Kenn’s Big Book of Stuff

I first knew Lewis Shiner’s writing from the comic THE HACKER FILES.  It was one of the first comics to print newsgroup postings in the letters page (my only published LOC was there!).

I’ve been reading the free PDF version of Mr. Shiner’s new book, BLACK AND WHITE. It is a thousand miles removed from his cyberpunk days.  It tells a story centered around the construction of the Interstate System, and Research Triangle Park.  The highest praise I can offer is that it involves the sixties and America’s racial awakenings, and I still can’t stop reading.  I thought the Baby Boomers had bored me to tears with this stuff, but this is a different angle, a much more personal story, and I’m captivated.

You can download the free PDF here, or order a real copy here.

I was just looking over this list of 100 things you can make yourself. While the discussions of how to make tofu and bacon are interesting, like watching How It’s Made, I doubt I’ll be duplicating them.

But in the Root Beer link, they say “The primary element in the root beer flavor we know today is wintergreen”.

Really?  I need to go buy some root beer and try to identify that flavor. No wonder my wife hates root beer.

And sassafras is outlawed?  So now only the outlaws have sassafras…