Titan Arum

A thread to make me feel old! Well, then. I played NES growing up (Excite Bike and Monster Truck Rally were the jam!), but was more of a computer gamer by the early 90s. I played a lot of King's Quest games, Quest for Glory, Carmen San Diego, Oregon Trail, Prince of Persia, Civilization, Castle of Dr. Brain, Sim City, Scorched Earth, etc.. The good DOS games. Really, any adventure game from Sierra was amazing.

Alright, answers to the commonwealth question: 1) Virginia 2) Kentucky 3) Pennsylvania 4) Massachusetts New question time! WLIU: name all four Monty Python movies. And as a bonus, tell us what your favorite scene is from each!

Two of three are correct! Nice try. Does that mean you have to post a funny picture?! I realized, after reviewing your answer, that I've lived in 2 of 4 commonwealths, and if you're incorrect one was actually a commonwealth as well, then it would've been 3 of 4! Now, if only CA and Oregon were commonwealths too, then I'd really be a commonwealth aficionado.

The leading theory is that the Terriswoman worldhopper in Warbreaker is the Nurse. We have only a RAFO from Brandon on that guess, though: source

I'm with little wilson on this one, I don't think I've technically looked this up since I just saw the new question because I last looked at my own office bracket this morning...so I'm going to take a stab at what I know now without looking anything up to answer it: 1) Villanova 2) Virginia 3) Iowa State 4) Maryland 5) Oregon 6) Baylor 7) UAB 8) Butler 9) SMU 10) Stephen F. Austin 11) Texas 12) Georgetown 13) VCU 14) Cincinnati 15) Ohio State There are more, but I won't continue. WLIU, name 3 of 4 "states" in the USA that are technically not states but instead commonwealths. Bonus points if you can name all 4!

The best thing ever invented associated with the 7 Deadly Sins: The Homunculus. Because they're characters in one of the best anime of all time.

Hahaha. Thanks, you're correct. I'll go correct that now...

I'm going to answer the previous toothpaste question AND the African Colony one! Toothpastes 1) Colgate 2) Crest 3) Aquafresh 4) Tom's of Maine 5) Rembrandt 6) Sensodyne Bonus: Darlie, from Asia...the worst toothpaste on the planet because of its racist name in Chinese African Colonies: 1) Gold Coast (present day Ghana, British) 2) Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe...at least for Northern Rhodesia, British) 3) German Togoland (Modern day Togo and the Volta region of Ghana) 4) Kenya Colony (British) 5) Senegal (French) 6) Cote d' Ivoire (French) 7) Niger (French) 8) South Africa (British) 9) Tanzania (British AND German...a lot changed after the war) 10a) Italian Somaliland 10b) British Somaliland 11) Eritrea (Italy) 12) Portuguese East Africa (present day Mozambique) 13) Belgian Congo/Zaire (Present day Democratic Republic of Congo) 14) French Algeria 15) Chad (French) 16) Cameroon/Kamerun (German...then French and British) 17) Spanish Guinea (present day Equatorial Guinea) WWI saw a lot of Germany's colonies change to French and British. Edit: Good, I am more or lest correct, so without furtherado: WLIU, name three fiction novels by Alexandre Dumas.

My guess is that Nightblood only has one edge. We know from Warbreaker that the sword has a hooked cross guard and every image of every sword with a hooked cross guard that I've ever seen...has one edge. The hooked side of the guard is always on the sharp edge side. Granted, this doesn't mean Nightblood isn't a double edged sword.

Great first post! Several of your questions we have speculated on and Brandon has provided answers to with his awesome Words of Brandon (WOB). I suggest you go read them on theoryland, or in the compiled location here on the forum. With regards to Nightblood and Stormlight...

Thanks for the thoughts, traceria! A public ivy isn't a ral thing. More just what the best public universities are "called". This list includes UVA, UC Berkeley, Michigan, UNC, and many other great universities. However, there is a story that TJ was asked to make UVA an ivy, but he refused because he wanted it to be a public uni.

What's the symbol on the blade, inside of the D?

It's been awhile since I've read Elantris, so I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the 10th Anniversary! With that, what parts of the book do we think he's changed? He makes some cryptic references to questions in the past, but doesn't explicitly say what he changes relative to the changes he notes for WoR.

Thanks Kobold. She'll be missed. We're going to celebrate her life with style in about a month and a half when family form all over the country can gather. You're correct with the first 8 decimals! With that, I'm going to plug this Saturday as an epic day in the history of awesomeness: March 14th, 2015 at exactly 9:26 am, will be when you should all consume pie in some form, in honor of Pi Day.

