fun with a broken CFL

I read this on the web:

and thought, why not, I've got a dremel and a dead 25W CFL, let's look for neat electronics inside.

I also saw something about running the CFL mercury bulb at reduced wattage, at 5V:

so now I'm wondering, how can you run a CFL bulb on DC?

Sure, I understand that a CCFL inverter might do the trick, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using cheap parts to run a broken bulb that could be bought for new, for under $2 when on sale....

Would a 555 switching 12VDC at several kHz excite a CFL? Or a boost converter, or... ???

Thanks,

Michael