DEAR READER

By CARA BAYLES

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DEAR READER,

When we asked our freelancers and interns if they'd tried (or wanted to try) some risky winter sports, hands shot up (it takes a particular mentality to write for the Dig). Some of these life experiences were more legitimate than others ("I touched a toboggan once"), so we've narrowed it down to three. I wanted to title the article DIY-XXX-athon 2008, but I'm told this headline is totally incomprehensible. So we give you Tryathlon: three exhilarating, do-it-yourself winter sports. Try them. We dare you. We bet they'll scare the seasonal affective disorder right out of you.

Speaking of SAD, our style editor, Christine Liu, has been swallowing weird medicinal drops for the past week, to report about "Sunshine in a Box," and The Second Glass offers several alcoholic options for keeping warm. In A&E, our writers review a trillion hours worth of TV-on-DVD in case you're the type who likes to hunker down when it's cold.

Also ... Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm the new kid, your news and features editor. I'm struggling to figure out why our fax machine lives in the photocopier, and yesterday our coffeemaker attacked me, so you could say I'm still settling in here. I started interning at the Dig this past summer, so I'm aware of the enormous shoes I have to fill, and the appliances I must fend off.

This job is already changing the way I think. I can't read the Metro without correcting its grammar (maybe that's not so unusual), and, lately, everything has news story potential. We see a cryptic craigslist ad and we're sniffing it out. We hear arts programming was cut in Dorchester schools and it sparks a feature. Gum sticks to someone's shoe and we scream, "What is the city doing about this!!!"

That said, we always want to hear about anything you've noticed in Boston, so we can remain a unique source of news. In the dead of winter, nothing thaws out Dig HQ like a hot tip.

CARA BAYLES | CARA@WEEKLYDIG.COM