July 4th

**zadok** · 5th July 2005, 10:03

Originally Posted by Jackrat

If they suck that bad,make your own.
It's piss easy an there's even an international pyromaniacs club with web site ect ect.I have a Mate from Malta who makes his own,a couple of years ago we launched a fridge several hundred feet in the air,complete with pretty colors

An if you think there's no places to do it,you hav'nt looked man!!

Probably get the Secret Service on your tail or something. Might think you are planning a bombing! What with Sept 11th and all.

**Lias** · 5th July 2005, 12:39

Hes right our fireworks here DO suck, because of all the wowsers in office who've banned them.

In an age when 18 year olds can get drunk, 13 year olds can have abortions without their parents knowledge, gays can be married, and a drag queen can be a member of parliament, grown adults are not allowed to have fire crackers, or sky rockets, nor any moderately FUN pyroteknics.

IMO we need to totally deregulate fireworks, and let people buy whatever the hell they want, short of "industrial" mortar type pyroteknics.

**N4CR** · 5th July 2005, 13:03

I just pity the fire service if we fully deregulate. I think Over 25 would be a good thing to do, mabey a little younger..who knows. BUT WITH ID. (I'm 18 as well..) If we make it over 25 unrestricted then if young kids are seen with firecrackers then they should be confiscated and parents talked to by police.

I can certainly tell you there are 18,19 and 20 year olds that shouldnt have fireworks at all. I have resorted to making my own lately, which makes you respect fireworks more and not go around setting fire to schools and grasslands

I think 14 is too young as well.. there needs to be a referendum on this (Not to ban them though :/ ).

**Eurygnomes** · 5th July 2005, 14:07

I can remember one of the guys at Uni halls holding a roman candle whilst it was lit and 'pointing' it at someone else. Duh...these are supposedly intelligent people. Idiots. Still...without people like this we wouldn't have the Darwin Awards...

...I'm personally a big fan of the paid-for fireworks displays...especially when the view from my house was...(as attached).

**Lias** · 5th July 2005, 14:27

I dunno theres something to be said for blowing up yer mums silverbeet plants with double happies.. *ahh childhood memories*

Seriously thou I'd be much happier with fireworks being freely avilable to 18 (or even 25) or older folks, than with the blanket ban we have now.

And there will always be dickheads. I've seen people have roman candle FIGHTS, intentionally shooting them at each other, and this was before Jackass/Stevo :-P

**kerryg** · 5th July 2005, 14:32

Originally Posted by Ixion

Guy fawkes Night. Until the wowsers totally abolish it

Always seemed to me to be an odd thing to celebrate. Now if he had been SUCCESSFUL and it was the NZ Parliament

QUOTE
He was finally hung, drawn and quartered which was the traditional punishment for traitors on January 31, 1606. Guy Fawkes was hung until he was half dead and then his genitals were cut off and burned in front of him. Whilst still alive, his heart and bowels wwere removed from his body, he was decapitated and his limbs removed from his body. Finally, his body parts were publicly displayed and left for the birds to eat them.UNQUOTE

**Wolf** · 5th July 2005, 14:32

I seriously miss the "Mighty Cannon" crackers - they made "Double Happies" look like squibs. Square carboard base glued to one end of the tube, thick proper fuse out the side and strong warnings not to light it while holding it. Deafening report!

We had one year when the fireworks conspired against us - a "penny rocket" (one of the small things with a very light skinny stick) hit my brother in the cheek an inch below his eye and left a welt, one of my larger rockets of the explode-in-the-air variety took off, abruptly levelled off at about 20 feet as if it had hit a barrier, shot of across the paddocks in a curve (found it the next morning after it had crashed into the far side of the bonfire pile (that we didn't light) - it had been on its way back to us) and I was chased down the garden path by a whirligig of some description (not content to just spin on the spot).

We used to stick double happies under jam-jar lids and light the fuse - I put a lid up on the roof of the house that way.

