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The 4th of July Fireworks Extravaganza!

I'm sure a lot of you are gone for the weekend, but for those who can hearrrr me know, X-E's celebration of Independence Day comes in the form of this pictorial guide to shitty fireworks. Well, not shitty...just cheap. Smoke bombs, snake eggs, and a whole bunch of other junk we found yesterday in a paper bag leftover from last year. I've got another article on deck, probably for Monday, earlier if I don't feel like celebrating, but I probably will, because yay tequila. If you're taking off, have a great 4th -- may it be filled with the legendary vodka-filled watermelon and much meat.

Posted by Matt on 07/02/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 107 comments

Caution: Carefully read other cautions

Anyone else find that warning on the pop pops box hillarious?

Chestnuts roasted by Vyle @ 07/04/2004 5:14 PM

Oh, before I forget, to those of you who, like my nephew (his mom is the sister in Iraq), were born on this day: Have a Happy Birthday, the whole lot of you. I’m off to help monitor a pool party for the nine-year-old crowd, pray for my sanity! See ya!

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 07/04/2004 5:25 PM

Fish!

Chestnuts roasted by I authored the "Police Line Do Not Cross" Markers @ 07/04/2004 6:05 PM

Thanks for the page, it killed some time of being stuck at work on the 4th (pity me).

Chestnuts roasted by Steve / Colorado @ 07/04/2004 6:47 PM

Matt -
Have you seen the new Spider-Man/Captain America/Hulk Popsicles? Just had one with my boy. Pretty much all taste grape.

Joe

Chestnuts roasted by Joe in OH @ 07/04/2004 7:47 PM

Yo! Matt, great shit. I hope you still have all 10 fingers by the time you read this.

Peas…

Jimmy

Chestnuts roasted by Jimmy Samsara @ 07/04/2004 9:21 PM

Dear "teh bret"
im from omaha too
Lets not meet

Chestnuts roasted by alex @ 07/05/2004 12:00 PM

You have to wrap the piccolo petes in duct tape to ensure the integrity of the piccolo pete bomb before whacking them with a hammer, wrap 4 or 5 together to create a really good bomb.

Chestnuts roasted by Mandie @ 07/05/2004 2:00 PM

Just a note: light the Ground Bloom Flower and then immediately drop it in water. Make sure there’s enough room for it to zoom around.

Chestnuts roasted by snarkygurl @ 07/05/2004 2:18 PM

I always liked those fireworks that whistled a really high pitch sound for a long time. My friends and I used to always set those off when people were giving speeches. Quite hilarious; for us anyway!

Chestnuts roasted by Admiral79 @ 07/05/2004 6:29 PM

I wish you had written this article like 10 years ago Matt. I thought all Roman Candles shot from the end. So, one night, as I was showing off in front of my friends, I climbed up on the roof of my house to be one with the Gods. I lit the fuse prepared to shoot bolts of lightning from my hand. But the guilty pleasure of being a God soon turned to horror as it turns out that it was one of those Roman Candles that shot out from the side. OH THE HUMANITY! The emergency room was not a good place to be that night.

Chestnuts roasted by Admiral79 @ 07/05/2004 6:36 PM

Being an American living in New Zealand, it’s really hard to keep up with your native holidays. But reading your fireworks article had me pissing in laughter and feeling a massive nostalgia at the same time. You will forever rock bro.

Chestnuts roasted by Jerome Lepulu @ 07/05/2004 11:43 PM

Joe in OH-I have those in my freezer. Ever notice how the colour pattern on the actual pops is not loyal that which is shown on the packaging.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 07/06/2004 1:35 AM

Ground flowers are pretty much the only fireworks my brother and I buy nowadays. In Hawaii, we get them as "Morning Glories." Shrug. The beauty of those suckers is that if you pinch them justtt right with a pair of pliers, they turn into a mini-m80. Who needs any other firework! Dance ground flower, dance! Bang drop it. Happy belated 4th Matt.

Chestnuts roasted by Christian @ 07/06/2004 1:44 AM

Wow, the fourth is over and my poor little wick ligher is still hot as a branding iron from the hours of abuse. It’s so hard to get fireworks here in San Jose, we have to drive to gilroy and even there the fireworks all suck and have that dorky "safe and sane" seal on them. When I was 11 or so, my grandparent’s friend gave me a box of 50 odd M60s (about what a cherry bomb is). Now I’m stuck with sparklers and fountains, but oh well, it’s still fun as hell. And the crazy dudes down the street are still setting off huge rockets, for the 7th day now. Cool.

Chestnuts roasted by EhhEff @ 07/06/2004 1:44 AM

Nate -
Yeah, they are a little disappointing. The funny part is that they are called "Firecrackers". I was expecting those big-ass bomb pops I used to get from the ice-cream man. While I was eating a Hulk one, my wife pointed out that the purple part was Hulk’s pants. She then accused me of going down on the Hulkster. She’s a sick, sick woman.

