I come from a family of notorious tinkerers. My great-grandfather, Mort Mason, was a lover of all things mechanical; my dad spent part of his inheritance in 1983 on a computer that’s outstripped by most modern calculators; and my brother has probably broken more computers than many people will ever own. Messing with things is in my blood, and although I sometimes resist its siren call, necessity will drive me to my birthright.

Case in point: I obtained a very large Samsung DLP HD television from work a while back. It was given to me on the grounds that it made a loud and distacting humming noise that was no longer acceptable during meetings with clients. I suspected this was a bum fan, but ultimately the noise didn’t bother me, so I took the TV and used it happily for many months. Then the noise became, shall we say, banshee-like in quality. It could no longer be masked by increasing the volume, and I despaired. But deep in my veins, the tinkerer’s blood flowed more quickly.

I found out on the internet (friend to the tinkerer as well as common folk) that this particular run of Samsung televisions had been cursed with faulty bearings in the color wheel, the part responsible for the dazzling array of brilliance on a DLP tv that one comes to expect in high definition. These faulty bearings wear down and then grind against one another at a rate of 9000 rpm, which, as you may imagine, is a horrific whine. The part could be replaced by a qualified technician for four to five hundred dollars. Or… you can replace it yourself.

After ordering a new color wheel to the much sweeter tune of $80, I dove upon the inner workings of my television with savage delight, wrenching components from their cozy housings so that I might slay the wailing color wheel that Samsung had left tainted in so many televisions worldwide. It took me just under two hours, using knowledgeable instruction from the web as my spirit guide. But as I resealed my television and took a short breath as I pressed power, I knew I had saved myself upwards of $300. A new sound accompanied the picture: a soft, dainty whirr, so far removed from the angered howling of the former color wheel.

I played some crisp, colorful PS3 in celebration, knowing that despite advances in technology, the tinkerer’s blood will not be cowed by circuit boards or internal stickered warnings. We ask that the professionals might step aside, so that we might do it our damn selves.

So… anyone wanna play Rock Band 2?