On August 30, 2020, I reviewed the month of August at The New Leaf Journal (I do not recall why I wrote the review with one day still to go before the calendar turned to September). That started a tradition which continues today, even when some reviews such as my recent consolidated review of May and June 2025 came more than a little bit late. We are still in the first half of September, so I rate this review of August 2025 timely.
Below, we commemorate the month that was here in NLJ and on our sister site, The Emu Café Social, and five years of month-in-review posts.
New (Leaf Journal) Leaves From August 2025
I published 12 new articles in August. Below, keeping with my recent practice, I will offer some backstory behind the articles along with links.
Monthly Reviews
I had fallen way behind on my month-in-review posts, but I caught up at the end of August, First, I published a consolidated May and June review, which had been delayed by travel, sickness, and work. I could not publish a July review until I finally finished the May and June review, but I managed to get that in before the end of August to keep it from being too embarrassingly late.
Tech Stuff
On August 6, I published Finding the Best RSS/ATOM Feed. This article was inspired by my not being satisfied with Pew Research Center’s default main site feed. I ended up stumbling across a second topic for the post while I was working on the original idea.
On August 2025, I covered a very eager web crawler in Thinkbot Visits The New Leaf Journal. I had noticed Thinkbot several months ago, but I was inspired to write about it when I saw a Thinkbot post hit page one of Hacker News. Note that I subsequently decided to block it via .htaccess instead of using the plugin solution I discuss in the article.
Free Stuff
On August 7, I covered a paper cup and discarded chairs I came across on the corner of Hicks and Nelson Streets in Red Hook, Brooklyn. What makes this post fun is that I saw the cup in April and the chairs in early August (the cup may still be there in a flattened state). I took the photo I used for our July 2025 review right before capturing the chairs.
On August 19, I published Free Desk on Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights. I originally intended to use this photo in an Emu Café Social post, but I upgraded it to New Leaf Journal because I have another free desk post in the works. The new desk post should be part of my later September review.
Drinks
The theme of the month at The New Leaf Journal was drinks.
The drink theme first appeared on August 14 with Coca Cola Liquid Death Tag. I noticed at a produce mart that glass bottles of Coca Cola sat above a label which read “LIQUID DEATH.” I was initially confused, but noticed cans of something called Liquid Death just right of the Coke display and the label. Shortly after publishing the funny image, I read saw an article about Liquid Death in my feed reader (maybe my Miniflux instance is spying on me). That article spawned Missing the “Liquid Death” Marketing Campaign, wherein I examined why the drink’s branding had not previously reached me.
In between the Liquid Death posts, I published My Boxed Water Is Better Story. Back in 2023, someone handed me a box of water near Prospect Park. I had planned to turn the boxed water into an article. I largely forgot about it until 2025, when I came across an op-ed about the boxed water brand. Fortunately, I still had photos of the water box that I had taken back in 2023.
My last drink-themed post of the month was Against the Coffee Palmer. I read about a new drink which combines black coffee and lemonade. I was horrified enough to write an article which ties back to a post I published in 2020. Fun extra: The source for this story is the unnamed site from Finding the Best RSS/ATOM Feed.
Miscellaneous Cybertrucks and Anime Hair
On August 9, I published Kazuya’s Hair Color in Rent-A-Girlfriend. As the title suggests, this is the newest in my long-running series of articles on hair color in Japanese anime, games, and manga. It is not my most in-depth hair color study, but I was glad to be able to turn all the time I wasted on this bad anime into NLJ content.
On August 13, I published a humorous post titled U.S. Air Force Targets Cybertrucks. The prompt for the story was a report that the Air Force is looking to use Cybertrucks for target practice. One part of the article tied into something I wrote about a Cybertruck back in December 2024.
Other Projects
I was fairly busy on The Emu Café Social, publishing more than 20 posts in August. You can see our full month archive. Below, I single out six of these posts for special mention, but I recommend perusing the full archive at your leisure.
- Protecting New Trees in Greenpoint, Brooklyn: I approved of a new tree-planing project in Brooklyn, but wondered why the project warned about everything except certain four-legged menaces to new trees prowling Brooklyn. This will be the prompt for an upcoming NLJ article.
- Hetzner VPS and Cloudron for WordPress Hosting: I recommend my WordPress hosting setup in response to a post complaining about the current slate of WordPress hosting options.
- Checking in on King Salman of Saudi Arabia: I note an increasingly rare reference in an article to the de jure ruler of Saudi Arabia, King Salman.
