We should be Luddites

About a week ago our television (yes, the big expensive one. not the little one with the VCR that cost almost nothing and we've had forever) started making an odd noise. It was a slight hum at first and then...

BAM!

It's a loud, raging, angry TV noise that forces me to shut it off and run with the children, screaming for Dean to do something.

Like any modern woman, I Google "Samsung DLP TV making loud noise" and after reading one or two blogs, I diagnose our problem as the color wheel.

I love Google. Chances are that someone somewhere has had the exact same problem as you -- only they have blogged about it or, even better, posted 5 instructional videos to YouTube about it.

We've replaced the lamp in the TV and that was a few-minute job. It was great. So we were feeling pretty cocky. We've got instructions. We've got videos. We can do this! We order the part and wait for its arrival...

Do we read the instructions? Do we watch the videos? No. We just assume it will be like the lamp ...

The part arrived last night so we print out the instructions and hit the bookmarked YouTube. Sure, it's almost 10 p.m., but how long could this take?

Uh. The instructions are 17 pages. Slight sinking feeling.

FIVE videos? Really? Sinking lower.

This might take a bit longer than the lamp.

Dean starts following the videos. 14 screws to take off the back of the TV. Done.

Casings and frames and ribbon connector wires. Don't touch anything that looks like it MIGHT have to do with your screen picture. Done.

Slowly, but surely we follow the instructions step-by-step-by-step. We've started reading the comments on the instruction blog. We might have to remove a jumper... No idea what a jumper is, but we can Google that later. We might have the blue and red cables mixed up. It seems a lot of folks did that. Apparently, there's also a large contingent that didn't have sound after this procedure...

The sinking feeling has not left, but by now we are knee-deep in expensive TV parts, cables and a color wheel that looks oh-so-very fragile.

By midnight, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but was it a TV picture in high definition or just a well-lit blank screen?

Once everything was back together, we had to figure out the wires that go from the Wii to the TV, and the DVD player to the TV, and the satellite to the TV and some other wires we aren't sure where they are from but they are on the TV now...

The moment of truth....

HIGH DEFINITION TV!!! Victory!