Sweary History with James Fell

This post is for paid subscribers PART I We are back home in Calgary. The drive yesterday was a bit of a misadventure. It reminded me of a story from about 30 years ago. So here it Part I of tire changing follies. It was before children, and my wife and I were driving from Calgary to Northern BC to spend a week with my dad. We had a 1991 Acura Integra.

My best friend is a paramedic. When he was new at the job he was in the back of an ambulance with an injured child. The kid asked my friend to sing to him to take his mind off the trauma. My friend broke out into the only children’s song he knew: the story of Winnie the Pooh. It’s based on a real bear.

This post is for paid subscribers I’ve been to Japan twice. Last August I was there for an entire month. Note: Don’t go to Japan in August. The heat and humidity are brutal. We only went at that time because of the World Wado-Kai Karate Championship (where my daughter was team captain and won two bronze medals.).

Amazon is having a kickass limited time sale of On This Day in Day in History Sh!t Went Down for just $1.99. Again, it is for a very limited time. Here are the links: Amazon US Amazon Australia Amazon UK — This one is actually only £0.99 Amazon Canada usually jumps on board with the sale too, but they haven’t yet. Maybe keep an eye out if you’re in Canada. Once again I say Don’t delay Or you’ll overpay Okay I’ll go away

The pinnacle of achievement for a science fiction or fantasy author is to win the Hugo Award for best novel. On August 19, 2018, for the first time ever, an author won that accolade three years in a row, then experienced brutal harassment from a toxic fan base that could not handle the fact that she is a Black woman. --On This Day in History Shit Went Down: August 19, 2018-- Science fiction is my favorite genre; I’ve been a fan for over 40 years.

On August 14, 1942, the fucking Nazis massacred 1,850 Jews in a small town in eastern Poland called Lenin (which was not named for the commie revolutionary). Only 27 were permitted to live, being in possession of skills deemed useful to the fucking Nazi war effort. One of those spared was a young woman named Faigel Lazebnik, an amateur photographer. She learned that her family was among the slain when she was told to develop a photograph that showed them in a mass grave.

This post is for paid subscribers The last post was less than 24 hours after the shin sting by the yellow jacket, and the swelling wasn’t bad. I said it peaks at 48 hours, and this is what it looked like the next day:

I’m not Austrian, so I didn’t realize that Hedwig is something people would name a baby girl. I mean, a Harry Potter owl? Sure. But your daughter? Anyway, this Hedwig’s last name was Kiesler, and she changed both first and last to become Hedy Lamarr: talented actress and brilliant inventor who helped develop a radio technology to guide Allied torpedoes to hit their targets.

This post is for paid subscribers I have not been getting along well with the arthropod phylum of late. Last week, it was an ant bite in the ass crack that made me feel utterly wretched for about 15 hours. Yesterday, after having written up some rebrand stuff for my web design person, I went for a 65km bike ride.

This post is for paid subscribers Last Thursday I got a letter that made me cry. A number of you paid subscribers were volunteer sensitivity readers for GSRB back when it was a very rough first draft. You gave excellent feedback and it was integrated and I was most appreciative.