- My Six Flags Memory: Prompted by an article about Six Flags’ recent business struggles, I share my memories of my one-and-only trip to the amusement park, wherein I went on no rides. The no rides part inspired another reference which in turn inspired a still-in-progress NLJ article.
- User Agent Watch: GodHatesMastodon: Thanks to my using the ActivityPub for WordPress plugin to make NLJ and ECS amenable to being followed by Mastodon accounts, we receive many Mastodon and “Fediverse” crawlers. One of these crawlers had a very notable user agent.
- The Black Tux Box: I shared a photo of the box my rental tuxedo for a wedding arrived in. This tied into my first NLJ article of September (but that will have to wait for our September review).
As I noted, you can read the rest of the August ECS posts over on that site.
I mail our weekly newsletter on Saturdays. August had five Saturdays, and I did not miss a single newsletter. Each newsletter comes with (at least) 21 links from around the web and other news and notes including weekly article rankings, so they are worth reading (if I do say so myself) even if you are already caught up on my new posts. See the newsletters below:
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXXXIX 〜 Walden gnome
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXL 〜 Garbage RSS
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXLI 〜 Boxed Newsbetter
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXLII: Liquid Desk
- Newsletter Leaf Journal CCXLIII 〜 Dr. Thinknewsletter
With our links accounted for, let us move on to our regular monthly article rankings.
Most-turned leaves of August 2025
Most of the following statistics come to you courtesy of Koko Analytics, a local page-counting solution I used from July 2020 through August 30, 2025. What happened after August 30? Well, first, I present a list of our 24 most-visited articles of August 2025 and the most-visited articles of the three month period covering June through August.
| Aug Rank | Article (Author. Date.) | June-Aug | 3-Mo Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 17, 2025. | 1 | +1 |
| 2 | Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn Nicholas A. Ferrell. April 9, 2025. | 2 | -1 |
| 3 | Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 5, 2023. | 4 | 0 |
| 4 | Garbage and Free Stuff in Red Hook, Brooklyn Nicholas A. Ferrell. August 7, 2025. | 16 | N/A |
| 5 | Victory Chimes Schooner in Brooklyn Bridge Park Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 7, 2024. | 6 | +2 |
| 6 | Misleading ARRIS Modem Login Instructions Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 12, 2024. | 5 | 0 |
| 7 | The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021. | 8 | +2 |
| 8 | The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022. | 7 | 0 |
| 9 | Height differences in anime romances Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 22, 2023. | 9 | 0 |
| 10 | Installing LineageOS on a 2013 Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 28, 2021. | 18 | +6 |
| 11 | Reviewing FrogFind: A Search Engine For Vintage Computers Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 24, 2022. | 14 | +9 |
| 12 | Coca Cola Liquid Death Tag Nicholas A. Ferrell. August 14, 2025. | X | X |
| 13 | My Logitech Washable Wired Keyboard K310 Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 20, 2024. | 12 | +5 |
| 14 | Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 5, 2021. | 11 | +1 |
| 15 | Hair Color in Raven of the Inner Palace Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 15, 2023. | 10 | +1 |
| 16 | Futaba Igarashi’s Hair Is Naturally Green? Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 23, 2021. | 21 | NEW |
| 17 | Broken Optical Audio Cable Door “Fix” Nicholas A. Ferrell. September 16, 2023. | 15 | +1 |
| 18 | Finding the Best RSS/ATOM Feed Nicholas A. Ferrell. August 6, 2025. | X | X |
| 19 | Japanese Environment in PoL, Lutris, and Bottles Nicholas A. Ferrell. June 16, 2022. | X | X |
| 20 | Enabling Charging Optimization on GrapheneOS Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 12, 2025. | 24 | NEW |
| 21 | A Sign of Affection – Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 28, 2024. | 17 | -2 |
| 22 | How the Forget-Me-Not Flower Found Its Name Nicholas A. Ferrell. March 11, 2021. | 19 | -6 |
| 23 | January 2025 Look at Pixelfed Social Nicholas A. Ferrell. January 29, 2025. | X | X |
| 24 | The Dangers in My Heart S1 Anime Review Nicholas A. Ferrell. December 28, 2023. | X | X |
| X | Pogačar Chases Riis on Hautacam Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 20, 2025. | 3 | 0 |
| X | Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 9, 2024. | 13 | -7 |
| X | Fixing Refresh Rate Issue on 4K TV Monitor Nicholas A. Ferrell. July 26, 2024. | 20 | 0 |
| X | Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2 Nicholas A. Ferrell. November 5, 2023. | 22 | -8 |
| X | An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search Nicholas A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022. | 23 | -5 |
Before we analyze the results, allow me to explain how the results came to be.
