Scenes from

New Year's Eve 2000
For New Year's Eve, we decided to say goodbye to the old millenium (the beginning of 2001 is the proper start of the millenium, you know, since there was never a year "zero"), by destroying a TV set in some fairly spectacular way. click on image for a larger view
  Why destroy a TV set? I'm not really sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I had a very old TV set sitting in our garage that I purchased used for $15 about 8 years ago. It wasn't in very good shape (after turing on the power, it took about 60 seconds before anything appeared on the screen), and it was taking up space in our ever crowded garage.  
So, we rigged up a "wrecking ball" style pendulum, consisting of a bowling ball on a steel cable. And, although just watching a bowling ball smash through the screen of a TV set is pretty entertaining (take my word on this if you haven't tried it yourself), we decided that to add to the spectacle we would light the bowling ball on fire. Which, of course, would then light the TV on fire. click on image for a larger view
  There was much rigging of ropes and steel cables. A test television was smashed. Our New Year's TV set became a shrine of sorts, where partygoers could place some offering that they would like to see burn at the start of the new millenium.  
The television set, along with the "2001" numbers and the bowling ball were doused with white gas. We weren't sure how much white gas it would take to get a TV set really burning well, so we used plenty. click on image for a larger view
  Soon the midnight hour approached, and as Dick Clark counted down the seconds remaining in the old millenium from our doomed TV set, we prepared to drop our own ball.  
The ball was lit, and it became abundantly clear that we had used enough white gas... click on image for a larger view
  The ball swung through its arc, and smashed into the screen of the TV set. Amazingly, the screen didn't break, which ended up being even funnier, since Dick Clark was able to breifly continue broadcasting to our party from within the firey conflagration.  
There was much rejoicing as the TV set was engulfed in flame, and the numbers "2001" lit up to signify the coming of a new millenium. click on image for a larger view
  So, we ended up a bit surprised. We had expected the screen to smash with ease (as it had on our test TV set), but were concerned that the TV wouldn't burn so well. As you can see, the burning part was no problem.  
To keep the burning from getting too out of hand, or good freind Anthony was there with the garden hose. If you're going to light stuff on fire, having Anthony around is a pretty good idea. click on image for a larger view
This is Darrick. He is a man of many talents - one of which is making far more interesting web pages than I do. On one of his web pages, he has a streaming video clip from our TV burning extravaganza. It is a segment that he edited from footage shot by our freind Jeff.

click on image for a larger view

 

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