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Friday Fun Thread for July 3, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Definitely making bootleg fireworks as a teen, it was an experience just on the border of delinquency in that way that perfectly suits a certain stage of growing up, and one that isn't really replicable once the, figurative or not, frontal lobe is fully developed.

There were these whistling fireworks with a few different names, and the truly delinquent kid across the street who later became a cop clued me into a practice wherein you hammered the whistling side down and this would create enough back pressure that the whole thing would detonate. Pretty soon this turned into hammering out the powder from dozens of these and sealing them in various containers. Later there were garnishments of other firework components to create after effects, or staged fireworks where they'd smoke up and then explode.

But one year in high school my friends and I laid in a field across from the area of the football stadium where the annual display was staged. I hadn't realized until then that aerial fireworks were spheres, and laying directly underneath them was like being in an altered state of consciousness.

Nice! I remember deconstructing black cat fireworks and pouring them all into a Playmobil TNT container. We were hoping for a big explosion, but instead it just burned steadily.