Flying Pips, Shattered Shells and Wet Shrapnel would all be good names for bands. I could see them sharing the bill at the Exploding Watermelon Festival.

This afternoon, at around the same time Times Square was being evacuated due to a bomb scare, I was walking on 10th Street when I heard a loud explosion. It was very startling. There was some commotion and when I came to the corner of 4th Avenue, I saw that a crowd had gathered, 50 or so people staring and aiming camera phones into a fenced-in lot outside the school there.

"I was that kind of bored the other night, the kind of bored where you want to see things explode. The first time I saw the movie Armageddon, I saw it in a movie theater, which is of course because of technical reasons the best place to see things explode, the loudness of the speakers and the largeness of the screen more realistically representing what an explosion feels like than the average television set, or at least I assume so, having never actually felt an actual explosion in real life myself. "

Mmm hmm.

A manhole explosion on 40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues has reportedly knocked out power in the immediate area and attracted firefighters, one of whom told gawking tourists "It's not Disneyland, people. Get the hell out of the way," as he tried to make his way to the scene of the blast. Here is a picture of one smoking manhole just before "a fireball 12 feet tall erupted" out of it; there are also reports of at least one other manhole cover in Midtown suffering from some sort of disturbance. No injuries to report yet, but yipes!

Much like our planet, this story is BREAKING: "An oil rig has exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with 12 people overboard and one missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday morning. Rescue attempts are underway for at least 12 people, Coast Guard spokesman John Edwards told CNN. 13 people were on board the rig total, Edwards said, noting 12 have been accounted for, but one person was missing."

Because who doesn't like seeing things blow up, here is how the demolition of Texas Stadium played out yesterday. "In the end, just three pillars stood leaning, leading Herbert Gears, mayor of the Dallas suburb of Irving where the stadium was located, to joke to AFP: 'Now we've got Stonehenge.'"