Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Color Me Fucking Awesome

Oh hey, guys. It's hump day. Get pumped.

So a while back I participated in XKCD's Color Survey, and the results are finally in! If you're a huge loser dork like me, you find this all totally awesome and fascinating.

The thing is, though, it makes me compare my usage of my time to how Randall Munroe uses his. Randall creates super cool color surveys and analyzes the data in a totally term paper kinda way. I color while watching re-runs of How I Met Your Mother. Both are creative uses of color, I suppose, but Mr. XKCD has named over five million colors. I draw pictures of Disney princesses smoking cigarettes with my 30 pack of Sharpie markers. I feel like such a slacker.

In the interest of making myself feel like my efforts are justified, I sought to do what Mr. Munroe has done on a much smaller scale. A survey of one, if you will. I initially compared the official names of my Sharpies to the colors named by XKCD. They're pretty much online with the identifications of the general populous, but also totally boring. The most interesting name was "boysenberry," which I only liked because it's kinda a cool looking word, and also because I love Loganberry drinkstuff and it's so hard to find in the city I live in. Lucky for me, the pop machine at work has it, but I try to limit myself, because unlike my beloved DP, it's full fat. And revealing this information I had given you important clues as to my location. Or I just totally threw you off track. Tricky, aren't I? I digress.

My conclusion was that I second Randall's findings, and also that I am a way better color namer than both Sharpie and the general public. Thus, I will name the colors in my own sacred Sharpie collection. Ahem. Starting from the top left and moving horizontally across the rows:



1. Ninja Black, obvi
2. Wicked Dark Blue, Like a Little Darker Than Yankee Blue (or Thinking of Blue, If you're a CoL follower)
3. Brue!
4. That Light Blue One That Has Run Out of Ink (I need to replace it, but Sharpies ain't cheap.)
5. Cotton Candy Bubble Yum Bubblegum Blue
6. That's Teal, Bitches
7. Olive Another Martini Green (See what I did there?)
8. Ex-BF Hoodie Green
9. Lyrca Shorts Cerca 1991 Green
10. My 6th Grade Bedroom Seafoam Green
11. Asian Envy Yellow
12. Baby Shit Brown
13. Peach! (Said like how Princess Peach squeals it on Mario Kart)
14. Fuckin Give Me a Towel, Mr. Tangerine Speedo
15. Arnge
16. Ballet Pink (This is super official. I worked in dance retail for almost ten years. I know my pinks.)
17. Once a Raider, Always a Tool Red
18. Boo, You Whore Pink
19. Magneta (Yes. I spelled it that way on purpose as a result of the dyslexia of my friend Steve, who insisted that magenta was in fact magneta. So it shall be.)
20. Period Slushie
21. My 2nd Grade Bedroom Lavender
22. Gay Pride Purple/ Nazty Purple
23. The Sharpie I Steal From Work All The Time Purple
And finally,
24. The Brown Note


Phew! I feel accomplished. It's ALMOST like I collected thousands of responses from all over the world and used statistical analysis on the data. I mean, my opinions hold the same value at least. Clearly.

K, I'm off to continue perusing the Sharpie website. It's pretty sweet, you guys. Smell ya later.

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