Color

Today's prompt: Talk to me about color. I don't really have a specific favorite color.

When it comes to my living environment, I like warm colors and earth tones. I think the fact that I'm cold almost all the time influences this -- it's bad enough being cold, it's worse being cold in an ice-blue room. Luckily, my wife and I are compatible in this regard (the colors, not the temperature -- she runs much warmer than I) and so our house's interior is all various shades of brown, yellow, and orange. Mostly very light shades, though anjelabug picked out some pretty bold oranges for two rooms, and I like them just fine.

For cars, my general color preferences have always been "not red or white," but pretty indifferent to the specific color otherwise. However, I've found that BMW has a really nice shade of white (I can't really say what is nice about it, it's slightly opalescent and just really pleasant to look at), and having owned a black car for 5 years, I wouldn't do that again (too hard to keep clean, and shows every little scratch.)

I also have a fondness for dark purple. There's just not a lot of call for it in today's world; I have some ties in that shade, and I tend to use it extensively when selecting graphics (e.g. designing a banner or costume for a character in a video game), but that's about it. I suppose if I ever became an evil overlord I would decorate my throne room in it, but that's not a pressing issue for me most of the time.

Weather

And a back-prompt from June: What is your favorite kind of weather? Why?

As I mentioned in the color post, I'm always cold. I've been this way for a long time, since my early 20s at least, and losing weight in my early 30s only made it worse. So my favorite weather is warm. I also like being outside, so sunshine is great, too.

I realize that liking warm, sunny days is hardly unusual. However, it's hard for it to be too warm for me -- I go to a convention in Las Vegas every August, and after a day spent in the (super-air-conditioned) convention center the first thing I do is run outside and bask in the 115 degree desert blast. I'll overheat like anyone if I'm stuck wearing jeans or a suit or something, but as long as I can dress for the heat, I'm perfectly happy to be out in it.

Unfortunately for my weather preferences, I live in Seattle. Rather than the four seasons of the Midwest, we have two seasons here: dry and wet. Dry is very nice, starting somewhere between May (if we're lucky) and July (if we're not), and lasting until the end of September. It's clear, sunny, and most days are a comfortable spot in the 70s, with the occasional spike into the 80s. Wet is less nice, as it mists or drizzles almost every day, is cloudy the days it's not dripping, and temperatures range from 40 to 60 -- i.e. too cold for me to be comfortable. I have been very happy with the heavy wool peacoat I bought before our trip to New York City in December -- while it would be too warm for most people in this climate, it's great winter wear for me.

I actually enjoy warm rain, and especially the atmosphere outside just after a warm rain. Rainy days in, say, Hawaii are actually pretty pleasant. But below about 75 degrees, rain is cold, and it's wet, and it sucks.