Blathering Lockdown: Day Two
Posted on January 25, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 128 Comments
BLATHER TEST:
Is the book done? NO
Blather limiter: ON
Your question for the day: A two parter:
1. What’s your favorite color?
2. Seriously, you still have a favorite color? What are you, like, nine or something?
Have fun rationalizing your chromophilia. See you tomorrow.
1. Blue, no, Yellooow!
2. C’mon, it’s Monty Python. That makes me, like, fifteen.
Orange.
Fourteen. :)
1. Green, or when I’m feeling especially 9 years old, pink.
2. I’m a web designer. I get PAID to care way too much about colours. Not only do I still have a favourite colour (oddly, not the same one as when I was 9!), but I have colours I absolutely hate, too. Navy blue, I’m lookin’ at you.
Forrest Green
I personally believe everyone is a summer or a winter and we all have a color that particularly suits us, and I’m a forrest troll, we’re ageless.
1. Green
2. It’s not black anymore. That’s good, right?
How come my reply box had Christine’s info in it? It usually has mine. Whoops. #5 was me. Not Christine. Weird.
1. Blue.
2. Because I look hot in blue. Less so in, say, mustard yellow. Most females are aware of these things.
1.Green
2. Am a little less than half my age? SURE! I’ll take that! Nine year olds get to go trick-or-treating without feeling awkward about it.
Salome:
It’s a WordPress glitch. Sometimes it happens. I went in and fixed it.
1) That nice shade of deep deep blue with a hint of green of the ocean in the Caribbean.
2) 25… and do i really need to describe why that is the best color ever? I mean come on.
Christine wrote:
You can’t be a real web designer. You didn’t specify that in 4055BB format….
Blue
42
BLUE!FORTYTWO!
Hut hut hike!
Sorry blue 42 sounded like it needed to be followed by that.
I don’t particularly like the color but I like the sound of the word mauve. Plus it reminds me of a classic Bloom County comic.
1. Green
2. No, you’re nine! Actually, I just like the way the color green makes me feel. It has a peaceful, calming effect.
British racing green. Specifically, right around 0,51,0 as RGB values.
No, I don’t know why I’m so dang specific about it. When I was born, I was kind of a ugly turtle green, (honestly- but, that’s a completely different story) so maybe I’m just trying to get back to my roots.
1. Hunter Green.
2. Many of the common color combos offered as templates by various software strike me as too garish or just butt ugly. Teal, for some reason, I find especially ugly. Hunter Green just pleases me, I guess. Perhaps I am also a forest troll, like Nate Von Junge upthread
Black. Because I’m edgy and dangerous. Oy yeah baby, don’t mess with me.
I meant oh yeah, not oy yeah. Think the oy takes a little of the danger out.
Klein Blue. Thank you for not making me lie about it. When I lie about my favorite color, I feel sorry.
A warm light brown. Like chocolate ice cream mixed with equal parts vanilla.
I dunno why. Maybe because I didn’t get enough dessert as a child.
1. Green
2. 34
Because I look stupid in pink. (Seriously. I have red undertones. There’s a science to this.)
1) Green. Most greens, in fact, although I do prefer the darker, deeper ones.
2) Um, wha? What has liking a colour more than other got to do with age? *critically fails his grok roll*
And just what is it with redheads and green, anyway? In can’t recall every hearing a redhead answer the favourite colour question with any other colour. (I mean, apart from the obvious that green is a good colour on us.)
1. Green (so glad to see so many others say it!!)
2. 38 – green is my favorite for all the reasons stated above, PLUS it’s my birthstone.
1. Greyscale. heh.
2. Age is relative. So is color. Just ask the cats.
Black.
Until they come out with something darker.
> You can’t be a real web designer. You didn’t specify that in 4055BB format….
The worst part is, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t need to look up most round-ish numbers to know what they are. As much as #4055BB’s pretty offensive, it’s #000099 that I’d like to see disappear off the face of the Earth forever.
1. Wow. Amazed at how many answered green. It’s always been my favorite, but when I was nine nobody else liked it.
2. Yes. Nope – 49.
No need to justify it. Just is.
Green
It was always my favorite.
But I prefer words like cerulean and magenta to plain words like blue and green and red.
I’m weird that way.
