This is partly former WIRED reviews director Jeffrey Van Camp’s influence, but 2025 has found me interested in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). I recovered from my post-CES flu by watching Netflix, which recently acquired the rights to show WWE Raw on Monday nights. It is a shame that I have to turn this in on Mondays and can’t just turn this newsletter into a recap. I had never watched WWE before, so I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s less a sport than it is a Surrealist dramedy, written in expertly sculpted flesh. It’s riveting. There are jokes, lore, romances, and clever camera work. My kids could not get over it. What is up with El Luchador’s eyes?
I also simultaneously blazed through Margo’s Got Money Troubles, which has, as a character, a Vince McMahon–type promoter who also spoke to WWE’s allure—at its heart, a bunch of beautiful wild boys and girls, sailing through time and space into battle with their bodies, for our love. I’m sorry, JVC, I finally get it. I will look up who Cody Rhodes is now.
WWE video games will help kill time until next week’s Raw, and until the new Switch 2 will be released. (My daughter wants a Switch for her birthday; she can have Mama’s, and I will get the new one.) All of this would look beautiful on the latest Panasonic TV, or maybe you could just update your desktop gaming PC with a new mouse or keyboard. I also found out that my husband got an ultrawide monitor without telling me, via finding a giant ultrawide monitor box in the hall. Here’s to 2025 and discovering new things, sometimes by tripping over them on your way to breakfast.
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Ski season is here! Ski season is here! I love ski season. I love spending hundreds of dollars trying to indoctrinate my stubborn 7- and 9-year-olds into a sport I love, but to them is a freezing cold, tedious, and annoying obstacle they have to get through before their mom will let them get into the hot tub! I’m putting up more cold-weather guides in the coming weeks, but here is our first, which is a roundup of the best ski gloves and mittens.
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If the temperatures are also dropping for you, I should tell you that we also have an upcoming and more thorough guide to puffy insulated jackets. However, I highlight Patagonia’s warmest casual parka (that isn’t a mountaineering parka) in this gift guide. It only comes in men’s sizes, but if you’re a woman, I suggest getting it oversized for layering. (For example, I normally wear XS, and I should’ve gotten a men’s small.) If you need more explanation for why it’s so warm, here’s our quick guide to down fill power.
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I also like ski season because it means I can just put my hair into a braid, stick it in a hat, and forget about it until the weather warms up and people can see the rest of my head again. My colleague Kat Merck’s amazingly thorough guide to the Best Dry Shampoos almost made me stop editing and run off to get some. Your mom was right: Do not go outside in the cold with wet hair! You will get pneumonia, like me, and be forced to sit inside and watch WWE! |
My colleague Boutayna Chokrane and I are bonding over being wannabe tech-boy gym bros. We are bringing the masculine energy to Leg Day. I’m on the carnivore diet and I stink only moderately. The one thing we can all agree on, however, is that everyone needs to be drinking more water. We have many good ones in our guide to the best water bottle, but a Nalgene will never fail you. I have these in every size and color, and some are almost 20 years old.
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If I saw you at school dropoff, this is what I would blab about just after we had exchanged small pleasantries, right when you were about to turn around and walk back home. |
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I was not interested in The Fall Guy, the movie, because I half-believed it was a movie adaptation of Fall Guys, the video game. That was the wrong thing to do, because I watched this movie on the plane last week and I can’t believe people weren’t raving about it. It’s a hilarious, fast-paced romantic comedy, with fight scenes, about a stunt double, that constantly breaks the fourth wall! Why were we all talking about Challengers? That was dumb!
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Like every Witcher fan, I’m struggling with the fact that we have no details about when the next Witcher video game comes out. It is time for my yearly replay of Witcher 3. Also, I find it hilarious that absolutely none of us apparently picked the ending where Ciri ends up as Empress of Nilfgaard. We are all bad, bad parents.
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I’m currently testing the Amazfit Active 2 and trying to figure out why I like it so much. I just realized that it’s basically a copy of the Withings ScanWatch, but it costs only $100. Hmmm. A full review is upcoming, but I like it very much.
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