Why did the wowsers ban bangers and rockets? Burns and injuries, ruptured ear-drums and missing fingers from people not obeying the safety rules, a girl (in Hastings, I think) hospitalised with a rocket lodged in her ear (fired at her through a vacuum-cleaner pipe, bazooka style, by some fuckhead), properties burned through careless use of rockets etc.

The Powers That Be deemed there were too many irresponsible people doing dangerous things and banned the bangers and rockets - my favourite pyrotechnics. Mighty Cannon - the eater of fingers - was the first to go, then they decided that even double-happies were too dangerous in the hands of idiots.

So it's hot just the wowsers that ruined it for us.

I had the ?pleasure? of celebrating Guy Fawkes with a bunch of Dorkland University students who, prior to going out to One Tree Hill with their fireworks, liquored-up on Inner Circle rum. Up on the Hill they threw double happies at each other and at random people's faces. They also threw a cracker at a guy holding a large paper bag of fireworks.

I believe a friend of mine may be able to recall their names if anyone would like to personally "thank" them for their part in getting fireworks curtailled in this country.

**Ixion** · 5th July 2005, 15:42

Originally Posted by Wolf

I seriously miss the "Mighty Cannon" crackers - they made "Double Happies" look like squibs. Square carboard base glued to one end of the tube, thick proper fuse out the side and strong warnings not to light it while holding it. Deafening report!

..

Yeah, the might cannons were good but they cost a lot. Bang for buck, double happy was the best. Unravel the string and then connect the fuses up again, marvellous for demolition work Four double happys in a hole, then a length of fuse to the next hole, another 4 and so on. Light the fuses and you could bring down several metres of bank. Mr Motu was not the only one who had fun!.

Bloody wowsers banning everything. I'd hate to be a kid nowdays , there's nothing left to have fun with.

Twas easy to get the gunpowder out of double happies too, to make one BIG banger. I like things that make a BIG BANG.

**Wolf** · 5th July 2005, 15:57

Originally Posted by Ixion

I like things that make a BIG BANG.

I know, I've read your posts about phosphorus

**Lou Girardin** · 5th July 2005, 16:09

A double happy up the spout of my steel barreled pop gun sure flung 1/2 oz round sinkers with a wallop. Hee Hee.

**Waylander** · 5th July 2005, 16:15

Couple of bottle rockets turned upside down in a texas fireant hill left a pretty good size crater aswell. Exspecially when you timed the fueses so they all went off at the same time.

**crashe** · 5th July 2005, 16:22

Originally Posted by LiasTZ

gays can be married, and a drag queen can be a member of parliament

You have two facts wrong here.

Gays can NOT get married.
They can only have a Civil Union, which is NOT marriage.
Only Hetrosexual's can get married and Hetrosexual's can also have a Civil Union ceromony

Georgina Beyer MP is NOT a drag queen.
She is in fact a Transsexual.
A transsexual is someone who has had a sex-change.

A drag queen is a bloke dressed up in drag.
Which are in fact two different things.

I won't comment about the other facts that you quoted.
As I am not up to play about those laws that you have stated.

**sels1** · 5th July 2005, 16:24

Ahh....Guy Fawkes....the only person ever to enter Parliment with honest intent!

**pete376403** · 5th July 2005, 16:43

Cracker gun made of a .303 shell case on a wooden handle. Drop a double happy in, light it then load the ball bearing (your timing had to be pretty spot on) Great things. I put a number of holes in a corrogated iron fence that way and the house owner was "NOT" amused. In fact if he'd been able to catch me the stick he was waving could have hurt. Childhood, eh?

**Waylander** · 5th July 2005, 16:44

Originally Posted by pete376403

Cracker gun made of a .303 shell case on a wooden handle. Drop a double happy in, light it then load the ball bearing (your timing had to be pretty spot on) Great things. I put a number of holes in a corrogated iron fence that way and the house owner was "NOT" amused. In fact if he'd been able to catch me the stick he was waving could have hurt. Childhood, eh?

Childhood hell. Most of my crazy antics I still do.

*idly wonders at the possibility of smuggling some real fireworks in my new fuel tank* lol