Starfish Enterprise--where no fish has gone before

[cosmolinguist]

I bought a fish today. Sort of on a whim. From Wal-Mart. A male betta. He's blue.

I asked Katie what I should name him. She said, "He's a pretty blue color." I know she didn't mean that's what I should name him, but she said it as if it belonged in the context. I said I refused to name it Pretty Blue Color. Also Sky ("it doesn't live in the sky, it lives in the water!" I argued--"that's the point," she said) and Bluebird ("it's not a bird!" I said--"that's the point," she said).

On the way home, I started a list, so I wouldn't forget all the ideas--a good many of them Katie and Josh's--that were being submitted.

• Alec Bluefin--Josh suggested this; I laughed at it; Katie said she didn't get it. "It sounds like Alec Baldwin," I said. "Yep," Josh said. "And you got him in Alec [Alexandria; home of the nearest Wal-Mart and destination of most of our outings] and he's blue."
• Phillips--"Aren't they the company that started Beta?" Josh asked (this because my fish is a betta).
• Phil Phish, Ph.D.--Josh being silly again.
• Philo--This seemed appropriate here.
• Blueberry Cheese--A Josh-and-Katie collaboration.
• 110100--Or some other random binary. I forget why ... I think this one would make my fish's name "52."
• Ender
• Red--In the spirit of contradiction.
• π
• Pierre--After Pierre Curie, I think, though I can't remember why.
• Hephaestos--Suggested by alchemi. (I thought maybe hephaestos would like that.)

Comments

[soltice.livejournal.com]

Binary!? Hexadecimal!! HEX-A-DES-I-MALL!!!!

[soltice.livejournal.com]

OOooo! OOO! What about the most "randomly" emitted phrase in Spongebob? "My Legs!"

Re:

[cosmolinguist]

I don't know hexadecimal! Not very well, anyway, though I understand the basic idea.

[soltice.livejournal.com]

It's base 16. Simply count up to 9 and instead of saying 10, count A, B, C, D, E, F, and then 10.

Binary to hex is even easier:



Now repeat that table translation for every group of 4 binary numbers from right to left:

11 1011 0001 = 3D1

[cosmolinguist]

I have a friend whose name is the hexadecimal equivalent of 237. That's cool.

[5-rings.livejournal.com]

You could call him #004080 or #0080C0. They're both nice colors :-)

[uclacorey.livejournal.com]

Walmart sells fish? wow--is there anything that place doesn't sell?

I think you should name it 'Sushi' =)

Re:

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, they have a whole variety of them in the pets department. When I was little, my brother got an aquarium for his birthday or Christmas (they're so close it's hard to tell the two apart), and we got goldfish for it at Wal-Mart. (My dad named one Irving, because he's odd; my brother named the other Bubbles, because he was apparently still young enough to be cute.)

Sushi is a great name.

[ismelljello.livejournal.com]

Name it some perfectly normal human name. That way you can confuse people when you talk about spending the night with paul or something like that. Either that or DeCarte. I always figured bettas as somewhat nihilistic.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

I actually quite like the name "he's a pretty blue colour". Here he's a pretty blue colour, come get your food, and all that.

If you don't like sky because he lives in the water, how about... water?

Or to follow the Phillips line to its logical conclusion, how about 'max'?

Perhaps 'Wally'? maybe 'alpha'?

Or, since he's a beta fish, how about 'Al Gore' who, despite that Naomi Wolf makeover to make him more Alpha for the election, is still very much a beta male.

Pi is so last year. how about e??? That's fun too!

goodluck.

What's with everyone naming the fish after numbers?!

[cosmolinguist]

Those are awesome. Alpha the betta rocks. :-) And your reasoning for Al Gore is so clever, not to mention true. Wally is a good name, too; I just don't think my fish looks like a Wally. And I actually thought of "e," when all these other numbers were being suggested ... :-)

Re: What's with everyone naming the fish after numbers?!

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I figured there's gotta be some advantage to being a genius..