There's something about the tearing away of the last day of the year on a calendar that fills people with emotion -- whether that emotion is hope, or optimism, or the double whammy of fear and loathing will be up to the calendar ripper-upper. One thing's certain, though: Nobody hopes for a BAD new year. Customs have been around for short, and long, times based around the whimsical idea that we can somehow game fate by performing a simple task, whether it be to eat a certain kind of food or, well, throw furniture out of a window. Read on for a tour of some of the world's unusual customs that have been framed around, when you really get down to it, the simple change of one day into another.