Uncle Bill's Silly Pages

(1 January 2010, Netherlands) Every now and then a completely new window into the world opens before our eyes. Here we have rural Dutch families enjoying their traditional winter sport, carbidschieten, or Carbide Shooting. It's a ridiculously dangerous machine akin to a potato gun, designed to hurl projectiless from the mouth of a metal milk can.

Carbide shooting, that wacky Dutch New Year's tradition, begins with moistening calcicum carbide and placing it in a large milk container. The damp CaCb emits acetylene (ethyne) gas which builds up inside the container. Then a spark is supplied, causing the pressurised gas bomb to blow the lid (or packing) off the milk jug.

Our nominee, a 54-year-old male, was having the time of his life--right up until the moment he took poured a container filled with liquid oxygen over a fire to "flare it up" -- and the container obligingly exploded.

Chihuahua, Mexico is home to two hot caverns containing the largest natural crystals known to man. "Walking into either of these caves is like stepping into a (sweltering) gigantic geode," described one awed observer. Some of the clear selenite crystals are over 20 feet long.

The newly-discovered caverns, 1200 feet below the surface of the earth, carry a curse for those who seek to plunder their riches. A man recently tried to steal one of the magnificent crystals from the roof, and might have succeeded... if he hadn't stood directly beneath it while chopping it free. He was pinned beneath the sparkling stalactite as it heeded the call of gravity, and roasted in the 108 F cave.

First we have this pensioner from Tiverton in Devon who really couldn't be bothered clearing the windscreen too much and obviously didn't have the heater on.

And then the two Scottish lads who tried to drive their car down the canal, it worked for a while.

Unfortunately for the gene pool these people survived.

Lantern, 30, enjoyed playing a private game with his wife. He would pull down his pants, place the barrel of a shotgun against his scrotum, and tell her to pull the trigger. They had played this game frequently, to his immense pleasure. The gun was unloaded, of course.

On this pleasant Friday, he was excited to try again. The thrill was even larger because his wife's girlfriend was pulling into the driveway at the time. "Shoot 'em off before she gets here!" Lantern told his wife. She pulled the trigger. But this time, the gun was loaded.

Emergency crews arrived to find Lantern bleeding profusely from his groin, wearing shoes and socks, with his pants down around his ankles. The police were told it was an accident, and the couple didn't know the gun was loaded. Lantern was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, where he survived to earning the indisputible right to the rarest of honors: the Living Darwin Award.