BreakALeg

You've heard that old saying. Generally used as an encouragement. Well, I'm here to tell ya it's anything but. My leg's not broken per se, but my knee is for sure wrenched. At ye olde emergency room on 1/1/07, the nice lady said she thought she may see a small linear fracture of my patella, but alas there are no MRI's in the Daviess Co. Hospital emergency room and since this is a worker's comp ordeal I'm still waiting to find out what is wrong with my knee and the connective tissues therein. I did have and MRI at another hospital this last Tuesday. But yon insurance adjuster contact dude doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry, so here i lay, with my leg all braced up, MRI films sitting on my counter since Tuesday and no othorpedist appointment til this coming Monday. All that is known for sure is that my knee is sore and swollen and is to be kept leg brace straight until they figure out what is indeed wrong inside the aforementioned knee.

Now even if you take away the pain(which the pharmacist has done nicely for the most part)one must still try to manuever through life with a straight leg all the time. This may not sound like a big deal to those of y'all who don't know what that's like, but I'm here for ya. Here's some things that are a little harder for those who are leg bending challenged.........
Can't drive a car...can't hardly even get in the passenger side of a car.
Can't put on your sock....or shoe....or wash your toes....etc.
Ever tried to poop with your leg stuck out straight and propped on a tub? Not impossible but hardly enjoyable. Greatly reducing the enjoyment one gets from about the only quality alone time a man with a woman and kids can have....Tragedy!
Speaking of the woman, not only is sexin her much more problematic, but one must rely on her to do the aforementioned shoe tying, toenail clipping, etc. Not terrible....unless you're the one clipping and unless when this is all over you're the one that has to be ever so thankful and xtry nice since she did so much for you whilst you were laid up. And now she's worried that the sexin will somehow tear apart the remaining connective tissue in yon leg. A reasonable concern, but trust me.......I'm ok just layin there and making sure my leg stays still.....for a coupla weeks anyway.


Break a leg indeed.....
Finn

ChickenEnchiladaPie

The other day I promised I would tell you how to turn spicy chicken tortilla soup into chicken enchilada pie......well, here it is.

Simmer the leftover soup until the broth reduces considerably. One should reduce until not much broth remains in the soup pot. This will condense the flavor in the former soup and make your enchiladas far less sloppy.
Drain off remaining broth(I personally add a little of the chicken fixens to the bowl of drained off broth and have one more bowl of soup), the concoction will still be sloppy, but not nearly as bad and some more will cook off in the oven.
Now your stock is ready. One must then heat some olive oil in a non-stick skillet. When the oil is sufficiently heated, place flour tortilla's into the hot oil. Basically, you are making a taco salad shell, but it's flat. You will use these tortillas to create and seperate your layers in your pie. The number of crispy, flaky, delicious fried flour tortillas will depend on how much leftover soup one has, how many layers you like in your pie, etc.
Place one layer of the fried tortillas on the bottom of a non-stick cake/casserole pan. Spread refried beans over tortillas, sprinkle cheese of your choice over beans, then layer DRAINED diced tomatoes over cheese, add a layer of leftover soup stuff, add another layer of the fried tortillas, finally add a layer of fried hamburger prepared with enchilada or taco seasoning(your preference) instead of more refried beans.
Repeat these steps til you run out of ingredients or pan.
One final note, I prefer to top the pie off with a final layer of the fried tortillas, sprinkle with cheese and add peppers of your choice spread evenly over the cheese.
Baked at 300 degrees until cheese on top is a toasty perfection. Enjoy,
Finn

Pacers

TI don't know if anyone reading this is a sports fan(or if anyone is reading this, for that matter), but my Pacers made a trade yesterday that I absolutely love. They got rid of 3 complaining and/or trouble having players and bought low on three former lottery picks in Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy Jr, and Ike Diogu. Yeah!!!!

