We went fireworks shopping yesterday, a now-annual tradition to secure supplies for next weekends pyromania.

As usual the selection at the store we go to – about two hours drive east to New Hampshire – was enticing, with the majority being large and expensive ‘cakes’ where a single fuse results in several spectacular minutes of explosions and sparks.

We don’t buy these of course, since they’re not permitted where we live. But I always daydream of setting them off!

The ‘Ghost Dragon’ is a large box big enough to hold a watermelon, fires only 9 shots over 30 seconds, and costs $140! Thats a lot of money for a single fuse, but at least people living miles away will know you’ve lit it 🙂

If you’d rather deafen only those living in your street, I imagine 8000 tiny firecrackers would do the job. This massive roll is heavy and expensive, but you’d feel it in your bones if you could light it and stand only a dozen feet away!

If we lived somewhere remote I’d invest in a mortal launcher and some artillery shells like this set. These are essentially commercial fireworks, just like you see out on by a town or city. I find it amazing that in many states here you can just buy these and launch them in your backyard! (Although we don’t buy these, many in our state do and we expect to see a few visible from KLS’s parents yard next weekend.)

The above is most of what we bought. In total it cost $250.71, and as a bonus they gave us three free fireworks and offered us some artillery shells (which we declined).

Since the purchase and use of fireworks is ancient history for the Antipodean readers, I’ll go through the above in a little more detail…

These little guys are what I light before it gets dark because I’m too impatient to wait! A few tiny crackers, some spinners, flashers etc. are a fun intro to the true show. These are inexpensive and fun.

Here’s the sparklers, which never get old. The two on the top are hand-held, and the others are the different types (including the crackling ones). We also bought some of the meter-long ones. Sparklers are the only ‘firework’ still sold where we live, although they’re still not easy to find in stores.

To get to NH we have to drive through Vermont, where fireworks aren’t legal for sale either. However ‘smoke fireworks’ are available there, although these two were bought at the same store we got everything else. These simply emit thick smoke, often coloured. I was tempted to buy one of the ‘five minute smoke’ ones but recalled that when we lit one years ago the amount of smoke was gargantuan and we almost went insane trying to put it out after a minute or so 🙂

Ground spinners are a favourite of ours. You light them, they spin around quickly, and then the better ones fly up into the air. These can go very high, and sometimes leave trails of sparks as they rise. The ‘Gyro Sonic’ is something we’d not got before, and the description is a little mysterious. I can’t wait to see what it does!

These are the only traditional ‘fountains’ we bought this year. Our shows used to be dominated by these back when fireworks were briefly sold here, since ‘launchers’ were not permitted. These are pretty devices that shoot out fountains of sparks, often accompanied by crackling noises and tiny little bursts. The ‘No. 8 Cone’ on the left cost $8 and only lasts 15 seconds but claims to shoot sparks 3 meters into the air!

This sword is a handheld fountain, shooting sparks out from the tip. A few years back these were sculptured as medieval blades, but now they’re always lightsabers. One of the ones at the shop even had a light up battery powered blade!

This year is the 250th anniversary celebration of the United States, so of course we couldn’t pass up this launcher that shoots 250 balls! I don’t think this will be noisy, just lots (and lots!) of roman-candle like projectiles shooting up over a half minute or so.

Here’s some more roman candles, and we got this pack since they all claim to be different. As a child we used to shoot these at each other using garbage can lids as shields, but we were immortal in those days and never cared about repercussions.

Incidentally it can be difficult to determine actually what a lot of these fireworks do. Something that says ‘emits showers of sparks‘ is just a fountain, but if something says ‘shoots flaming balls‘ then it fires a projectile upwards. If it includes the word ‘reports‘, then that means an explosion accompanied by a loud bang. We try to avoid the more powerful and noisy examples, but over the years one or two have snuck through our vetting process.

These guys all ‘shoot flaming balls with reports’, but they’re all small and short and I doubt the ‘report’ will be very loud compared to some of the examples shown at the top that we didn’t buy.

Here’s some more we got. Some of these are very heavy since they’re packed with clay to weigh them down. A few of these have QR codes on them so you can watch a YouTube video to get an idea what they do, which helps, but even then it’s not uncommon for the link to be dead or even direct to a different product!

We’ve got no idea what the above one does, but I’m sure it’s obvious why we purchased it. Based on the aisle in which it was sold I expect it’s a noisy one, but you can see it doesn’t even include the word ‘report’. I guess we’ll find out on Saturday 🙂

I expect all this will take a couple of hours to set off, and as usual I’ll try to take photos and capture some video. If you could light one of these in your backyard, which one would it be?