Man, you're not wrong about that hostel math! I had the same thing happen in Denver a couple years back. I was looking at a hostel downtown, $55 for a bunk, and then I found a Super 8 about 15 minutes out for $63. I ended up getting a weird deal too cause I booked it on my phone while sitting in the hostel lobby after the guy said they were full. My brother's a musician and he once stayed in a hostel in Nashville where somebody's dog slept in the bunk above him. He said it was a nice dog but still. I'll take a cheap motel with a deadbolt any day over that gamble.

I remember reading somewhere that a lot of these failover issues come down to the convergence time of your routing protocol, not the switch hardware itself. Your point about testing under real traffic makes a lot of sense, because in my experience, even a minor config mismatch in HSRP or VRRP can cause a split-brain scenario when the primary drops. Don't take this as gospel, but I've seen some people swear by setting up a small traffic generator during their quarterly tests to catch those tricky issues.

Thought the curated lists were a game changer too, especially for events like Final Night or Blackest Night where the reading order is a mess otherwise. Plus the app actually remembers where you left off better than MU did for me. I still flip back to Marvel for certain characters, but DCUI made me actually want to finish the major books instead of bouncing around. One thing I'd say is don't sleep on the "issue of the week" feature, it's a good way to find random stories you'd never pick up otherwise.

@thomas83 you are absolutely right. That kind of mistake sticks with you way longer than any good decision ever does. I remember I once did the same thing years ago and still cringe when I think about it.

My dad spent three hours fixing a cheap lawn chair last summer. We see this everywhere, people valuing their time so little to save a few dollars.