USPresidency(TuckUFu)

'Obama Launches 2008 White House Bid'. That was an AP headline today. Thinking back to what happened in the last two US Presidential elections, I was just intrigued that even a news service would use the word 'bid' to talk about an election. Construction companies 'bid' on jobs. Lots of industries 'bid' on jobs. This is about who can do the job for the least amount of money. In relation to US politics, it's most likely the opposite. It's not who can do the job for the least, it's more like who will pay the most to get the job. Welcome to the good ol' US of TSOG, land of the fee, home of the slave.
Many thanks to the Honorable Finnbaker for allowing my input.

Disclaimer: WAKE UP!!! User risks all assumptions. Prosecutors will be violated.

Your Humble Servant,
Tuck Fu

Euchre

Back in the day, we played euchre constantly. For fun, for profit, to waste time, to help with our teamwork, etc. Now it's all Texas Hold 'em. I love poker but a)am not as good at poker as I was at euchre and b)don't get the satisfaction of teamwork. After you've played euchre with a particular partner of a certain intelligence for awhile, it almost seems one is cheating. One can tell simply by how trump was made and by whom and in what position it was made from and that position relative to the lead and your partner's play relative to the lead or if it was the lead itself, what your partner is holding and therefore how to proceed with the hand. Which tricks to take, what to lead back, when to play it according to Hoyle, when not, etc. It's almost like being a mind reader. It gives one a certain sense of accomplishment and connectedness to the universe. Of course, one has to be very in tuned with one's partner. I played with numerous partners and against those same people, but the one person who I connected with the most was Jay. We were nigh unbeatable. Of course it's not poker, so one can't exactly bluff someone off a better hand so sometimes the cards just fall wrong, or your opponents are so bad they win by accident......but normally, teamwork like ours was unbeatable.

Another blog I ran across while just hitting the next blog tab, mentioned euchre, which is what got me thinking about this, but I miss Jay. We were as close as brothers(he and his brother Sean. We played basketball, cards, pool, anything and I've never felt a mystically mental, instincual symbiosis with anyone else like Jay). When we were teamed, others didn't expect to win. Really good basketball players would become soooo frustrated when they couldn't beat us. They would yell things like, "Well, you guys play together all the time, how are we supposed to play you? We only play 3 or 4 times a week." And I mean REALLy good ball players. Individually Jay and I both had our strengths and weaknesses and would have lost handily playing one on one against these athletically and physically superior players, but together we were one and we were very good.

Same in Euchre. I've had people get up and walk out in money games and fun games because they thought we were cheating because of how in tuned we were......we weren't cheating.....we were one.

Sean and I were very close too in a different kinda great friends kinda way, but no symbiosis with Sean. Sean and I were actually friends first. Sean is two yrs older than Jay.....Very close, but not like Jay and I. Alot of peop....MOST people didn't like Jay. Very cocky. Very opinionated and always right.....not much different from me really, but people like me for the most part, but that's just because I'm more polished than Jay I think, or maybe he just doesn't care. Regardless I knew the real Jay. I had a symbiosis with him. I WAS in his head......that went away.

Now Sean is in prison for the 2nd time for Meth. The 1st time was a 10 do 5 and he was out for less than a year and went back. I hear that this will be for 15-20. I don't know. I had to seperate myself a long time ago.....tried when he got out but he went right back to the old ways and was lost to me again.
Jay has stayed out of prison(a few days here and there in county, but out of prison and that only because he's luckier than Sean.....or better at it.....or something). I don't know, but he's not in prison....well, the only prison he's in is the one he's built for himself anyway. I love Jay and Sean.......real friends don't abandon each other.....they were the best and closest friends I've ever had........I had to let them go........I feel so guilty.

I miss Euchre......
Finn

SpicyChickenTortillaSoup

As a little bonus to all of you out there who look at this blog, I'll occasionally throw out a favorite recipe of mine. My favorite right now is this soup. 1st one should know that any ingredient in this recipe can be changed to suit your taste. You're cooking this for you, not for me, so cook it like you like it. I do, this isn't the original recipe I was given for this soup, I fine tuned it to the masterpiece of culinary delight the it is for ME right now, but do what you will with it. Experiment, have a good time and enjoy.

