Miami’s ‘Nude Year’s Eve’ Tops Extreme Party List

One New Year’s party offers the uninhibited a chance to get naked and bounce around with a bunch of total strangers while not facing the threat of arrest.

It’s the “Nude Year’s Eve” on Haulover Beach, and the wardrobe-free affair tops Trip Advisor’s list of the world’s 10 most extreme New Year’s Eve events to cap this year.

This year’s nude gala might be a little toned down because of the cold weather expected to hit Miami this week, but no one minds a little shrinkage when you’re popping champagne.

A Nude New Year’s Eve ticket will run you $129, which is cheap compared to some other offerings in Miami on Dec. 31. It’s a three-day event which includes live entertainment. You also get a front row seat to the fireworks.

One advantage: You don’t have to worry about finding that perfect outfit because everyone will have on the same thing.

Florida was home to two of the top five spots, with the Festive Freefall in Zephyrhills coming in at No. 4. That event features a bunch of people jump out of a plane at the stroke of midnight. With their clothes on, of course.

For those interested – here’s Trip Advisor’s complete list:

1. ‘Nude’ Year’s Eve: Miami, Florida2. Loony Dip: Edinburgh, Scotland

3. Light a Torch: Girdwood, Alaska

4. Festive Freefall: Zephyrhills, Florida 5. Party with Paddles: San Francisco, California

6. Sea of Orange: Scheveningen, The Hague, Netherlands

7. The Other Bubbly: Torrevieja, Spain

8. Celebratory Sprint: New York, New York 

9. Pucker Up: Venice, Italy 

10. A Nose for New Year’s: Barcelona, Spain

The Secret Of Holiday Crackers – Pull Downwards

A British department store has worked out a formula it says will make sure festive feasters are never again left holding the short end of a pulled cracker.

“Success is mainly down to the angle, grip, cracker size and ‘lines of failure’ or where the cracker is likely to tear,” said Debenhams.

When pulled, a cracker will always rip at a weak point connecting the reinforced barrel section to the tails, the store added.

By pulling backwards and down at the same time, it is possible to concentrate the force across the top face of the opponent’s line of likely failure.

The cracker should be gripped about an inch from the end of the tail closest to the barrel. The tail should be kept in line with the barrel as it is pulled backwards and downwards, with an even force.

For the serious puller, the store has worked out a mathematical formula: O = 11xC/L + 5xQ, where O is the optimum downward angle for pulling the cracker.

C stands for the circumference of the barrel, L is the barrel’s length and Q is the quality of the cracker — pricier versions are often made from stronger material which will increase the optimum angle of pull.

Q has a value of one, two or three depending on whether the cracker is cheap, standard or expensive.

Debenhams said the formula should produce a two-digit figure between 20 and 55 degrees, which is the optimum pulling angle below the horizontal.

“Don’t worry, it’s less complicated than it looks,” it adds.

Some Prime Candidates For Regifting

How many unwanted gifts did you get under the Christmas tree?

If you’re Australian, the number is likely to be more than one, amounting to a nationwide total of 20 million “useless” presents, according to a survey.

The survey, commissioned by online marketplace eBay, found that although Australians spent A$8.5 billion ($7.5 billion) buying gifts this Christmas, at least A$1 billion worth of these presents will either be left to gather dust in a cupboard, binned, regifted, exchanged or sold.

Examples of unwanted gifts ranged from underwear, ugly sweaters, socks, bath products and inappropriately sexual items to a tandoori spice rub for chicken given to a vegetarian and a dog bowl for a dogless recipient, a brick and cellulite cream, an eBay statement said.

The eBay survey of more than 1,200 people also found that more women than men received unwanted gifts this year, while youth aged between 18 and 24 years got the most unwanted presents, which they were likely to throw out or hide away.

An earlier survey showed that more than 825,000 gifts will go straight into the garbage bin in Australia this Christmas because their recipients just hated them.

With Australia’s economy still battling to shake off the effects of the global financial crisis, more than a third of Australians had planned to spend less on Christmas gifts this year, compared with the previous year, according to a recent survey by the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank.

Times Square Shredder Offers Good Riddance To 2009

Want to forget 2009? Shred it.

