PhoneBoy Says

Probably shouldn't write this until tomorrow, but as of right now, I am done with drinking lemonade for my cleanse. 10 days without solid food is something I would have never expected I would do. But I set my mind to doing it, and do it I did. I rewarded myself with a nice cup of Orange and Spice herbal tea instead of drinking senna.

Tomorrow, I will be drinking OJ. I bought a big jug of it that I expect I will consume in the next few days, depending on how much of i I drink and whether or not I cut it down with water. Either way, will be looking forward to having a different taste in my mouth for a change.

It will be interesting to see what still tastes good after this cleansing process.

One thing I successfully accomplished today was making it so I could remove the backbox of my pinball machine. Unfortunately, it means disconnecting lots and lots of wires--yes I labeled things. The wires run from the backbox, i.e. the upright "head" part, down into the cabinet. Some of these wires had Molex connectors, which helped a bit. In other cases, I had to disconnect things from the backbox, remove the bolts for the cable ties, unhook the cables, and put them down into the cabinet.

With the wires no longer an issue, all I have to do is remove two bolts and the head should come right off. Why do I want to do this? Because I had to do that (and remove the legs) in order to get the pinball machine up to my office. I expect I will have to do the reverse to get it down. And trust me, we're paying movers to move this piece of equipment. I moved it with a local pinball expert when we first moved in. It's not easy to move a pinball machine!

As I wrote before, the Power Module in my system is hosed. It's possible I can replace a component of the board and get it working, but given we are moving in about 5 weeks, and fixing this thing may not be cheap, it's not a high-priority item. The pinball game also needs a new rubber slingshot. I found a similar-sized rubber gasket at the hardware store that I am using in the meantime, but it's wrong both in terms of size--width of rubber and too big in diameter for the area--and in color.

I do look forward to getting this thing fixed and set up at the new place. It's been far too long since I've played my beloved Eight Ball Deluxe.

All this time, I never noticed I had such a 1337 key. This is what it's the key to.

More somewhat painful waste elimination yesterday and no weight loss this morning. Hm… but I did have the tea.

Anyway, it's the last day of the cleanse. I think the funny taste in my mouth as gone away. Didn't get enough sleep, but I sure do like the "instant on" feeling when I wake up.

Tomorrow will be an Orange Juice day. Yum!

Our house is officially on the market. Listing was in yesterday and they're still getting the pictures posted. This evening, we got a call from a Realtor wanting to know if they could have someone look through our house in the morning. Some scrambling about is occurring as we are doing things to get ready--I'm patching nail holes and Alisa is cleaning out the pantry.

Of course, there is plenty more to do. There always is.

We had to gussy up the house for pictures for our listing. I took a couple pics of our living room for kicks.

Yesterday, and early this morning, my intestinal tract really really wanted to get rid of stuff, so it was a little more painful than usual. But two pounds came off, so I can't complain too much. Had my cup of senna tea last night and this morning, so I may have more of this to look forward to today.

While the waste elimination process has been not quite as pleasant through this process--I kind of expected that--the biggest thing bugging me right is the taste in my mouth. If I'm not drinking water or lemonade, my mouth has this taste that's like ass and it always comes back. That alone is making me want to be done with this fast. Less than 48 hours to go, though, so might as well finish this out.

I plan on making a trip to the grocery store today to purchase the bits for my vegetable soup that I will make on Sunday. That and I think I'm going to need a couple more lemons to have enough lemonade to make it to Friday.

I've started a number of these things, so might as well participate in one. This one goes back to someone named "Laowolf" which I can't find a reference to. But I got tagged by Ocifant, who got tagged by Philhellene, who got tagged by Aubrey, who got tagged by DKN. Trail runs cold there. I think the idea is to list 8 "interesting" facts about me and then tag 8 others. I might not be able to tag 8 others, or come up with 8 interesting facts, but we'll find out.

1. I have a thing for the game of Monopoly. Perhaps because I have many memories of playing with my mom or other members of my family. I even made a Monopoly set one time. I used the back of a different board game, made the property cards out of construction paper. I may have used the Chance/Community Chest cards from a "real" game, but I managed to make the rest of it. Can't remember what I used for houses and hotels.

2. When I was 8, I broke my arm attempting to carry a ball while climbing up a cliff at a beach. Because I did not go to the physical therapy after getting my cast off, I can't turn my right wrist more than 90 degrees, meaning I can't turn my right palm face-up. Occasionally annoying, but I can usually work around it.

3. I have never voted for a presidential candidate that has ever made office. I'm therefore wondering if I should vote for "the other guy" if and when Bill Richardson wins the Democratic nomination.

4. One of my favorite shows when I was a kid was Fight Back! with David Horowitz. Nice to know David Horowitz is still doing his thing on the Internet.

5. One thing I wanted to do when I grew up was be a Game Show Host. That never came anywhere near true, obviously.

6. I graduated college with exactly the number of credits I needed to graduate: no more, no less. Call it laziness.

7. The first mobile phone I owned as a Qualcomm phone. This is prior to working at Nokia, of course. :)

8. Despite having had cats most of my life, I am, according to some allergy tests I took last year, allergic to cats. Not seriously, but I do notice that they bother me at times.

Okay, that's 8 facts. So who can I tag? Well, I don't exactly feel like tagging anyone right now. It's late and I want to go to bed. If you want to respond in-kind, then be my guest.

I never thought in my life I'd go a week without eating solid food, but here I am doing exactly that. Only a half a pound lighter this morning. I drank more lemonade than usual yesterday, but didn't eliminate as much in the way of waste yesterday. I drank senna tea both last night and this morning to help keep things moving. Waste elimination is the entire point.

I'm in the home stretch of this cleanse, and I have to say that there haven't really been any periods of grogginess. Getting up in the morning is a more or less instant-on experience now. I still don't have any difficulty getting to sleep at night, and it's nice to be able to wake up and not require time to get "awake."

Now that I've cleaned my office and gotten it more or less ready for pictures for our house listing, I figure I should show off a little. There will be a few last-minute adjustments like the addition of a fake plant that Toby, the large creature in the middle of the floor, would attempt to eat. He likes plastic, what can I say?