2-3lbs boneless chicken breast
2 large cans chicken broth
1 large yellow onion
1 jar roasted red and yellow peppers
i can chopped green chilis
assorted other peppers to your taste and hotness desires(I tend to stay mellow, let's the flavor come through better)
1 box fresh mushrooms(chopped or sliced to your tastes)
1 large can stewed tomatoes
2 cans of diced tomatoes(comes seasoned with a wide variety of flavors(celery and green peppers, oregano and basil, jalepeno, etc))
1-2 lbs pepperjack cheese
1 bag tortilla chips
fry chicken and sautee onions, peppers and shrooms, cut chicken how you like, add to broth, add peppers, onions and shrooms all chopped like you like it, add tomatoes, let simmer(ready to eat now, the longer it simmers the better it is.....really, tomorrow it'll be even better). Before serving melt cheese on top and served with crumbled up tortilla chips to sprinkle on top. Enjoy.

Next time I'll tell you how to use the leftovers to make chicken enchilada pie. Later,
Finn

RAW

Tragedy and despair!!!!! I learned that the man who was one of our times best and wittiest thinkers and writers, died this week. Robert Anton Wilson(who's web site you can access through the ingredients section of this blog) was one of the most influential writers in my life. His unique perspectives and humorous deliveries inspired me. I'm deeply saddened and recommend anyone who sees this(maybe noone but Franz, but if you're out there and you're not Franz, thanks and spread the word) to check it out. One can also access other material about RAW through the Wikipedia List of Writers and you can see his influence in The Maybe Logic Quarterly or maybe just Maybe Logic.....maybe.

PKD(Philip K. Dick) and RAW are dead........wow, that really sucks...........PKD for 20 yrs now(see the movie made from his book A Scanner Darkly starring Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr. and Wynona Ryder(who's parents were intimates of Dr. Timothy Leary who was himself friends with PKD and RAW. He may have even been Wynona's God Father.....not sure about that though.))...................the world is much worse off for their passing. These two writers, above all in my experience, could inspire thought in intelligent people.

In the next few days I will try to provide some thoughts of my own about some of these tw o great men's works. Stay tuned and I hope that I can influence even one person who may not have ever read either of these two jedi mind warriors to pick up a collection of PKD's short stories(some of his work has made it onto the big screen.....Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep(made into the movie Blade Runner) or the movies Paycheck, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly and Total Recall) or RAW's epic(co-written w/ Robert Shea)............The Illuminatis Trilogy, or some of his non fiction like TSOG(Tsarist Occupational Government) The Thing That Ate The Constitution.....highly recommended by the way.

So stay tuned for that and please take a moment, for me, to remember RAW and thank him for the way he decided to live his life(started out in a Brooklyn(I think) technical school for drafters and engineers, what a waste that would have been).

Later,
Finn

GrandReopening

Finally, the old HP OMNIBOOK took the plunge into retirement, a little worse for wear(the space bar died in the beginning of December), but still trudging along. The ancietness of Ye Olde Omnibook would have been much harder to take had I not been, and still am, a resident of the hills and hollers of Southern Indiana. Where the men are men and so are some of their sisters......the land of Uncle Daddy......where a woman can be your prom date, taker of your innocence and your aunt all in the same beautiful spring evening. I myself have a cousin who is my 1st cousin on my father's side and my 3rd cousin on my mother's side......but I digress.....since I live in the wilderness, I am unable to secure high speed internet, so the slowness of the Omnibook, wasn't so bad.

But now we're rollin'. So buckle up buttercup, I hope this is gonna be an interesting ride. I'll be posting daily thoughts, ramblings etc. and I'm pretty sure Parish will have some original fiction for us all very shortly. As for the rest of the cast, we'll just have to see when and how often they'll be able to stop in and contribute, but I'll let everyone know we're online and ready to blog. Write ya soon, later.
Finn