Hi Everyone! Sorry for not getting back to the board quicker. My grandmother passed this weekend, so I had priorities elsewhere. 1) Harvard 2) Yale 3) Brown 4) Princeton 5) Dartmouth 6) University of Pennsylvania 7) Cornell 8) Columbia Bonus, LeftVash for the win: University of Virginia WLIU, What are the first 7 decimals of the mathematical constant of Pi. (Hint: the time associated with these 7 decimals+the leading 3 will be heavily celebrated this upcoming Saturday as Pi Day, since it's the best approximation of Pi we'll ever see with regards to date and time).

1) Black tea 2) White tea 3) Herbal tea 4) Green tea 5) Oolong tea (thanks for the freebie!) 6) "Tea" out of soda fountains or in a can...which probably isn't real tea WLIU, what are the 8 Ivy League universities? Bonus: what university, founded by Thomas Jefferson, is considered to be a Public Ivy League university?

There be 7 of them! I changed it to name 7, but I'm game if you you just name 6.

1) New England Revolution 2) Sporting Kansas City 3) Chicago Fire 4) LA Galaxy 5) Toronto FC 6) Dallas FC 7) Philadelphia Union 8) Seattle Sounders 9) Portland Timbers 10) San Jose Earthquakes 11) Columbus Crew 12) NY Red Bulls Not gonna lie...I went to several DC United games this past season because the team was giving away tickets! ...And now I realize I don't even have DC United on my list! [Edited, bc autocorrect on my phone said the "Res Bulls"] WLIU, name 6 of the 7 "Stan" countries. Name all 7 for a bonus congratulations!

Yep. I'd say that's a win for RedBird. I can come up with three and a half.

You're not alone in this. I've had that problem before as well. I just never thought to bring it up. I hope Joe can fix it!

When your girlfriend sends you a text saying she wants to buy this necklace, and you reply "Welcome to the Church of the Stick."

When someone on the weather blog that you follow as obsessively as the 17th Shard states "I am a Snowbro" over and over to reassure himself of an upcoming storm, and your response is to post the entire deleted interlude for the stick from Words of Radiance.

First, I have to say that I love all of Brandon's books. Some are clearly stronger than others and I can criticize aspects of each one, but if I have to pick I will... I almost went with the Well of Ascension (the Vin/Zane story seems way too forced for me, and I feel like nothing happens for quite a while), even when the Mistborn trilogy is what I always recommend to new Sanderson readers. I also almost went with The Hero of Ages, mostly because of the existential religious crisis of my favorite character. But in the end I chose Elantris. Elantris seems too clunky a lot of the times and has an air of "I'm not exactly sure how to end this/pull all the pieces together". It seems as if the shardpool came out of nowhere, and according to Brandon in his Annotations for Elantris, it did: It's funny how something originally used just to get Raoden to the top of the mountain is now so important Cosmere-wide. My other gripe is that AonDor seems like a really inefficient magic system, even if drawing Aons is very artistic and beautiful. When Raoden has to fight with this magic system, all I could think was, "drawing Aons quick and precise enough seems almost impossible in the context of any form of combat". Thus I couldn't believe it. Now, don't get me wrong. I loved Elantris, and I really loved re-visiting Sel with the Emperor's Soul (where another Dor-based magic is also slow to use, but at least wasn't forced into sudden combat, because it would never work either). In the end, I just feel like it's Brandon's weakest.

Lord Pifferdoo, what's the next question?

As someone who has read the books multiple times and has plenty of espoused theories, I still love the show. It's obvious that the show is starting to do things differently than the books because, well, it can and it should. Things happen in books 4 and 5 that it appears the show will not include. (For spoiler reasons to those who haven't read that far yet, I won't even allude to what these things are.) Whether this says anything about how important they actually are in the books or if the showrunners want to go their own direction, is still up in the air. Nonetheless, I enjoy both and now that the show has caught up to the books, I'm allowing myself to view both as similar but distinct works. This is because I think HBO will continue with the show, even if GRRM doesn't release WoW next year. They can't afford to stop the show for Martin to catch up because even if he releases the next book, it'll be another decade before we get the 7th book. With the amount of revenue they make from the show, it'd be stupid for them to stop and wait. The question is, how do they proceed with the show after season 5? They haven't, as of season 4, included any potential side arcs for any characters, so maybe they'll do this for season 5? Do the showrunners take the anime route, and create a show full of side arcs as the source material continues to grow? Or do the showrunners finish the story the way Martin wants to write it (especially since they know how it'll end already). I really hope they go the side arc route because I believe Martin deserves to tell his story in full first. Granted, side arc anime story lines always suffer in quality compared to the main storyline.