Monday, October 5, 2015

Buzzfeed's "48 Books You Need To Read In Your 30s" list has about zero actually useful books for a thirty year old

Book Riot linked to this list last month and I was decidedly whelmed. As one commenter said, the selection tends to be full of navel gazing and angst. Another is a librarian and claims to have only heard of five of them. To be honest, the list looks like a jumble of randomly chosen books aimed to show off "how well read" the choosers are more than actually help improve anybody reading the list. The main problem, at least for me, is that it lacks any books that would actually be helpful to someone in their thirties. I'm talking about books that cover a wide variety of subjects. If I made the list, I'd have included that stuff along with the following subjects:
  • Finance, including saving and investing money and getting a mortgage
  • DIY repairs
  • Medical (like how to do stuff in an emergency until help arrives)
  • Vehicle maintenance: Because knowing how to do simple things like changing oil is a money saver
  • Time management
  • Cooking simple meals
And so on. Sure, I would include fiction in the list, but having books covering the above subjects would be far and away more useful to someone in their thirties than fucking "Always in Vogue" or "What Is This Thing Called Love". There is one book about running that would be useful, but the other 47 sadly aren't.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

The Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, had the dumbest origin story ever

Seriously, this is how he got his super speed:

(via cosmicteams.com)
I know smoking can be hazardous to ones health, but this is a bit ridiculous. DC must have thought the same because they retconned the source of his powers later on to come from the Speed Force, like all the other Flashes. I think his current 52 incarnation gets his powers from the blessings of the Roman god Mercury or something like that.

But still, let's point and laugh at Jay getting his powers because he had to have a smoke.

(via imgur)