Oct. 9, 2026.

Maryland said that it wanted to protect hairstyles. This may not be the litigant that they had in mind, but it is the same form of racial discrimination.

It is 100% was not what Maryland had in mind. That’s why the potential for litigation is hilarious.

8 | Mysteriously big Roman shoes to go on display. Jason Arunn Murugesu for BBC. January 1, 2026.

Archaeologist Rachel Frame said 34 shoes were dug up at the Magna Roman Fort in Northumberland in 2025 – eight of which were at least 30cm (11.8in) long, the equivalent of a UK size 13 to 14.

I was going to say “that’s where I lost it!” But I wear a U.S. size 12-12.5, so it’s a size or two too big for me.

9 | Japan’s largest online flea market reminds users that selling used school swimsuits is prohibited. Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. Aug. 6, 2026.

However, while not specifically mentioned by Mercari in its statement, there’s a certain segment of the Japanese population that has a less than wholesome interest in school swimsuits, viewing them through the same prurient lens that some people do school uniforms. For such would-be buyers, the desirability of a school swimsuit is tied to it having actually been used, and it’s understandable that Mercari doesn’t want to be part of the pipeline for such skeevy transactions.

(Shakes head.)

10 | Hands off my hat! The hidden power of headwear and ‘hatiquette’ in early modern England – new study (HT [pun unintended] Matthew Ingram). Bernard Capp for The Conversation. April 10, 2026.

Historically, hats had a significance that went far beyond fashion and keeping the head warm. For any respectable man in Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian England, to go hatless was almost unthinkable, while for people lower down the social scale, it suggested total destitution.

I only noticed after reading that the author’s last name is “Capp.”

Las Vegas

11 | Did Las Vegas get too greedy?. Nate Silver. December 21, 2025.

Furthermore, customers might reconsider a return trip, especially when also faced with other humiliations in Vegas, like $8 bottles of Fiji water and ubiquitous resort fees.

Is he saying the house lost?

12 | SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE 88. Meghan Garvey. March 23, 2026.

LED arrows inside Harry Reid Airport pointed left to the carousels and right to the liquor store: “the nation’s only non-duty free liquor store located in an airport baggage claim,” the advertisements bragged. “Stop by before getting your luggage to stock up on what you need. We know why you came to Las Vegas, and Liquor Library is here to help you.” The dusk settled into darkness as I smoked a cigarette on the second floor of the parking garage, watching the distant lights of the Strip and the rippling glow of the Sphere. The 108 bus idled at the terminal beneath me, its destination flashing: “PARADISE: EXPECT DELAYS.”

I wanted to stop reading because this uneventful dive into a Vegas dive bar is bleak, but I had to read to the end. Still bleak, but good read.

Televisions

13 | The biggest CRT ever made: Sony’s PVM-4300. Dave Farquhar at The Silicon Underground. December 22, 2025.

The Sony PVM-4300 was the largest CRT TV ever made. Its 45-inch tube provided 43 inches of visible improved definition TV. It stood about 27 inches tall.

It’s a bit unwieldy but it probably doesn’t spy on you.

14 | In Praise Of Plasma TVs. Tyler August for Hackaday. November 18, 2025.

I’m sitting in front of an old Sayno Plasma TV as I write this on my media PC. It’s not a productivity machine, by any means, but the screen has the resolution to do it so I started this document to prove a point. That point? Plasma TVs are awesome.

I had a Samsung Plasma TV from 2009 (just in time for the epic Federer-Roddick Wimbledon Final in 2009) through 2019. It was good until it started making a persistent buzzing sound in its last couple of years. I still had it when I started NLJ and I briefly used it as a monitor for my current computer when I was setting it up.

Video

15 | The Irregularities of Animal Crossing. Hunter R on YouTube. Aug. 23, 2026.

This video covers some peculiar things in the original Animal Crossing for Nintendo GameCube, which is a personal favorite game of mine.

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 October 3-October 9 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search (NAF. April 17, 2025.) 41 appearances and 23 top-placements in 2026; 68 appearances and 44 top-placements overall.

2. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine (NAF. Jan. 21, 2026.) 38 appearances and 18 top-placements.

3. How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name (NAF. March 11, 2021.) 23 appearances in 2026; 33 appearances overall.

4. The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten S2 – Anime Review (NAF. Oct. 4, 2026.) Debut.

5. Brooklyn Indoor Ladybug and Katydid Rescues (NAF. Oct. 3, 2026.) Debut.

Analysis

As usual, our perennial top two distanced the field, but we saw Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search reverse the 1-2 order from the previous five weeks to take its 23rd top-placement of 2026 to go along with 41 consecutive weekly top-fives to start the year. It was a close race, with my Google Search Pokémon game review coming from behind on Thursday and Friday.

Readers may be tempted to be impressed with two of my newest articles making weekly ranking debuts. Alas, I must note that while positions 1-3 were all solid and our overall visit count was in line with recent weeks, the bottom of the top five was very weak, with this being our weakest 5th place of 2026. I have some hope that my Angel Next Door review will turn out to be a solid performer over the next year and change. While I suspect my bug rescue article is a one-hit ranking wonder, perhaps it will surprise us (you can help it by sharing with all your friends).

Taking leaf

The Newsletter Leaf Journal has come a long way over 300 issues. While it is closely tied to my main project, The New Leaf Journal, as well as The Emu Café Social, I like to think it has developed its own identity as a publication unto itself since I launched it back in July 2020. If you are new to the newsletter, I would encourage you to peruse our archives. Even old issues like Newsletter 100 (syndicated version) have evergreen links and quips.

This concludes the start of the third century of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. With hope, I will have a good number of new articles to share in the October 17 edition of this humble publication

Until the katydids cry,
Nicholas A. Ferrell from the Newsletter Next Door.