Quick Fixes

New Year's Eve is more or less uniformly celebrated around the world with gallons of alcohol and a slideshow of poor decisions. But in some countries, New Year's revelers aren't content with mere "bad" decisions and up the ante to "totally insane" (the alcohol consumption stays pretty much the same, though).

#4. The Netherlands -- Milk Jug Cannons and the New Year's Dive

Carbide shooting has been a Dutch New Year's Eve tradition since World War II, when the Netherlands were left with an abundance of explosive materials and absolutely nothing interesting going on. Once a year, Dutch farmers fill up their old milk buckets with carbide and water, then hammer the caps back on and heat them up, resulting in a row of homemade metal cannons that are fired off in celebration. Meanwhile, the farmers get to experience the joy of hoping that none of them explode in their faces and turn them into Tommy Lee Jones from Batman Forever.

Vincent Jannink / European Pressphoto Agency via LA Times
"Happy Third Degree Burn Day!"

Let's face it -- when paired one-on-one against other apex predators of the animal kingdom, human beings are basically walking, talking ravioli filled with blood and incompetence. But every now and again, the state of nature takes a personal day, allowing soft, delicious humans to somehow best their animal opponents. Here's a few of those strange times.

#4. Grandmother Debates Throat-Punching a Wolf

Aishat Maksudova (which we're pretty sure translates to "She-Liam Femme-Neeson") shot to fame after she beat a wolf to death at the spry age of 56. Upon seeing 50 pounds of gaping maw try to turn her leg into the first stages of lupine poop, the Russian grandmother, in her own words, "was not even frightened." Think about that the next time you wig out after spotting a daddy longlegs in the bathtub.

Getty
"You think you're hardcore, wolf? Try spending 50 years in goddamn Russia."

Bacon is arguably the most cherished food in America (try to name a single entree in which bacon has never made a guest appearance). Bacon's popularity has led to several crossover products that are not food, and without exception, all of these products are terrible.

#7. Bacon Bandages

ThinkGeek

For just $5, you can buy a tin of bacon-shaped bandages to stick on your face wounds and make absolutely certain that no one will come anywhere near you for fear of contracting a flesh-eating virus. We assume the free prize is E. coli.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING VIDEO CONTAINS EXTREME GRAPHIC IMAGES. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO STEEL YOURSELF.

Are you ready? Because it's time to talk about piracy. Here's an extremely revealing list of the most-pirated TV shows of the last year. That's important; we'll come back to it in a moment. Now watch this:

For those of you too scared to watch the video, it's an announcement of something that will surely be standard practice in Hollywood within five years: A full month before it hits theaters, you can instantly download the "Best Horror Film of the Year," John Dies at the End (yes, based on the novel I wrote, motherfucker), on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, the PlayStation Network, Xbox 360's Zune service, and pretty much any other on-demand streaming service out there. Soon, this Day One Downloading will be the way it's going to work for all movies, and for fans, this is a good thing. Especially in this case, as this is a movie you're absolutely going to want to watch without pants the first time through.

Which brings us back to that list I linked to earlier.