Numlock News: February 23, 2026 • Koi, Axe, Pilots
By Walt Hickey
Welcome back!
GOAT
A muted weekend at the box office meant that the animated movie GOAT was able to sustain momentum as Wuthering Heights fell off. Goat claimed the top spot at the box office in its second week of release with $17 million, only a 36 percent decline. GOAT has made $58.3 million domestically so far on an $80 million budget. However, it is benefiting from being the only movie for children currently in cinemas and can probably ride that out for the foreseeable future, or at least until Pixar releases Hoppers in two weeks.
Osaka
The Osaka City Waterworks Bureau announced that it received an unexpected donation in November in the form of 21 kilograms of gold bullion, worth 560 million yen (US$3.6 million), from an anonymous donor. The donor asked that the money go towards fixing the water system in Osaka, which has had its share of issues — a massive sinkhole last year linked to a damaged sewer pipe, as well as 92 cases of water pipe leaks under city roads.
Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press
Judging The Judge
The new, more complex figure skating scoring system implemented by the International Skating Union has not appeared to eliminate a judge’s bias toward skaters from their own country. An analysis of the scoring from the 2026 Winter Olympics found that there was a statistically significant skew for judges’ own countrymen. Of the 15 teams competing in the Free Dance, for instance, all but one got an above-average score from their country compared to the other eight judges. In the short programs, of 36 judges overall, 30 of them scored their nation’s skaters more favorably; a skater could expect a score 1.93 points higher on average from a judge from their own country compared to another. In the long program, that came out to an extra 3.34 points.
Pilots
NBC has ordered eight pilots for the upcoming television season, while ABC and CBS each have two, meaning the network has 12 pilots in development for the 2025 development cycle. Fox and the CW don’t do pilots anymore. For comparison, in 2019, the networks ordered 66 pilots. And that was considered a bleak year, the lowest number of pilots ordered in seven years. Still, the 12 pilots are a rebound from the lows of just five pilots in 2024. However, it’s still caused the available work to crater, as pilot season was a boom time on the calendar for sound stages, crew and thousands of workers in Los Angeles.
Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter
Koi
Koi ponds have become a popular hobby among well-heeled aquaculture enthusiasts, and the production of the fish is turning stateside amid tariffs impacting the import of koi from Japan. A koi might only go for $20 to $25, but the whole ecosystem can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most devoted hobbyists. When shipped from Japan, an importer can fit 100 three-to-four-inch fish in a box that costs about $500 to ship. However, once the fish are 10 to 12 inches, importers can only fit 10 per box. Currently, there are 138 koi farms in the United States across 27 states, bringing in around $12 million in sales.
Axe
Deodorant brand Axe is adjusting its bottle, with the new design featuring a more controlled spray. While no self-respecting consumer product would try to make its consumers use less, the minds at Axe have come to realize that teenage boys spraying an entire bottle on themselves was not exactly winning hearts and minds. The bottles are now down from four ounces to 2.9 ounces, thanks to the new tech, and users can expect 10 percent more sprays. Axe is still very popular — it’s the second-largest deodorant brand in America — but has shed some market share over the past few years, dropping from 24 percent of the business in 2020 to 16.3 percent as of 2025.
Megan Graham, The Wall Street Journal
Gordie
The Gordie Howe Bridge was constructed to connect Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan, hopefully easing traffic congestion. Currently, the privately-owned Ambassador Bridge is the sole connection along the busiest international trade corridor in North America. That bridge is owned by the Moroun Family, which has opposed new crossings for years, spending millions of dollars on lobbyists to stymie new rivals and maintain the lucrative monopoly. The crossing gets the Moroun Family $15 in tolls per commercial vehicle. Commercial traffic projections would see traffic on the Ambassador Bridge decline from about three million vehicles annually to 1.6 million once the Gordie Howe bridge is opened. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to attract 28 percent of the passenger vehicle traffic and 45 percent of the commercial vehicle traffic when opened.
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Except that the problem with the Gordie Howe Bridge is that our Orange leader has decided that he wants "something" from Canada before he lets its open (translation: show me the money). The thing is, and as I understand it, Canada paid entirely for the bridge, so it rightfully feels that it's done enough. Bottom line; who knows when that new bridge will open?
It's funny whenever there's something corrupt and you can accurately say: "well actually FIFA does this better." Reading about the judge selection process was insane! Only countries that send skaters to the Olympics are allowed to send judges??? That sounds like the exact opposite of what you would want!
FIFA may be the largest corrupt sports organization in the world, but at least they get refs from other countries than those playing to officiate international matches.