Adult Content Warning

This community may contain adult content that is not suitable for minors. By closing this dialog box or continuing to navigate this site, you certify that you are 18 years of age and consent to view adult content.

Pyromania, we've all been there

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Kubla Kahn, Oct 27, 2009.

  1. Aetius

    Aetius
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    774
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,461
    My brothers and I, being smarter than average, didn't experience the failures that mark most pyromania stories. We knew our shit and we executed. We started low level, setting leaves on fire with magnifying glasses, but over time the chemistry and physics involved got more complex:

    -We did the aforementioned strike-anywhere matchheads trick, except we filled a tennis ball instead of ping pong balls.

    -We built a potato cannon, improving on the existing combustion chamber by wiring up an electronic firing mechanism. With the right mix of air and hairspray we achieved muzzle velocities of 100mph.

    -We created a homemade version of napalm. That shit burns forever, no matter what you do to it. We had no choice but the wait it out.

    -With some pencils and a 12v battery we split water into hydrogen and oxygen. A 2 liter bottle of pure hydrogen explodes like a gunshot let me tell you.
     
  2. Woody

    Woody
    Expand Collapse
    Average Idiot

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2009
    Messages:
    73
    5 gallon bucket of gas+lighter+bb gun=Kaboom
     
  3. Jauntoclock

    Jauntoclock
    Expand Collapse
    Average Idiot

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    55
    Location:
    College Park, MD
    Back in middle school two of my buddies were into pyrotechnics while on our 10-minute school bus ride.
    They'd spray Axe on the back of the bus seats and light it, they'd light fireworks while on the bus and throw them out the window at the last second, and do other dumb shit like that.
    Then one morning right when I got on the bus I saw one of them leaning into the aisle. As I got closer I saw he had a can of Axe and a lighter in his hands. Before I knew it, I had a fireball shooting at my head.
    Unsurprisingly, they both got caught eventually, thus beginning a long history of suspensions for both of them.
     
  4. Stealth

    Stealth
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    4
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    857
    I was 10 when my parents decided to visit Greece to see my relatives.

    Being long-sighted , I wore glasses at the time.

    It was summer time and one day when visiting my grandfather , we all ended up walking to his almond orchard.
    While he pruned and tended to his trees , I was basically bored shitless , so I took off my glasses and used them to magnify the sun's rays on some bits of wood lying around and lo and behold , soon I had a small fire going.
    I also managed to find a very old and somewhat corroded looking empty spray can , and being 10 years old thought what would happen if I put it on the fire I had going.

    At first , nothing happened , but as the fire burt with the empty spray can still on top , after about 5 or so minutes..... KABOOOOOOOM

    It sounded like a shotgun had gone off , the fire was blown out by the expolsion and the spray can was nowhere to be seen. I was lucky that noone had actually been hurt , otherwise would have certainly been in deep shit.

    Lesson learnt.
     
  5. Stealth

    Stealth
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    4
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    857
    The first time I saw a potato cannon in action was at a summer bbq gathering some years ago.

    One of the guys turned up with a length of white plastic piping and left it aside ... I asked him what it was and he replied .. You will see later.

    A while later , he picked a few lemons from the lemon tree in the hosts backyard , put one in the barrel , sprayed it with "Aeroguard" (a somewhat iconic Australian brand of outdoor insect repellent, that is applied directly to the skin.) , screwed on the lid at the back , aimed and hit the switch.

    I was amazed to see the lemon shoot out and fly into the air to what looked like at least 100 yards height and what looked like the next suburb over in distance.

    Apparenly lemons launch further because there are more aerodynamic than potatos.
     
  6. Benzilla

    Benzilla
    Expand Collapse
    Disturbed

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    267
    Let's all take a minute to remember this memorable chapter in the history of pyromania from the Something Awful forums.
     
  7. Misanthropic

    Misanthropic
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    410
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    3,234
    Do not try any of this at Home

    My phase lasted about 6 years, but what a productive six years it was. When I was 12, my buddy showed me the trick of spraying Lysol in the bathroom sink and lighting it on fire. It made a cool whooshing noise and a small boom as the resulting conflagration sucked air out of the room and made the bathroom door and windows vibrate. Unfortunately, resulting fires gutted the bathroom in his parents house twice (I was present neither time) and we moved on -

    to setting anything on fire we had lying around - models, toy cars, GI Joes, plastic army men. We learned how to make remotely detonated fire bombs using common household objects. I've posted before about inheriting a U.S. Army training manual on booby traps and explosives (circa 1950 something), and from this golden tome we learned how to make our own napalm.