1. Royal Blue when mellow, butter yellow when happy
2. 24; I like color, it reflects my mood.
1. Resene Paint Tory Blue.
2. Hell, if I was going to spend money I don’t have painting the room spend half my life (not) working in, it had to be a colour that doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out. Who needs another reason to do that?
Turquoise. It is skystone (or so the Dinèh tell me).
Part 2: This one must apologize, however I am neither nine, nor Nine, nor something. I abase myself. Is it wrong to retain a favored hue into one’s dotage?²
Now get back to writing and tell Zeus in a firm voice to mind his own beeswax¹, goldarnit! Or must PNH explain this to you?
¹ Going with the hot chocolate theory here: am told felines should not indulge, as ’tis ba-a-a-ad for them. If Veus really wants caffeine (and if you really care to see what happens next), I’ve got this box of No*Doz which I no longer need.
² In which case: make it black, so that I may fit in.
My daughter, when she was five, asked me what my favorite color (favourite colour for you British) was, and my reply was that I had no favorite color (British people see above.)
So she thought about that for a bit and then informed me that my favorite color must be clear.
So the answers would be:
1) Clear
2) You’re never too old to act 9.
1) Black.
2) 33. What’s wrong with having a favourite colour at *any* age? Some colours just look better than others and there’s also colours I can’t stand, like pink.
1. Magenta
2. Yes. My inner child says your inner child is a big doodyhead.
1) purple
I prefer a blue-purple to a red-purple, and very light or deep, but pretty much any kind of purple will do.
2) ‘Tis been my favourite since well before 9. Don’t see any reason to change it now.
I’m used to having to justify the colour choice, especially to people who object that my entire desktop colour scheme is different shades of purple For some reason, blue, green, black are nice normal favourite colours, but purple is weird. *scans though comments*. Heh. Purple apparently is unique so far.
1) green
2) 35. I get paid to care.
It used to be blue, to go with my eyes. Then it occurred to me that I really liked British Racing Green, and my eyes changed to suit.
1. Purple (you are no longer alone, lizcase)
2. What? No, I’m not 9… I haven’t been 9 in… whoa, has it been THAT many years?! Come to think of it, when I was 9, my favorite color was yellow. Bright, stab-you-in-the-eyes, sunshine yellow. I like to think I’ve mellowed out some.
1. Purple.
2. I was forced to have a favorite color because I’m planning my wedding. The bridesmaids’ dresses have to match the flowers which have to make the napkins which have to match the cake which has to match the freaking invitations….AHHHH! *rips hair out* So I just picked a color and moved on.
1) Pantone 485. Though 2592 is good, too. Uncoated.
2) I’m just a bird in a gilded cage. Jeff is my name, but I don’t know my age.
1) Royal Blue
2) Yes, I do. FU>
1. Blue
2. It’s an energy thing.
There was the deep, deep metal-flake blue of a Camaro I once owned, which looked good even in the drear greyscape of South London. That wouldn’t be my favourite though. These days I’m coming around to the manifold attractions of the red sector of the colour wheel, be it the autumn hues of Virginia creeper, the translucent depth of a well-extracted Pinot Noir, or the merry informality of arterial spray.
Enough of the green already!
That deep shade of blue you get in the September sky when the Canadian air pushes the clouds away, and the sunlight is a bright shade of yellow, almost white, that you don’t get any other time of year.
I noticed this when I was 36.
Before that, it had just been blue since I was 14. And I still seekest the Holy Grail.
Chrome
1. Clothes – Black, Other things – Blue
2. I know, I know… black clothes!? Well, I didn’t wear black growing up, so I’m making up for lost time. Plus, I look damn good in black, so there.
I always thought my favorite color was purple. Whenever asked the question, that was my answer. One day when I bought some new clothes, I realized that my wardrobe of shirts, sweaters, and dresses were green. I even had green shoes. I had no purple. My car is green, my walls are green, my sheets are green, my carpet is green (my dishes are yellow, they are hand-me-downs). I reassessed and realize that my favorite color was indeed green.
When asked what my favorite color is today, I still want to answer purple.
Okay, I’m going back to knitting my green scarf now.
I enjoy a nice plaid.
As for age, I tell people we have 2 kids. My wife tells people she has 3.
emerald. It looks pretty on me and makes me feel pretty. No matter what age a woman is, she needs that feeling.
