Who needs pyrotechnicians ...

... when you've got shirtless, trash-talking, car-on-blocks-in-the-front-yard redneck neighbors three doors down who apparently have money to burn buying the entire contents of a Phantom Fireworks showroom? Or neighbors on the street south of you who are in a fireworks showdown with your street? Or people on a street somewhere north and east who are trying (and failing) to keep up?

I have never seen amateurs pull off shows this big in my life. Sure, sometimes somebody pulls out the stops and buys one or two really impressive armaments, but this is on a whole different scale. I mean, there are towns that have smaller displays than the one that's happening so close the china cabinet rattles from the concussions from the boomers.

After 10 or 15 minutes of the neighbors hauling packages of fireworks the size of milk crates out into the middle of our street and setting them off two, three, or seven (!) at a time, I finally ran inside to grab my camera. I've (poorly) edited together some of the better clips, where you can see the size of the fireworks that were literally 50 yards from our driveway, as well as some of the ones on the street north of us. Keep in mind that this is the slower, more leisurely pace ... I missed filming the really good parts, of course.

While I was filming, Jason held Liza, who was bundled up with a coat and sweatpants over her jammies, hands clamped over her ears, chanting "I think I want to go inside now - tell them to stop exploding now, please." She never started screaming, and she was really excited about seeing them and telling us which ones she liked best, but she was done with it after about 2 minutes. Good thing we didn't shell out $20 a piece to go see the orchestra and fireworks at Blossom tonight.

The neighbors finally ran out of ammo (or flares to light it with) about 10 minutes ago, more than an hour and a half after they started. Let's hope they don't restock for tomorrow ... the kid needs to get to sleep before 10:30 once in a while.