Fireworks

The BBQ Pit
#1

I am about ready to shove a roman candle up someone’s ass.

I get that it is all wonderful that we won our independence 200+ years ago. Go us. What a wonderful thing, this great experiment has been. USA! USA! USA!

The thing is, though, that some of us are not miscreant bastards with no job to go to tomorrow. We would like to, I don’t know, perhaps sleep without it sounding as if Armageddon is holding a dress rehearsal. It would also be really swell if I could perhaps open my window on a hot fucking July night without having the stench of gunpowder wafting in.

Ah! Now I hear the sound of fire engines. I can only assume that some drunken fuck has set his house on fire.

#2

You’re in Seattle and you’re already PO’d? It’s barely 10:15 p.m in Seattle, as I write this.

Man up, I’d suggest. I’m going to work, possibly way earlier than you. I hear fireworks, where I am. I’m, well, enjoying the occasion.

#3

Since the drug dealers across the street moved out, and apparently the cops up the block are working this evening since they’re usually the biggest neighborhood pyros, it’s been remarkably quiet around here this evening. I see a few fireworks still going off but nothing terribly noisy, and my dog is snoring peacefully when on New Year’s Eve he’s a quaking mess from all the noise.

I don’t mind fireworks, with a couple of caveats: As long as they cease at a decent hour (which I will say, the cops are good about not going late when they’re out trying to set fire to the neighborhood), and as long as they don’t start fires (which is hard to do right now as wet as everything is from all our recent rains), I kind of enjoy looking out my window and seeing the rocket’s red glare and all of that.

#4

Man, it all those damn other people that keep getting in the way of me being king of the world. Fuck them. Wait! Who am I talking to?

#5

I wouldn’t care if they were firing off fireworks until 3 in the morning if they’d just confine it to the 4th of July weekend. Someone or other has been setting them off around here every night for the last two weeks, and judging by the last few years, they will probably continue until August. I guess celebrating Christmas for 5 months isn’t enough; they’ve got to find SOMETHING to fill those long empty summer months without an officially sanctioned government holiday, so they’ll stretch Independence Day as far as they can.

#6

Why do you hate America?

#7

Because America hates my dog: she’s hiding behind the toilet.

#8

I like 'em. You 'merkins won’t ever appreciate fireworks properly until they get banned - like they have been here. Fucken nanny state Australia is.

#9

America has a variety of fireworks bans. This usually works out to people taking a drive out to the county or state where they aren’t banned, loading up, and then shooting them off wherever they want, legal or not.

#10

I’m not a prolific poster at the best of times, much less a thread starter, but the idiotic barrage around here has exhausted even my customary calm.

I like sparkly things, even huge skyborn sparkly stuff, and associated BOOMS can be kinda neat. But in concentrated doses, okay? ENOUGH with the erratic explosions and drunken yowls when Big Man Make Fire That Go Boom.

By my (admittedly inexpert) calculation, the party animals up the hill have blown up more fireworks than my next three paychecks would buy–before taxes. Until today, we haven’t had a decent rain for months, so everything is basically tinder. No matter, these twerps rocketed off more pyrotechnics than any five combined historic battles, land or sea.

And they’re still fucking at it. So much fun, drunkenly tripping over an unfired squib and seeing if it will still GO BOOM.

I’ll be sleep deprived in the morning but at least I won’t have a hangover. Or be missing a few body parts.

#11

Heh. You said red rocket. Watch this, it’s so funny. Come here, come on. Heh, heh, good dog, red rocket, red rocket, good dog, red rocket, red rocket, come on.

#12

Technically, everything I’ve heard in the past couple of weeks and will continue to hear for the next month is illegal here. Michigan (and some other states) puts restrictions on what fireworks can be used without a permit.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050614/NEWS19/506140359

Not that that stops anyone.

#13

Well, it’s still going on. I finally had to close the windows, the stench of gunpowder got so bad. Doesn’t muffle the sound much, but at least its hot and the air is stale.

This has been going on for the better part of a week and a half now; I am tired, angry and hot. My cat seems to be caught in this terrible loop of jumping on my lap for comfort and scrabbling off (taking skin with her) when an especially loud one goes off. Inconsiderate fucking troglodytes. I hope they fucking discover that gunpowder causes sterility and goiters.

#14

Are you saying that your sleep might be a bit disrupted on this particular weekend? By people lighting off fireworks? The fucking nerve!

After all, you only have 51 other weekends a year in which to relax. I’m sure that at 4 in the morning, the barrage will still be in full effect. You should probably sue.

Thank God most neighborhoods aren’t like that. Some neighborhoods have actual gunshots going off at night (those tend to actually kill people). The people that live there have no right to bitch though, since they have no jobs to go to in the morning right? Good thing that sort of thing only happens one weekend a year there too.

Your job is clearly vital to the nation’s well-being, so you should be able to buy a fucking air conditioner. The world weeps for your loss of a couple hours of sleep.

This weekend has been noisy and stinky!

Suck it up pussy!

#15

Well good for you. :rolleyes:

#16

I sense some ire coming my way…

#17

I’ve got to say I never much cared for fireworks at home once I reached age nine or ten. That other adults find them so fascinating mystifies me; perhaps I need to drink more? It’s been very quiet around here this year. You’ve got to love 110 degree weather for it’s tendency to make people stay indoors.

I like the big professional shows though, those can be art! Also, they are far from my home, have definite beginning and end times, and you’re unlikely to have one of the technicians saving a couple of shells for use at the BBQ next month.

Loaded Dog, in a way I would have thought Australia was the sort of country where fireworks would flow like wine. You’re Aussies! That means you’re canny, rough tough customers who play lots of sports whilst dodging eleventy million deadly animals before breakfast. Did Crocodile Dundee lie to us?

#18

Personally, I wish you happiness.

#19

My home state of New South Wales is often cited as the world’s second most litigious jurisdiction after California. Sydney’s famous surf beaches are under a seemingly endless threat of closure to the public as municipalities reckon up the cost of their public liability insurance. Anyway, Australians are amongst the world’s most urbanised populations. We are much more citified than the USA, for example. We’re not good at the small town thing. The iconic Aussie bushman on his horse does exist, but as an exception. The rest of us are too busy trying to work out how to operate the cable TV remote. Sad but true.

#20

Geezus. Suck it up, ya freaking killjoys. I bet you hate Christmas lights too. Get a beer, go sit outside, and enjoy the show.