I’m an artist. Of course, I have colourphilia. Within context.
Rather than excoriating the Slothful Scalzi for failure to post pictures of Magnificent She or illuminating anecdotes from Her life, the Executive Committee of The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club will answer this foolish question.
1. The only correct answer for right-thinking people (which excludes nearly everybody here, unfortunately) are the colors of the Beauteous Ghlaghghee. Gaze upon any of the all too rare pictures of Her Shimmering Glory and you will see this at once.
The Official Ghlaghghee Fan Club
Yellow. But it kind of depends on the day and my mood too. But mostly it’s yellow.
Yes I still have a favorite color. And for the record, yesterday I was 9 and today I think I’m 14. But if my bones are still aching by the end of the day I’ll probably be 76 by tomorrow.
1. That iridescent peacock blue. I really just like most shades of blue. It sets off my eyes, and makes women…never mind. This is a family thread, sort of.
2. 35 but I never grew up. I STILL watch Saturday morning cartoons!
1) Green
2) Because I hate Red. Red forces me to stop. Yellow isn’t bad, but it’s about to turn Red, so Green is still better. Green I can keep on going.
Outside of traffic lights, I don’t have a preference for a single color.
I was partial to blue when I was younger, but these days I don’t have a favorite color.
1) My favourite colour is red. And Orange. I’ve got lots of things in the former colour and am trying to buy more in the latter. (Yes, I spell colour with a ‘u’. I’m not British, I’m Canadian, damnit.)
2) 9? No. Well, I was 20 years ago.
1. Blood Red.
2. 400 years old. Vampires never die.
1. Heliotrope.
2. I’m as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
1) It’s a tossup between ecru and a nice bright orange.
2) I am way too old to care whether someone thinks I am too old for something.
1. Cornflower Blue
2. Seeing a field of cornflowers cheers me. Not sure which is cause and which is effect, however…
1. Turquoise, especially when paired with black and silver.
2. I am what I am. It’s easier that way.
1) blue. It’s pretty, and liking it doesn’t make my colorblind friend hate me!
2) Hey, I thought you were allowed to have a favorite color right until the marriage license was filled out / vows were said!
Green as well. Love the preponderance of green in the answers – think there’s some connection between loving Green and really sweet SF?
1) a soothing forest Green
2) I’m 33, but I work in an elementary school – color exploding everywhere and dripping off the walls.
Green.
And there’s nothing wrong with being 9.
1. black
2. 33, cos it’s like kewl and I’m from Glasgow and we’ll set aboot ye.
I don’t really have a favorite color, but I enjoy a good fuchsia. Or neony lime green. Scarlet is good, too.
Green. I love green, especially forest green. (When it comes to light pastel greens, like lime green, maybe I’d prefer blue.) Blue is good, and black, and certain browns and greys. Nice, natural colors you might see if you were out on a walk in the woods on a clear summer day.
You don’t have a favorite color, John? That would be sad. How do you know which pieces to pick when you play games?
1/ I have a favourite colour. It is PMS 2935.
2/ snark off scalzi, no need to be bitter because “book is not done.” I can haz a fav clr if i wntz.
in defiance of middle school postures,
-michael
dude, back off! it’s not that easy being green!
now go finish your novel.
Foreseeable Fuschia. (Hat tip to the late Howard Gossage.)
1. Favorite color: Budweiser
2 Age: 10 and 384 months
1. Plaid
2. Well, perhaps with a nice touch of courduroy (ah, isn’t synaesthesia grand…).
I’m a big fan of Chartreuse(#7FFF00). It’s like an electric green. I like it because it looks like movie slime(as opposed to real slime, which is considerably less bright and kewl).
I’m only a few years out of my teens; I feel no shame.
1. Hunter green.
2. I didn’t have a favorite color when I was nine – too childish!
It ain’t white, as in snow white, which I’ve got about 10 inches of this morning.
And it’s ain’t red, as in the color of an inflamed strep throat, which my kid has this morning.
Oh yeah, the weekend is shaping up just great :-)
1. Green!
2. Well duh. I need an arbitrary decision-making criterion from time to time, why not green? It worked for when I picked my college, car laundry detergent and numerous other things!
