[bigtrakzapzap]

I remember having a SS 50, 100 & 200 back in the day. And filling up water balloons the old-fashioned way. Now kids have the automatic water balloon fillers and smart phones. Do most kids even still have water fights in the summer or do people get too offended or are too busy helicopter parenting to let kids have any fun?

[beamatronic]

Here in California parents can apply for a one day permit for launching water balloons, a one hour mandatory training course is required; and the water must be filtered by an approved system.

[tonyarkles]

I... Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...

[grawprog]

I dunno, I would've been pretty stoked on an automatic waterballoon filler as a kid. Finding a tap that fit the balloon and didn't rip it was always a challenge.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Yeah; that was, like, the goal we dreamed about. Like how I wanted a book I could read in the dark, and was ecstatic when tablets and ereaders took off. Or how we hated sharing the phone line and DSL changed our world. It's actually really neat to see our childhood dreams being realized.

[majos]

I think it's healthy for the HN community to have a spectrum of users ranging from "bitter and cynical because we don't have flying cars" to "thrilled at how fast water balloon fill times have fallen".

[esaym]

I can't remember if I had the 50 or 100, but there's still a bare spot above a ceiling fan at my grandmother's house where the popcorn texture was blasted away because we thought it could be cool to shoot the ceiling with the SS while the fan was on high speed.

[unwind]

TIL about popcorn ceilings, and also that before 1977 they typically contained asbestos. I hope you're okay.

[grogenaut]

TIL some people think asbestos is immediately fatal.

[brian-armstrong]

To be fair, that does sound pretty cool

[jandrese]

You are offended because it doesn't take an hour to blow up enough water balloons for a 5 minute fight anymore?

[zrail]

"kids these days amirite"

My, what has this site become.

[taneq]

Because of the kids?

[inflatableDodo]

Was it better in the old days?

[grogenaut]

There were several contraptions to do balloons very fast when I was a kid in the 90s.