    Our apex, and what led me to put an end to this era of my development, was in high school, when a member of the local fire department offered to pay us in booze for starting a fire in a dumpster, so that he could drive the fire truck. There were four of us, and we had it all planned out. We scouted out our local shopping centers and targeted a dumpster that wasn't too close to a building. One guy drove, one guy tossed in the "kindling" usually a bundle of newspapers, one guy emptied a jar of gasoline onto the newspapers, and one guy lit it.

    Our aquaintance in the fire dept. had such a good time driving the truck that he asked us to do it again. Concerned we would eventually get caught, we said no, but caved when he threatened us. Things went almost as smoothly the second time, except for losing all of the hair on my right arm. At that point we retired, threats be damned, and decided that it was time to knock it off while we still could.
     
  8. Proverbs

    Proverbs
    Expand Collapse
    Village Idiot

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 25, 2009
    Messages:
    13
    I've never really been big on huge flames as I'm always pretty sure that something exactly like what happened to Myke is imminent, but I really like burning pieces of paper or magazines. Not just any, though, I always try and find some sort of symbolism or something in the fire.

    In my high schools newspaper there was a section every year that detailed where every senior was heading for college. My school had a remarkable obsession with prestigious college, so this was always a big deal, which absolutely disgusted me. So one day I'm getting high with a friend towards the end of the year, and after we finish a bowl my friend goes upstairs to do something or other.

    This ends up taking him much longer than it should (unsurprisingly, we were feeling pretty good) and thus I was left alone downstairs for a little while. I noticed a school newspaper on his kitchen table, and had been discussing the matriculation section in class earlier that day. I pulled it out, took it outside and lit the corners.

    My schools motto, "Go Forth and Serve" is displayed proudly across the top, but a corner of the paper didn't take well to the flame and pretty soon the entire matriculation page, the documentation of the life goal (Ivy League school acceptance) of so many students who had passed through the schools doors, had been reduced to the word 'Go' surrounded by fire. I thought it was awesome.
     
  9. dixiebandit69

    dixiebandit69
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    824
    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2009
    Messages:
    4,181
    Location:
    The asshole of Texas
    Yeah, my highschool buddies and I would do that, except we used a toilet bowl cleaner called "The Works."
    And we would set the soda bottle bombs off in the student parking lot.

    The kicker: one of the school janitors taught us how to do that.
     
  10. TheCookieSaidSo

    TheCookieSaidSo
    Expand Collapse
    Should still be lurking

    Reputation:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 26, 2009
    Messages:
    3
    Around 14 years old, I realized that lighters were easily obtainable sources of fire, and that fire was awesome. This led to some consequences.

    My friends and I would constantly go out to the woods and start our own miniature fires. We would light logs on fire and do battle. It was great.

    One day, they were wandering around burning random leaves. Not to be content with such child's play, I wandered to the nearest tree, an old husk of a thing completely covered with the stringy, hairy vine version of poison ivy. It wrapped all the way up around the tree, from where I was standing to the top. I decided this would be a good day to see if it was flammable.

    It started innocently enough. It immediately ignited a patch, and "Hey, guys, look at this..heh, heh..hey, guys," escaped my lips as I watched. This changed very quickly to, "Hey...guys? GUYS!" as the flames began to climb up the tree. By the time they turned around the vine had already caught fire up to about my waste. The flames were rising quickly.

    They flipped shit at first, thinking we should run, but there was a creek about ten feet away. We tore off our shirts and dunked them into the water, proceeding to beat the flaming vine with them until it was extinguished. Just as it went out, someone ran into the woods and began yelling at us. We ran then.

    On a separate occasion one of the same two friends lit an entire Christmas tree on fire. It was lying on its side -- this was in the woods -- and he was enraged that only the top half was on fire. So he flipped it over. He only thought he was prepared for the whole thing to be engulfed.

    No physical or societal consequences from these incidents -- only shame.