Chestnuts roasted by Joe in OH @ 07/06/2004 6:42 AM

Ow ow ow ow ow ow. I got a big blister from some cheap knock off of a "black cat". We made the mistake of going to the "buy one get 1,000,000,000 free" fireworks stand outside the city limits. Where do they find people to work at those things? I think on the food chain, fireworks stall guys must be lower than carnies. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!

Chestnuts roasted by Blah...blah @ 07/06/2004 10:24 AM

You know, those smoke bombs can be quite dangerous in the hands of a bored kid. I used to wrap mine up in several layers of duct tape, or worse, metallic duct tape, or even even worse, duct tape AND metallic duct tape. The results were highly unpredictable, but there was more than once that they would shoot a good ten or fifteen feet in the air before violently exploding. Wear safety goggles and a jock strap, kids!

Chestnuts roasted by Crooked @ 07/06/2004 3:14 PM

Two things. I used to light those snakes off as a kid, it was the only fun I was allowed on the 4th back then. Also, I too used to collect the discarded fireworks the day after. Rock on Matt.

Chestnuts roasted by Black Zarak @ 07/07/2004 12:34 PM

When my friend and I were about 16 or so when we’d launch smokeballs out of slingshots at night in his backyard. One would hold the ball in the pouch and pulled back, the other would light the wick. When it got down far enough we’d let the smokeball go flying. I have no idea what happened. But we did the same thing with superballs (Back when they cost a dime!) and rocks at night. Nothing like youthful stupidity.

Chestnuts roasted by Nick @ 07/07/2004 5:09 AM

When Yoda fought Count Dooku, didn’t he look like a Ground Blooming Flower?

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 07/07/2004 4:15 PM

If any of you have the money (and the vaccinations) to go to the Phillipines, go there for New Year’s Eve. The Phillipines for me was like Indonesia, Mexico, and Japan rolled into one joint of an island nation. They had all sorts of kickass fireworks like pinwheels the size baseball bats, fountains capable of melting metal, and an infinite supply of cheap firecrackers. They even upped the ante on sparklers; unlike American sparklers that just fizzle and shoot off quite harmless sparks, these things were like sticks of thermite. Plus, unlike the kids here who seem to never be able to use a single firecracker without blowing their fingers off, nobody in the that country ever raised an eyebrow of concern. Kids were shooting bottle rockets at everything and nobody cared. Unfortunately, the last time I went there was when I was nine and my mother kept me away from the big stuff.

Chestnuts roasted by Pieborg @ 07/08/2004 12:03 PM

Ok, that made me laugh my fucking ass off. Being a child of the 80′s I remember all that shit (except the last one). I also remember hunting firework garbage for toys!

Here’s my personal tale of smoke bombs.

I had a science fair at my catholic grade school in the Bronx (yeah the boogie down version in NYC). As most catholic students are want to do, my dad built the thing. It was a volcano.

So the day comes and I bring in a pocket full of 2-3 smoke bombs. In the huge cafeteria classmates beg me to light one for the judges.

I’m scared shitless, but then my simple child mind thinks. "Fuck, this is a SCIENCE fair right?! These little fuckers are full of science!". Plus I was failing the class.

So the judges come over and I show them the smoke bomb at the end and tell them I could get it to smoke like a real life volcano. They all laugh and tell me to go ahead.

At this point I realized that I just showed an illegal firework to 3 adults at my CATHOLIC school’s science fair. There were fucking NUNS there for shit sake.

Yet they thought nothing of it. Science is so cool.

Anyway, out comes the Bic lighter I stole from my mother. Again, they say nothing about a 10 yr. old with a god damned lighter in school!

At this point, who the fuck doesn’t LOVE science right now!?

Anyway, I light it and chuck it in. Nothing happens. I completely forgot that some of these suckers spout a jet of flame instead of smoke and must be quickly blown out so the smoking can commence. This just HAD to me that kind of smoke bomb.

In my hand goes pulling out the boiling hot mass and I blow the flame out in one go and drop it in before I lose a finger.

Then. Oh my. Then the smoke. Seriously, the sheer amount of smoke that came out of that 10yr. old testicle sized ball would’ve baffled Einstein himself.

The rest is a blur. The cafeteria fills with smoke where you can’t go anywhere without choking. The entire science fair is evacuated. Nuns are running to open all windows. I distinctly remember the principal being rushed out.

Oh was I the man for a while after that!

Thankfully I didn’t get in trouble. A stern talking to and a complete lie saying I had no idea it would do that and I just wanted to make my volcano smoke to get a good grade was all that came of it.

Oh, and I passed. :)

Chestnuts roasted by John F @ 07/08/2004 12:51 PM

o_o

The best "fireworks" I’ve ever set off were just plain fire crackers.

I phail… *sniff*

Chestnuts roasted by marril159 @ 07/09/2004 12:13 PM

Nothing beats shooting firewiorks underwater. The trick is to time it just right but the results are well worth it. Bottle rockets and their big brother Texas Rockets are the easiest but the most rewarding are the ground blooms. There’s just something cool about seeing something explode underwater. Call me sad but that’s the truth.

Chestnuts roasted by Chris W @ 07/09/2004 9:31 AM

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2004 at 11:26 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.