Scores of New Yorkers and tourists seeking a fresh start in 2010 came to Times Square on Monday to put their bad memories through the shredder at the third annual Good Riddance Day.

Ben Winnick of Simsbury, Conn., shredded a newspaper story about the New York Giants’ 41-9 loss Sunday to the Carolina Panthers, which ended the Giants’ playoff hopes.

“Hopefully, next season will be better,” he said.

Roxanne Rodriguez of Manhattan shredded a piece of paper with “Writer’s block” written on it. She intends to buckle down and write a musical.

“This is going to be the year I’m going to be dedicated and focused, and I will get something down on the page every day,” she promised.

The winner of a $250 prize for most creative item shredded was 12-year-old Alissa Yankelevits of Los Angeles, who is visiting her grandparents in New York. She shredded the memory of a counselor on a school trip who was later featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

“I just spent a week with him,” Alissa said. “It was really terrifying because I just found that out.”

Good Riddance Day was organized by the Times Square Alliance as part of the buildup to Thursday’s ball-drop celebration.

Participants lined up near the booth where discount theater tickets are sold and pitched their bad memories into an industrial-sized shredder. A Dumpster and a sledgehammer were available for items that couldn’t be shredded, which included an old computer and a tin of fattening office snacks.

Some shredded reams of bills and correspondence while others sought to banish the memory of former boyfriends and girlfriends.

Gillian Lyons broke up with a man she calls “the Beastmaster” and said she’s been waiting for him to return her possessions for two years. “He won’t give me back the TV I paid for,” she complained.

Miss Singapore Resigns After Lingerie Scandal

Miss Singapore World has given up her crown after it emerged that she had stolen credit cards to go on a shopping spree for lingerie.

Ris Low had come under public pressure to be stripped of her 2009 title, after local media reported she stole seven credit cards last year while working at a medical clinic, buying goods worth about S$8,000 ($5,662) including gold anklets and phones.

Organizers of the pageant ERM World Marketing said she had resigned of her own accord. She will no longer represent Singapore at the Miss World finals to be held in South Africa in December, but her replacement has not yet been decided.

Low had also been criticized for her poor English, mispronouncing “bikini” in a recent video, leading others in multicultural Singapore to spring to her defense and soul-searching on websites about the national character.

“If there was a beauty contest for countries, how do you think Singapore would fare on the world stage?  We seem to have the aesthetic qualifications.  But with a very ugly personality,” said blogger Solofigure09 on the Straits Times newspaper’s website.

Michael Petrina Finally Earns The Title

It took Michael Petrina Jr. 51 years to finally win a national spelling bee.

The Arlington, Va., man bested 45 other spellers older than 50 to win the AARP’s annual National Spelling Bee Saturday in Cheyenne. The 64-year-old’s winning word was “woad,” a plant whose leaves yield a blue dye.

AARP spokeswoman Joanne Bowlby says Petrina won his state’s national spelling bee when he was 13, but then lost at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

In second place was 55-year-old Scott Firebaugh of Knoxville, Tenn., and in third place was 66-year-old Gil Couts of Bigfork, Mont.

Petrina won $500, a trophy and dictionary kit.

The AARP bee started in 1996.

Long Island Polar Bears Set A Record

Lead by visiting champ Matt Simpson of Jersey City, at least 3,500 people jumped into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday for the 12th annual Long Beach Polar Bear Club dip, which organizers said was a Guinness world record.

Newsday reports that the Super Bowl Sunday tradition started in 1998 with two friends who decided to confront one man’s midlife crisis by battling the icy waves, said co-founder Pete Meyers.

This year’s plunge took on a carnivalesque tone, as swimmers in waiting ambled the south shore boardwalk in bikinis and Ugg boots, bath robes and trunks, and various versions of the iconic Long Beach Polar Bear Club hooded sweatshirt, regarded by many locals as the mark of true polar bear status.

Much to the chagrin of six-time Polar Bear veteran Dillon Scaduto, 17, the temperature rose to a balmy 47 degrees – although the water temperature was between 38 degrees and 42 degrees. When he first dipped, at 12, snow dusted the sand, his mother said.