Our Analytics Situation
As I noted at the start of the section, I had been using Koko Analytics to track page visits on The New Leaf Journal since July 11, 2020. In late August, Koko Analytics released a major update which changed its database structure. I was unable to fully migrate my data from the old database to the new database. The support forum for the plugin indicates that I was far from the only person who had this issue. Koko Analytics released a slew of updates over a 3-4 day period while trying to resolve new issues. I tried several versions of the plugin but never had luck migrating my full database (some of the versions created issues unseen in the original). While I could have started over with my statistics or tried to shrink the amount of data I was keeping, I decided that Koko Analytics, which served me well for just over five years, had become too troublesome for my use-case. I removed the plugin on August 30.
I thought that I had preserved my August data through that point. I had not, at least not directly. Thus, it briefly appeared that we would have no August rankings. However, I did have a full database dump of all of my Koko Analytics stats through August 29, 2025, which I had created while trying to migrate my data. Thus, I had my Koko Analytics stats through that point (note, however, that they were a pain to unscramble). While I did not have any analytics tool again until September 6 (our new tool is the similarly local and privacy-friendly Statify, which I will cover soon), I did have my Google Search Console data, wherein Google reports from its end how many people click on NLJ links in Google Search. I combined the Google Search Console data for August 30-31 with Bing and Yandex Webmaster data and my recollection of where the articles stood on the evening of August 30 to put together our August 2025 ranking and our three-month rankings. It is possible that this may have caused some small shifts in positions 5-25 (Umineko When They Cry Red Truth Guide just missed out on the final spot), but there is no chance that any extra data would have shifted August’s Elite Four (there are notable gaps between positions 2 and 3 and 4 and 5).
Thanks to Statify and my ability to extrapolate for September 1-5, we will also have our regular rankings going forward.
Analysis of August 2025 Stats
The top two articles in August 2025 separated themselves from the pack, with the eventual runner-up and May-June winner, Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn, leading the way for most of the month and only relinquishing the lead on August 30. It looked until August 30 like Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search, which had stayed close enough to Cargo Bikes to hold a small lead in the three-month ranking, would become the first article to lead a three-month ranking before leading a one-month ranking. However, Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search broke out at the end of the month and has become the dominant article in September such that it appears to now have a legitimate chance to contend for the top spot of 2025 (which has been held by Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships since early February). That late surge catapulted my expose on Google Search’s former Pokémon-catching game to the top spot in both of our August rankings.
Three August articles made our top-24. Garbage and Free Stuff in Red Hook, Brooklyn was a major surprise, putting up an excellent stretch close to when it was published thanks to Newsbreak App. Coca Cola Liquid Death Tag posted a surprising 12th place finish, also powered by Newsbreak App. Coming in 18th was Finding the Best RSS/ATOM Feed, which did well without the help of any apps.
The back-half of the ranking saw some new faces. Futaba Igarashi’s Hair Is Naturally Green? had its best month in raw ranking terms, finishing 16th and coming one spot shy of being the best-placed hair color article of August. It also made its 2025 debut in the three-month ranking in 21st position. Enabling Charging Optimization on GrapheneOS made its second consecutive top-24 appearance and second overall, which also boosted it into the three-month ranking. 19th place Japanese Environment in PoL, Lutris, and Bottles and 24th place The Dangers in My Heart S1 Anime Review made their first appearances in monthly rankings in 2025, although both had placements in prior years.
Several heavy-hitters missed the August ranking while hanging on in the three-month ranking. An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search and Planning and Angel Next Door Season 2, which finished 2nd and 3rd in 2024 and still hold high positions in the 2025 ranking, both missed the August top-2024 while barely hanging in on the June-August top-24. Examining Whether Defense Wins NBA Championships, which led our February, March, and April rankings and remains the top article of 2025, continued its gradual slide, missing the August top-24 and dropping to 13th place in the three-month ranking. July winner Pogačar Chases Riis on Hautacam missed the August top-24 entirely (not a surprise since its rise was driven by the Tour de France news cycle), but it still did enough in August to narrowly hold its third-place position in the three-month ranking over Dragonair Safari in Pokémon Yellow.
Taking Leaf
August was not my busiest month, but I like to think I published some articles of interest. While September has been off to a slow start thus far, I have several projects in the works and look forward to sharing them in the coming weeks.
