Friday, February 20, 2026

Putting this together at the last minute because I am on vacation this week and forgot about it. But don't let that stop you from enjoying it.

Item 1: a link

Patrick Redford at Defector writes about a winter olympics sport that seems like one of the more miserable experiences people choose to take part in:

The competitive premise of ski mountaineering is essentially that cross-country skiing, already one of the most lung-intensive sports on the planet, presents an insufficient test of its athletes cardiovascular limits. It is as if organizers looked at the otherworldly abilities of Johannes Klæbo (and the howling misery of Jessie Diggins), and conceived of a way to introduce more suffering. "I think they are the athletes who have the highest pain threshold and can really suffer," German skimo physician Dr. Volker Schöffl told NBC. "They sprint, they run and then, you know, gradually everybody is dying around you until one man is standing and finishing first."

You can think of skimo as a sort of triathlon that combines cross-country skiing, regular-style skiing, and trail running. Competitors first ski uphill with the help of adhesive climbing skins on the front of their skis, then peel the skins from their skis and descend back to the bottom again. Now the competitors repeat the climb, but in a more difficult way: For the second climb, the athletes stow their skis in their backpacks and run up the hill in their boots. They then descend again.

Seems bad.

Item 2: a list

Universal Studios Japan Areas, Ranked:

1. Hollywood
2. Super Nintendo World
3. Minion Park
4. Universal Wonderland
5. Jurassic Park
6. Amity Village
7. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: word of the week

Sapid

[Covering awkwardly] I didn't say your opinions are insipid... I said, uh... your onions... are sapid.

Item 5: an image

See ya!

Next time we see each other it'll nearly be March. Not the most interesting observation but you can't deny its accuracy. See you next week.