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2002-11-10
Mad, bad, and dangerous to light
I made the mistake last night of drinking almost all of a two-liter bottle of Pepsi.
As a result, I was up until 3am, spacing out and enjoying really bad fiction on Literotica. Hit the celebrity section, and you'll be spending a few hours laughing.
But being that I was at a nice fireworks party, it was something I needed to do -- spoil myself with drinks, eat some good food, and just enjoy things.
It was a heck of a lot better than last years too. Last year, there was an entire pre-natal group with their new babies, and all the conversation was about forceps and cervix dilation and...ugh. I'm trying to enjoy fireworks, thank you.
This year, however, not only did the baby of the house actually sleep through the entire thing, there was only one other baby there and she left early, and there were two young boys, asking questions and looking at fireworks happily.
So it was good. It was very good. We enjoyed the fireworks, we talked movies, and there were no pregnancy horror stories to speak of.
Now let me explain something about British fireworks parties.
They're all mad.
In the States, if you're lucky, you can go around during the fourth of july and buy these:
You know what they are -- a couple of Picciclo Petes, a couple of those little firecrackers, a couple mini-fountains, and those little things about the size of your finger that spin around flashing color. All perfectly safe to light in your street in front of your house. Which was great fun when you were a kid.
If you were into the bigger and better bangs, you'd go to one of the professionally done shows. With, y'know, electronically timed fuses and really fancy effects and professionally certified firework technicians producing great things like this:
And that's what you'd expect, right?
Well, over here, things are done a little differently.
You can go to a newsagent, a supermarket, or one of those little instantly set-up stores, and pick up things like this:
Please notice those. Notice the size of them. If you could lean in closely and read the little labels on them, you would see...
Audience should be 25 metres away.
These are what in the US would be considered professional fireworks.
These would be professional rockets.
And, over here, you can pick them up at your local supermarket, light them in your backyard where you are a total of, maybe, 10 feet away from it, and have a great time of it.
Mad.
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