Perhaps it’s the 4th of July, Guy Fawkes Day or some other reason for fireworks that we saw when we were little. It seems everyone, even the most pacifist of us, enjoys watching things blowing up! A great explosion inspires awe by it’s destructive power and laughter by the absurdity of something whole no longer existing.

Yet we can’t blow things up every day. Okay, maybe we could but that would get messy and expensive. What we can do is watch videos of things large and small being blown up, thanks to the pervasive web.

Here are my favourite sites to watch things blow up real good!

Metacafe/Explosions

Metacafe has lots of videos about everything, much like YouTube. However, I find their selection of explosions to be better, and a lot of them are ‘scientific’ in nature.

Things like blowing up pop bottles with dry-ice, or blowing things up with a test load. Although I’m not a fan of nuclear explosives, I do love to watch a good mushroom cloud too. And Metacafe has LOTS of them.

YouTube/Shotron

Now I know, after listing Metacafe, it seems cheap to also list YouTube. Specifically, I’m listing Shotron’s channel on YouTube because he has VERY specific content. Anvil shooting. You read me right. They place detonator cord ( I believe that’s what it is) under 70+ pound anvils and launch them hundreds of feet in the air!

Apparently this was pretty much a sport before fireworks were common in America. It comes out of pre-Civil War times and I’m sure it was hatched on a table littered with empty beer mugs. If you have any red on your neck, you’ll love this!

Web Urbanist/16 Building Demolitions

Web Urbanist put together a great list of 16 building demolitions. I have to admit, I don’t take as much guilty pleasure from building demolitions as I did prior to 9/11. For whatever reason, every building demolition I’ve seen since then reminds me of that day, and my guilty pleasure gets tinged by real guilt. At least these buildings are cleared and secured.

The precision with which most building implosions are done, is mind-boggling to me. I’ve worked with munitions guys in the past and they usually seem a bit off, but when they are on the job, there are few people sharper and more accurate.

GreenSock/MicroManiac

Well, I don’t have an anvil or a demolitions company or a thermonuclear device (aren’t you glad for that?) so I like to watch microwave explosions. At least this is something I could do at home! By the way, don’t try these things at home – try them at someone else’s home. That way, they have to explain things to the insurance company.

MicroManiac is a bit of an older site, used to advertise microwavable Kraft Cheese and Macaroni. Still, it’s a classic!

In the interests of keeping this an educational website, I present to you Instructables Microwave Science. Although nothing in this site really blows up, it’s pretty darn cool nonetheless.

Colorado State University – High Speed Video

Apparently there is some sort of symbiotic relationship between academics and explosions. Perhaps my fascination with explosions isn’t as juvenile as I thought.

Of course, being academics, they have found a way to make explosions even sweeter…slowing them down. High speed video, that records at more frames per second than regular video, is used to capture the moment. Then, the video is played back as thought it was normal speed and gives that awesome slo-mo effect. Nice.

Bonus Site – Will It Blend?

Even if it isn’t an explosions site, there is some very entertaining destruction to be had here.

Some marketing genius, and I mean that, for Blendtec blenders figured a whole website dedicated to blending anything but food, would draw attention to their product. Indeed, it has become something of a cult hit to netizens.

My favourite is the golf balls video. They’ve caused me enough frustration on the links. It’s payback time!

Where do you get your explosions kick?   Let us know about the websites in the comments below!