Month: August 2025

Farnsworth and I (1)

I: I wish Ai didn’t destroy planets

Farnsworth: Mine was doing just fine when I left. …. Mind you I haven’t heard from anyone lately…

I: Mine has reset back to the 1300s. Fortunately we remembered about crop rotation and still had GMO seeds, so getting a healthy agricultural system was easy. Domestication of livestock is not going well.

Farnsworth: Oh dear. Godzilla attack took out a large number of towns.

I: Pigs are sentient now. They still have hoofs, but they can hold political office and do pretty much anything that doesn’t require fine motor skills.

Farnsworth: Didn’t know about pigs, but I know a number of swine have learned to wear suits and get involved in politics.

I: But in an agricultural 1300s technology civilization there’s not really that many jobs like that, and I mean… people can still do them. Like a pig can run a grocery store, but it’d have trouble handing you change. It’s a completely vegetarian society, too. Because the pigs can talk human, but they can also speak animal and it got hard to eat meat when you knew it had friends. Insects, on the other hand, can only communicate with their own kinds, so they’re still fair game. Anyhow, that’s why we’re having a problem with domesticating animals. The negotiation process is really complicated.

Farnsworth: Unions. It’s always the unions.

I: I mean, it’s fair. Not all animals want or need the same thing out of being domesticated. Lots are happy just being the animals they are, and most of the wool-bearing animals are completely into it, but you know who the worst to negotiate with is?

Farnsworth: Chickens

I: Got it in one. You’d think it would be a cat, but all their contracts are “Needs: ad hoc”

Farnsworth: The chickens have in their contract KEEP THAT FARNSWORTH FELLOW AWAY FROM US

I: Chickens tho. Temperature, humidity, height of the roost, height of the roof, distance the coop is off the ground, angle of the ramp, who they’re ok sharing a coop with …

Farnsworth: Distance from the nearest KFC…

I: We don’t have KFC yet. Vegetarian 1300s agricultural, remember.

Farnsworth: Ah

I: Some of the people talk about eating the animals again, and then a pig will wander by and say something like “That chicken is excitedly waiting for her first clutch to hatch” and no one can do it.

Farnsworth: Better hope those crops don’t fail.

I: That’s one of the nice things. Pig poo is an amazing fertilizer. Anyhow, I wish Ai didn’t destroy planets.

Summer Weather

This week has been an absolute blessing. We had a couple of really hot, very humid, absolutely depressing days, and then last Thursday the weather broke and we’ve had days in the low 80s, moderate humidity, and cool breezes. I have my back door open and the air conditioner off on an early August day. It’s gorgeous and it restores my will to live.

I’ve been avoiding looking at the long-range forecast because I can’t handle the possibility of seeing the heat and humidity return (because it will, because it’s August, and because this is Baltimore and that’s just how it is).

It’s nice to have this break though. It’s amazing how quickly I can go from deeply depressed to … I don’t want to say “thriving” or “happy” but I am generally better balanced mentally and emotionally.

By the way, all the “You can beat depression with exercise!” really is bullshit for some people. Like me. I’ve been taking a daily walk – sometimes two or three times a day – for the last five years and not once have I ever come home and thought “I feel so much better!” I used to have a gym membership. Esso and I would go after work, or on a Saturday morning and esso would get all hyped up and do stuff and I would go home and sob myself to sleep because I felt scared and exhausted and deeply unhappy. I don’t know if there’s a combination of drugs in the world that can balance my brain. All I know is the daily walks, even in perfect weather, does not make me feel better in the slightest and it’s my dog that probably suffers for it. I can’t take her on really long walks because I’m only good for about half an hour before I absolutely need to be in my house, in the dark and quiet, with a fan blowing directly at me. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like — hot, cold, raining, snowing, whatever.

My poor brain is so disregulated that even the slightest rise in my heartrate makes me convinced my life is in immediate danger and I need to go to ground. Thank god for cannabis.

Circling Back

How long have I owned this domain? Since 2001 I think? DataAngel goes back a little further than that, to IRC. I’ve been through a couple of domain names (all DataAngel adjacent) but kept this one through it all.

The decision to come back to this place isn’t significant in any way. I just got tired of trying to remember all the other logins, and tired of paying for all the domains.

I have a plan to make this work, though. I’m not going to tell anyone I’m posting here. If I assume no one is reading because no one knows about it, it’s ok. It’s better than pity-reads from your mom and a couple of friends.

I also don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up that I’m going to be good about updating this, so if I don’t tell them…

Anyhow, if you’re reading this — hello. Welcome. I’m DataAngel. They/Them (because neither data nor angels have gender). Technical writer by trade, comedy writer at heart. I’ve never done it professionally, but I think I’d probably be good at script doctoring. I love writing dialog and I’m awful at writing plot. One thing I’m going to post here is random bits of fiction that I like too much to keep in my head, but can’t do anything with them.

This means that while this is a personal blog for life things (because maybe I never got over the loss of LiveJournal) there’s going to be stuff on here that’s absolutely fiction. It’ll be categorized and tagged, but it’s going to be scattered in with everything else. So before you call bullshit on anything, check the tags.

Also be aware that any posts involving real life will have serial numbers filed off. Stores, restaurants, people or dogs’ names, and the like will all be made up. I’m gonna mess with the geography, too.