1. Red
2. C’mon, all the really cool cars that I can never afford look cool in red. Thomas Magnum’s car was red. That is all the justification I need; I am a product of the 80’s, after all.
1. Purple.
2. I’d rather be 5. That’s my favorite number.
Jim Wright: Know what you made me think of? Fargo.
Mike F: All the really cool cars, huh? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was chrome with a ChrisCraft-wood passenger compartment. But I will grant that its wings had red stripes. (I’m a product of the late ’60s/early ’70s).
1. Blue-green – that shade that’s occassionally called peacock and occassionally called teal, the bluish side, deep and clear. Though burgandy and plum have places in my heart too.
2. Why yes, I am nine. I have thirty years worth of experience at being nine.
1. Blue for most things, but dark reds and blacks for clothes. I guess I channel Loki a bit.
2. Hey! You! One question per day! Back to slaving over hot prose! Hmmph. The nerve of that guy.
Deep burgundy. Just because, that’s why.
1) I would say purple, but I recently overheard my sons discussing what my favorite color is. After kicking around purple, red, orange, pink, green, and blue, they settled on my official favorite color: “Bright”.
2) Everyone in my household is required to have a favorite color. If you do not choose a color, one will be assigned by committee. (See 1 above.)
Well it depends on if you beleive that Black is all colors combined or is the lack of any color..If it is all colors then black would be my choice..if lack of color then a hot Magenta…..
age? in this form in this universe 42..
(goes back to contemplating the Universal Truths that exist in Rocky Horror)
Orange, specifically that rosy golden color you get in good sunsets. And I turn 60 this year. Yikes!
Jeff Hentosz: I forgot about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Sorry. Oh, and KITT was black, but that was only cool for a year. But it is coming back!
1. Yellow and Green
2. If I had color synesthesia all the best things in the world would either be tinted green or yellow.
1. Red and white.
2. No, I’m not 9, I just have preferences. Red is a lovely visible color and white goes with everything.
1. My favorite color for what? At what time? All “favorite” questions are ones that I dislike (especially as online “security” questions), as the answer is often only right for that moment in time. Right this very second, my favorite color is the dark grey of the inside of my eyelids.
2. Nope, that second is past, I’m liking the blue of my shirt for my shirt, the black of my keyboard for my keyboard, the very light cyan for the background of these comments…
Mike F:
what about The Bandit?
on your side The General Lee and also there was FireBall 500…
BlackHart
Orange. It’s the colour of my kitchen.
28. Not sure why I have a favourite colour, but I do. It’s just the way I am I guess.
BlackHart: Ah yes, The Bandit. How could I forget? Dan Tana’s car was red too. It was a Thunderbird I believe…
Part 1: Brown
Part 2: 25…and I love wearing brown, and my whole house is decorated in brown earth tones. It’s an awesome color and doesn’t get enough love. I mean…it’s the color of chocolate!
1. I have two. My fake favorite color is purple. But really it’s blue.
2. Dude, colors make me happy. Blue makes me very happy, because I treat my life like a fashion accessory, for the most part, and if I’m surrounded by blue my eyes really pop.
I love all shades of green. I think it has to do with my love of plants. Second are varieties of yellow.
My oldest child, 13, loves purple & he always has, since he knew the names of colors at 2.
My youngest child, 10, LOVES orange. He has more orange in his wardrobe than anyone else in the world, LOL. It has bee his favorite color since he was two.
I’m obviously older than nine. I hate both purple & orange, but my kids don’t know it.
Brilliant green.
purple… that’s why it’s currently my hair color.
Red.
Red is forever.
On a desktop background, I’m a huge fan of #336699. Not sure why. I think it’s a sort of cornflower blue.
On my body, I’m a fan of jewel tones. Any deeply hued red, green or blue gets my vote.
My cars have all been black or gray, recently. Not sure why, other than that to get the wildly inappropriate yellow I want on a car I either have to have it painted or buy a really expensive sports car.
I’m thinking about buying a Dell laptop in that shade.
Umm. The General Lee was orange, not red. Also, I’ll throw Bullitt on the “cool black cars” list.
The deep red of a good burgundy…..
The orange fade to dark blues of a California sunset…
The golds and greens of the California coastal redwoods..
