Electric Love

I am not an engineer. This is a fact. I don't have the slightest knowledge of how any piece of machinery works, from flashlights to atom bombs. I don't understand how I can fire electricity into something through a battery and spark it to life; a remote control car, a radio, an electric turkey cutter. And yet.....God has instilled in me some sort of interest in taking things apart. I love the process of meticulously opening up mechanics. Finding the tiny screws on the outside housing, taking them out, lifting off the hood like Darth Vader's helmut, and viewing the machine within. All those green microchips with little buttons and switches, being held down by electric friendly glue. I don't know what it does. I find more screws. I pull out the motherboard (which, in my mind, is just the biggest, most "technology looking" thing I can find). I collect the screws in a small pile, sure not to lose them. I look for more screws - almost all electronics are held in place by tiny little screws. That's it. I pull out everything I can and then I look at it and stare at what I've done. I feel like a scientist. Sometimes I imagine somebody coming over unexpectedly and catching me in the throws of machine passion. What would they think? They'd think I was a genius. They'd think, "Wow, John really knows a lot about stuff - robot stuff". They would inquire about what I was doing and I'd say something about how I was just "takin' it apart to see what made it tick". They'd think I really knew my stuff. If I said the word "motherboard" or something along the lines of, "trying to reroute the AC current" it would really blow their hair back. They'd tell our friends what they caught me doing. They'd all think I was Rick Morranis.

The problem I have, however, is that, while I have an immense interest in tearing things down, I really have no idea how to put them back together again. Once I remove the first screw, the appliance is as good as dead. I pulled apart a remote control car when I was a kid to impress my dad but could never get it back together again. I saved the mangled pieces for months, hoping some spark of genius would strike me as I lay sleeping in my bed. I would suddenly remember HOW it was, exactly, that I had taken it apart.

No.

The car remained in three pieces - the shiny plastic housing, the motherboard and all the little pieces I'd cannibalized along the way. It found it's way to my closet, which was sort of the VA hospital for toys and then, finally, to the trash can (toy graveyard).

In fact, I recently found a computer just sitting on the curb, waiting to be thrown away. I picked it up, brought it home and took it apart without a shirt on. This machine was even more primitive than the remote control car as it's insides were mainly held together with zip ties. This, however, was not a concern as I had the proper primitive tools. I ripped and twisted through the chords, pulled out everything I could until I was left with just the big tube monitor and the motherboard. The pieces are now residing in a junkyard somewhere.

Now, where has my training and experience led me? To now.

I am the proud parent of an original 1986 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. A classic amongst gamers, it is, in my opinion, the revolutionary piece of machinery that not only defined a generation, but paved the way for the barrage of gaming competitors alive today. The games were almost innumerable and some were nearly impossible.

Just as I love my grandparents, I love my Nintendo and I would do whatever I could to help it live a little longer. Would I give it my liver? Only if I knew it was going to stop drinking so much..............right, Grandma?

Yesterday a friend of mine and myself went to a newly discovered video game extravaganza called "The Game Dude", a place I discovered on Sherman Way in Van Nuys that carries every title to every game for every system ON HAND for cheap cheap CHEAP! I purchased NARC for my NES yesterday for a mere $2. This is a game where your character understands the importance of keeping a clean street no matter what and he sets out to murder every drug dealer he can get his mitts on. You just can't compete with that.

So I bought five great games: Wizards & Warriors, Swords & Serpents, Road Blasters, NARC and Rush'n Attack. I got home, my hands sweaty with glee, my stomach churning with butterflies to relive how incredible these games were. I could tell Brett felt the same way. I kept trying to talk to him but his eyes were just locked on the console and his hands were shaking while he was trying to shove a game in. You could almost see the fantasy playing out behind his eyes. He was six again. His mom was letting him play the Nintendo because his homework was done. He chose his favorite game because, since it was a weekday, he only had limited time with his system and had to distribute the seconds carefully. But not today. Today Brett and I are 26 and NOBODY TELLS US HOW LONG WE CAN PLAY NINTENDO FOR!!!! NOBODY!

He slowly inserted his thick, gray cartridge into the Nintendo's eager slot. He gently pressed down, feeling the gears moan under the pressure. The pieces clicked into placed and he worked his thumb down over the stiff power button and pressed. On the 65 inch television, painted for our waiting eyes was the most glorious vision of.............nothing. A flashing grey screen.

Everything was broken. This old stupid piece of crap. I wanted to kick it and scream at it, just like I do with Grandma when she doesn't do what she's supposed to. We blew in it. We blew in the games. We shook it. We held it sideways. Nothing.

A. Complete. Failure.

And so, ol' Rick Morranis has had to resort to desperate and extreme measures. I hopped online and ordered a brand new 72-pin connector for the grey boy. What is a 72-pin connector? Don't worry about it. Unless you're a scientist you probably wouldn't understand.

It is scheduled to arrive in just a few days and when it does, I'll pull out my bone saws - my screwdrivers. I'll find it's joints and I'll start the mantra "lefty loosey, right tighty" inside my head. I'll remove the dull casing. I'll remove the motherboard. I'll remove the old 72-pin connector and I will replace it with a new beating heart and it will live again...........if, for once, I can figure out how to do more than simply deconstruct.