Luddites will not be interested in this column. Enjoy the rest of your Gazette. In fact, even I don’t really enjoy going to these stores. However the techies out there, the guys (mostly) who love to tinker with electronic objects, will be grabbing their plastic and running out the door.

You might be interested to know that there are supermarkets that don’t include food. These stores are full of aisles of (mostly) black things that give fix-it junkies a high – and they’re legal. The first two shops below (Addison Electronics and Access Electronics) buy bales of whatchamacallits and sell them in rows and rows of neatly lined up and identified boxes (not that that helps me). The inventory is there until they are all sold out, which could take up to a year for some things. So there is turnover in the stock, although I must admit that it always looks the same to me. There is also a core of stock items that always sell, and the last store, Active, works in this way.I do like the idea that things can be fixed and saved.

And I have a family made up of male geeks who think stores like these are the be-all and end-all. Thank goodness they can help me plug in.

Addison Electronics, 8018 20th Avenue at Jarry St. Phone: 514-376-1740. Hours: Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. This double store sells surplus and bankruptcy deals, and is an electronic buff’s idea of heaven. The main room is a supermarket of mechanical and electronic parts for CB’s, sound systems, TV’s, computers, antennas, burglar alarms (residential and commercial), DVD, MP3 and MP4 players and phones. The audio department is being renovated. The depot on the left has more computer oriented thing-a-ma-jigs: power supplies, boards, switches, pins, cables, fans, resistors, connectors, etc. Other smaller locations with higher prices: Terrebonne, 1750 ch. Gascogne (450-964-4499); Point-aux Trembles, 11,990 Sherbrooke E. (514-640-7799).

Acces Electronique, 43B Brunswick Blvd. at Des Sources Blvd., Dollard des Ormeaux. Phone: 514-421-2755. Hours: Monday to Wednesday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sun 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. http://www.acceselectronique.ca Handy guys swoon when they see this large airy store full of specialty electronic parts. High end, better quality cables (audio, video, computer, speakers, electric, etc.), 38 varieties of cell phone and camera batteries and chargers too, hubs, routers, speaker boxes, fans, rolls and rolls of wire, miniature cameras, DVD burners, telephone jacks, parts for alarm systems, car audio, soldering tools and satellite accessories are all here to play with. The store also installs car audio equipment and does some computer repairs. Just around now, they will be adding industrial and commercial surplus to this mix: water pumps, relays, capacitors to run motors, switches and many other items in this genre.

Active Tech Electroniques, 5349 Ferrier St. at Decarie Blvd. Phone: 514-731-7441. Hours: Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Winter Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) http://ww.active-tech.ca. Though our world has only been conscious of the electronic revolution more recently, this company has been open since 1971 and has nine stores in Canada. Electronic technicians, hobbyists and students are the main shoppers here. They inventory at least 7,500 parts in stock and warehouse thousands more. The aisles of whatchamacallits: cables, connectors, fans, wires, switches, chips for boards, diodes, resistors and transistors for audio and sound are for testing, repair, design, research and development. They sell the industry’s leading suppliers such as Fluke, Tektronix, Cooper Tools, Kester, Loctite, Hammond, Mode, Startech, NTE. Other location: 6080 Metropolitain East (514-256-7538).