🀄🙋‍♀️ Hot girls play ... mahjong?

✏️📒 Journal giveaway loading … What if the new year isn’t about creating a “new you” but about reconnecting with who you already are? Our friends at Chasing Red Flags are giving five B-Side Members a “Let’s Get Real” hardcover guided journal with a gift bag and journaling pen. 

👀 Members: We’re dropping this in the newsletter tomorrow. Open to Mass. residents 18+. Start a 30-day free trial to enter.

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Boston’s new hot girl hobby? Mahjong. The centuries-old Chinese tile game is having a resurgence among young people, taking over events and FYPs across the country, including our own backyard. 

Here’s what to know:

🀄 Boston is doing a LOT of clacking lately. Eventbrite data shows Boston-area mahjong events increased by 420% between 2024 and 2025. In the last year, Aeronaut Brewery started a bi-weekly tile club, Mei Mei Dumplings launched a mahjong event series, even Queen of New England Ann Michael Maye is posting her tiles on IG. And it’s not just Boston: Mahjong is also popping off in cities like New York, San Francisco, and Dallas. 

👫 Young people are looking for ways to connect offline. Yelp’s 2026 Trend Forecast shows a rise in screen-free, hands-on hobbies, including a whopping 4,467% increase in searches for mahjong clubs. Aeronaut Tile Club organizer Nicole Yang compares the increase to the rise of run clubs: It’s another way for young people to socialize that doesn’t require drinking, staring at a screen, or, as 24-year-old mahjong player Tess Dufour put it, “grabbing dinner at a restaurant where we each pay, like, $80.”

🤝 Connection is in mahjong’s DNA. After all, it’s been around for hundreds of years, with over 40 global variations and countless house rules that differ from family to family. So naturally, players tend to bring their personal experiences and nostalgia to the table, which, even for newbies, “makes playing it even more interesting and fulfilling,” Dufour said. 

💬 Plus, you literally can’t play alone. A standard game requires four players, can last for hours, and has plenty of built-in time for chit-chat. That group format separates it from more individual hobbies like crocheting or running, said Aeronaut Tile Club organizer Thomas Oide. “It's been pretty cool to just see how community has been built, even just like within sessions,” he said.

🤩 For Asian Americans, the spotlight is special. Many mahjong events do “very squarely … celebrate Asian American culture,” said Nicole Wong, founder of The Mahjong Project. And for younger, first-generation folks who faced pressure to “Americanize … and integrate faster into American society” growing up, embracing the game can be “a way to reconnect” with their heritage, said 28-year-old Melanie La, who grew up playing. 

🫵 Ready to play? Here’s an easy guide to get you started.

💸🍺 This night out comes with a money-saving cheat code. The $5 Choose Your Own Adventure Pass earns you discounts on food, drinks, games, and activities throughout Malden Gaming District — and it usually pays for itself in one stop. Bounce from escape rooms to rock climbing, grab a drink at a local brewery, crush a few games, then refuel with something delicious, all on a discount. Everything’s close together, easy to get to, and way more affordable than most city nights out. Start unlocking deals today. 

🧊 ICE is on thin ice with local leaders. Following two tragic deaths at the hands of federal agents this month and ICE activity ramping up in New England, local activists and politicians alike are speaking out. See: Boston joining over 40 local governments across the country in supporting a lawsuit to end Minnesota’s federal immigration crackdown, Mayor Wu calling the ICE campaigns “unconstitutional and illegal,” hundreds marching in massive anti-ICE protests in Boston, and both Mass. senators saying they won’t support a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security.

❄️ This snowstorm was one for the books. According to the National Weather Service, it dumped a whopping 18.6 inches of snow on Boston this Sunday. While that doesn’t even touch our all-time record (27.6 inches in 2003) or the worst of Snowmageddon (24.6 inches), considering we’ve only seen two-plus feet of snow seven times in history, it’s not too shabby. And besides, you won’t notice a few inches difference when you’re shoveling your car or sidewalk … Godspeed!

🚘 Buckle up for years of construction on I-93! A $21 million project to repair a section of the highway in Dorchester just got the green light from MassDOT. Translation: Expect lots of construction starting this spring through fall 2028 on the bridge structure and ramps near the JFK/UMass MBTA station. Before you panic, most of the work will thankfully happen between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., so traffic impacts should be minimal. And at the end, we’ll have some shiny new bridge joints!

🏃 Running the BAA 5k just got easier. Registration for the April 18 race is open now through Jan. 29, and this year, getting a spot won’t feel like “The Hunger Games.” For the first time, the iconic race will use a lottery to determine who gets a bib. And considering last year’s 10,000 slots sold out in 20 minutes, the randomized system should make things a little more chill for runners who want their Boylston Street moment without running 26.2 miles. You can enter here!

You’d think a man worth ~$530 million wouldn’t need to sell out. But lately, Tom Brady is doing it anyway.

His recent spot for Pizza Hut is getting a little heat online because, as the internet points out, this is a guy who once wouldn’t eat a tomato, let alone cheese or bread. 

That said, despite his GOAT status and full-time job, the man sure does a lot of commercials, the Globe’s Beth Teitell writes. In fact, his Pizza Hut ad is running at the same time as his other campaign for GLP-1’s. Other hits in his portfolio include ads for Subway, Tag Heuer, IWC, Aston Martin, Frito-Lay, FTX, Hertz, and Dunkin’.

So is this really the person we want selling us pizza? Does it matter? Apparently not! ‘Cause in New England, if Tom Brady’s selling it, we’re buying it. 

Read the full story here.

— Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

💸 Thanks for reading! As long as we don’t see any dog-cloning commercials, we’re good.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, the Malden Gaming District, for supporting local journalism and keeping Boston nights out easy and affordable. 

🏈 The results are in: Unsurprisingly, 29% of readers say that Drake Maye himself is the MVP of this Pats season. Also unsurprisingly, Ann Michael Maye wasn’t far behind. One reader said: “Lives were changed during Bakemas.”

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