There is a bond between a man and his cell phone. This bond is sacred and must not be broken.

Earlier this year, after swearing against them for years, Nanc and I finally broke down and purchased cell phones. Our reasons made sense, and I don't lose sleep over it. I mean, sure, the phones are probably satan incarnate, will cause ear cancer, and people who use them while driving should go drive off of embankments (and frequently do!). However, a phone is a gadget and I can surf the web (sorta) with it.

Whoo -- little bit of a sidetrack there --

When I pulled the phone out of the washing machine, water was streaming out of -- well everywhere. I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV, but I knew that sending a tiny, cute piece of delicate electronics through a spin cycle was just a bad plan. It was an accident, and I tried to explain that to the phone, but it just sounded like a lame excuse.

Dangit (yeah, I probably said something else, but this is a family site), now I have to get another phone. In the back of my head, I had hopes that if I dried the phone off, it would work again, like a bic lighter. It sounded like a perfectly good explanation at the time.

So, while I waited, I went to the Cingular store to find out how much it would cost to replace the phone. My jaw dropped when they told me the price. I had to laugh at the guy, and then he asked me if I bought some kind of washing machine phone insurance. After that, I surfed eBay and found my phone for a fraction of the price that the Cingular Scam Nazis wanted me to pay.

At this point, I made a solemn promise to my phone. If my phone started working again, I would pimp it out.

About this time, my phone started to heal. At first it would just vibrate all the time, which I mistook for death twitches. I unplugged the battery and came back a few days later, and the lights blinking, and it wasn't vibrating. These were good signs. A few days after that, I could actually use the phone to make honest-to-goodness calls. The display didn't work, and it kinda sounded like I was in a wet tunnel when I tried to talk to somebody, but this was progress. Finally my phone came back to life. The display works. Everything works.

I knew that I couldn't break the promise, so I invested in some bling for my phone. Sure, I might get kidded about it at work, but my phone earned the bling.

So, if you're thinking about a DIY project on your phone, it's pretty easy, and your phone could look as classy as mine. Nothing says professional like blue flames. Is that a 2-inch retractable antenna? oh, yeah...

If you're really bored, click here to see a short video (avi format) of the phone ringing. It also does this anytime you're on the phone. Woo!

If you're wondering, the phone is an LG G4010. Your resurrection experiences may vary.

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