Black.
and I’m 12.
green
light blue and yellow.
stand out as very bright and visible. I’ve a suspicion this is true for any red/green color-blind person such as myself.
Anyone else want to confirm?
blue is the best. all other answers are flawed.
i for one welcome our new blue overlords!
I think someone who really wants to waste time could do a statistical analysis of the favorite color distribution of Scalzi’s Whatever commenters, and perhaps correlate it with posting frequency.
My son says his favorite color is clear, but I’m partial to Hansa yellow.
the blue of my husband’s eyes. i’m a romantic, sue me.
I tend to gravitate towards royal blues and deep purples, but on other days I am intrigued by pastel oranges and maroon.
Forest Green. I love jewel tones, especially the combination of dark green, navy, and maroon.
I can be grown up and still like the pretty :)
How come there isn’t a bio of John Scalvi? I’d like to know what HIS favorite color is.
Not answering your questions – just bragging for you…
The Reading List 2008
Established in 2007 by the CODES section of RUSA, The Reading List Council seeks to highlight outstanding genre fiction that merits special attention by general adult readers and the librarians who work with them.
and under the Science Fiction heading we find…
Scalzi, John. The Last Colony. Tor, 2007. 978-0765316974
My astrologer (actually, a friend of mine who has gotten into Feng Shui in a big way) tells me that the most harmonious colours for me are red, orange and brown.
I’d pay more attention to his feng shui if if it matched the colour I really like: blue!
Purple. It was yellow when I was very young, but at some point it changed to purple and has been purple ever since. I think as time goes on, my love for purple has gotten increasingly stronger; now that I’m in college, it’s come to the point where basically everything in my room is some shade of purple. Actually, until yesterday my hair was purple (it’s now magenta, but I don’t like that as much).
A1: Puce
A2: Hell yeah!
Ahem. Hey, just playing by the rules here.
Jas @ 99:
My Saturn Sky is a wildly inappropriate — nay, egregious — yellow, and it wasn’t terribly expensive.
I’ve seen some particularly interesting colors on Loti, though.
Deep, intensely saturated blues and violets impress me for some reason. Pantone Reflex Blue is a good one. There are relatively few purposes such colors are suitable for, unfortunately. They lose their apparent saturation and just look nearly black when used for foreground elements, and you’d probably go nuts in a room painted Reflex Blue.
@109: Just to be difficult, he would probably choose puce.
Liz @114 – I’m more than just a little jealous. I’m a VW man by nature (we’re on our third and fourth VW in our family) and the Jetta I want, you have to buy the GTI version and pay through the nose to get any truly hot colors.
purple
old enough to be ornry aboot it
(1) Ultraviolet Catastrophe;
(2) Paradigm shift to Quantum Mechanics.
Though I did also think “plaid” but not so vaguely. Specifically, when I married Dr. Christine M. Carmichael, aftr we’d met and fallen in love at the 43rd Worldcon (1985, Aussiecon Two, Melbourne AustraliaI) became an in-law of the Carmichael Tartan. I have a necktie of it, which I wear to weddings and the like. My son car wear it directly.
Ans speaking of (1) there is the litero-sexual question: would you rather be infra-read or ultra-violated?
1) Grey
2) Not really. I just like grey. Not sure when or why I started liking it, but that’s just the way it is. To try quantify it a bit I suppose from about 50% to charcoalish is my preferred range.
1) Clothing – black and gray
Walls – pale lavender and dark green (not together)
Random objects (like my imaginary motorcycle) – cobalt blue
2) No, I’m 37 and 1/2.
1. Rainbow.
2. No.
1. Green. True green-green, Kelly green. Green!
2. I can’t explain it. I just like green! Maybe because it’s the color of verdant life? Green is beautiful.
1. Blue.
2. I am reasonably older than 9, but when my 7-year-old daughter asks me “Daddy, what’s your favorite color?”, I have to give her an honest answer.
1. Carbon Black.
2. My chronological age is less than 9. Far less than 9.
1. Forest Green
2. I prefer to act my shoe size over my age
Chromophilia?
BEST. WORD. EVER.
1) Lilac and bright lime green
2) Not-Uh!
P. S. Everyone has a response to the stimulus of color either consciously or not no matter what your age is! For example if you wear navy blue it is suppose to convey authority and trustworthiness to others (which is why politicians always wear it)