Titan Arum

Stormlight Archive...and Reckoners?

Moose are indeed insane! When I was 16 I had a family reunion in the forests of eastern Idaho. After some of my cousins and I blew up the fire pit (lesson: don't put a capped glass bottle filled with water into a fire. It explodes. Not just some minor explosion, but it exploded enough to send logs flying over our heads when we were 10 feet away from the pit), we decided to play flashlight tag at night. We had set up a boundary to make the game slightly easier. I heard a sound just on the other side of the boundary, thinking one of my cousins was being a jerk. I shined my light on...a moose with her calf. I quickly turned around and ran straight back to the cabin, with the loud crashing and cascading sound of a moose chasing me. I was scared beyond belief. While I was running I was screaming to my cousins that I was giving up and going inside because of a moose. None of them really believed me; they thought I was just chasing another cousin and didn't want to pop out of their hiding places so that I could easily catch them instead. Once I got inside, none of the adults believed me because of the earlier fire pit explosion. In the end, the moose redeemed me in everyone's eyes: she was in the cabin's yard with her calf the next morning, contentedly eating the grass. You were in San Francisco then when I lived there! Frjtz is on Hayes Street, about half a mile from where I lived. I liked that place. Up the street form it is also an amazing macaroon shop. This is a great topic, by the way! I have traveled extensively, both domestically (I live in the US) and internationally. I am actually going on a vacation to Turkey at the end of May for two weeks. I am super excited to see Istanbul and the interior! Over the past 10 years I've been to Europe numerous times, spent 6 months in Vietnam, 3 months in Cambodia, 6 months in southern India, 6 months in Ghana, I've taken 3 work trips of 2 weeks each to Jordan (with a fourth up and coming), a 3 week trip to Malawi, and soon to take a 2 week trip to Pakistan. I've done side trips to Togo, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia when I was living in some of those countries on longer stays. Now, what's the best experience that I've had? I'll list two: one in Vietnam, one a visit to two awesome ancient sites in Cambodia and Jordan. I spent 6 months in Vietnam volunteering for a microfinance company called Kiva. I didn't get to travel much because of all of the work, but a few times I did. On one occasion, I went to a mountainous region of Vietnam to a town called Sa Pa. This town is famous for the colorful indigenous populations (like the Hmong) and it's tiered rice paddies on the sides of mountains. I went with one of my fellow volunteers for Kiva who worked in Cambodia. We spent several days in Sa Pa, and did two things that were amazing: first we did a two day hike along some treacherous trails through the farms and lands in the mountains and second we rented motorbikes to drive through some of the amazing mountain passes. Image of some of the farms on the hike (Note: all images in spoiler tags were taken by me): For the first 10 km of the hike we were being followed by a team of Hmong women who were trying to sell us cheap trinkets. We insisted that we didn't want any of them, but they persisted and persisted. After 10 km, they finally turned back. We were amazed at how long they stayed with us! It was an indicator to us that the mark-up on the items must be huge, otherwise how could it possibly be worth it for them to follow us for hours on end without a sale? If they would've sold just one item, it probably would've been worth it for them. After hiking all day we ended up at a home-stay house for a night and had amazing food for dinner. On our way back into town the next day we found the Golden Gate Bridge of Sa Pa! The day our hike ended, my friend and I decided to rent motorbikes. Now, neither of us had ever driven a motorbike in our lives. What could go wrong? We spent five hours driving over every type of terrain that you could possible drive across: dirt paths, paved roads, rocks, mud, water. You name, it we drove on it. We were pretty cocky and sure of our skills and on the paved road back into town were taking curves tightly and driving moderately fast. At one point, I took a curve relatively straight and suddenly found myself on the ground sliding across the road with my motorbike on top of me. I slammed into the guardrail (thankfully there was one!) and quickly assessed any damage to myself. Fortunately, my lucky jeans (that had saved me a few months before in San Francisco when some drunk person tried to stab me unsuccessfully on NYE) protected me and all I had as damage was a large bruise on the inside of my leg where the bike fell on me and a bruise on my hip the shape of a Nokia brick. My buddy was driving behind me and saw me crash, so he assumed I had just taken the turn to fast. He slowed down before entering the turn...and promptly slid out as well, breaking his bike and also slamming into the guard rail. He was okay, just like I was, but we were confused how we both crashed in exactly the same way. The culprit: oil on the road. Sigh. My buddy before the crash: When I travel, some of my favorite things to see and do are to visit ancient sites. Cambodia and Jordan have two of the coolest sites I've ever seen. Ankor Wat, Cambodia I've actually been to Ankor Wat twice: once with the same friend in Vietnam I went to Sa Pa with, and a second time with some of my classmates from my MA program. It's just awe inspiring and makes you think of the majesty of the time period. The Ankor plain is covered in dozens and dozens of temples and ruins. Some of my favorite experiences include seeing one temple, Bayon, with hundreds of faces carved throughout the temple complex, with the rising sun. My friend and I had this temple to ourselves for two hours. My second favorite experience on the Ankor plain was at a temple complex in the jungle. It had just rained, so again the complex was devoid of people, but the heat of the day meant mist was rising up from the temple complex as we explored it. It was creepy, but the peaceful quiet and ominous feel was breathtakingly beautiful. Petra, Jordan Petra is an amazing city complex of tombs carved into the mountainsides in southern Jordan. It's amazing to know that people carved these gigantic structures directly out of the stone. One of my favorite aspects of this trip included taking a hike out of the valley where all of the tombs were carved. I decided to go off trail, by myself, to reflect on what I'd seen and meditate. In the middle of nowhere, I came across a lone, elderly Bedouin woman selling trinkets with her donkey. I didn't necessarily want any of the items she was selling (mostly bracelets). We didn't share a single word of any language, but somehow we were able to communicate with each other. She knew I didn't want to buy anything, but it seemed she just wanted some company. She pulled out a seat cushion for me, so I sat down with her in silence. She then started building a fire, and put a tea kettle over the flames. Once the water was boiling, she added sage and tea to the pot and then pulled out two glasses. We sat there in silence drinking tea and eating flat bread with yogurt. I'll never experience anything like this again. Humanity is simply beautiful, everywhere you go.

Kobold, a response to Ponified Obliteration from my late dog:

He knows Galladon. Who is awesome, kolo? Cosmere Spoiler

I just saw an article that said the dad of the "Success Kid" meme needs a kidney transplant. So in his honor, here's a Brandon related meme in support of their family's need:

But...he ALWAYS is a stick! Poor Stick, he just wants to be a stick and nothing else. He could be fire, but where's the joy in that? Nonetheless, well played, friend. Well played! [Edit: Since my last post, I have one more meme to contribute, and I don't want to do a double post, so here ya go...] Stormlight Archive

In the vein of Reckoners being called Cosmere: Stormlight Archive, you Airsick Lowlanders

Stormlight Archive Cosmere Elantris

I can't help myself. This is too fun. The Emperor's Soul Warbreaker Stormlight Archive Sel AND Roshar

Ok, as an avid Browncoat (aka fan of Firefly), I cannot believe that I was oblivious to the fact that Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion are currently crowd-funding to create a web-series called Con Man! The premise of the show sounds amazing! It's awesomely funny that the entire premise is to make fun of themselves: it follows Alan's character, who was the pilot of a sci-fi space show called Spectrum, and his buddy who was the captain of the space ship (Nathan, of course, and the character is "as famous as Matt Damon"), after the show was cancelled too early. The title is Con Man because it follows them around as they go to various conventions. Besides me, who else is super excited by this show? Has anyone else contributed to the IndieGoGo fundraising? If so, at what level did you commit and why? I decided to commit $60 so that I could get a Con Man t-shirt and watch the show before it airs. Some of the other levels are amazing...I wish I could afford them. Because who wouldn't want to be a background character on the show or go to the premier in LA?!

Mistborn

Chouta, I copy the image URL and paste it in the image inserter to make them large. And since I answered I may as well paste another meme...

Ok Chouta, this is super fun. So in your honor...

This is precisely why I love commuting to work on the subway: a full hour every day of reading Brandon's books...over and over and over again (however, I'm now reading Gardens of the Moon while also intermittently reading the Hero of Ages). When you go to your mother's house for Easter and the first thing out of her mouth (instead of a hello even!) in a dejected voice was that she can't get a copy of Elantris from her local library. My response: gifting her my e-book version then and there.

Wait...wait...wahhh?! Warbreaker is probably one of my favorite books that Brandon wrote! Now that I've gotten that out of the way, the most upsetting character death for me was Mistborn Spoilers, with some Warbreaker spoilers as well

Huh. I knew this but had no idea that it was called Kolmogorov's Axioms. Well played Kas, well played.

My initial thoughts also involved "Where's Tia", but secondly were about the Knighthawk Foundry and corporation in general. If Knighthawk's location is known, why don't more Epics try to destroy it? I feel like if I were an Epic and knew that there were humans making weapons specifically designed to kill Epics, I'd try to destroy their factory. Also, the Foundry's defenses seem rather weak to stop Epics; drones can't possibly be good enough to fight off Epics. That makes me conclude that Knighthawk is RUN my an Epic, as Kobold speculated. Only another High Epic could possibly keep the Foundry so well defended...and I think David is in for a big surprise once he enters.

Ohh! Pre-Shattering, sentient aliens would be awesome! What if they come from planets that haven't been influenced by any Shards or Splinters? That could be a possibility; and with plenty of time to evolve maybe they eventually get their own FTL? Dragons indeed! Gotta love additional sentient non-humans. I imagine a small, old, and very wise dragon walking around Yoda-like.

Snowpiercer?

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! Unless maybe that woman was Vin, and she pushed the sword at you.

Blasphemy! Who's King Paul anyhow? I didn't vote for him.

It may be a novella, but it's well worth the read in my opinion. It really does a great job of providing some more information for Realmatic Theory. I would love to see the main character get her own book one day, because she, in my opinion, was wonderfully written and developed.

Domain wasn't taught for me either! I only know it now because my twin sister is a 9th grade biology teacher. That's why I decided to give it as the freebie; to help those of us in the slightly older generation. I always remembered the order because of the following mnemonic (and my bio teacher had a second one that was not at all appropriate for high school students [or this forum], and thus we liked it better): King Phillip Came Over For Great Soup

Sorry all, for my absence, but the Gleeman got the final one! That was, actually, the first Monty Python movie, and they used it a lot as a tag line in the Flying Circus The full list: 1) And Now For Something Completely Different 2) The Life of Brian 3) Monty Python and the Holy Grail 4) The Meaning of Life Curiosity, you're right, I guess, that there was a 5th one according to the Wikipedia article on Monty Python, but that was a "Concert film" filmed while making the Meaning of Life. I never considered it a movie, and in fact, the Wikipedia page specific to their filmography doesn't consider it a movie and instead calls it a life show. Gasp! Wikipedia is contradicting itself!!! WLIU, name the 8 major taxonomic ranks for biological classification. Hint, I always think of a silly rhyme that my high school biology teacher taught us to help us remember them. Maybe something like this can help you remember too! (My silly rhyme also misses the first rank, which is Domain, so that is a freebie so that you guys can get started. It must be relatively new since I took high school biology).